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Tobacco News on the Web Archive, March, 1998

Tobacco News on the Web

Archive, March, 1998

Note: These articles wink in and out of existence with the frequency of sub-atomic particles. Many links will be dead. In that case, these pages can be approached as bibliographies, both noting the event, and showing where you might look for further information.

03/02/98 COLORADO: Senate OKs School Smoking Ban USA Today

The Senate gave temporary approval to a bill that would make state schools tobacco-free. School districts would be banned from setting aside smoking areas. . . The House already has OK'd the measure.

03/02/98 ARKANSAS: LITTLE ROCK: It's License Or Penalties For LR Sellers Of Cigarettes Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Little Rock businesses that sell cigarettes and other tobacco products can be penalized starting today if they haven't bought a new city tobacco privilege license. The 60-day grace period to buy the $100 license expired Sunday. A business license can be suspended if tobacco products are sold to minors. Also, a sign will be posted in that business stating that it has violated laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors.

03/02/98 CALIFORNIA: CHILDREN FIRST: ROB REINER Gains Support From MIKE HUFFINGTON PR Newswire

The California Children and Families First Initiative directly asks California voters to support an additional fifty cents a pack tax on cigarettes as a way to generate $700 million a year -- every year -- for programs that target children prenatally to age five so that they can become healthy, emotionally well developed and ready for school. A portion of the initiative funds programs to help pregnant women and parents of young children to quit smoking. . . "California has long been a national leader in efforts to reduce smoking," said Huffington. "This initiative allows us to build upon these efforts and simultaneously to become the leading state in establishing effective programs for pre-school children."

03/01/98 WISCONSIN: Students Help City Enforce Tobacco Law MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel

A group of Fond du Lac students that has spent the last three years trying to reduce tobacco advertising in the city has found a way to accomplish part of that goal. The group, called Moving Targets, meets weekly to plan projects to eliminate tobacco advertising and to let fellow students know about the dangers of smoking.

03/02/98 CUBA Seeks To Boost Farm Cooperation With FRANCE Reuters

Cuba is keen to strengthen cooperation with France in the agriculture sector, Cuban Farm Minister Alfredo Jordan said on Monday. . . Cuba also hopes to boost its exports of tobacco, citrus fruit and coffee to France, he said. In the tobacco sector, Cuba is already discussing plans to produce a range of small cigars in cooperation with France, he said.

03/02/98 AUSTRALIA: Alarm As Smoking Decline Hits A Dead End Sydney Morning Herald

The steady decline in the number of Australian smokers over the past 20 years has halted, with the most recent national survey showing smokers continuing the habit at 1992 levels. A survey of more than 5,500 people aged over 16, published today in the Medical Journal of Australia, found that 25 per cent of Australians continue to smoke - 27 per cent of men and 23 per cent of women. . . "But this decade had seen a dreadful stagnation and our research show that smoking rates declined fastest at times when expenditure on campaigns was greatest." The drop in smoking in the 1980s - in 1983, 35 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women smoked - was a direct result of anti-smoking advertising campaigns and legislation restricting tobacco advertising. "Clearly, this shows that the more you do the more effect you have. And now this deserves a lot of attention," Dr Hill said.

03/02/98 Quit Strategy Goes Up In Smoke The Australian

THE decade-long decline in the number of Australian smokers has stopped, which could lead to hundreds of thousands more addicts dying prematurely because of their inability to quit. The findings of a study for the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria has provoked concern among health groups that significantly more people will be smoking in 2000 than predicted under national targets.

03/02/98 US Entrepreneurs Cash in on the Craze for CUBAN Chic The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)

Another driving force has been the cigar craze. "Clearly there's a romance between the slicked-back-hair cigar aficionado and Cuban atmosphere," says Allan Ripp, a spokesman for the Zagat Survey, which publishes a series of restaurant guides. . . "They all want to tie themselves to Cuba," Mr. Diaz says, by saying their cigars were rolled by Cubans, for example, or by using Cuban tobacco seed and Cuban-sounding brand names.

03/02/98 ADVERTISING: Are PHILIP MORRIS, Competitors Gearing Up For Shift In Advertising? Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that America's No. 1 cigarette maker and its competitors "appear to be very busy experimenting with settlement-permissible ways to communicate the glamour and pleasure of smoking." Exhibit A: Philip Morris has been making ads where cigarettes are portrayed as people. One recent magazine ad for Benson & Hedges, for instance, shows a long, white Benson & Hedges cigarette reclining in a red overstuffed chair, stretched out on a hassock. "Warm & Cozy," the ad declares. Exhibit B: Marlboro ads without the Marlboro man. One such ad sports a simple silver-plated lighter on top of a cigarette pack, the Journal reports.

03/01/98 Slugfest in the Smoke Ring; Tobacco's Big Four Battle Over a Shrinking Market of Cigarette Buyers Washington Post

Last week's news photographs of cigarette company executives jointly testifying before Congress gave the impression of a unified industry in which one company is indistinguishable from another. The truth of the cigarette business is a good deal more complicated. The picture that emerges from interviews with industry analysts and internal corporate documents is that the Big Four . . . are locked in a fierce struggle for cigarette market share in the United States -- a content in which one competitor can gain only at the expense of the others.

03/01/98 It's Brand Over Bargain in the World of Cigars The New York Times

Like stogies left out in the rain, the stocks of cigar companies are fizzling fast. Many are near their 52-week lows, and shares of the four largest public enterprises -- Swisher International Group, General Cigar Holdings, Consolidated Cigar Holdings and 800-JR Cigar -- have dropped 20 percent to 46 percent since October. Indeed, to some analysts and investors, the stocks have fallen so far that things are starting to look up. No letup in cigar smoking is in sight, they say, so future earnings are expected to be strong.

03/01/98 The Cigar Car | Trendy Tie-in With DUNHILL Results In A Oh-so Chic Driving Package: 1998 ASTON MARTIN DB7 San Diego Union-Tribune

This limited-edition Aston is a new partnership with Alfred Dunhill an English haberdasher that specializes in tailor-made service for the cosmopolitan businessman. . . It's not so much a cigar car as it is about Alfred Dunhill's style. The ash tray is tiny and the cockpit area of the interior just isn't conducive to enjoying a good smoke.

03/02/98 Prevention First Ethics Symposium Will Address Alcohol And Tobacco Program Funding PR Newswire

On March 5, a group of prevention professionals will begin an intense examination of a critical issue that has polarized the field of alcohol and tobacco use prevention. An Ethics Symposium sponsored by Prevention First, Inc. (PFI) of Illinois, will look at ethical issues surrounding local programs' use of industry money to fund alcohol and tobacco prevention education programs. It will be held from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel in Schaumburg, Ill. In today's prevention environment, those on one side of the issue feel that under no circumstances should programs accept money from the alcohol and tobacco industries. A differing viewpoint notes that today's severely limited funding situation makes it necessary to accept other contributions to prevention education programs, as long as the contributors do not influence the prevention agenda. The discussion will include the historical impact that accepting money from these sources has had on prevention research and programming, as well as considerations regarding the availability of funds in the future.

03/02/98 PEOPLE: Private Eye or Public Enemy? TERRY LENZNER'S Take-No-Prisoners Style Respected and Abhorred Washington Post

The private investigator who testified last week before special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's grand jury and has been likened to President Clinton's private CIA, is a man of enormous extremes and contradictions, according to friend and foe alike. . . Exhibit A in the minds of Lenzner critics is the case of Jeffrey Wigand . . . With the help of IGI, B&W attorneys compiled a massive 500-page file titled "The Misconduct of Jeffrey S. Wigand Available in the Public Record" . . . Lenzner told Fortune magazine last April that he was proud of IGI's contribution to the Wigand case but conceded that facts in the report "were not completely developed." "Any investigator I respect would have walked out rather than take that kind of case," said one of Lenzner's ex-employees, who says he left in part because of incidents like the Wigand case.

03/02/98 COLLECTIBLES: Collector Sees Marketing Genius in Cigarette Packs Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

"I had a quadruple-bypass operation, and he said I really should quit smoking," Hynes said. "He told me, 'You know, the best way to quit is to go home and, if you have any packs around the house, throw them out.' "I said, 'That's going to be tough, Doc.' " It would have meant going into his basement and tossing all the Hassans, Moguls, High Admirals, Blue Buckles, Yankee Girls, Thrills, Smiles, Dog's Heads, Cookie Jars, Pinheads and Snowballs, to name a few he has stashed there -- most still sealed with the original tax stamps.

03/01/98 TWINS: Their Remarkable Double Lives Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

http://webserv1.startribune.com/cgi-bin/stOnLine/article?thisSlug=TWI01&date=01-Mar-98&word=smoking&word=smokes&word=tobacco&word=smoked&word=smoke Most revealing are the cases of identical twins reared apart, of which there are 19 cases reported in the U.S. and 78 worldwide. Twins separated as infants turn out to be more alike than those raised together, possibly because they have less incentive than the usual pair to assert individuality. One pair of male twins reunited in Ohio in 1979 had each married and divorced a woman named Linda, then married a woman named Betty; their first-born children were named James Alan and James Allen; each had owned a dog named Toy. Both preferred Miller Lite and chain-smoked Salems.

03/01/98 BOOKS: CORNERED Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

What makes Pringle's book tedious at times is his penchant for background. He does add some drama when discussing the wealth of documents stolen by Merrell Williams from his employer, Brown & Williamson. There is humor, too, when the prestigous Hill & Knowlton public relations firm abandoned the tobacco industry as a client, and therefore huge fees, when it realized that the lawyers were taking over its responsibilities. And there are fascinating references to Jeffrey Wigand . . . The effort taken by the industry to discredit Wigand is abhorrent. Whatever the result of the Minnesota trial, Pringle will need to amend his book; perhaps when he does so, he will take the opportunity to condense it. You can order here

03/01/98 BOOKS: THE PEOPLE VS. BIG TOBACCO: Important Book Tells Story Of Tobacco Industry Lawsuit Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Forget John Grisham's latest lawyer thriller and pick up another book about the courts, government and Big Business that is just as suspenseful and intriguing. And it's true. It's called `THE PEOPLE VS. BIG TOBACCO: HOW THE STATES TOOK ON THE CIGARETTE GIANTS' (Bloomberg Press, 334 pages, ). People dying of cancer, unethical and lying CEOs, whistle-blowers, courageous lawyers and some tough attorneys general are the characters in this book. Document thefts, secret meetings and courtroom battles are part of the action against the giant industry. You can order here

03/02/98 HUMOR: Smokers Will Save the Nation Arthur Hoppe, San Francisco Chronicle

THE BELEAGUERED tobacco barons at last saw the error of their ways. Instead of skulking about, mumbling and obfuscating, they boldly admitted every charge against them. Indeed, they boastfully described their seemingly nefarious deeds as patriotic accomplishments. "Light Up for America!" was the battle cry of their brilliant new advertising campaign. . . "If we can persuade more young people to smoke," Lorillard told the congressional committee, "they will contribute to Social Security all their lives, and most won't live long enough to collect any benefits. Similarly, they won't be around after 65 to bankrupt Medicare." Re-enforcing these rational contentions were warning slogans on billboards and cigarette packs: "Not smoking could be hazardous to the economy." Full-page ads demanded: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask rather, `Got smokes?' "

03/01/98 OPINION: For Sake Of Children, Congress Must Ban 'Kiddie Packs'; Tobacco Companies' Marketing Strategy Clearly Targets The Young. Brad Sherman, LA Times

The adult smokers I know are happy to purchase a regular package of 20 cigarettes. Most are hooked on tobacco and finish the pack in a day or two. But many 13-year-olds are not yet addicted to tobacco; they do not want a whole pack. Moreover they may not have $2 or $3 readily available. The package containing one or two cigarettes is aptly named a "kiddie pack"--a starter kit for the not-yet-addicted. My colleagues at the Board of Equalization rejected the special tax stamp. So far, the tobacco companies have been deterred; they can't sell a package of cigarettes for a 12-year-old's candy bar money if they have to pay the tax applicable to an entire pack.

03/03/98 OHIO: Lawmakers Disagree On Moves To Curb Teen Smoking Akron Beacon Journal

Lawmakers trying to snuff out teen smoking in Ohio want to penalize smokers as well as their suppliers but disagree over how best to do it. Some people say new laws of any kind aren't the best approach. Tobacco-Free Ohio does not want minor punished until current laws dealing with cigarette are enforced, said Michelle Chippas, project director of the group. "Our biggest problem is to get local law enforcement to enforce the laws on the books," added Scott Brown, a coordinator for the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services.

03/03/98 Teen Smoking-Glance AP/Akron Beacon Journal

Some facts about teen-age smoking in Ohio: . . Ohio is one of 10 states that do not regulate tobacco use by minors. Twenty-six states have laws against minor possession, and 37 have laws against minor purchase and use.

03/03/98 INDONESIA'S GUDANG GARAM Raises Ex-Factory Cigarette Prices AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)

Indonesia's largest cigarette producer blue chip PT Gudang Garam (P.GGR) has raised the price it charges its distributors for cigarettes, a public relations official said Wednesday.

03/03/98 MERRILL LYNCH Ups Recommendation On France's SEITA AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)

Broking house Merrill Lynch has improved its rating on French tobacco group Seita (F.STA), changing its recommendation from 'buy' to 'accumulate in the medium term'. Seita's long term recommendation remains unchanged at 'accumulate,' Merrill Lynch says in its latest report on Seita. 'The company has a large cash pile and generates stable, cash-rich earnings,' Jonathan Fell, tobacco analyst at the brokerage said in the report.

03/03/98 World Tobacco Growers' Leaders Meet in Paris Summit PR Newswire

The main result was a decision for closer co-operation between the two organisations, a programme of work on common issues and the exchange of delegations to their respective annual congresses later this year. The meeting, attended by UNITAB president Roberto Di Menno Di Bucchianico and ITGA president Albert Johnson, expressed concern about recent policy developments that may destabilise production controls in place in major tobacco-producing areas, notably the European Union and the United States. These include the EU's proposals to phase out tobacco in poorer regions and the proposed US litigation deal.

03/03/98 FIRES: 2 Boys Killed in Glassell Park Fire LA Times

An apartment fire that killed two young boys and critically burned their mother was probably caused by a discarded cigarette, a Fire Department spokesman said.

03/03/98 MOVIES: TITANIC: Leah Garchik's Personals San Francisco Chronicle

Wasn't it totally cool the way everyone smoked in "Titanic" and no one died of lung cancer? asks the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell, who provides a list of cigarette archetypes in the film: Leonardo DeCaprio, "smoking pensively" on the deck, is a Marlboro Man. La creme de la creme in first class smokes Dunhills. If they hadn't rolled their own, the steerage crowd would smoke "no additive, no-bull" Winstons; Kate Winslet blowing smoke in her mother's face would be blowing Virginia ("You've come a long way, baby") Slims smoke. And when Winslet flirtatiously steals a cigarette from a man's mouth, it's a Joe Camel moment

03/03/98 MOVIES: Smoking Rates Up 'Dramatically' In Hollywood Films Reuters

Despite years of health warnings, smoking is still getting the Hollywood glamour treatment with more stars lighting up now than at any time since the early 1960s, according to a new study. "The incidence of smoking in top-grossing movies has increased during the 1990s, and dramatically exceeds real smoking rates," concluded the study led by a prominent tobacco researcher at the University of California-San Francisco. Stanton A. Glantz and associate Theresa Stockwell randomly chose five films from among the leading 20 box-office moneymakers for each year from 1990 to 1996 and found that 57 percent of the leading characters smoked, compared with just 14 percent of "similar people" in the general population.

03/02/98 Smoking in Movies is Increasing, in Contrast to Real Smoking Rates Business Wire

The incidence of smoking in top-grossing movies has increased during the 1990s, and dramatically exceeds real smoking rates, according to a new study led by a prominent tobacco researcher from the University of California San Francisco. After declining over three decades, smoking in movies has returned to levels comparable to those observed in the 1960s before the issuance of the first Surgeon General's report on smoking and health in 1964, according to Stanton A. Glantz, PhD.

03/03/98 OPINION: Enough Already About Smoking Mike Barnicle, Boston Globe

Good government is one thing. Nobody opposes public health. But acting like a total busybody is a whole other story, and why stop at cigarettes? Why not insist there be mandatory aerobic workouts in any establishment selling pizza or pushing cholesterol on unsuspecting consumers? Today, it's smoke. Tomorrow, red meat.

Federal News

03/03/98 Prepared Testimony of Donna E. Shalala U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services before the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Tuesday, March 3, 1998 Federal News Service
03/03/98 Prepared Statement of Lieutenant General Carol A. Mutter Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Headquarters, United States Marine Corps before the House Committee on National Security Special Oversight Panel on Morale, Welfare and Recreation, March 3, 1998 Federal News Service
03/03/98 Cigar Makers Urged Not To "Glamorize" Smoking Reuters
03/03/98 House Panel Questions Vets' Plan AP Washington Post
03/03/98 Hauling Butts Into Court; A Criminal Case Against Tobacco Could Snuff Settlement Hopes March 9, 1998 US News
03/04/98 MINNESOTA: Ban on Smoking Lights Up Newcomer Joe Soucheray, St. Paul Pioneer Press
03/03/98 Man Says He Never Threatened Legislator Over Smoking Ban Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/03/98 No Charges Planned Over Alleged Phone Threat To Lawmaker AP/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/01/98 STATE REP. PHYLLIS KAHN Threatened Over Proposed Smoking Ban Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/02/98 Police investigate death threat against Rep. Kahn St. Paul Pioneer Press
03/03/98 Russia: Entrepreneur Taps Into 'Buy Russian' Mood Radio Free Europe
03/04/98 AUSTRALIA: QUEENSLAND: Massive Fines Hike For Selling Minors Tobacco The Courier Mail (Brisbane, QLD)
03/03/98 GERMANY: 'The Kohl Era Ended' Financial Times
03/04/98 Low-Tar Smoker Sues RJR Tobacco Executive 'Ashamed' of Attention to Young Smokers, The New York Times
03/05/98 WILEY: "Unprecedented" Ruling In Muncie Tobacco Lawsuit WTHR (Ch. 13, Indianapolis/MSNBC
03/05/98 Industry Seeks Dismissal Of WISCONSIN Suit St. Paul Pioneer Press
03/05/98 CALIFORNIA: U.S. Judge Gives Green Light To Tobacco Fraud Suit By CA Cities AP/Sacramento Bee
03/05/98 Tobacco Industry Fails To Quash City's Suit Over Medical Costs SF Examiner
03/05/98 Court OKs Counties' Tobacco Industry Suit San Francisco Chronicle
03/04/98 Counties Can Sue Tobacco Cos AP Washington Post
03/04/98 MARYLAND: Cigarette Revenue May Cloud Session Washington Post
03/04/98 MARYLAND: Plan Targets Cigarette Sales to Minors Metro in Brief, Washington Post
03/04/98 FLORIDA: Premature Burial Miami Herald
03/04/98 FLORIDA: Tobacco Aims At Comeback Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
03/04/98 WISCONSIN: MILWAUKEE: City Limits Tobacco Billboards MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel
03/04/98 WISCONSIN: MILWAUKEE: Aldermen Vote Against Tobacco Advertising AP/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/04/98 WEST VIRGINIA: West Virginians Believe Customers Should Be Accommodated in Hospitality PR Newswire
03/04/98 CALIFORNIA: SCHENK Vows More Aggressive A.G.'S Office Business Wire
03/04/98 CALIFORNIA: Anti-Smoking Ads Unveiled LA Times
03/04/98 CANADA: New Group Insurance Program Rewards Nonsmokers for Leading Safer Lives Canada Newswire
03/05/98 AUSTRALIA: No Ifs On Smokes But Plenty Of Butts The Australian
03/05/98 Tax Ruling Helps WILLS Owners Breathe Easy The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW)
03/04/98 AUSTRALIA'S WD & HO WILLS Final Div 27c/Shr Vs 7.0c/Shr AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/05/98 Eye Tech Says Star Tobacco Tech Gets Research Boost Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/05/98 Anti-Smoking Measures Avenged Washington Post/Houston Chronicle
03/05/98 Time's Up For Broker Smokers The City Diary, Electronic Telegraph
03/04/98 VIRGINIA: 200 Given Layoff Warning Richmond Times-Dispatch
03/04/98 KENTUCKY: Poultry Touted As Tobacco Relief Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
03/04/98 Spain's Tabacalera Reported Net Profit Rose 48% in 1997 The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
03/04/98 CEO Of CNS Is Determined To Prove Skeptics Wrong Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/06/98 MAINE: Tobacco Disclosure Bill Fails In House Vote Bangor Daily News Bangor, ME
03/05/98 House Kills Cigarette Ingredient Disclosure Bill AP/Boston Globe
03/05/98 State Senate Rejects Bill To List Amounts Of Cigarette Toxins Portland Press Herald
03/05/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Council Cool To Smoke-ban; Proposal Backers Consider Amending Plan Boston Globe
03/03/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Councilors Propose Smoking Ban In All Restaurants, Bars Boston Globe
03/03/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Smoking Issue Is Still Burning; Proposal Amended At 1985 Meeting Telegram & Gazette Worcester, MA
03/05/98 VIRGINIA: VCU Student Lodges Federal Complaint; Asthma Sufferer Wants Smoke-free Buildings Richmond Times-Dispatch
03/05/98 Against Backdrop of Historic Tobacco Trial, Former FDA Chief David Kessler to Discuss Controversial "Tobacco Wars" During Major Public Talk at UC Irvine Event Business Wire
03/05/98 CALIFORNIA: Former FDA Official to Lecture on 'Tobacco Wars' LA Times
03/05/98 NEW YORK: Upstate Tobacco Biz Up In Smoke Reuters, First New York News Report
03/03/98 INDIAN Smoke Shops Burned, Bulldozed UPI FIrst NY Report
03/05/98 SPORTS: CRICKET: MCG Doubles Zones For No-smoking Herald Sun (Melbourne, VIC)
03/05/98 MOVIES: DISNEY'S TOUCHSTONE Will Produce Movie On Tobacco Whistleblower Bloomberg/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/05/98 MOVIES:Internet Surfers Can Cast a Vote For the American Lung Association's Hackademy Awards PR Newswire
03/05/98 Cat Award Winners Given Red-carpet Treatment At Black-tie Ceremony In Beverly Hills; Stefanie Powers Announces Winners Of WHISKAS VITALIFE Awards Entertainment Wire
03/06/98 ANN LANDERS: Anti-Smoking Contest Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/05/98 LETTERS: The Tobacco Settlement Informed readers respond to Kessler analysis. New England Journal of Medicine
03/05/98 OPINION: Night Crawlers: Smokers Get Puffy About Possible Bar Ban Neal Justin, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/05/98 HUMOR: Why No Smoking? Ann Landers, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/04/98 LETTERS: Rudeness and Smoking Readers respond to ACS board member June Cerza Kolf's letter. LA Times
03/06/98 Lobbying Tally Is $100M Per Month AP Washington Post
The data doesnt' yet seem to be on the Center for Responsive Politics Site.
03/06/98 Cigar Companies To Open Records Tampa Tribune
03/06/98 Burley Tobacco Growers Vote To Keep Quotas--USDA Reuters
03/07/98 UTAH: 3 Law Firms In Tobacco Case To Work With National Group Deseret News
03/07/98 OHIO: Youth Smoking On Rise, Survey Shows Columbus Dispatch
03/07/98 KENTUCKY: Cigarette Tax Proposed To Help Tobacco Farmers Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
03/07/98 MINNESOTA: David Hawley, Staff Writer [on Bar Smoking Bans] St. Paul Pioneer Press
03/07/98 WASHINGTON: Compromise Reached On Stores' Tobacco Bill AP/OregonLive
03/06/98 MARYLAND: Dems Smoke Tobacco Tax Election-Wary Legislative Leaders Snuff Tax Bill's Prospects The Daily Record (Baltimore)
03/06/98 ARIZONA: Tobacco Billboards Targeted Arizona Republic
03/06/98 ARIZONA Moves To Pull `No-bull' Cigarette Ads Arizona Daily Star
03/04/98 NEW YORK: Proposed Bill Targets Smokers Exposing Children To Secondhand Smoke NBC-Ch 4/MSNBC
03/06/98 WISCONSIN: Restriction Of Billboards On Tobacco Products Excludes Cigarettes AP/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/06/98 MILWAUKEE: Cigarette Billboards Still Legal City Ordinance Omitted Them Unintentionally MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel
03/06/98 WISCONSIN: Grants to Uw Will Fund Asthma, Smoking, Leukemia Research The Capital Times
03/06/98 MINNESOTA: Group Tallies Tobacco Lobbying Money Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/06/98 CHINA: High-Profile Case Illustrates Depth of Business Corruption in China The New York Times
03/06/98 HONG KONG: Most workers at risk from tobacco smoke South China Morning Post
03/07/98 Philip Morris Gets More Of Market Bloomberg/Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
03/06/98 Philip Morris U.S. Tobacco Market Share Rose To 48.9% In '97 Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/06/98 PHILIP MORRIS COMPANIES INC (MO) Annual Report (SEC form 10-K) SEC
03/07/98 KIAM Seeks To Fuel RONSON Revival Electronic Telegraph
03/06/98 MUSIC REVIEW: ARETHA FRANKLIN, "A ROSE IS STILL A ROSE" Modern Masters, Boston Globe
03/07/98 FIRES: CALIFORNIA: Cigarette Blamed for $35,000 House Fire LA Times
03/06/98 FIRES: WISCONSIN: Smoking Suspected In Fire That Killed 2 MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel
03/07/98 EDITORIAL: Like Any Other Cigarette Arizona Daily Star
03/07/98 'I Love The Clean Air... And My Heavier Purse' Electronic Telegraph
03/07/98 OPINION: Fraying of the Moral Fiber Steve Wilson, Arizona Republic
03/06/98 Text of Letter to Sen. JEFFORDS from Public Health Groups US Newswire
03/08/98 MINNESOTA: 'Sleazy,' 'Blacklisted' Tobacco Lobbyists Press On Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/10/98 Indonesia/Cigarette/Price -2: Ranging From 60% To 120% Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/10/98 INDONESIA: Clove Cigarettes Hit By Tax South China Morning Post
03/07/98 AGRICULTURE: Tobacco Growers Get Survival Strategy Richmond Times-Dispatch
03/08/98 NEW PRODUCTS: Smoke Bandit BANISH Gets Rid Of Tobacco Reek San Diego Union-Tribune
03/07/98 SPORTS: BASEBALL: Brewers Ban Smoking In County Stadium Seats MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel
03/06/98 Smoking Appearing in More Films Reuters
03/06/98 MOVIES: 'Twilight' Of the Bods Washington Post
03/08/98 Close The `Soft Money' Loophole Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), San Diego Union-Tribune
03/08/98 OPINION: Don't Forget the Smokers C. Everett Koop, Washington Post
03/09/98 Big Tobacco Still Lobbying Congress; New Study Documents Contributions Since Settlement Talks MSNBC
03/08/98 Tobacco Industry Donating to Politicians at Record Rate The New York Times
Here's the article at the Winston-Salem Journal
03/09/98 MEEHAN Brief Accusing Tobacco Firms of Fraud Gains Credibility The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
03/09/98 How Tobacco Firms and the Web Created a New Day in Disclosure Washington Post
03/09/98 Tobacco Industry's Web Site Offers Some Intriguing Reading Richmond Times-Dispatch
03/07/98 COLORADO: Doing A Slow Burn; The Colorado AG Grabs A Hot Potato In The State's Tobacco Lawsuit--And Hopes She Won't Get Scorched By The Legislature. March 5-11, 1998 WestWord (Denver, CO)
03/08/98 MARYLAND: For Cancer Patient, Need For Cigarette Tax Is Clear; Witness' Cancer Speaks For Tobacco Tax Baltimore Sun
03/09/98 CONNECTICUT: Conn. Atty Gen'l Seeks Increase In Cigarette Tax Reuters
03/09/98 KENTUCKY: Local Tobacco Control Backed Cincinnati Enquirer
03/09/98 OHIO: Health Organizations Team-Up to Prevent Smokeless Tobacco Use Among Children PR Newswire
03/09/98 NEVADA: Smoking Out Sales Of Tobacco To Minors Las Vegas Sun
03/09/98 Stings Planned States, USA Today
03/07/98 Underage Smoking Stings Will Resume Las Vegas Review-Journal
03/09/98 FLORIDA: State Will Light Up Anti-Smoking Blitz Miami Herald
03/09/98 UK: Tobacco Tax Call To Help Smokers Quit Electronic Telegraph
03/10/98 SWISHER INTERNATIONAL Group Inc. Comments on First Quarter 1998 Sales and Earnings Business Wire
03/10/98 CONSOLIDATED CIGAR HOLDINGS Inc. Makes Announcement Business Wire
03/09/98 Tobacco Companies Have Kept Trademark Office Busy In Search For Market Niche St. Paul Pioneer Press
03/10/98 Woman Entrepreneur Helps Clear the Air in Smoking Wars PR Newswire
03/09/98 NORTH CAROLINA: OXFORD `Natural' Site For Cigarette Plant Triangle Business Journal (Raleigh-Durham)
03/09/98 Tobacco Firms Use Internet To Dodge Advertising Bans; Children Can Key Into Their Websites Scottish Daily Record
03/10/98 Smoking Car New York Post
03/10/98 BOOKS: THE PEOPLE VS. BIG TOBACCO: 'Big Tobacco' Story Is As Compelling As Grisham Novels Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
You can order here
03/09/98 EDITORIAL: Chamber Misguided On Tobacco Bills Baltimore Business Journal
03/10/98 OPINION: Still They Quit Smoking Still We Cheer Bob Levey, Washington Post
03/10/98 OPINION: Smokescreen: Even My Mother's Battle With Emphysema Did Not Curtail Her Craving for Cigarettes D.J. Gaskin, Washington Post
03/10/98 OPINION: Regulate Medicine Asides, The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
03/09/98 Media Scare Tactics John McCarron, Chicago Tribune
03/09/98 BOSTON Should Ban Smoking In Restaurants, Bars By Frank J. Twarog, MD President Patricia G. Goldman Executive Director Asthma and Allergy Foundation Of America New England Chapter, Boston Globe
03/09/98 LETTER: Tobacco's Successor? Well, Farmers Might Cotton To Growing Flowers For Perfume Raleigh News & Observer
03/10/98 MARYLAND Attorney General: GLENDENING, KOOP Support Bill To Strengthen Case Against Tobacco Industry M2 Newswire
03/07/98 MARYLAND: Glendening Endorses Effort Against Tobacco Metro in Brief, Washington Post
03/09/98 Tobacco Money Lights Up Annapolis Baltimore Business Journal
03/10/98 Tobacco Troubles Updates, Mother Jones
03/10/98 COLORADO: Ag Wants More Money For Tobacco Suit Denver Post
03/10/98 Petition Filed To Consolidate All Federally Filed Tobacco Lawsuits Nationwide Business Wire
03/10/98 NEW YORK: Feds Charge 7 With Hijacking, $4m Theft 10th NY News Report, UPI
03/10/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Tobacco Foes Say Cellucci's Snub Of Forum Par For Course Boston Globe
03/10/98 MASSACHUSETTS: HARSHBARGER Says Medicaid Should Be Used To Help Smokers Quit Boston Globe
03/10/98 WASHINGTON: Underage Smokers Targeted Seattle Times
03/10/98 Teen Tobacco Ban Near The Herald (Everett, WA)
03/10/98 3 Men Charged With Smuggling Liquor From The U.S. To CANADA Detroit Free Press
03/10/98 THAILAND: Activists Slam Deal to Boost Tobacco Sales Bangkok Post
03/11/98 BRITISH AIRWAYS Goes Smoke-free AP/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/11/98 AIR TRAVEL: Smoking On BA Gets Stubbed Out Business Day (Johannesburg, SA)
03/11/98 TV: "SIGNIFICANT OTHERS": Putting Together A Brand New 'Party' Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/11/98 Hospital Releases Morton Downey Jr AP Washington Post
03/08/98 PEOPLE: MORTON DOWNEY, JR.: He's Doing Well Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/09/98 EDITORIAL: WISCONSIN: Anti-smoking Suit Is Legit The Capital Times
03/11/98 Gephardt Statement On The Healthy Kids Act PR Newswire
03/11/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Legal Battle over Smoking Grows Wider Boston Globe
03/11/98 Bar Workers Sought in Smoke Lawsuit AP Washington Post
03/11/98 ALABAMA: judge Throws Out Birmingham Lawsuit Against Tobacco Companies NBC 13 (Birmingham)/MSNBC
03/10/98 NEW YORK: Cayugas To Open Smoke Shop The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
03/11/98 NEW JERSEY: State's Collections Of Tobacco Tax Down Bergen Record
03/11/98 COLORADO: Measure Would Ban Smoking At Schools Rocky Mountain News
03/10/98 Bill to Ban School Smoking Areas Advances States, USA Today
03/11/98 IDAHO: Compromise Sends Tobacco Bill To The Full House The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)
03/11/98 ARIZONA: MESA Backs Smoking Ban 2 to 1 Arizona Republic (Link may not be working)
03/11/98 MESA Election Results Arizona Republic
03/12/98 B.A.T's Pretax Profit Fell 28% in 1997 on Charges The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
03/11/98 Focus: B.A.T Hit By Charges, Tobacco Disappoints Reuters
03/11/98 B.A.T. Industries: Preliminary Announcement - Year Ended December 31, 1997 PR Newswire
03/11/98 Exceptional Charges Cut B.A.T Industries' Profit The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
03/10/98 BAT FY Pft Seen At GBP2.1B To GBP2.8B; Analysts Eye Charges AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/11/98 HISTORY: First English Colony Unveiled; JAMESTOWN Exhibit Revised AP Washington Post
03/11/98 Evaluation of Antismoking Advertising Campaigns Abstract, JAMA
03/11/98 Revealed: Secret Of How To Help Smokers Quit The Independent
03/10/98 In Anti-Smoking Ads, Subtlety Misses Mark, But Emphasis On Tobacco Industry Manipulations Gets A Rise EurekAlert
03/10/98 Aggressive Anti-Smoking Ads Work Best Reuters
03/11/98 EDITORIAL: Tobacco Talk -- Of Court Testimony And Candor Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/11/98 OPINION: Hello, You Must be Going Miss Manners, Washington Post
03/11/98 OPINION: Life Was Better In Flintstone Days Joe Soucheray, St. Paul Pioneer Press
03/12/98 Gephardt Statement on the Healthy Kids Act PR Newswire
03/12/98 Tribal Sovereignty Before Congress AP Washington Post
03/12/98 Indian Leaders Oppose Gorton Legislation Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/11/98 GORTON Must Take On Treaty To Collect Taxes Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, WA)
03/12/98 MEDICA, HEALTHPARTNERS File Suit Against Tobacco Companies Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
03/11/98 ENGLE: Ailing Judge Removes Himself From Florida Smokers' Lawsuit AP/Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
03/11/98 Smoking Trial Gets New Judge Miami Herald
03/10/98 Judge Withdraws from Massive Fla. Smoke Case Reuters
03/12/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Lawmakers Attempt To Put Out Smoking In Restaurants AP/Boston Globe
03/12/98 UTAH: BOUNTIFUL Bans Chewing Tobacco In Rec Center Deseret News
03/12/98 MARYLAND: Going to Bat For Tobacco Washington Post
03/12/98 DC: Business Owners Join War On Drugs; Stores to Stop Sale Of Certain Items Washington Post
03/12/98 VIRGINIA: A Fall, and Rise, in Substance Abuse Washington Post
03/12/98 FLORIDA: Fla Gov. Wants To Allow Towns, Counties To Ban Smoke Reuters
03/12/98 Chiles, Webster Back Anti-smoking Expansion Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
03/11/98 FLORIDA: Tobacco Industry Still Has Power; Lobbyists Will Try to Block State Legislation That Would Let Local Governments Impose Tougher Laws. Sarasota Herald-Tribune
03/12/98 MINNESOTA: Smoking Out Teens' Opinions St. Paul Pioneer Press (Link may not be working)
03/12/98 NEW MEXICO: JOHNSON Signs But Cuts Budget Albuquerque Journal
Note: The AP story originally at this URL has changed to an A-J story with less information on this.
03/12/98 Descriptions of Bills Vetoed Wednesday Albuquerque Journal
03/12/98 SOUTH AFRICA: SA Smokers Left Fuming As Manuel Raises Tobacco Tax Business Day (Johannesburg, SA)
03/12/98 Tobacco Industry Warns Of Increase In Smuggling Business Day (Johannesburg, SA)
03/11/98 CANADA: School Board Seeks Late Start For Students In Tobacco Belt London (ONT) Free Press
03/11/98 UK: NO SMOKING DAY ASH
03/11/98 UK: Experts Call For Crack-Down On Smoking PA
03/11/98 UK: End Of The Line For Rail Smokers PA
03/09/98 UK: Smoking Rebel Accused Of Wasting Court Time PA
03/11/98 Five Aussie Companies To Share In Di's Memorial Fund AAP
03/12/98 B.A.T. Industries: Preliminary Announcement - Year Ended December 31, 1997 PR Newswire
03/12/98 DOMINICAN CIGAR Reaches Pilot Agreement with WALGREEN Drug StoresBusiness Wire
03/12/98 Cigar Sales Expected to Slow in 98 Bloomberg/LA Times
03/12/98 CIGAR Sales Cool Off New York Post
03/12/98 Pilot People -- Harold Hanson: Wine And Cigar Merchant Is Not One To Whine When Tobacco Sales Drop LA Times
03/11/98 Tobacco Barons Take The Offensive The Guardian
03/12/98 CALIFORNIA: Nonprofit Group Targets Virginia Slims Ads LA Times
03/12/98 NORTH CAROLINA: Tobacco Lovers, Haters Wanted For Documentary Raleigh News & Observer
Here's The Ross McElwee Site
03/12/98 OPINION: ARIZONA: GILBERT: Ordinance Aims To Make It Harder For Kids To Smoke Mike Evans, The Arizona Republic
03/11/98 EDITORIAL: New Improved Tobacco Laws Boston Globe
03/11/98 EDITORIAL: The Smoke Clears Raleigh News & Observer
03/13/98 Graham bill may clear the Capitol St. Petersburg Times St. Petersburg Times
03/13/98 Tobacco Executive Told FDA Of Nicotine Boost In '94 The New York Times
03/13/98 Common Cause Lists 'Soft' Donors Washington Post
03/12/98 Pressure's Up to $100 Million a Month Washington Post
03/14/98 OHIO: LIGGETT Settlement Will Help Ohio Fight Larger Tobacco Manufacturers Akron Beacon Journal
The Liggett Group is a small player in the tobacco industry, but its decision to settle tobacco litigation with Ohio and 13 other states will give Ohio a big lift in its fight against larger tobacco companies, says a spokesman for the Ohio attorney general's office. "The bottom line for us is this is a big win for the people of Ohio because this gives us more ammunition ... against the major tobacco companies," Chris Davey said Friday.
03/14/98 ARKANSAS: Tobacco Suit Garners State $1 Million, Percentage Of Profits Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Arkansas will get $1 million and a percentage of profits under a legal settlement with the smallest of the major tobacco companies, Attorney General Winston Bryant said Friday. The state will also get something officials said is the bigger prize -- access to witnesses and confidential industry documents for use in its ongoing lawsuit against other major tobacco firms.
03/13/98 LIGGETT Settles Tobacco Case With N.M. Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico Attorney General Tom Udall said his state will get $1 million over 10 years.
03/12/98 LIGGETT Settles With 14 More States AP Washington Post
03/12/98 BROOKE Settles 14 More State Tobacco Cases Reuters
03/12/98 BROOKE And LIGGETT Settle Tobacco Litigation With 14 More States; Now Have Settlements With 40 States Business Wire
03/12/98 PA Attorney General FISHER Announces Settlement with Liggett & Myers PR Newswire
03/12/98 COLORADO Settles w/Liggett & Myers UPI
03/13/98 State Settles With Tobacco Firms Denver Post
"I think Congress lost track of it," said Arnold Levinson, president of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Colorado, a collection of patientadvocacy and health groups from around the state. "The stumbling block, at least for the health-care community, is immunity," he said. "Should companies that spent decades lying . . . to the American public be granted immunity forever in exchange for paying a fine?"
03/13/98 Restaurant Workers Next Up To Sue Big Tobacco? | Secondhand Smoke Health Woes Alleged San Diego Union-Tribune
But serving plates in a perennial cloud of secondhand cigarette smoke at numerous diners since 1971 took its toll -- chronic coughs, frequent bronchial infections, debilitating bouts of asthma. "I get breathless doing even a little workout," said the 42-year-old general manager at Buffalo Joe's downtown. . . Lawyers at the Tobacco Control Resource Center at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston said yesterday that they are seeking nonsmoking waiters and bartenders willing to take part in a class-action lawsuit over health-related troubles they blame on secondhand smoke.
03/13/98 MAINE: Tobacco Plan Unveiled Bangor Daily News
Department of Human Services Commissioner Kevin W. Concannon announced Thursday the creation of The Partnership for a Tobacco Free Maine, a $3.5 million tobacco prevention initiative that includes a multimedia advertising campaign and a grant program for communities and schools to develop tobacco prevention and cessation programs.
03/14/98 VIRGINIA: State Moves To Crack Down On Sales To Minors Richmond Times-Dispatch
The tobacco industry had a simple message for Virginia legislators this General Assembly session: Lobby Congress to adopt a proposed national settlement in the cigarette wars and don't touch state laws. But legislators and the Gilmore administration didn't wait for Congress to crack down on illegal sale of cigarettes to minors in Virginia. They toughened state law for cigarette vending machines and made it easier for law enforcement officers to monitor over-the-counter sales. . . "What's happened on a national level . . . has filtered down even to Virginia," said S. Carter Steger, director of tobacco policy for the American Cancer Society in the mid-Atlantic region. "It's given the legislators the cover they need to achieve things they probably wouldn't have touched in the past."
03/12/98 TEXAS: PEROT Kicks Off Reform Party Effort Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The party does not accept donations from political action committees or corporations. "We accept only individual donations," Verney said. "We are not beholden to the tobacco industry like the Democrats and the Republicans are. We are not beholden to the credit card companies or to the banking industry." It costs nothing to join the party, but members can choose to buy a sponsorship at $120 a year or $10 a month, Verney said.
03/14/98 TEXAS: Teen Accused Of Smoking News 4 San Antonio/MSNBC
Police say she broke a law - even though they never found any evidence. In court Thursday the girl and her outraged family were told no evidence was needed. . . Lisa Bixler, 16, remembers the night of February 11th clearly. She went searching for her cat "Perkins." Halfway into her search - in her own yard - an Olmos Park officer stopped her and said he saw her smoking.
03/14/98 IDAHO: House Votes To Shield Minors From Tobacco The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)
Minors' access to tobacco products will be restricted if the Idaho Senate approves a bill passed overwhelmingly by the House Friday. Amendments aimed at softening the blow to convenience store owners and other retailers led to a 46-21 vote in favor of the law, promoted by the Idaho Parent-Teacher Association.
03/13/98 CALIFORNIA: Cigarette Tax Increase Topic of Miller Forum San Francisco Chronicle
Pleasant Hill -- U.S. Representative George Miller, D-Martinez, will be the host at a forum Monday to highlight the local effects of a ballot initiative to increase cigarette taxes to pay for more early childhood development programs in California. The forum will include Bay Area parents, child development experts and filmmaker Rob Reiner, who is promoting the initiative.
03/13/98 FLORIDA: Smoke-free Restaurants Favored By Senate Panel Miami Herald
A bill that would allow cities and counties throughout the state to require smoke-free restaurants cleared its first hurdle Thursday when it passed the Senate Community Affairs Committee. That hurdle alone was significant. It was the first time that this perennial anti-smoking measure has passed a legislative committee. In previous years, tobacco lobbyists have combined with the Florida Restaurant Association to kill the bill.
03/12/98 Bill Would Allow Cities To Toughen Anti-smoking Laws The Florida Times-Union
It could turn into a battle royale. On one side, the defending champions -- the tobacco and restaurant industries. On the other, the old warrior, Gov. Lawton Chiles , and his occasional ally, House Speaker Daniel Webster , R-Orlando. The battleground? A proposal that would allow Florida's 67 counties to clear cigarette smoke from places such as restaurants and bars. Chiles, Webster and other legislative leaders called a news conference in the Governor's Office yesterday to tout a proposal that would allow local governments to pass tougher anti-smoking laws than are included in the state's Clean Indoor Air Act.
03/12/98 FLORIDA: Legislature: Where There's Smoke There's Ire Naples Daily News
Cities and counties could slap tougher restrictions than the state imposes on smoking in restaurants and other public places under a bill that began moving through the Legislature Thursday. "People are beginning to realize they need to be protected against second-hand smoke," said the sponsor, Senate Ways and Means Chairman Donald Sullivan. "If they choose not to smoke they shouldn't have to put up with it."
03/13/98 FLORIDA: Program Against Smoking Kicks Off Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Are there any diseases, they asked him, that nonsmokers get and smokers don't get? "Yeah," he told them. "Old age." With no pretense of objectivity, Lynch, the director of Florida State University's Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis, and several other health experts spoke in Delray Beach on Thursday. The group, launching Gov. Lawton Chiles' $200 million anti-smoking program scored through Florida's $11.3 billion August tobacco settlement, makes its final stop today in Tampa
03/13/98 MINNESOTA: House Passes Tax Bill After Feisty Partisan Fight; Cig Tax Hike Defeated Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Another rejected plan would have increased by 40 cents to 88 cents the state tax on a pack of cigarettes. The proposal from Rep. Thomas Huntley, DFL-Duluth, also would have eliminated the 2 percent health care provider tax. Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, said the tax would hit the poor hardest and wouldn't deter smoking. "What's gonna be next? A tax on red meat ... that's bad for you," he said. "How about cashews, they're high in cholesterol, let's put an extra tax on them."
03/13/98 PHILIP MORRIS $800m Purs Issue Rated 'A', On S&Pwatch Negative PR Newswire
The ratings for Philip Morris were placed on CreditWatch with negative implications April 17, 1997, as a result of heightened litigation risk and the potential costs of an industry settlement.
03/13/98 AUSTRIA TABAK Gets EU Approval On Licences Reuters
The European Commission has approved the extension of Austria Tabak's licence agreements with Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, BAT Industries Plc and Germany's Reemtsma, Austria Tabak said on Friday. The nod from the EU's competition watchdog means Austria Tabak can continue licensed production . . . with all of its four licensers until at least 2008. . . Austria Tabak makes 17 cigarette brands under licence, most notably Marlboro.
03/13/98 BROOKE GROUP Ltd. Declares Quarterly Dividend Business Wire
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 March 31, 1998, to holders of record as of March 25, 1998.
03/13/98 GALLAHER: Clouds Over Pick Of The Puffs Electronic Telegraph
GALLAHER executives defiantly puffed their Benson & Hedges yesterday as they unveiled a surprisingly healthy set of full-year figures. . . Gallaher is the pick of the tobacco stocks but the outlook for the industry is cloudy.
03/12/98 Preliminary Announcement of Results for the Year Ended December 31, 1997 Business Wire
03/13/98 PEOPLE: UCSF To Host Symposium In Honor Of DOROTHY RICE Business Wire
DOROTHY RICE, The Health economist who has profoundly influenced the nation's public health policy for her work on the cost of illness, will be the focus of a daylong symposium presented by the UCSF School of Nursing's Institute for Health & Aging. . . This month, Rice was a co-author of "State Estimates of Medicaid Expenditures Attributable to Cigarette Smoking, Fiscal Year 1993" published in the March/April issue of Public Health Reports.
03/13/98 MOTOR SPORTS: STREAMING AUDIO: Non-Smoking Race Car Seeks To Smoke The Cigarette Sponsors Business Wire
Listen to streaming audio containing comments from Nicorette-NicoDerm CQ Champ Car driver Dennis Vitolo and Steve Kapur of SmithKline Beecham at http://www.newstream.com/r98-61.shtml
03/12/98 Nicorette-NicoDerm CQ Champ Car to Participate in Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami PR Newswire
The Nicorette-NicoDerm CQ Champ Car is the first and only smoking cessation involvement in major league auto racing, a sport dominated by cigarette sponsorship. The car will race in the Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami, the season opener of the FedEx Championship Series, on Sunday, March 15, at the Metro-Dade Motorsports Complex in Homestead, Fla.
03/13/98 FIRES: NEW JERSEY: Smoking In Bathroom Caused School Fire Third NY News Report, UPI
Fire officials in Westwood, N.J., say a student smoking in the bathroom may have caused the five-alarm blaze that raged through the Community High School. Police have charged a 17-year-old with criminal mischief.
03/12/98 FIRES: CONNECTICUT: Fire Caused By Careless Smoking UPI
Fire officials in Hartford, Conn., say careless smoking was the cause of a 2-alarm blaze that destroyed five units in the West Boulevard Apartment complex Tuesday night. Three people were injured in the fire.
03/14/98 Health Groups Back Tobacco Program AP Washington Post
They have fought for years to stamp out smoking and expose tobacco's sins, but some health groups now are joining forces with farmers to ensure survival of the government's 60-year-old tobacco-support program. . . The goal of Ballin's group, other health advocates including the American Public Health Association and some growers' organizations is to keep alive the program that controls tobacco supply and prices as Congress wrestles with the proposed $368.5 billion settlement of state health-related lawsuits.
03/14/98 Producers' Prices Down 0.1% in Feb. Washington Post
Excluding the volatile food and energy sectors, prices edged up 0.1 percent, the first increase in four months. A 2.1 percent increase in wholesale cigarette costs accounted for the rise. Economist Donald Ratajczak of Georgia State University said it was directly related to the anticipated settlement of lawsuits against tobacco companies. "These guys know they're going to have to pay through the nose. They're trying to move up prices every couple months so people don't get a price shock," he said.
03/14/98 MALAYSIA: RM2.5m Fags Seized From Kedah Factory Malaysia Star
About RM2.5 mil worth of cigarettes and machines were seized from a factory here by the authorities yesterday in a raid described as the country's biggest success involving counterfeit goods. The raid, jointly conducted by the Kedah Customs and Excise Department and the Seberang Prai Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs enforcement unit, was made following a complaint by cigarette manufacturer RJ Reynolds that the Lunas factory was producing cigarettes using its popular brand name, Marlboro. Two RJ Reynolds officers, who flew in from the United States, took samples of the finished product for their own investigations.
03/15/98 Rotate Garden Crops To Thwart Disease (Tobacco & Tomatoes) Deseret News
Surprisingly, tobacco is a member of the solanaceous family. If you smoke, there's a virus that can spread from your hands to a tomato plant. This particular disease, tobacco mosaic virus, is a major problem for the green house growers. It leads to stunted growth, a peculiar spotted look, and, of course, reduced yield. "If you're a smoker," points out Reiners, "the greenhouse growers won't let you in their greenhouses. Or if they do, they'll make you go through an incredible amount of washing."
03/15/98 PEOPLE: SEN. PHIL GRAMM: No Sex, No Money, So It's Smokes For `Mamma' Houston Chronicle
Sen. Phil Gramm, who loves to regale audiences with tales of his "mamma," brought her up again last week as an example of a tobacco company's dream customer. Speaking to the American Medical Association, which is pushing anti-smoking legislation, the Texas Republican related how he had tried to persuade his 85-year-old mother to drop her 70-year cigarette habit. But he said the older woman refused saying, "I smoke because I'm too old for sex and I don't have any money." She told Gramm, "I'm going to die with a cigarette in my hand."
03/15/98 The Blight? Stuff (Smoking in Storage Facility) Boston Globe
Lenkin said a customer at one of Public Storage's California facilities rented a small storage room as an extension of his home, bringing in a comfortable chair, rug for the floor, a battery-operated lamp, and a cigar humidor. "Basically, he would sit, read his paper, and smoke his cigars because his wife would not let him smoke in the house," he said. "It sounds crazy, but a lot of people visit with their stuff or treat their storage spaces as a home away from home."
03/16/98 PEOPLE: MIKE MANSFIELD: Ex-sen. Leader To Return At Age 95 AP Washington Post
They could smell it the instant they walked into Mike Mansfield's office in Washington, D.C. -- Sir Walter Raleigh pipe tobacco. ``You know, you can't smoke in many buildings in Montana anymore,'' Montana Gov. Marc Racicot teased. ``You can't here, either,'' Mansfield replied as he pulled out his pipe. ``Light up.'' Neither the ever-present tobacco nor much of anything else has changed about Mansfield, who marks his 95th birthday Monday.
03/14/98 BOOKS: Living by Numbers: THE UNIVERSE AND THE TEACUP: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty Electronic Telegraph
For example, the human race appears to have a poor sense of risk, misjudging what is really dangerous, and interpreting the same situation in different ways according to how it is presented - as demonstrated by the case of the exploding cigarette. Imagine that cigarettes are perfectly harmless, except for the occasional one which is packed with explosives, and which splatters the brains of the smoker upon lighting. The dynamite-stuffed cigarettes would be very rare, with one hidden in every 20,000 packs but, with millions of packs sold, hundreds of smokers would disappear in a puff of smoke every day. Society would not tolerate such a lethal cigarette, and yet the death rate would be no different to that caused by normal cigarettes.
You can order here
03/16/98 FASHION: A Maddening Melange in Paris; Gaultier's Cool Jazz Sets Tone Short bit in Washington Post
With guests crammed like sardines into a dark, smoky chamber at the Salle Wagram, Gaultier sent a collection down the runway that was creative, wearable and full of fantasy and mystery. It was an ode to existentialism, jazz, Sartre, Camus, Proust and the intellectual cafe society of another era. But there was a sense of fun and teasing to this collection, too. Models -- with slow-burning cigarettes and smart-girl glasses -- caricatured the denizens of this world.
03/16/98 FASHION: Big on Drama LA Times
The clothes are supposed to be fabulous enough that fashion journalists balancing their bony bottoms on hard, narrow chairs will overlook that the room is too hot, the models can barely be seen through the haze of cigarette smoke, and the hundreds in attendance must enter and exit through only one door.
03/14/98 FASHION: The Era of Elegance Small bit in Washington Post
In stark contrast to the Chanel presentation, the show from JOHN GALLIANO was filled with mesmerizing gimmicks and entertaining distractions. Galliano's Thursday night presentation revolved around the theme of a "Cabaret Sauvage." Under a red-topped tent in the Parc de la Villette, Galliano re-created his vision of Germany in the '20s. Slick-haired male ushers wore tuxedos and glittering false eyelashes. Men in drag -- corsets and ruffled dungarees -- clustered around a tiny cocktail table, their hairy legs draped one over the other. Cigarette girls passed out free smokes.
03/14/98 Paris sees Red Small bit in Boston Globe
Givenchy is now under the helm of the young British designer Alexander McQueen, 28. McQueen's so cool, he sent one model down the runway smoking a cigarette. (Why not? Everybody seems to smoke here.)
03/15/98 AIR TRAVEL: European Airlines Are Clearing The Air San Diego Union-Tribune
The major European airlines continue to take a stand against smoking. By April 1, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will have eliminated smoking sections on all of their planes -- on all routes. The two join a list of other completely smoke-free European airlines, including Lufthansa, Aer Lingus, Finnair, Icelandair and Scandinavian Airlines. On March 29, Air France will join most of its European counterparts, which have already banned smoking on all trans-Atlantic flights. It's also eliminating smoking on flights between Los Angeles and Tahiti. (The only Air France flights from the United States with smoking sections will fly from Miami to the Caribbean.)
03/13/98 SABENA Prohibits Smoking On All Flights Dow Jones (pay registration)
Belgian airline Sabena SA (B.SAB) said Friday that all of its flights will be 100% non-smoking from June 1. . . In a communique, Sabena said the move reflects 'the industry trend and responds to a growing demand from passengers to travel in a non-smoking environment.'
03/15/98 Dr. Marilyn Heins: Keeping Teen-agers From Smoking Is Not An Easy Task For Parents Arizona Daily Star
A. The bad news is that once teens have money in their pockets and are able to drive, there's no way parents can see or stop what they are doing out there. There are some strategies parents can use to prevent their children from starting to smoke. However, because of the billions spent by tobacco companies to recruit teen smokers, it's hard work.
03/14/98 OPINION: Leaders of the Pack Shawn Hubler, LA Times
Rebellion, like so many fun things, has been ruined by their parents. Everything a kid could rebel against already has been done. So they smoke. . . All the wide-open territory that was once the province of youth, theirs to explore and corrupt, is now settled, tepid. Strange that, of all the vices a kid could be drawn to, the mundane cigarette, of all things, should remain.
03/14/98 OPINION: Hey Kid, Still Want to Smoke? Howard I. Singer, LA Times
I have a speech problem as well. Try talking without a tongue and teeth. Try having to wipe up your mouth all the time because you don't have a tongue like everyone else to lick up food or saliva.
03/14/98 OPINION: Squeal Of The Tobacco Bullies David K. Porter, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Bleakley has been complaining about how unfair the process has been during the trial in St. Paul. This is understandable. He is about to get tagged with a historically huge plaintiff's verdict. Through no fault of his own, compromise, backroom lobbying and bullying haven't worked. This is something new in the field of tobacco defense litigation. Until now, tobacco has been able to wait out the plaintiffs, letting its complaining customers get silenced by early and painful death. Not this time. For once, tobacco has run into an impeccably prepared and adequately funded plaintiff's team, with the proceedings presided over by a competent and confident judge. . . Our Minnesota court system is as good as anything this country has to offer, and I am very proud to be a part it. Our people have finally brought the bullies into a fair fight.
03/13/98 OPINION: ARIZONA: Alliance Wins With Smoke And Mirrors The Arizona Republic
Since I didn't expect you to believe that, I took great care to quote Gary Auxier, an alliance smokesman, er, spokesman, verbatim. "We basically took no position," Auxier said in a clear, baritone voice reminiscent of the late Dennis James, familiar television game-show host and commercial spokesman for Old Gold cigarettes. "We knew it would be a win-win for smokers either way." Translation: The major, national lobbying organization for the rights of smokers, even at the expense of non-smokers' rights and everybody's health, claims victory from the jaws of overwhelming defeat. . . The money, Auxier said, was donated to a local political group, Valley Business Owners, that led the effort to repeal the smoking ban. "We did not give money for the initiative," Auxier added.
03/14/98 UTAH: Tobacco Suit Is Moved to Federal Court Salt Lake Tribune
Cigarette manufacturers pulled Utah's proposed class-action tobacco lawsuit into federal court Friday, accusing the attorneys who filed it in state court of fraud and shopping for a favorable venue.
03/14/98 WILEY: Tobacco Expert Admits Smoking Risk AP/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
A cooked hamburger contains more carcinogens than eight hours of secondhand smoke, a tobacco company scientist testified Friday in a lawsuit over the lung-cancer death of a nurse. . . Wiley' s attorney, Ron Motley, asked Appleton if B&W admits that cigarette smoking causes even one death each year. " It very well may, " Appleton said. He was read a statement made on television in 1977 by a former Brown & Williamson official: " We don't think it's a question of safer cigarettes, we think all of our cigarettes are safe."
03/13/98 PENNSYLVANIA: Shaler Area Calls For Security To Monitor Smoking In School Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Shaler Area School District officials hope hiring security guards on a temporary basis will smoke out students fond of puffing cigarettes in the high school bathrooms. . . . The guards will not act "as police," but will report students who smoke in the rest rooms to school officials, said Superintendent Donald Lee . . . the problem has gone beyond the faculty's control, Lee said. Parents have been calling board members and writing letters to the administration, and students are complaining as well.
03/08/98 TEXAS: Inmates Adapt To Smoking Ban; Three Years Later, It's Hardly A Hot Issue, Officials Say Dallas Morning News
However, officials say, those concerns have dissipated like so much smoke. Along with the inhabitants of office towers, government buildings, malls and restaurants across America, prison inmates seem to have adapted to society's changed attitudes toward smoking. Many have come to prefer the smoke-free environment, relatives of prisoners say.
03/13/98 GALLAHER Says Debate Over Smoking Is Too Emotional Electronic Telegraph
Chairman Peter Wilson said that there was no "statistically significant" evidence showing that passive smoking was dangerous. He said: "The subject should be judged on science, not on emotion."
03/12/98 UK: Labour Favours Voluntary Curbs On Cigarettes The Independent
THE Government is likely to favour voluntary measures rather than actual legislation to ban lighting up in public places, Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) said yesterday.
03/12/98 Interview: GALLAHER Plays Down Passive Smoking Risk Reuters
In an interview on Thursday chairman and chief executive Peter Wilson said, "there continues to be a feeling that passive smoking has to be a risk, but it has not been proven. The evidence shows it does not produce a statistically significant increase in risk."
03/12/98 British Panel Wants Smoking Curbs AP Washington Post
The report by the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health affirmed the conclusion of a scientific report 10 years ago that said second-hand smoke could cause cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease. "This important report also highlights the risks to babies and young children when their parents smoke -- particularly the doubling of the risk of sudden infant death and more than 50-percent increase in the risk of serious respiratory diseases in infancy," said Sir Kenneth Calman, Britain's chief medical officer.
03/12/98 Passive Smoking Puts Lung Cancer Risk Up By 26%, New Report Finds Times of London (LINK DEAD)
03/12/98 Public Ban On Cigs The Daily Record
SMOKING is set to be outlawed in thousands of public places by the Government. They are also being urged to make expensive nicotine patches available on the NHS and slap a total ban on tobacco ads.
03/12/98 Living with a Smoker Can Kill You The Independent
Pressure on the Government to introduce curbs on smoking in public places increased last night after a major British report confirmed passive smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease. As the tobacco industry continued to claim there was no risk to passive smokers, the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health said the "enormous damage" smoking caused "should no longer be accepted".
03/11/98 Maternal smoking causes infant death --U.K. report Reuters
03/12/98 Smoking In The Home 'Kills Babies' Electronic Telegraph
03/12/98 OPINION: Smoking Out Bad ScienceLorraine Mooney, The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Last week the science fell off the campaign wagon when the definitive study on passive smoking , sponsored by the World Health Organization, reported no cancer risk at all. . . The U.K. Scientific Committee on Tobacco or Health (SCOTH) report on passive smoking, due out Thursday, is headed by a known anti-tobacco crusader, Professor Nicholas Wald of the Royal London School of Medicine . . The Wald report has been dismissed as a "statistical trick" by Robert Nilsson, a senior toxicologist at the Swedish National Chemicals Inspectorate and a professor of toxicology at Stockholm University
03/11/98 Report Links Passive Smoking To Cot Deaths BBC
Passive smoking is responsible for 80 cot deaths a year, the report says Passive smoking does cause lung cancer and heart disease, according to a new report. The study also found that children whose parents smoke were twice as likely to be the victims of sudden infant death syndrome. Experts on the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health, which carried out the study, called on ministers to curb smoking in thousands of public places.
03/11/98 BMA Response To Damning New Evidence Of The Effects Of Passive Smoking On Children's Health British Medical Assn
Responding to a series of papers in the Journal Thorax, which shows that passive smoking is linked to respiratory illness, sudden infant death syndrome, asthma and middle ear disease in children, the BMA today renewed its attack on the tobacco industry for attempting to deny and downplay the health damage caused by environmental tobacco smoke. Dr Bill O'Neill, Science Adviser to the BMA says: "Today's evidence clearly explains why the tobacco industry has been engaged in a desperate disinformation campaign. They do not want to be linked to death and illness in children. But they cannot escape that link. They spend millions recruiting new young smokers who will be the parents of tomorrow's sick children."
03/12/98 UK: Tobacco Barons Refuse To Back Down In Passive Smoking Battle The Independent
The health lobby was delighted by the report linking passive smoking and lung cancer; the tobacco industry stuck to its guns that there was no link established. Who is right? . . . The Tobacco Manufactures' Association claimed yesterday that of 60 studies they had looked at 80 per cent showed no significantly statistical increase.
03/10/98 Major Environmental Tobacco Smoke Study Finds No Risk B&W PR Newswire
"This is good news for smokers and non-smokers," said Dr. Sharon Boyse, director of scientific communications at Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation. "We welcome this new study which confirms what we and many other scientists have long believed, that while smoke in the air may annoy some non-smokers, the science overall does not show that being around a smoker is a lung cancer risk," she said.
03/10/98 Anti-smokers Blown Away By Study The Australian
THE World Health Organisation was trying last night to investigate reports that a study it commissioned from a leading cancer research group had found no link between passive smoking and cancer. . . The report prompted the Australian Hotels Association to call on WA Labor Relations Minister Graham Kierath to shelve his anti-smoking legislation, due to come into effect in August. . . "Until the merits of this study are established the laws as they are being proposed in Western Australia should be put on hold," Mr Woods said.
03/09/98 No Link Between Passive Smoking And Lung Cancer Times of London
A TEN-YEAR study carried out for the World Health Organisation has failed to find a clear link between passive smoking and lung cancer. The results of the study, the largest in Europe, hint that those who live or work with smokers have slightly elevated risks. But the margins of error are so wide that no clear conclusion can be drawn.
03/09/98 Anger Over Passive Smoking Claims BBC
The widow of TV presenter Roy Castle, who died of lung cancer, told the BBC she was "surprised and confused" by conclusions drawn by the industry from a World Health Organisation study. She was supported by cancer experts, who allege the tobacco group BAT is trying to divert attention from the publication of a new government report into passive smoking. BAT says that a confidential WHO report studying cancer in seven countries failed to establish a meaningful increase in lung cancer risk to non-smokers exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.
03/09/98 UN Agency Insists Passive Smoking Causes Lung Cancer Business Day (Johannesburg, SA)
03/09/98 UN Defends Dangers of Passive Smoke AP Washington Post
The World Health Organization has angrily denied reports in the British press that it had suppressed a study showing that secondhand smoke doesn't cause lung cancer. Articles in the London's Sunday Telegraph and Monday's Times of London said the seven-year study was an embarrassment to the agency. Industry giant British-American Tobacco Co. said the study casts "further doubt" on the health effects of passive smoking. WHO countered in a statement Monday, saying the study had not been withheld and that its design was the reason it could not conclusively link cancer with secondhand smoke. "Passive smoking does cause cancer. Do not let them fool you," WHO said.
03/09/98 Second-hand Smoke Study 'Garbage Science'; Activists, Scientists United In Opposition To Controversial Report Ottawa Citizen
"This is simply not sound science," said David Sweanor, the Ottawa-based lawyer for the Non-Smokers' Rights Association. "The only place we have seen this kind of garbage is from the tobacco industry." . . The study was said to have been commissioned by the World Health Organization, long known for its belief second-hand smoke causes cancer. The seven-country European study was co-ordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. It was described as "one of the largest ever to look at the link between passive smoking and lung cancer, and eagerly awaited by medical experts and anti-tobacco groups."
03/15/98 High Price of Love Week in Review, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
When it comes to investing in political influence, tobacco giant Philip Morris has set a record. No single company has ever spent more in one year on campaign contributions and lobbying in Washington than the staggering $53.8 million spent by Philip Morris in 1997. . . Of course, he also found time to attend a fund-raiser given by a lawyer who would reap a windfall from the tobacco legislation that Philip Morris is pushing. And the company, as the Republican Party's largest donor in 1997, had its usual place of honor at the GOP's big fund-raising gala at the Washington Hilton.
03/17/98 CALIFORNIA: Anti-Smoking Ads Rejected in Calif AP Washington Post
Last month, BART rejected a train-station message that read: "You smoke, you croak. (no joke.)" It shows an oversized burning cigarette shoved into the chest cavity of an X-ray image of a person's lungs. "We really found the ad distasteful for a number of reasons," said Dennis Mochon, director of marketing for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District.
03/17/98 MINNESOTA: Bill Would Send Tobacco Suit Proceeds To State Treasury Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
The House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill Monday that requires any proceeds from state tobacco litigation to be deposited in the state treasury. That would make the money subject to appropriations by the Legislature. The measure, approved on a voice vote, seeks to limit the control that Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III could wield over a settlement or award resulting from his lawsuit against major tobacco companies.
03/17/98 ARIZONA: Big Tobacco Blows Smoke, Ex-Winston Man Says Arizona Daily Star
The man who said he was hired by a big tobacco company "to lure and entice" young boys into smoking through his macho Winston Man image is now telling teens the tobacco companies are "duping you." DAVE GOERLITZ is in Tucson this week and will visit 15 middle and high schools with his message, which includes picking apart cigarette advertisements.
03/17/98 CALIFORNIA: REINER Seeks Cigarette State Tax AP Washington Post
With babies babbling in the background, filmmaker Rob Reiner urged support of a 50-cent state tax on cigarettes to pay for early childhood development programs. "We need to get to the children early and make an investment early," he said Monday during a visit to a college campus day care center. His initiative, called the California Children and Families First Act of 1998, would set up programs to provide parental education and family support services, and to help pregnant women and parents of young children to stop smoking.
03/16/98 CALIFORNIA: Filmmaker ROB REINER Gains Endorsement from Congressman GEORGE MILLER -- A `True Champion for Children' PR Newswire
Rob Reiner's California Children and Families Initiative Would Fund the Nation's Most Integrated and Comprehensive Children's Program Ever Rob Reiner, filmmaker and Chairman of the California Children and Families Initiative today announced that U.S. Representative George Miller (D-Martinez), the instigator and first chairman of the U.S. House Select Committee On Children, Youth and Families wholeheartedly endorsed the initiative. . . The California Children and Families Initiative will teach women who are pregnant about the negative effects of smoking while pregnant. It will also provide smoking cessation assistance to pregnant women and parents of young children who want to quit smoking.
03/16/98 NEW YORK: New York City Pensions Mull Selling Tobacco Shares Reuters
New York City's five pension funds, which in the past have taken stands on social issues, in April will take up a report by a consultant studying whether they should sell off a $379 million stake in tobacco stocks. "The tobacco committee has hired an independent consultant to study the issue of divestment and make recommendations regarding divestment," said Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the New York City comptroller, Alan Hevesi.
03/16/98 Higher Cigarette Tax Idea Catches On Detroit News
More and more states are picking up a new habit: raising cigarette taxes. Last year 10 states raised cigarette taxes, the most since 1993. This year, more than half the states are considering increases, including some of the same states that raised taxes last year.
03/16/98 NEBRASKA: Teens Ask for Possession Law States, USA
Taylor - The Village Board will consider a request from a group of eighth graders to make it a crime for people under 18 to possess tobacco. After polling 70 seventh through 12th grade students at the Loup County School, the students found that half had tried tobacco products and wanted to make it harder for their peers to obtain tobacco.
03/16/98 MARYLAND: Curran, Chamber Spar Over Bills Baltimore Business Journal
A dispute over state tobacco legislation has led to a war of words between Maryland's largest business organization and Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. The Maryland Chamber of Commerce has accused Curran of joining an anti-business "assault on Maryland's legal system" by his support of a bill that seeks to bolster the state's much-publicized case against tobacco companies. Chamber President Champe C. McCulloch said Curran is, in effect, being used by personal injury lawyers, who have been itching to change Maryland's tort law for years. And Curran said the Chamber of Commerce is getting bamboozled by high-paid tobacco lobbyists.
03/16/98 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Dental Society Keeping New Lobbyist, Even With Tobacco Ties AP/Boston Globe
The New Hampshire Dental Society is keeping its new lobbyist, even though he also represents one interest the group's members denounce. The society has reaffirmed its decision to hire well-known tobacco lobbyist George Roberts, several weeks after its president seemed shocked to learn Roberts also represents a company that makes smokeless tobacco.
03/16/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Gore Touts Massachusetts As Example In Fight Against Tobacco AP/Boston Globe
Basking in cheers of approval as he talked tough about the evils of tobacco, Vice President Al Gore was forced to field a tough question. Gore had just asked his audience at a rally packed with children and politicians Saturday for ways to snuff out smoking, when 11-year-old Jose Negroni asked, "Why don't you close all the tobacco factories and farms?" After a pause, Gore answered: "You can't do that." He said it would be akin to Prohibition . . . "There are so many adults who are addicted," Gore told a packed gymnasium at Boston's McCormack Middle School. "If you tried to outlaw the whole industry, you'd have a horrible law enforcement problem."
03/15/98 GORE Beckons Youths To Spurn Smoking; Vice President Speaks At Dorchester School Boston Globe
Vice President Al Gore brought his crusade against teenage smoking to Dorchester yesterday and was warmly greeted by a crowd of students and politicians. Yet the frequently overshadowed Gore may have been upstaged once again by a series of public service announcements that made the case against smoking more powerfully than even a vice presidential visit could.
03/16/98 RHODE ISLAND: Survey: Many Teens Experiment With Sex, Alcohol, Tobacco AP/Boston Globe
[A] Health Department survey shows . . . Sixty-nine percent had tried cigarette smoking, 47 percent had used marijuana and 21 percent had used inhalants.
03/16/98 NEW YORK: GREEN: D'AMATO Inhales Tobacco Money First New York News Report, UPI
New York City Public Advocate Mark Green is holding a press conference later today to accuse Sen. Al D'Amato of being beholden to the tobacco industry. Green says New York's junior senator has accepted more than $75,000 from tobacco companies since 1991, and that D'Amato has a pro-tobacco voting record that can be linked to those contributions.
03/15/98 NEW YORK: Call for Tougher Anti-Smoking Ads States, USA Today
A New York health coalition is calling on the state to revamp its anti-smoking advertising campaign to directly attack the tobacco industry and second-hand smoke. The state's current advertising focuses on such things as the negative impact of smoking on sex appeal and athletic stamina.
03/16/98 CALIFORNIA: Marilyn Aguirre-molina Appointed Vice President, Program Investments For The California Endowment Business Wire
Dr. Steven Uranga McKane, president and chief executive officer of The California Endowment, has announced the appointment of Marilyn Aguirre-Molina, Ed.D., as vice president, program investments, effective March 9, 1998. Aguirre-Molina will provide leadership for programmatic investment areas. . . She co-founded the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy and the Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco, a national organization dedicated to reducing the harm caused by smoking and drinking in the Latino community.
03/15/98 CA: Festivals, Feasts and Fairs LA Times
BARSTOW--Travel back to the Old West at the Calico Hullabaloo, April 4-5, with a stew cook-off, flapjack races, arm wrestling, horseshoe pitching, music, games and tobacco-spitting championships. 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. April 4-5. Calico Ghost Town, exit Interstate 15 at Ghost Town Road, eight miles north of Barstow. $7, $4 ages 6-15, free under 6. (800) TO-CALICO.
03/15/98 KENTUCKY: Burley Farmers Expect Supports To End Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
The Herald-Leader's statewide poll of 700 quota owners found that 58 percent said they would like to keep price supports. But 57 percent of those asked said they think the New Deal-era program will be gone within 10 years. And when those who expressed no opinion -- 36 percent of those polled -- are left out, that figure jumps to 89 percent.
03/14/98 KENTUCKY: Airport Smoking Foes Ask U.S. For Help Cleveland Live
Activists want the federal government to help them get smoking banned at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. They mailed a petition this week asking U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to withhold federal money from Kentucky and to rule that a state law allowing smoking in government buildings is invalid.
03/16/98 Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer British Medical Journal
Passive smoking does cause lung cancer and ischaemic heart disease, concludes the report of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health - a group of independent scientific experts. . . Dr Angela Hilton, of the British Thoracic Society, welcomed the report: "This medical evidence, pointing to the real health risks from passive smoking, pierces the smoke screen of confusion that the tobacco industry has created on this issue."
03/15/98 No 'Significant' Risk In Passive Smoking Electronic Telegraph
LEADING cancer experts have conceded that the World Health Organisation's study of the link between passive smoking and lung cancer failed to find any statistically significant extra risk, as exclusively revealed by The Telegraph last week. The experts include Prof Sir Richard Doll, the world's leading authority on the link between direct smoking and cancer, who said that the rejection was on the grounds that the results were simply yet more evidence of the kind produced by dozens of earlier studies, which have also usually failed to give conclusive results. He insisted, however, that taken together the studies point to a significant risk: "On its own, the WHO study is not definitive, but it contributes to the weight of evidence."
03/14/98 Smokescreens: The World Health Organisation Is Showing Signs Of Allowing Politics To Get In The Way Of The Truth The Economist, March 14-20, 1998.
Surely, say its critics, if this study had supported the WHO's anti-smoking position, it would have trumpeted the fact. But the study not only clashes with the tenor of the WHO's own anti-tobacco campaign, it also appears to undermine the American government's war on public smoking. Unsurprisingly, many fear that the WHO's agenda is no longer governed solely by scientific principles. Rather, they suspect it is influenced by its biggest paymaster�the United States. . . There are lessons, though, in the ease with which the WHO's motives have been impugned by sceptics. It is dangerous to become involved in campaigns that are not solidly based on scientific evidence. For instance, even the small ill-effects of passive smoking found by the meta-analysis were the result of chronic exposure at home or at work, not casual whiffs in a pub. Although passive smoking is unpleasant and irritating for non-smokers, that alone cannot justify banning it in public places.
03/17/98 Tobacco firm knew of dangers 30 years ago MSN
03/17/98 UK: Tobacco Firm Says It Rejected Research On Cancer Link Times of London
Yesterday Ian Birks, Gallaher's head of corporate affairs, said: "Gallaher considered this published research. The internal memo, now made public, was an initial reaction. Gallaher subsequently discounted the views expressed in that memo. Our position is that the link between smoking and cancer has not been proved, although we agree that smoking is a risk factor and that statistics show that, if you smoke, you are more likely to get certain diseases."
03/17/98 Shares of Tobacco Firm Gallaher Plunge on Development in Lawsuit The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
The share price of U.K. tobacco company Gallaher PLC, which faces a group-action lawsuit by lung-cancer sufferers, slipped 4.7% amid investor jitters about a new document discovered in the case.
03/17/98 The Market: Waiting to See Which Way the Wind Blows Electronic Telegraph
Meanwhile, investors in tobacco company Gallaher were choking on news that executives were aware of the link between smoking and cancer 30 years ago. The stock fell 19 to 335p. Gallaher is currently facing legal action from 50 British smokers but said yesterday that the publication of the internal memo had done nothing to weaken its confidence in its position.
03/16/98 FOCUS-UK'S GALLAHER Fires Tobacco Defence Reuters
Gallaher Group Plc . . . dismissed newspaper reports alleging it knew that smoking caused cancer as far back as 1970, saying the press had "misreported" the facts. The newspaper articles focused on an internal company memo written in 1970. But Gallaher said the memo had been based on research it had not commissioned and which was published and conducted independently in the United States. Moreover, the company stated that the memo had been an initial reaction and the company had subsequently discounted the views expressed in it. The research itself was subsequently "reviewed by a number of authoritative independent bodies and found to be open to significant criticism," Gallaher said in a statement.
03/16/98 UK: Cigarette Firm's Memo Boosts Cancer Lawsuits Electronic Telegraph
03/15/98 Cigarette Firm 'Knew Cancer Risk In 1970' PA
An internal memo of Gallaher says research on beagles had proved the risk of lung cancer "beyond reasonable doubt", said campaign group Action on Smoking and Health - Ash. The document would form a major weapon in the legal fight by lung cancer victims in a case brought against Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco, the group said. The document, the first one to be discovered regarding a British company, was prepared in April 1970 for the managing director of Gallaher. . . In the document, the general manager of research analysed experiments on the dogs for the managing director and concludes that the work "proves beyond all reasonable the causation of lung cancer by smoke".
03/15/98 Incriminating Evidence Against Tobacco Company BBC
03/16/98 Call For Tobacco Firms Windfall Tax The Scotsman
SCOTTISH anti-smoking campaigners called for a windfall tax to be levied on the tobacco industry yesterday after it was claimed that a British cigarette company knew of the health risks posed by smoking as long ago as 1970.
03/16/98 GALLAHER, IMPERIAL Down On Memo Reports Reuters
Shares in cigarette makers Imperial Tobacco Group Plc and Gallaher Group Plc fell in early Monday trade, after weekend reports that an internal Gallaher memo suggested the company was aware of cancer risks as long ago as 1970.
03/16/98 Smoking Revelation May Hit Shares Financial Times
Shares in Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco, two of Britain's biggest cigarette companies, could come under pressure today after weekend revelations that Gallaher executives knew of the dangers of cancer from smoking years before acknowledging cigarettes could damage smokers' health.
03/16/98 Gallaher Shares Fall 4.0% On Tobacco Health Link News AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
Shares in Gallaher Group PLC (GLH) fell 4.0% in mid-morning trading Monday, after the British Medical Association renewed its attack on the tobacco industry. Analysts concerns, which were raised by Monday's Financial Times, center on a U.K. class action against Gallaher, and that the company knew about the dangers of cancer from smoking years before acknowledging cigarettes could damage smokers health.
03/17/98 UK: Smuggling Costs Jobs--TMA Briefings, Times of London
Tobacco smuggling has resulted in the loss of at least 1,000 jobs in small shops selling cigarettes, the Tobacco Alliance claims in its annu al report. The organisation speaks for independent retailers selling tobacco and is funded by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association.
03/17/98 SWEDEN May Consider Lower Tobacco, Alcohol Taxes - Paper AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
Booming smuggling traffic and rising internet trading could prompt the Swedish government to lower taxes on tobacco and alcohol, Minister of Taxation Thomas Oestros said in an interview with Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's largest morning newspaper. . . Moreover, Swedes can now buy cigarettes and alcohol from foreign sellers via the internet.
03/17/98 HONG KONG: Sponsor Urges HK Rethink On Tobacco Advertising Curbs South China Morning Post
The British-American Tobacco (BAT) company has urged Hong Kong authorities to re-consider anti-tobacco advertisement legislation and leave the choice of the source of sponsorship to sporting-events organisers. BAT had earlier stopped sponsorship of next month's Kent Beach Volleyball Grand Prix, and the future of the Viceroy Cup, entering its 29th anniversary, is in the balance. Brenda Chow, BAT public relations director, said the Legislative Council members, who will be elected on May 24, should re-consider the law.
03/17/98 MALAYSIA: Movement To Promote Healthy Lifestyle The Star
The 4B Youth Movement will organise a campaign entitled "A Day Without Cigarettes and Sugar" to promote a healthy lifestyle among Malaysians on April 11, said Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Mohd Ali Rustam. Mohd Ali, who is the movement's president, said the campaign would be launced in Kuala Lumpur by Entrepreneur Development Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed on April 11.
03/17/98 SCOTLAND: Rolling In The Green, Green Grass Of Home; More Young Highlanders Smoke Dope Than Tobacco The Scotsman
03/16/98 Teenagers 'Smoke Cannabis More Than Tobacco' The Scotsman
The warning came as Blast, a drugs advice and information centre to be opened in Inverness, prepares to publish the results of a survey designed to establish the drugs history and attitudes of more than 300 teenagers who attended a rave in the Highlands. . . The project co-ordinator, Natalie Morel, confirmed that the research shows that most young people questioned would be more likely to smoke cannabis than tobacco. "Young people know about the health implications of smoking cigarettes but have not received the same level of information about cannabis and other drugs," she said.
03/16/98 CUBA Bans Smoking On Buses Reuters/MSNBC
In a land more famous for cigars than clean air, health officials in April will try to bring a breath of fresh air to city buses. Cuba, where anti-smoking campaigns have made little headway into the public consciousness, has decreed that beginning April 1 smoking will no longer be permitted on inter-city buses.
03/16/98 Big Tobacco Targets Russia CNN
Three of the world's biggest tobacco companies are stepping up cigarette production in Russia. In separate announcements Monday, Philip Morris Co. Inc., BAT Industries PLC and RJR Nabisco all said they will spend millions of dollars there to produce more cigarettes.
03/16/98 RUSSIA: U.S. Tobacco Firms Finding Friendlier Market In Russia Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
At a disco party in a covered stadium, thousands of young people sway to booming music. Once in a while, somebody breaks from the neon-lit crowd to take free cigarettes from the smiling women who stroll the corridor outside. Sponsored by Camel cigarettes, the party is one of the many promotions by Western tobacco companies that are aggressively marketing their products in one of the world's most smoker-friendly nations.
03/16/98 ZIMBABWE: DDT Used To Fight Malaria Business Day (Johannesburg, SA)
DDT, banned because it could move through the food chain and because it threatened species, would be used on mosquitoes carrying malaria, Health Ministry spokesman Paulinus Sikhosana said in the Sunday Mail. . . Tobacco growers said the pesticide posed a serious threat to their crop.
03/15/98 EUROPE: Fears Of IRA Link As Massive Rise In Smuggling Via ANDORRA Is Revealed Electronic Telegraph
A TEAM of European Union investigators will start inspections tomorrow in Andorra, the tiny low-tax principality in the Pyrenees, as part of a wide-ranging probe into tobacco fraud sparked by protests from the British and Irish governments. The massive boom in the smuggling of British-manufactured cigarettes via Andorra in the past two years, together with the huge profits being made, has even led investigators to consider the possibility of IRA involvement.
03/15/98 MARYLAND: AGRICULTURE: Waiting to See How Their Crop Stacks Up Washington Post
Southern Maryland farmers last week hauled their tobacco to six regional warehouses for the yearly tobacco auction. In 15 days of bidding between Tuesday and April 9, buyers will compete to purchase the 1997 crop.
03/17/98 Cigarette Ad, Promotion Spending Up UPI
The Federal Trade Commission says cigarette advertising and promotional spending rose $212 million from 1995 to 1996. The main increase came in promotions and outdoor ads, while newspaper and magazine ads declined slightly. The comparative figures are part of the FTC's annual report to Congress on cigarette ads and promotions, which was released today. The report contains sales and marketing statistics for 1996, with historical data dating back to 1963. Overall, the industry spent $5.1 billion on ads and promotions in 1996, 4 percent more than the previous year. However, the figure was still below the $6 billion spent in 1993.
03/17/98 OMAHA Indian Tribe Manufacturing Cigarettes The New York Times
Even if the factory were not in a building that previously held the tribe's health club and wellness center, the debut of the Omaha Nation Tobacco Co. might seem a little misguided.
Here's the item in the 03/22/98 Houston Chronicle
03/16/98 Focus: B.A.T Hit By Charges, Tobacco Disappoints Reuters
Shares in British tobacco and financial services group B.A.T Industries Plc fell on Wednesday as a swathe of one-off charges stripped some 800 million pounds off its earnings and its profits from tobacco came under pressure. The group reported a 28 percent decline in profits before tax to 1.794 billion pounds ($2.9 billion) in the year ended December 31, 1997, due to a number of charges including 266 million pounds for restructuring plans and 258 million for settling U.S. tobacco-related lawsuits.
03/16/98 VIRGINIA Tobacco Farmers Turn Over New Leaf Business Wire
STAR TOBACCO & PHARMACEUTICALS, Inc. . . announced today that it has received orders from two multinational cigarette manufacturers for its TSNA-free (tobacco specific nitrosamines) tobacco and in order to meet demand has begun production of its proprietary mobile curing units. Farmers in Virginia will soon be receiving a license to use the first machine ever to remove TSNA. TSNA are formed during the curing process in all varieties of tobacco.
03/16/98 Tobacco Giants Announce New RUSSIAN Investments Reuters
Three leading Western tobacco companies on Monday separately announced plans to expand their Russian operations in moves that will add nearly half a billion dollars to the country's economy. . . . B.A.T INDUSTRIES Plc said it would invest another $60 million.
03/16/98 PHILIP MORRIS plans $300 mln plant in Russia Reuters
Philip Morris Management Service B.V., part of Philip Morris Cos Inc of the United States, plans to invest $250-$300 million to build a factory in the Leningrad region to produce about 25 billion cigarettes a year, the company said on Monday. Construction of the company, to be located near St Petersburg in the north-west of Russia, will start at the end of May, spokesman Alec Tuigunov told a news conference. It will employ about 1,000 workers, he said.
03/16/98 R.J.REYNOLDS to invest $120 mln in RUSSIA Reuters
United States' R.J.Reynolds will invest $120 million in the next two years in production of cigarettes in Russia, the company said on Monday. "Our next investment...will support the increase in production of high-quality cigarettes with filters at RJR-Petro in St Petersburg," the company said in a statement.
03/16/98 RESEARCH ALERT- SOUZA CRUZ started -Merrill Reuters
Merrill Lynch Joao T. da Costa said Monday he started coverage of Brazilian tobacco and cigarette company Souza Cruz SA with an initial rating of "accumulate".
03/16/98 ADVERTISING: After 32 Years, WELLS BDDP Will Close The New York Times
Time has run out for the besieged Wells BDDP, the onetime Madison Avenue powerhouse that had recently stumbled into a stunning free fall as large clients left amid executive turmoil and ownership changes. . . The closing also ends more than three decades of advertising achievement that included such familiar campaigns as . . . "Oh, the disadvantages" for Benson & Hedges cigarettes . . .
03/15/98 Tobacco Firms See Dollar Signs Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
An industry famous for its political clout has become a pariah on Capitol Hill just when it needs its friends the most . . . But on Wall Street, tobacco stocks are steady and analysts remain calm. The tobacco industry's new horizon looks surprisingly bright, analysts say. The optimism is reflected in tobacco stocks, which were trading near their 12-month highs last week along with much of the rest of the market, despite recent multibillion settlements with the states of Florida, Mississippi and Texas.
03/17/98 Tobacco-Free 0hio Sponsors Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home on Local PBS Stations PR Newswire
Tobacco-Free Ohio -- a network of individuals, organizations and community coalitions that seeks to reduce the use of tobacco by Ohioans -- will sponsor Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home and related local programming on six public broadcasting stations throughout Ohio. The program is an unprecedented five-part series about the science, treatment, prevention and politics of addiction airing over three consecutive nights beginning Sunday, March 29 at 9 p.m. EST.
03/17/98 MOVIES: Hollywood Has a Strong Message For Antismoking Activists: Butt Out The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
A year after Vice President Al Gore scolded studio executives for the proliferation of smoking in movies, there's mounting pressure on studios from antismoking groups. But they say they're repeatedly getting the cold shoulder when they try to talk to industry heavyweights. "They kept slamming the door," says Helene Brown.
03/17/98 TV: AL FRANKEN Goes to Washington in "LATELINE" Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
The guest list includes former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder and Jerry Falwell (making nice during a school-prayer debate), former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders (being attacked for her anti-smoking stance by a heavily made-up Dana Carvey) and celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz (spinning a gobbledy-gook argument against lie detectors).
03/17/98 TV: "FOR YOUR LOVE": Love Stories Getting a reunion notice in the newspaper, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
How refreshing then to see real suburbanites featured in "FOR YOUR LOVE" (****), 7:30 p.m. today, KARE-Ch. 11, a sexy, smart new sitcom about three couples at different stages of their relationships. The Newlyweds (James Lesure and Holly Robinson Peete) have just moved into a duplex next to the Veterans (Dedee Pfeiffer and D.W. Moffett), providing the "old" married man the opportunity to show his new trenchmate the ropes, starting with the garage, his refuge from the world. "I can come out here, smoke a cigar, relax in my Barcalounger and dream of someday doing all of this in my own house," he says.
03/16/98 First Annual "Socratic Dialogue," Organized By Non-profit Population Communications International, Brings Together Television Professionals To Examine Critical Social Issues Business Wire
Actors, producers and scriptwriters involved in the creation of some of Hollywood's most popular daytime and prime time soap opera dramas will join forces this month to examine the complexity and ambiguity of various social issues faced by the television community. Created by the non-profit organization Population Communications International, the same group which each year sponsors the acclaimed "Soap Summit" series, this latest meeting of the minds among television professionals will take the form of a "Socratic Dialogue." Participants will engage in a lively and spontaneous discussion about ways in which the entertainment industry can responsibly address issues such as AIDS, teen pregnancy, prevention of teen smoking, and domestic violence, while developing their program content.
03/17/98 OPINION: Please Pay For My Coffee Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle
The other news item concerned the bill submitted by lawyers who fought the tobacco industry on behalf of the state of Texas. . . THE LAWYERS CHARGED $300 for "coffee service." . . THE POOR, WE are told, will always be with us, and of course they always will. That soothing phrase, however, masks the fact that we could construct an economic system that promotes social justice, and we have not chosen to do so. Instead, we have carefully constructed a tax code in which the very richest people pay nothing at all, where the very biggest corporations make the smallest contributions to the national treasury.
03/17/98 OPINION: Where There's Smoke, There's Greedy Fire Bill Schadewald Houston Business Journal
Case in point: The 16-year-old son of a Houston Business Journal staff writer recently received a black envelope in the mail, addressed to him by name with nothing to identify the sender. Inside was a black 5x7 card with large white lettering inviting the teenager to "Come to Marlboro Country." The card folded out to reveal two detachable coupons -- "Buy two packs of Marlboros, get one free" and "$3 off a carton of Marlboro." . . So we appear to have a double standard here. While lawyers and politicos divvy up the swag and fiddle, the consuming public continues to burn. And when all of this legal huffing and puffing is over, the commercial smokescreen will still be firmly in place.
03/16/98 OPINION: Tobacco Settlement: Chump Change Lee Wessman, Sacramento Business Journal
This is a spineless settlement. If it weren't, then why else would you have the bizarre sight of tobacco companies this week coming out to defend it? Defend it on the grounds that it would, in the words of a spokesman, "pay for health costs and anti-smoking programs that public health groups have sought for years." Somehow, when tobacco companies pretend to be humanitarians, it's a little like seeing cannibals on a health kick, eating only vegetarians.
03/12/98 OPINION: Gulf War Syndrome & Pesticides In Tobacco Products: At Last - A Smoking Gun Bill Drake has been following the tobacco/pesticide issue; Smoke and Illusion
With the publication of the work of Dr. Robert Haley of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center we finally have the first solid data confirming my suspicions about the impact of tobacco product pesticides on Gulf War Veterans' health.
03/16/98 EDITORIAL: Md. Chamber Distorting Anti-tobacco Legislation Baltimore Business Journal
The Maryland Chamber of Commerce is using scare tactics and misleading rhetoric to defend the cigarette business. . . "Could your industry be next?" rants one particularly absurd "call to action" faxed to chamber members. . . Hogwash. The cigarette industry is like no other industry in the United States. Put it this way: If you've put out a product for 40 years that you knew would kill people and knowingly concealed that information, you might have a problem. Otherwise, don't worry about it.
03/16/98 OPINION: Oscar's Puffing and Coughing Christine Rowley, Smoking Cessation/Mining Co.
In a recent study reported in the current issue of the journal Tobacco Control, experts found there is more smoking going on in films than ever before, despite the fact that smoking is declining overall among Americans. . . Over 95,000 Urge Entertainment Industry to "Stop the Smoke Screenings", shouted the headlines on the American Cancer Society website. The Petition display was held on Hollywood Boulevard on Great American Smokeout Day November 20, 1997.
03/16/98 Burger Eaters: MCDONALD'S Make Me Do It San Francisco Business Times
Similarities between fast-food and tobacco marketing are too glaring to miss. Both, for example, shamelessly exploit the naivet� of young customers, drawing them in via the likes of Joe Camel or Ronald McDonald. . . Smoking is so politically incorrect these days that it's easy to forget it's not illegal. But as long as it is, tobacco companies are justified in trying to attract new customers. Fast-food marketers differ only in not yet having inspired widespread public disapproval.
03/15/98 OPINION: In Smoking War, Don't Forget The Adults; Targeting Youths Alone Can Ignore Treatment Their Elders Need C. Everett Koop, Boston Globe
But at exactly what age does the plight of an American smoker lose its poignancy? . . . If we pretend that adult smoking is a consumer choice like any other, we fall prey to the trap laid by Big Tobacco. Addiction makes the very notion of choice moot. . . Any forthcoming congressional legislation or executive actions should support the FDA's authority over tobacco, and back the FDA's ability to evaluate new treatments and treatment approaches in a manner that is consistent with the devastation wrought by unremitting tobacco use. Moreover, in the battle with Big Tobacco, we should not hide behind our children. Instead, as we take every action to save our children from the ravages of tobacco, we should demonstrate that our commitment to those who are already addicted, and to those who will yet become so, will never expire.
03/15/98 For Argument's Sake; Why Do We Feel Compelled to Fight About Everything? Deborah Tannen uses a smoking incident as example. Washington Post
Here's one example. . . She had given the smoker a face-saving way of doing what she wanted, one that allowed him to feel chivalrous rather than chastised. This was kinder to him, but it was also kinder to herself, since it was more likely to lead to the result she desired.
03/18/98 Budget Panel May Split On Tobacco Fund Philadelphia Inquirer
A dispute between the GOP and the Clinton administration over control of the federal share of the proposed tobacco-industry settlement threatened to divide the Senate Budget Committee yesterday as it began work on the Republicans' version of a $1.7 trillion balanced budget for the coming year.
03/18/98 CLINTON Faults DOMENICI Budget Plan UPI
White House deputy press secretary Joe Lockhart said . . . said Clinton also plans to protest Domenici's proposed changes in child care provisions, and his move to deprive the National Institutes of Health of guaranteed income from the proposed tobacco industry liability settlement.
03/18/98 Senate Budget Chairman Unveils Plan Rejecting Clinton's Spending Priorities The New York Times. Here's the NYT story at the St. Paul Pioneer Press
03/18/98 GOP Budget Would Cut Clinton Plan's Spending, Taxes LA Times
03/18/98 Clash Over Tobacco Funds Emerges in Senate; Budget Committee Democrats Argue Against GOP Plan to Spend Settlement on Medicare Washington Post
A dispute between the GOP and the Clinton administration over control of the federal share of the proposed tobacco industry settlement threatened to divide the Senate Budget Committee yesterday as it began work on the Republicans' version of a $1.7 trillion balanced budget for the coming year. President Clinton has proposed using $65 billion of the settlement to offset about two-thirds of the cost of new spending and tax relief initiatives for education, child care, expanded health care, research and other measures. But Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and other leaders have countered with a fiscal 1999 budget plan that would dedicate the funds for Medicare reform and spending. "If the ill effects of smoking show up anywhere in the federal budget, they show up in Medicare," said Domenici, citing a study showing that about $25 billion annually or 14 percent of the Medicare program for seniors goes for treatment of tobacco-related illnesses.
03/18/98 Sen. Domenici Proposes Budget That Seeks a Middle Ground The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Sen. Phil Gramm (R., Texas), complained that the Democrats want to spend lots of money on "myriad" programs, "many of which have absolutely nothing to do with the tobacco settlement." By contrast, about 14% of the cost of Medicare is due to smoking-related diseases, Sen. Domenici asserted. Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), countered that by targeting tobacco money only for Medicare, Republicans were "endangering the tobacco settlement." Other priorities, he said, should be recognized, including smoking-cessation-and-prevention programs. "We've got an obligation to do a comprehensive approach," he said.
03/17/98 Leading GOP Senate Budget Plan Draws Ire Of Conservatives And Democrats Legi-Slate
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M. managed to upset both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats Tuesday with a $1.7 trillion balanced budget plan that offers modest tax cuts and dedicates expected tobacco settlement funds exclusively to Medicare.
03/17/98 Budget Plan To Divert Tobacco Tax For Medicare Draws Fire Dow Jones (pay registration)
Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici's plan to divert revenue from any tobacco tax increase to aid Medicare drew fire from both Republicans and Democrats Tuesday. The tobacco tax plan is contained in the Republican's fiscal 1999 budget proposal unveiled by Domenici, R-N.M.
03/18/98 Parties Seek Edge in Tobacco Issue AP Washington Post
Senate Republicans think they have concocted a trap for Democrats eager to use billions of dollars from any tobacco settlement for anti-smoking programs. To get at that money, Democrats first will have to vote to take it from the popular Medicare program. A $1.73 trillion budget for fiscal 1999 that Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici presented to his panel Tuesday would use the billions any tobacco bill produces -- perhaps from cigarette tax increases -- to buttress Medicare, the health-care program for elderly and disabled Americans that will need more money when Baby Boomers begin retiring in a decade.
03/16/98 Senator Wants $1.7 Trillion Budget AP Washington Post
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici is proposing a $1.7 trillion budget that would cut taxes by $30 billion through 2003 and make it hard for advocates of even deeper tax cuts to use any tobacco settlement to pay for them.
03/19/98 Deliberations Begin in Cancer Suit AP Washington Post
Jurors went to work for a second day today, deliberating whether tobacco companies are responsible for the cancer death of a nonsmoking nurse who was exposed to smoke for years at Veterans Administration hospital.
03/18/98 2ndhand Smoke Trial To Go To Jury UPI
Jurors heard the last of closing arguments today in the first secondhand smoke case to come to trial. The $13 million case against the nation's major tobacco companies, which was tried at Muncie's Horizon Convention Center because there was no courtroom in town that could have accommodated the 70 lawyers involved, opened six weeks ago. It was capped by six hours of closing arguments.
03/18/98 Indiana Jury Gets Second-hand Smoke Case; Tobacco Stks Weak Dow Jones (pay registration)
"People want to clear out of the way," said Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Gary Black. "You can't predict verdicts."
03/18/98 Deliberations Begin in Cancer Suit AP Washington Post
Jury deliberations began Wednesday in a lawsuit over the death of a non-smoking woman whose husband blames secondhand smoke for her lung cancer. Tobacco industry attorneys say there is no proven connection between secondhand smoke and cancer. "Think about whether or not there is any danger to warn about," tobacco lawyer Richard Wagner told jurors in closing arguments. "There can't be any responsibility to warn about something that hasn't been proven dangerous."
03/18/98 Indiana Second-hand Smoke Trial Goes To Jury Reuters
Jury deliberations began on Wednesday in a trial pitting the tobacco industry against the family of a nurse who breathed in secondhand cigarette smoke for nearly two decades and died of lung cancer. Lawyers for Mildred Wiley, who died in 1991 at age 56, said in final arguments at the close of the six-week trial that she was an unwitting victim of the cigarette makers' conspiracy to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking.
03/18/98 Secondhand-Smoke Trial May Signal Industry's Vulnerability to the Issue The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
is about to be turned over to the jury -- marking the first time jurors will decide whether cigarette makers should be held liable for an illness claimed to have been caused by secondhand smoke. While some Wall Street analysts still think the industry will prevail, they concede that this suit, filed on behalf of the late Mildred Wiley, is a particularly sympathetic case.
03/17/98 Secondhand Smoke Case Nears End AP Washington Post
A man suing the tobacco industry deserves justice, not sympathy, for the death of his wife from lung cancer seven years ago, his lawyer said in closing arguments today.
03/18/98 WASHINGTON: PIERCE COUNTY Tobacco Advertising Restrictions Ruled Constitutional Business Wire
A federal judge in Tacoma has upheld Pierce County's Truth in Tobacco Advertising regulations, clearing the way for other Washington health districts to enact advertising restrictions that protect kids' health. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bryan ruled that the Pierce County ordinance -- the strongest in the state -- does not violate First Amendment guarantees of free speech.
03/18/98 ARIZONA: State Role Under Study In Tobacco Suit; Judge Keeps Alive Claim By AHCCCS Arizona Daily Star
A judge indicated yesterday that he would probably allow Arizona to seek reimbursement for the cost of caring for poor people and others with smoking-related illnesses in the state's ongoing lawsuit against the tobacco industry. A leading attorney for the tobacco industry, William Maledon, had asked Judge Roger Kaufman of Maricopa County Superior Court to dismiss the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System claim from the lawsuit.
03/16/98 Joining The Pack: Two Minn. HMOs To File Suit Against Tobacco Companies Modern Health Care
With one lawsuit against Big Tobacco under way in Minnesota, two of the state's largest hospital-affiliated HMOs, including one that lost nearly $3 million in 1996, announced plans last week to file another. The lawsuit, expected to be filed late Friday, may be the first sign that providers want a piece of any multibillion-dollar tobacco settlement directly rather than waiting for it to trickle down through Medicaid or any community health programs. The new plaintiffs are Bloomington-based HEALTHPARTNERS and Minneapolis-based MEDICA HEALTH PLANS.
03/18/98 OHIO Tobacco Growers To Hold Rally At Statehouse PR Newswire
More than 250 Ohio tobacco growers will rally at the Ohio Statehouse on March 25 to heighten public awareness of the tobacco farming industry. "We're coming to Columbus to share our stories with Ohio's senators and representatives. We want them to know that tobacco farming is not only important to our heritage, but also to our way of life," said Bill Pfeffer, president of the Ohio Tobacco Growers Association. "We want to be sure that Ohio legislators and the citizens of Ohio are familiar with our industry. Tobacco farms are quite small, and no other crop produces the profit-per-acre that tobacco provides. We cannot economically afford to simply substitute our crop with corn or wheat."
03/18/98 WISCONSIN: Shorewood Drugstore To Go Tobacco-free MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel
Hayek's Pharmacy was once the place where connoisseurs went to buy unusual brands of cigarettes. But on April 1, the 80-year-old drugstore will go tobacco-free. "It's not an April Fool's Day joke," says Bill Quandt, the owner of the drugstore for the past eight years. "I've been thinking about doing it for some time. "It's just kind of a contradiction. On one hand we're selling drugs to cure what ails people, and on the other we're encouraging people to buy cigarettes that are a detriment to their health." . . Quandt sent a letter to his regular customers announcing his decision a couple of weeks ago. He included a $2 coupon that can be applied toward any product designed to help smokers kick the habit.
03/18/98 HAWAII: Senate May Increase Fines For Tobacco Sales To Minors Honolulu Star-Bulletin
First Offenses Would Carry A $500 Fine For The Seller, $100 For The Buyer
03/18/98 MALAWI: Bishops Renew Corruption Charges PANA News
Malawi's Catholic bishops have issued yet another pastral letter calling on Malawians and President Bakili Muluzi's government to address the ills the nation is facing. . . The Bishops also condemned the low wages received by most Malawians, uncontrolled price rise of consumer goods, insecurity, high fertilizer costs, mistreatment of tobacco farm workers by farm owners and the misuse of the media by both journalists and the government.
03/18/98 KOREA: Foreign Brands/Korea -2: Cigarettes On Shaky Ground AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
[I]n the first tense weeks after the International Monetary Fund's $57 billion bailout was signed in December, Korean protesters made bonfires of imported cigarettes. . . . In response, Philip Morris Korea cancelled Marlboro magazine ads . . . Instead of rugged cowboys and wild horses, the company ran a series of simple, short ads praising -in the least-inflammatory language possible - the benefits of fair competition. Next, it had to try to motivate a sales force demoralized at the thought of pushing an 'unpatriotic' product.
03/18/98 AGRICULTURE: Tobacco Farmers Look To Questionable Future Congressional Quarterly/Salt Lake Tribune
Tobacco farmers are caught in a maelstrom on Capitol Hill as Congress develops a national policy that would clamp down on tobacco sales. Most of the attention so far has focused on the big cigarette manufacturers. But Bennett and growers like him, left out of the proposed $368.5 billion settlement between tobacco companies and the state attorneys general in 1997, are counting on lawmakers from 20 tobacco-growing states to represent their interests in any implementing legislation.

03/18/98 Tobacco And Its Impact
03/18/98 AGRICULTURE: BILL MAXWELL: Visiting a Tobacco Farm Scripps Howard/NandoNet
Who are these Southern growers seen by many other Americans as the producers of an evil product that addicts children? Are these farmers truly demons? While on vacation in Southside Va., I, a former four-pack-a-day smoker, visited Richard Inge, 75, and his wife Reba, 72. Born in Creedmoor, N.C., Richard Inge served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and saw action in the Pacific.
03/18/98 SJI Group Begins Roll-out of Modular Walk-in Humidor Program; First Units Installed at SAM'S CLUB Stores Draw Strong Response Business Wire
SJI Group, Inc., one of the country's leading distributors of premium cigars, today announced that it has begun the formal roll-out of its Modular Walk-in Humidor program. This innovative marketing program features the placement of modular, 8 foot by 11 foot, free-standing, walk-in humidors in a wide variety of retail locations, including warehouse club stores such as Sam's Club, discount tobacco outlets and liquor stores.
03/18/98 SEA TRAVEL: CARNIVAL Debuts New ELATION Reuters
Carnival Cruise Lines Wednesday debuted its new, 70,000-ton cruise ship, Elation, the first cruise liner in the world to use a new propulsion system that pulls, rather than pushes, a vessel through the water. . . Carnival Cruise Lines President Bob Dickinson said the new ship would be followed this fall by a similar ship, the Paradise, which will be based in Miami and make seven-day Caribbean cruises. Similar in size and weight to the Elation, the Paradise also will feature the new Azipod propulsion system. But, Dickinson said, it will have one key difference, as the use of tobacco products will be banned on board. "Paradise will be the world's first smoke-free vessel," he said.
03/18/98 SCHILLING Quits Smokeless Tobacco AP Washington Post
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Curt Schilling, who's been using smokeless tobacco for 15 years, must stop immediately or risk developing cancer. A dipper for more than a decade, Schilling quit cold turkey on Monday, days after having a white lesion removed from his mouth. "The sad thing about it is I had to wait until I had no choice," Schilling said. "I would like to think I know what it's like to be addicted to drugs. I made the choice to dip, but I didn't choose the addiction."
03/18/98 PHILLIES' SCHILLING Has Mouth Lesion UPI
Veteran ace Curt Schilling of the Philadelphia Phillies is scheduled to visit a doctor today (Wednesday) for further tests on a non-cancerous white lesion in his mouth. The lesion was discovered during a routine oral examination March 8. According to a report in today's Philadelphia Daily News, a leukoplakia was found in Schilling's mouth as a result of chewing smokeless tobacco, and a biopsy was performed last week.
03/18/98 CURT SCHILLING Has Lesion Removed AP Washington Post
PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES pitcher Curt Schilling had a white lesion in the mouth surgically removed last Thursday in Clearwater by a local periodontist, the team announced Tuesday. Schilling discovered the lesion, which was caused by smokeless tobacco, on March 8 during his yearly team physical. If not treated, lesions can became cancerous.
03/17/98 The Danger in the Tobacco Deal James K. Glassman
But far worse is the idea on which the settlement is founded: that individuals aren't responsible for their own actions. They are too stupid or crazed or manipulated to realize that smoking is dangerous. . . . Meanwhile, the anti-smoking hysteria is laying waste to basic protections and principles.
03/18/98 French Supermarkets Welcome Rise In Duty Times of London
FRENCH supermarket managers were rubbing their hands in glee last night after the Chancellor again increased tax on cigarettes. They claimed the rise, of 20p on a packet of 20, would encourage smokers to cross the Channel to stock up. Dave West, the manager of the Eastenders warehouse in Calais, said he was "over the moon" about the Budget. "Since cigarettes were put up in the last Budget, our sales have escalated by 600-700 per cent," he said.
03/18/98 Britain's Labor Government Proposes Balanced Budget by 2000 Washington Post
But for all the preliminary ink given to the budget, nobody had accurately predicted how sharply the spending plan would raise the cigarette tax. With the 33-cent-per-pack increase Brown proposed, a pack of 20 cigarettes will cost just over $6, more than double the U.S. price.
03/17/98 Dearer Cigarettes 'Will Encourage Smugglers' PA
03/17/98 Gallaher Attacks Hike In UK Tobacco Duty Reuters
"This is a green light to bootleggers," Gallaher said in a statement. "Smuggling has reached a critical threshold and this increase will lead to a further escalation."
03/17/98 Anti-smoking Groups Call For Tobacco Hike MSN
ANTI-SMOKING groups led by the Royal College of Physicians called on Chancellor Gordon Brown to slap 7% more tax on cigarettes in the Budget. The increase would add 24p to the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes, taking it from �3.36 for the most popular brands to �3.60.
03/18/98 Low-toxin Cigarette Created; 35 Potential Hazards Reduced, PHILIP MORRIS Says Richmond Times-Dispatch
Philip Morris USA has made an experimental, electronically controlled cigarette with "significantly reduced" amounts of hazardous compounds in the smoke, according to in-house research presented at a scientific conference this month. Philip Morris scientists told a national conference of toxicologists that the prototype generates fewer toxins than a regular cigarette. The ACCORD, a battery-powered cigarette device, produces 83 percent to 98 percent less carbon monoxide, benzene and nitrogen-based compounds, three of the major components in cigarette smoke linked to heart disease and lung cancer.
03/19/98 OPINION: No Immunity for Big Tobacco Joseph A. Califano, Washington Post
Trimmed of self-serving rhetoric, the industry's position comes down to this: If we don't get immunity from future liability, then we will not accept restrictions on our advertising and we will crater congressional efforts to enact any tobacco legislation. Meyer Koplow, a tobacco lawyer, bluntly told the New York Times that without protection against future lawsuits, the industry would never agree voluntarily to restrict its advertising. In other words, it will continue hawking its products with the Marlboro men, beautiful, healthy women and cartoon characters that have seduced generations of boys and girls -- a group that the industry itself has called its replacement market. And if Congress has the audacity to impose any restrictions on tobacco advertising, Koplow said, the nicotine pushers will invoke the First Amendment to tie up the matter in the courts for years. . . The ultimate chutzpa is that neither Goldstone nor his colleagues see any moral obligation to stop marketing practices that have turned so many children into nicotine addicts. Indeed, to them, our kids are pieces in a legislative chess game that Big Tobacco is playing to get immunity from future liability.
03/19/98 OPINION: Tobacco's Non-partisan Funding Assures Little Legislation Marianne Means, Arizona Daily Star
Money that could influence a political vote - that is the issue here, not the comprehensiveness of the pending legislation. The smoking problem, unfortunately, may be like the question of campaign fund raising. Everybody agrees something should be done to clean it up, but nobody can agree on what that something should be.
03/19/98 OPINION: Review & Outlook: Texas Tobacco The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Those who once worried about the Pentagon's toilet seats are missing out on the mother of all procurement scandals: The multibillion-dollar fees being paid to trial lawyers in the state tobacco lawsuits.
03/19/98 OPINION: Smoking Out Bad Science Lorraine Mooney's 3/12/98 piece, slightly revised, with same astounding misrepresentations. The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
For the past 15 years the antismoking lobby has pushed the view that secondhand cigarette smoke is a public health hazard. This was a shrewd tactic. For, having failed to persuade the most committed smokers to save themselves, they could use proof that passive smoking harms nonsmoking wives, children and co-workers to make the case for criminalizing smoking. But the science fell off the campaign wagon two weeks ago when the definitive study on passive smoking, sponsored by the World Health Organization, reported no cancer risk at all. Don't bet that will change the crusaders' minds. The antismoking movement, after all, has slipped from a health crusade to a moral one.
03/16/98 EDITORIAL: Take Care on Tobacco Bill Cincinnati Post
[I]t is not clear that it's constitutional for Congress to grant legal immunities to tobacco companies without granting them to everyone. One trouble with dismantling constitutional safeguards, even to achieve noble results, is that all Americans are thereby left more vulnerable to governmental abuse of power. Congress must tread very, very carefully in constructing its bill.
03/16/98 EDITORIAL: Tobacco and Trial Lawyers Cincinnati Post
In any event, Clinton ought to have been more circumspect. Having attended the dinner, however, the best way he can address critics is to insist on restraint in the award of attorney fees. Congress, as a matter of simple fairness, should do the same.
03/20/98 Economic Report: Prices Paid By Consumers Rise 0.1% The New York Times
The price of tobacco and other smoking products rose 2.9 percent in February, the largest monthly gain since January 1989. That suggested "retailers have taken the opportunity to widen their margins while blaming the manufacturers," said Ian Shepherdson, economist with HSBC Securities Inc. in New York. "Tobacco companies are clearly squeezing their price-insensitive consumers in order to fund impending legal deals."
03/20/98 Tobacco Price Rise Nudges CPI Bloomberg/South China Morning Post
Consumer prices rose at a subdued pace last month, led by the largest increase in tobacco prices in nine years. The consumer price index, the main inflation gauge, rose 0.1 per cent, according to the Labour Department. The core CPI, which strips out the volatile food and energy costs, rose 0.3 per cent. The price of tobacco and other smoking products rose 2.9 per cent in February, the largest monthly gain since a 3.4 per cent increase in January 1989.
03/19/98 VA Tobacco Benefits Under Fire; AMERICAN LEGION Calls For Action American Legion PR Newswire
Leaders of the nation's largest veterans group are calling for "a full-court press from all friends of America's veterans" to roll back a budget deal that would transfer $10.5 billion from programs that help sick veterans into the federal highway program. . . "Veterans have been frozen out of the tobacco settlement with the industry," Jordan said. "Now some people in Congress are trying to freeze veterans out of VA benefits, as well."
03/18/98 VA Committee Recommends $632 Million Increase Over Administration's Budget for Veterans and the VA House Committee on Veterans' Affairs PR Newswire
The Committee also recommended legislation that would terminate VA's recently proclaimed obligation to pay service-connected compensation benefits for veterans who began tobacco use while in military service. . . The Committee also recommended that the pending national tobacco settlement legislation should include funds to offset the costs of benefits already being paid to veterans and the costs incurred by the VA health care system for treatment of smoking related conditions.
03/19/98 Prepared Statement of Togo D. West, Jr. Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs before the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies Tuesday, March 17, 1998 Federal News Service
03/20/98 DOMENICI Adopts Do-nothing Budget Plan Washington Times
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico Republican, announced yesterday a budget that makes the difficult decision to do nothing. Some Democrats want more spending. Some Republicans want less spending or a tax cut. Mr. Domenici has chosen instead to stick with last year's budget. "Quite frankly, I had expected that this would be a `non-budget' year," Mr. Domenici said in prepared remarks.
03/19/98 GOP Budget Would Cut Clinton Plan's Spending, Taxes LA Times
03/19/98 Clinton Hits Senate GOP Budget Plan Washington Post
"The overarching priority is to protect the public health, and this is where the chairman's mark falls short . . . and undermines any potential settlement," Conrad said. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) added: "The chairman's mark is like perfume: It's pleasant to the senses but lethal if swallowed."
03/19/98 President Derides G.O.P. Budget Plan as Ill-Conceived The New York Times
[Democrats] they said that by apportioning any tobacco money exclusively to Medicare the Republican plan would end any chance of assembling broad bipartisan support for a tobacco bill. Domenici said that without relying on any tobacco money, his plan included an expansion of anti-smoking programs, increased funding for child care and a sharp rise in spending for the National Institutes of Health. And he said a tobacco deal should not become a new pool of money for Democrats to use to increase the size of the federal government.
03/19/98 Senate Budget Panel Votes Against Clinton Plan for Tobacco Proceeds The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
The Senate Budget Committee, finishing its budget plan, rejected President Clinton's proposal to use proceeds from a tobacco-litigation settlement for child care, education and antismoking programs and other initiatives.
03/18/98 GOP Senators Steer Tobacco Money AP Washington Post
Republicans beat back Democratic efforts Wednesday to channel billions from proposed tobacco legislation to anti-smoking and other domestic programs, and began muscling a $1.73 trillion spending plan for 1999 through the Senate Budget Committee. Rejecting six amendments from outnumbered Democrats, Republicans rallied behind a proposal by the chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to aim funds the government raises from any tobacco bill at Medicare. That put GOP lawmakers in the politically enviable position of defending the popular health-insurance program for the elderly and disabled -- while making it tough for tobacco funds to be used by Democrats for new spending or by conservatives for deep tax cuts. "It seems to me you're either for Medicare or against it," Domenici pointedly told Democrats.
03/19/98 Senate Committee Approves Budget AP Washington Post
On a 12-10 party-line vote Wednesday night, the Senate Budget Committee approved a package mapping modest tax cuts and promising $147 billion in federal surpluses over the next five years. The plan . . . could go to the full Senate as early as next week . . . Hoping to squeeze Democrats into an uncomfortable political corner, the GOP plan siphons all money that might be raised by tobacco settlement legislation this year to Medicare, the hugely popular health-insurance program for the elderly and disabled. . . In one test of sentiment, the committee voted 14-8 for nonbinding language supporting raising cigarette prices by $1.50 a pack without specifying how to do it. That is about what Clinton and many of the tobacco bills introduced in Congress would do.
03/19/98 PUERTO RICO: Federal Court Denies Cigarette Class-Action Lawsuit Certification RJR PR Newswire
The U.S. District Court, District of Puerto Rico, has denied certification of a class-action lawsuit consisting of allegedly addicted smokers. In his opinion, issued March 17, Judge Jose Antonio Fuste found the suit failed to meet legal standards governing class-action suits due to "...the proposed class action's lack of superiority over individual actions, along with the lack of predominance of common issues among the members of the proposed class."
03/19/98 PHILIP MORRIS U.S.A. Hails Federal Court Decision in RUIZ Denying Class Certification in Puerto Rico PR Newswire
03/19/98 WISCONSIN: Tobacco Lawsuit Clears Hurdle St. Paul Pioneer Press
All of the relief we have been asking for in our complaint is intact," Attorney General James Doyle said. "This is a very major hurdle that we have gotten over."
03/19/98 Judge Gives Go-ahead To State's Tobacco Suit MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel
03/18/98 Judges Says Wisconsin Tobacco Suit May Go Forward Reuters
A judge on Wednesday cleared the way for Wisconsin to pursue its damage suit against the tobacco industry in a ruling state officials said would allow them to mount a strong case. Judge Daniel Moeser of Dane County Circuit Court dismissed a tobacco industry request to block the suit and ruled the state may proceed on most of the grounds it had sought.
03/18/98 With AM-WI--Tobacco Lawsuit, Bjt AP/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
A look at Wisconsin' s tobacco lawsuit:< Is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 13, 1999.
03/19/98 OREGON: New Ads Against Smoking Go Graphic The Oregonian
The aggressive campaign, unveiled Wednesday by Gov. John Kitzhaber, includes graphic scenes of a woman so addicted to nicotine that she smokes a cigarette through a tracheostomy, a surgical opening in her neck. A tracheostomy sometimes is used to provide an airway for a smoker who has lost his or her larynx to cancer.
03/19/98 COLORADO: Students, Council Join To Target Tobacco Denver Post
Tobacco billboards would be banned and cigarette sales restricted under an ordinance proposed Wednesday by Denver officials and students who say they are intent on not becoming victims of the tobacco industry. A group of West High School ninth- graders is lobbying the city council for the law, which is expected to be considered by the council's Human Services Committee on April 8.
03/19/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Youths to Gather for Anti-Smoking Event in Boston sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health PR Newswire
Over 500 Massachusetts teens age 12-16 will gather at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston this Saturday, March 21, 1998 for an anti-tobacco event aimed at curbing the deadly trend of teen smoking. . . "Kick it! No Puff, No Snuff, No Tobacco" is an event bringing teens from across Massachusetts together to celebrate life without tobacco. Sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the afternoon will feature performances by Dance Umbrella's Jazz Tap Hip Hop, WEATOC Youth, and E.C. Hill of the New England Blizzard basketball team. Radio personality Pebbles from JAM'N 94.5 will be on hand to MC the event with hundreds of kids from across Massachusetts.
03/19/98 MARYLAND: AGRICULTURE: Anxious Days for Farmers; Area Tobacco Auctions Are Now in Full Swing Washington Post
In a four-week auction that opened Tuesday, Southern Maryland's tobacco crop is being sold bundle by bundle. As usual, that is causing no end of anxiety for the region's farmers. With sales going on four days a week at six regional warehouses, the price of the key cash crop can fluctuate. Farmers find themselves hoping for a strong market when their hand-tied bundles of tobacco leaves come up for sale.
03/18/98 Md. Tobacco Market's Rite of Spring Washington Post
Old-Fashioned Auctions Still Determine Whether Fortune Smiles on Farmers
03/18/98 MARYLAND: Senators Push For New Tax On Cigars Baltimore Sun
All 13 members of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee yesterday received a letter calling for action from Democratic Sens. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. of Montgomery County and co-sponsors of his tobacco bill, Paul G. Pinsky of Prince George's and Nathaniel J. McFadden of Baltimore.
03/19/98 CALIFORNIA: Tobacco Billboards Won't Go Away; Virtual Ban in S.F. Isn't Enforced, Chronicle Survey Shows San Francisco Chronicle
Two months after a new state law made them illegal in most parts of the city, cigarette billboards still populate the streets of San Francisco like mushrooms in an El Nino winter. Signed into law in August by Governor Pete Wilson, the rules required removal of any tobacco billboard within 1,000 feet of a school or playground as of January 1 of this year. But a morning's drive through four San Francisco neighborhoods spotted 65 of the big signs touting tobacco products -- 43 of them in areas marked off-limits by a city map delineating the 1,000-foot zones. Across the state, it is the same: tobacco billboards in range of schools and playgrounds are staying put.
03/19/98 CALIFORNIA: Huffington Backs Cigarette Tax LA Times
Mike Huffington, last seen walking into the political sunset after spending $29 million of his own money in an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate, resurfaced Wednesday in Orange County as co-chair of a statewide initiative to add 50 cents to the per-pack tax on cigarettes. In a pairing of political odd fellows, the Republican Huffington is pitching an initiative that is the brainchild of Hollywood producer/director Rob Reiner, a Democrat and liberal. Reiner's initiative would raise $700 million for early childhood development programs statewide, while hopefully cutting smoking.
03/20/98 The Reliable Source: KENNEDY's Cigars Auctioned Washington Post
No, nothing is sacred. A pair of John F. Kennedy's long johns fetched $3,450 yesterday at an auction of the president's memorabilia. . . A box of 26 cigars marked "made especially for President John F. Kennedy" went for about $1,000 a smoke.
03/20/98 IOWA Tries To Save Tobacco Suit Cedar Rapids Gazette
The Iowa Supreme Court was asked Thursday to reinstate Iowa's common-law claim to recover more than $1 billion of Medicaid costs from tobacco companies for smoking-related illnesses. Attorneys for the defendant tobacco firms, however, argued that the state wants the court to create a legal precedent not granted by the Legislature. That would tilt the judicial balance, make it difficult for the companies to defend themselves and open a "floodgate" of product-liability civil lawsuits, they said.
03/20/98 WILEY: Tobacco Verdict Seen Boosting U.S. Settlement
"It signals to Washington that the American public is not obsessed with punishing the tobacco industry," analyst Gary Black at Sanford Bernstein said.
03/20/98 Indiana Verdict May Inch Tobacco Settlement Forward Reuters
The issue of whether a conspiracy of silence by the tobacco industry was a factor in Wiley's death, an issue hammered on by the plaintiffs' attorneys during the six-week trial, never even entered into the deliberations, jury foreman Connie Humphrey said. "It would have been surprising to me if an Indiana jury had found for the plaintiffs. Novel theories don't go down very well in this (conservative) state," Indiana University law professor Jordan Liebman said.
03/20/98 STREAMING AUDIO: Tobacco Companies Win Major Victory In Landmark Secondhand Smoke Case Business Wire
Listen to streaming audio containing comments from Bill Ohlemeyer, Philip Morris trial attorney; and Jeff Furr, RJR trial attorney at http://www.newstream.com/r98-71.shtml
03/20/98 Tobacco Stocks Rise After Ruling In Second-hand Smoke Case Reuters
Some Wall Street analysts said Wiley was an unusually sympathetic figure. If the Indiana jury rejected her family's claims, the analysts said, then other juries may be even less likely to rule against the industry.
03/20/98 WILEY: Tobacco Firms Win Key Case in Indiana LA Times
03/20/98 Firms Not Liable in Secondhand Smoke Death Washington Post
03/20/98 Tobacco Firms Found Not Liable In a Secondhand-Smoke Case The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
The jurors, who had deliberated about 19 hours over two days, said that cigarettes weren't a defective product and that their makers weren't negligent for failing to tell people that secondhand cigarette smoke was dangerous.
03/20/98 Tobacco Industry Cleared In Trial Bloomberg/Winston-Salem Journal
The verdict provides an incentive for Congress to pass into law the proposed $368.5 billion settlement of health-related lawsuits, analysts said. It shows that individuals, as well as states, aren't ensured of a victory in court against U.S. tobacco companies.
03/19/98 Cigarette Makers Found Not Liable In Indiana Trial Reuters
03/19/98 Jury: Tobacco Cos. Cleared in Death AP Washington Post
The jury of six nonsmokers said that cigarettes were not a defective product and that their makers were not negligent for failing to tell people that secondhand cigarette smoke was dangerous.
03/19/98 Indiana Jury Sides With Tobacco Cos. UPI
But a six-member jury composed of four women and two men today sided with the tobacco industry, which maintained Mildred Wiley's cancer actually started in her pancreas and later spread to her lungs. The panel deliberated for 19 hours over two days. Defense attorney Bill Ohlemeyer applauded the decision, saying "The jury decided this on the narrow issue presented to them." After the verdict, Philip Wiley took a philosophical perspective, saying, "Though I've lost the battle, I think we've proven a point."
03/19/98 Tobacco Industry Wins Second-Hand Smoke Case PHILIP MORRIS PR Newswire
"The plaintiffs failed because during the course of the trial, one thing became very clear," Ohlemeyer said. "The fact that Mrs. Wiley had worked with smokers and had cancer did not prove her cancer was caused by second-hand smoke. I think that any person who looks at the same evidence will come to the same conclusion."
03/19/98 Brown & Williamson Statement on ETS Trial PR Newswire
Today's verdict in the Indiana environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) trial underscores a key message. When Americans are provided the facts, they conclude -- as does the most recent major scientific research -- that ETS is not a cause of lung cancer. The unanimous jury verdict comes on the heels of the release of one of the largest studies ever conducted on environmental tobacco smoke -- which found no meaningful increase in lung cancer risk to non-smokers exposed to ETS.
03/20/98 Study: Surgery Costly for Smokers AP Washington Post
In a new study, surgery cost more, took longer and was more complicated for smokers getting new hips and knees even though the group was younger and outwardly healthier than nonsmokers, concluded Dr. Carlos Lavernia, an orthopedic surgeon. The smokers also took longer to recover from anesthesia and healed slower, said Lavernia, who teaches at the University of Miami.
03/20/98 Joint Replacements Cost More For Smokers Reuters
"Smokers' hip and knee replacement costs averaged $28,947, compared to $22,019 for nonsmokers," said Dr. Carlos J. Lavernia, associate professor of orthopedic surgery and biomedical engineering and director of arthritis surgery at the University of Miami School of Medicine. The study of 256 total joint replacement patients, 31 of whom smoked, was released at the American Academy of OrthopedicSurgeons annual meeting in New Orleans.
03/20/98 Dental Society President Warns Against Smokeless Tobacco Business Wire
Dr. Thomas W. Gamba, president of The Philadelphia County Dental Society, Friday warned parents of athletically inclined youngsters to "keep them away from chewing tobacco" because of the danger of cancer. Using the recent discovery of a lesion in the mouth of Phillies top pitcher, Gamba said "there has been an alarming increase in the use of smokeless tobacco among children and young adults. Because many professional ball players keep chews in their mouths is no reason to use them as models."
03/20/98 A Study Warns of Cigars' Role In Some Heart Disease, Cancer The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Here's some bad news for the growing ranks of cigar smokers: Long-term stogie smoking almost doubles your chance of dying from cancer or heart disease, according to researchers from Kaiser Permanente, the giant nonprofit health-maintenance organization. The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute, is the clearest yet to indict cigar smoking as a cause of death from cardiovascular disease. For all its grimness, the Kaiser study may have played down some health risks. Since the study tracked only deaths, doctors point out that it missed people who became afflicted with illnesses related to cigar smoking, but didn't die. "A lot of the risk associated with cigar smoking is oral cancer and throat cancer, which may not be fatal but aren't fun," says Dr. Philip Greenland of the American Heart Association.
03/20/98 Study: Steady Cigar Smoking Harmful Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
The occasional stogie is probably harmless, but a new study shows that a steady habit of cigars can be a health disaster.
03/20/98 Cigar Smoking 'Doubles Risk Of Cancer Death' Electronic Telegraph
CIGARS, the latest accessory among Wall Street bankers and supermodels, double the risk of dying from cancer, a conference will be told today. In a rare study of people who have smoked only cigars - rather than cigarette or pipe users - researchers found that the habit increases overall death-rates by a quarter.
03/20/98 Study: Cigar Smokers Face Double The Risk Of Fatal Cancer CNN
03/19/98 Cigars Double Risk Of Cardiomyopathy EurekAlert
With U.S. cigar sales up 44 percent since 1993, a major new health study on the effects of cigar smoking offers both good news and bad news for the growing number of American men and women now puffing "stogies," say researchers today at the American Heart Association's epidemiology and prevention conference. The good news, according to Carlos Iribarren, M.D., Ph.D., who reported the study, is that cigar smoking alone, unlike cigarette smoking, does not seem to increase the risk of dying from coronary heart disease. Coronary heart disease, which results from the narrowing of the blood vessels that feed the heart, causes heart attacks. But the bad news is that regular cigar smokers face almost double the risk of dying of all forms of cancer combined and of certain circulatory conditions, which include hypertensive heart disease (damage to the heart as a result of high blood pressure), cardiomyopathy (deterioration of the heart muscle), and other types of potentially deadly cardiovascular ailments, says Iribarren
03/19/98 CIGARS: New Study Casts Cloud Over Trendy Tobacco Product Business Wire
Cigar smokers face nearly double the risk of dying from all forms of cancer combined and from various types of cardiovascular ailments, according to a major new health study by researchers at Kaiser Permanente. The findings were presented today at the American Heart Association's 38th Epidemiology Conference in Santa Fe. Cigar smokers also died at a 25 percent higher rate from all causes compared with those who reported never using any tobacco products. In the one bit of good news for those who puff trendy "stogies," the study found that cigar smoking alone, unlike cigarette smoking, doesn't appear to increase the risk of dying from coronary artery disease, which is the main cause of heart attacks. However, cigars do put smokers at twice the risk of dying from other types of cardiovascular problems, including heart damage from high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy (deterioration of the heart muscle) and several other cardiovascular diseases, the study found.
03/19/98 CONNECTICUT: ORANGE Pushes Smoking Ban The Hartford Courant
In announcing a proposed ordinance banning smoking in local restaurants, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal joined town leaders in declaring this bedroom community of 12,500 the next battleground in the anti-smoking crusade. Speaking at a local bagel shop, Blumenthal and local officials unveiled ordinances that could make Orange the first Connecticut municipality to ban smoking in restaurants and restrict tobacco billboard advertising. The proposed restaurant ordinance is largely a symbolic gesture at this point, because a 10-year-old state statute prohibits municipalities from individually enacting such regulations.
03/20/98 NEW HAMPSHIRE: NH Gov. Eyes Video Lottery,Tobacco Tax For Schools Reuters
GOV. JEANNE SHAHEEN proposed getting most of the new money New Hampshire needs to pay for schools from a video lottery at the state's four race tracks and a 23-cent hike in the tax on cigarettes.
03/20/98 CORRECTED- NEW YORK CITY Pensions Mull Selling Reuters
In NEW YORK story of March 16 "New York City pensions mull selling tobacco shares" please note that the city comptroller's office said Thursday that it had mistakenly included a company among the list of tobacco companies or companies related to tobacco the city pension has an equity stake in. The company, Fortune Brands (FO - news), is not currently involved in tobacco.
03/20/98 NEW YORK: Council Finds New York Youths Are Gambling - Early And Often AP/NY Newsday
The New York Council on Problem Gambling said a study it commissioned of New Yorkers under age 18 indicates that more than 2 percent - as many as 41,000 young people - are experiencing severe difficulties with gambling. . . According to Letson, the survey indicates a link among young people between the Lottery, other forms of betting and "risk-taking" behaviors. "It appears that increases in lottery play are correlated with increases in other types of gambling and in the use of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana," Letson said.
03/20/98 NEW JERSEY: Cigarette Machine Vendors Won't Fight BERGEN COUNTY Towns' Ban AP/Boston Globe
A two-year battle to remove cigarette vending machines from five Bergen County municipalities has ended because the vending companies have decided not to pursue the case anymore. Five vending companies had sued Carlstadt, Hackensack, Mahwah, Palisades Park and Washington Township for ordinances passed in 1995 banning cigarette vending machines.
03/18/98 Cigar Tax Proposed In Senate; Levy Would End Tax-free Status, Increase Baltimore Sun
Alarmed by tobacco marketing tactics and the rise of teen-age smoking, a trio of state senators is leading a legislative effort to introduce a cigar tax that would end a long-standing tobacco exemption in Maryland.
03/20/98 Lobbyists Help Block Changes in Smoking Law; the Legislation Would Let Counties Enact Anti-smoking Laws That are Stricter Than the State Mandates Sarasota Herald-Tribune
A powerful coalition of restaurant and tobacco lobbyists derailed a campaign by public health advocates to let Florida counties pass anti-smoking laws.
03/20/98 FLORIDA: 5-4 Vote Dooms Smoke-free Restaurants Miami Herald
The tobacco lobby and the Florida Restaurant Association rolled anti-smoking forces once again. With a Hialeah lawmaker casting the deciding vote, the House Community Affairs Committee voted Thursday against allowing counties to ban smoking in restaurants. Rep. Bob Casey, the measure's sponsor, declared his effort dead for the year, even though it remains technically alive. . . Campaign finance reports show that Philip Morris gave $25,000 to the Florida Republican Party in 1997, and RJ Reynolds gave another $12,000. All five lawmakers who voted against the bill were Republicans. The state Democratic Party did not recieve tobacco money in 1997. Three of the five got campaign contributions from tobacco companies in 1997. They were Rep. Deborah Tamargo, R-Tampa, Rep. Greg Gay, R-Cape Coral and Rep. Bill Andrews, R-Delray Beach.
03/19/98 FLORIDA: Teens to Design Historic Anti-Tobacco Campaign PR Newswire
The State of Florida will kick-off its historic $200 million anti-tobacco campaign March 29 with a four- day Governor's Teen Tobacco Summit in Haines City, Fla. (near Orlando), a gathering that will cast teens as the architects of the campaign. Florida's program will be the first in the nation funded by a settlement with the tobacco industry.
Here's the Teen Tobacco Summit Website
03/20/98 ILLINOIS: CHICAGO Battles Over Billboards Christian Science Monitor
Now Pfleger is trying a different tactic - a billboard-for-a-billboard rather than an eye-for-an-eye - to make sure the law sticks. His parish and United HealthCare, a local health-insurance company, have posted a dozen billboards around the South Side urging the outside advertising, tobacco, and alcohol companies to stop fighting the ban in court. "We want to use the same medium the alcohol, tobacco and billboard companies have used to target our children," Pfleger says.
03/19/98 ILLINOIS: Residents Debate Restaurant Smoking Ban In Wilmette Chicago Sun-Times
Heat from a possible ban on smoking in restaurants reached Wilmette on Wednesday, as more than two dozen residents turned out at a village board of health meeting to debate the proposal. If the ban is approved, Wilmette will be among the first towns in the state to prohibit smoking in eateries. The village board is not expected to vote until next month.
03/20/98 IOWA: CORBETT Voices Disappointment On Tobacco Bills Cedar Rapids Gazette
House Speaker Ron Corbett, R-Cedar Rapids, expressed disappointment Thursday that efforts to curb smoking in Iowa are falling short of the mark this legislative session. With about one month left in the 1998 session, it appears the two tobacco-related issues that will be addressed are a bill to prohibit self-service displays of individual cigarette packs and a bill to ban smoking in day-care facilities during business hours and remove tobacco advertisements within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds. Another effort to assist Attorney General Tom Miller in a lawsuit to recover Medicaid costs from tobacco companies for smoking-related illnesses appears dead for this session, and Republicans who control the Senate previously nixed attempts to raise the state's cigarette tax.
03/21/98 TEXAS: RANDALL Gets Grant For `Stings' Amarillo Globe
The Randall County Sheriff's Office has been awarded a $5,000 state grant that will fund "sting operations" aimed at curbing the sale of tobacco products to minors. State Comptroller John Sharp announced the grant on Friday as part of almost $400,000 awarded to law-enforcement agencies across the state to assist in their efforts to stop minors from obtaining cigarettes and other tobacco products.
03/20/98 UK: Cut-price Cigarettes 'Targeting The Vulnerable' Electronic Telegraph
SUPERMARKETS were criticised yesterday for selling cut-price cigarettes aimed at the poorest shoppers who had the greatest need to give up. While the stores denied that these low-cost products were "own brands", doctors said that selling cheaper cigarettes undermined Government attempts to discourage smoking by increasing tobacco taxes.
03/20/98 Shops Accused On Own-brand Cigarettes The Independent
SUPERMARKETS were accused yesterday of covertly profiting from the tobacco trade by selling thinly disguised "own brand" cigarettes. Most major chains sell own-label cigarettes but in nearly all cases their ownership is concealed because supermarkets fear it will harm their image, Dr Martin Jarvis of University College, London claimed.
03/19/98 Supermarket Cigarettes: The Brands That Dare Not Speak Their Name British Medical Journal, March 21, 1998
03/19/98 Some Supermarkets Are Active Players in Cigarette Market EurekAlert
Supermarkets in the UK are trying to convey a healthy image, but some are covertly profiting from cigarettes with little regard for the health of their customers, says Jarvis in a paper published in this week's BMJ. Few people have any idea that supermarket 'own-brand' cigarettes account for over half the number of brands sold in the UK and hold over seven per cent market share.....a fact that the supermarkets would like to remain obscured, says Jarvis.
03/20/98 French Port Workers Strike; Channel Tunnel Remains Open AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
French ferry workers protesting the end of duty-free shopping and the hiring of cheap labor went on strike Friday, blocking two ports where boats leave for England. . . Workers and ferry companies are concerned the end of lucrative duty free sales on their boats by July 1, 1999 will be a heavy blow to them. Europeans who pay heavy cigarette and alcohol taxes have been big duty-free customers on the ferries.
03/19/98 French Channel Workers Plan Strike AP Washington Post
French port workers on the English Channel plan to strike tomorrow and block the Channel Tunnel to protest a European Union decision to abolish duty-free ferries. . . Workers and ferry companies are concerned the end of lucrative duty-free sales on their boats by July 1, 1999, will be a heavy blow to them. Europeans who pay heavy cigarette and alcohol taxes have been big duty-free customers on the ferries.
03/19/98 Smugglers Costing Exchequer �1bn Electronic Telegraph
ALCOHOL and tobacco smuggling costs the Government nearly �1 billion a year, Customs & Excise said yesterday after the Chancellor promised a "clampdown" on the illicit trade. Mark Thomson, a Customs spokesman said: "Two in every three packets of hand-rolling tobacco in this country came in illegally. With a total of �950 million duty being evaded last year, that represents about five per cent of what the Exchequer should receive from alcohol and tobacco duties."
03/19/98 Tobacco Tax Delay Angers Health Lobby The Independent
A SURPRISE delay in slapping extra tax on cigarettes could cost the Exchequer a packet - of more than �600m in lost revenues. But Customs and Excise said yesterday that the decision to stall for more than seven months the extra 21p duty and tax on 20 cigarettes was a "hangover" from the old November Budgets, when Kenneth Clarke had increased tobacco duty from 1 December.
03/18/98 UK: Budget 98 - 20p More To Light Up But Spirits Tax Frozen The Independent
The price of a packet of 20 cigarettes will pass �3.50 for the first time after the Government kept its pledge to increase tobacco duty at 5 per cent above the rate of inflation. The hike in excise duty from 1 December is equivalent to 21p on a packet of cigarettes. Smokers face a 9p rise in the price of a pack of five small cigars and a 12p increase in a 25g pouch of pipe tobacco.
03/20/98 EUPOPE: Hard-Working Brits Leave Europe Behind PA
The EU's Luxembourg-based Eurostat office report draws no conclusions. It just sets out who lives how in the last decade of the century. . . Lowest life expectancy is for Portuguese men (71 years), with Britons around the EU average at 74.4 years for men and 79.3 for women. Irish men can expect to last 73.2 years on average, compared with 78.5 years for Irish women. Life expectancy in Greece is above average even though the Greeks are by far the heaviest smokers, consuming 3,012 cigarettes per person a year compared with an EU average of 1,741 and a low in Sweden of 992. The UK puffs its way through 1,536 per person, with the Irish smoking 1,730.
03/20/98 Philip Morris -2: First Boston Sets 12-Mo Price Target Of 62 Dow Jones (pay registration)
CS First Boston initiated coverage of Philip Morris Cos. (MO) with a buy rating on Friday.
03/20/98 Tobacco Stks Up On Favorable Verdict In 2nd-Hand Smoke Case Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/20/98 Tobacco Stocks Lighting UpThe Motley Fool
Like a dancing spark in the wake of a car's passing, cigarettes have been jettisoned from many a portfolio in recent weeks -- largely as a result of investors attempting to get out of the way of a six-person jury in Muncie, Indiana. However, today investors are lighting up again just as quickly, prompting a rally in tobacco stocks this morning.
03/20/98 From COVINGTON To CHINA Cincinnati Post
With headquarters on the second floor of a restored brick house near Covington's riverfront, tiny RED HAWK TOBACCO CO. doesn't have the look of a business making plans to penetrate the world's largest cigarette market in China. Nevertheless, the upstart family-owned business and its KENTUCKY BLONDES all-natural cigarettes have won fans in China ever since an American businessman took eight cartons there after a visit to Kentucky.
03/20/98 RJR Nabisco Declares Preferred Stock Dividend Business Wire
Directors of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (NYSE:RN - news) today declared the regular quarterly cash dividend of $578.125 per share, or 57.8125 cents ($.578125) per depositary share (the 1/1,000 share units that trade on the New York Stock Exchange), on the company's Series B Cumulative Preferred Stock.
03/19/98 KENTUCKY: Seminary Is Selling Its Stock In Tobacco Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
LEXINGTON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY is selling 2,300 shares of stock in Philip Morris Companies Inc. because "there is simply no justification for choosing to invest our funds in tobacco manufacturing," said seminary President Richard L. Harrison Jr.
03/20/98 MOVIES: "200 CIGARETTES" "The Rat Pack" Nostalgia Cocktails, The New York Times
Every so often, a coming-of-age film is made that both portrays the mood of a new generation and helps boost the careers of a group of promising young actors. . . A new contender for that role may be a comedy being filmed in New York, "200 Cigarettes." The film, which will be distributed by Paramount around next Christmas, is set on Manhattan's Lower East Side and involves a group of guarded, yet vulnerable people in their 20s getting together on New Year's Eve for an evening of self-discovery and mayhem.
03/20/98 TV: The TV Big Picture, in Three Volumes LA Times
"ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TELEVISION," a much-welcome, much-needed three-volume work (nearly 2,000 pages) recently published by Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications. Priced at $300, the set is aimed primarily at libraries and college campuses. But it's a browser's paradise . . . And what about attitudes being shaped by advertisers? . . "Man Against Crime" (1949-56) and "MARTIN KANE, PRIVATE EYE" (1949-54) were conceived and produced by New York ad agencies and firmly guided by their tobacco sponsors. . . And media historian Erik Barnouw is quoted here recalling that tobacco sponsors of "MAN AGAINST CRIME" banned coughing from the show's scripts.
If you've a spare $300, you can order the Encyclopedia here
03/19/98 AIR TRAVEL: S. AFRICAN AIRWAYS to Ban Smoking on Flight Xinhua English Newswire
The airline will adopt from April 13 a non-smoking policy on all its international flights, except for flights to Osaka in Japan and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, it said in a statement.
03/20/98 COMMENTARY: Is Big Tobacco's Antismoking Push A Smokescreen? Business Week, March 30, 1998
Sure, the campaigns are aimed at scaring future smokers off. But Big Tobacco realizes that such efforts to brainwash rebellious teens are very likely to fail. They know, for example, that underage smokers mimic young adults, who can smoke legally beginning at age 18. When 14-year-olds see Leonardo DiCaprio lighting up on screen, millions spent on antismoking messages go up in smoke. . . "The tobacco industry has done a great job of snookering everyone into saying, 'Just let's stop kids from smoking.' To the extent any program is limited to youth, it will fail," says Stanton A. Glantz, an antismoking activist. . . Two main messages work with teens . . . Ads portraying the tobacco industry as deceitful and manipulative resonate with teens already inclined to suspect authority figures. And ads that focus on the dangers of secondhand smoke can arouse a sense of injustice.
03/20/98 EDITORIAL: Smoking Budgets in Washington The New York Times
Any tobacco deal should not immunize the industry from lawsuits or bar the government from regulating tobacco. Tobacco proceeds would also best be used for victims of diseases relating to smoking, as the Administration wants. . . What he left out is that it all deserves to disappear in a puff if the right tobacco deal is not reached.
03/20/98 EDITORIAL: Budget Walls Washington Post
Two facts about this stand out. First, the money is absolutely the wrong reason to pass a tobacco bill. The purpose should be to deter smoking. To that end they ought to tax up the price, firm up the Food and Drug Administration's regulatory authority and provide some cessation funds. If a member wants to vote against all that simply because he doesn't like the way the money is being used, let him, and let the voters deal with him. The cigarette companies are ready to spend whatever it takes to stay in business. If the members take the bait and start clamoring over the money, the companies win.
03/20/98EDITORIAL: Racial Smoke Damage Boston Globe
As they pursue passage of a bill to enforce the tobacco settlement, lawmakers must ensure that any benefits are equitably distributed to include minority populations. From Salem to Newport to ill-fated brands like Uptown and X, cigarette companies have blatantly targeted black consumers. It is only fair that public-health programs be aimed their way as well.
03/20/98 OPINION: Nuts, Bolts And Screws in Everyday Life (California Billboards) Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle
Steven Shinn, a local billboard spokesman (you'd think the billboards would speak for themselves), sounds Clintonesque when he tells the Chron why the illegal boards aren't coming down: "We will certainly abide by state law, but we don't know who is enforcing it." Barney Fife, apparently. Next Shinn will be saying, "The law says we have to remove smoking billboards. We checked, and none of our billboards are smoking."
03/20/98 OPINION: Full Disclosure Is Price Politicians Must Pay Peter Riddell, Times of London
TONY BLAIR cannot escape the shadow of Bernie Ecclestone and Formula One. . . . Mr Blair did not benefit in any way personally from the visit, though Labour did, of course, receive a �1 million donation just over six months later. It is really just a minor one-day embarrassment, though some Tories were huffing and puffing yesterday to build up the affair.
03/20/98 Database of Lobbyists Sheds Light on Big Spenders The New York Times
This morning, the Center for Responsive Politics is scheduled to put that information on the Web. The non-partisan, non-profit group set up a searchable database in which people can type in the names of companies, individuals and organizations and find out how much those groups spent on Federal lobbying. The center, which already provides a searchable database on campaign contributions, wants to give people a fuller picture of cash flow in Washington.
03/21/98 Smoking Out Big Tobacco Donations Will Be Campaign Tactic Seattle Post-Intelligencer
As Congress struggles to shape controversial legislation to regulate the tobacco industry, the hidden influence of the big money that candidates rely on for campaign funding is inevitably intruding to affect the debate in subtle ways. Since the exposure of unsavory, illegal practices by the cigarette makers, no elected official in his or her right mind wants to be seen as co-opted by tobacco industry campaign contributions. Indeed, many former industry supporters are nervously trying to distance themselves from the companies whose largesse they used to gladly accept.
03/21/98 Inventive Plaintiffs' Lawyers Are Moving into Tribal CourtsThe Wall Street Journal (pay registration)The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Last June, the 40,000-member Creek tribe joined the growing wave of litigation against the tobacco industry. The tribe filed suit -- in its own tribal court, where the judge and jury are all-Indian -- to recover money it spent treating members of the tribe who smoked and got sick. . . [tribal] courts are asserting themselves over non-Indians. And chief among the targets are some large U.S. corporations.
03/21/98 MASSACHUSETTS: BOSTON: Eateries Warned To Abide By Smokeout; City Strengthens Enforcement Team Boston Globe
City officials yesterday said that smokers who light up in restaurants after Sept. 30 in violation of Boston's new no-smoking policy can expect trouble. . . The city will dedicate two health inspectors to the full-time job of spot checking restaurants for violators and fielding complaints from non-smokers, who officials say will aggressively report violations. "Our role will be to respond to patrons," said Auerbach.
03/20/98 Smoking In Restaurants Banned In BOSTON Reuters
Boston's Public Health Commission voted unanimously Thursday to ban smoking in restaurants. Cigarette, cigar and pipe afficianados will be permitted only in separate bar areas and only if non-smokers do not have to use the area to wait for tables or get to a restroom under the regulations, which take effect Sept. 30.
03/19/98 Restaurant Smoking Banned In BOSTON UPI
03/20/98 City Bans Smoking In Restaurants Boston Globe
City health regulators voted unanimously yesterday to stamp out smoking in eating areas of all Boston restaurants, relegating diners who wish to light up to walled-off bar areas. "It's very important to me to make Boston a healthy city," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said after the afternoon vote. "People who work in restaurants inhale two packs of cigarettes a day; this will give them a cleaner environment." The Public Health Commission's regulation is a stricter version of Menino's proposal, which exempted eateries with fewer than 20 seats.
03/19/98 Butt out! - Hub panel set to pass tough restaurant smoking ban Boston Herald
03/21/98 INDONESIA: A Familiar Scent of Monopoly LA Times
The clove industry epitomizes Indonesia's economic discord. Despite IMF pressure and official government response, the system reeks of nepotism and skimming. . . A fast worker can hand-roll 5,000 cigarettes a day--as many as a machine can roll in one minute--but the government forgives most of the excise tax on hand-rolled cigarettes because of the jobs the industry provides
03/20/98 NORTHERN IRELAND: Tobacco Case Dismissed Gallaher Business Wire
In October 1995, proceedings were issued against Gallaher Limited, P. J. Carroll & Co. Limited and others by Mary Shiels, the widow of Brian Shiels. It was alleged that Mr. Shiels died as a result of having smoked cigarettes manufactured by the defendants. . . At the High Court in Belfast today, Mr. Justice Girvan entered Judgement in favor of the defendants and against the plaintiff. The defendants were also awarded their costs.
03/20/98 UK: QUEEN Attacks Drugs And Smoking During School Visit PA
The Queen expressed concern about drug taking among young people and told students it was important to know about the dangers. During her visit to a school in Cumbria, she also showed her disapproval of smoking by telling a group of children cigarettes were "nasty" things. The Queen is thought to be particularly interested in drug prevention and spent time chatting to pupils and teachers at Keswick School as they worked on drug awareness projects.
03/08/98 AGRICULTURE: Looking To Farming's Past Fayetteville Observer-Times
Tobacco farming in Brazil and Mexico reflects how U.S. farmers used to raise leaf and suggests how Americans may do it in the future. Tobacco here could go to a contracting system, said Scott Edwards, who grows tobacco with his father in the Dublin area of Bladen County.
03/20/98 JOE CAMEL Bows Out Of RJR Ads Overseas Ad Age
R.J. Reynolds International agreed to discontinue using Joe Camel in advertising campaigns outside the U.S., in response to lobbying from shareholder groups. RJR, which last year dropped Joe from U.S. advertising from Mezzina/Brown, said the spokescharacter currently is used only in a handful of Latin American countries. McCann-Erickson Worldwide handles Camel in non-U.S. markets.
03/22/98 OBIT: WILLIAM HAENSZEL, 87, Epidemiologist The New York Times
William Haenszel, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute who set up the first national system to track cases of cancer and their possible causes, died on March 13 at his home in Wheaton, Ill. He was 87. That system -- called SEER, for Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results -- helped produce evidence of the links between smoking and lung cancer by gathering complex comparisons between nonsmokers and smokers. . . SEER -- which he started in 1973 -- is probably the largest registry for any one disease in the world, said Dr. Earl Pollack . . .
Here's the item in the San Diego Union-Tribune
03/22/98 PEOPLE: CLINTON: Non-Smoker Bill's Brownie Craving Page Six, New York Post
"We spent enormous amounts of time trying to teach him to inhale' ... a friend of Clinton's from Oxford recalled. "He absolutely could not inhale.' The problem with Clinton was that he did not know how to smoke and could not take the tobacco, according to another friend whose lasting image of Clinton at these parties is of a big Southerner leaning his head out an open window gasping for fresh air. He was technically correct to say that he did not inhale
03/22/98 Cigars to Have Fewer Movie Roles AP Washington Post
The board of directors of the Cigar Association of America said in Saturday's edition of The (Baltimore) Sun that it will "admonish" its members to halt the practice. It members produce more than 95 percent of cigars sold in the United States. "We believe this has always been an exception rather than a standard practice, and this reflects that the board is committed to ensuring this is never an issue again," Norman F. Sharp, the cigar association's president, said Friday.
03/21/98 MOVIES: Nominees' Other Awards (HACKADEMIES) Morning Report, LA Times
The American Lung Assn. has dubbed the movie "Titanic" a real disaster, giving the Oscar favorite for best picture a "Hackademy" award for a scene in which Kate Winslet's character lights up at the dinner table as a symbol of rebellion. Another best picture Oscar nominee, "As Good as It Gets," won the group's President's Award for an anti-tobacco scene in which Helen Hunt's character tells her date not to smoke around her asthmatic son.
03/20/98 Film/sneak Peek `as Good as It Gets' Cited for Anti-smoking Message LA Daily News
03/19/98 American Lung Association Denounces 'TITANIC' For Promoting Smoking AFP
In its annual "Hackademy Awards" announced Thursday, the association commended "As Good As It Gets" because its heroine asks a friend not to smoke in the presence of her asthmatic son. But, citing the scene in which Winslet's character, Rose, lights a cigarette at the dinner table as a sign of rebellion, the lung association said "Titanic" was "the biggest disaster in the war against teen-age tobacco use."
03/20/98 Hackademy Award Winners Go Up In Smoke Reuters
"Fifteen-hundred people died in the real-life Titanic. Yet, hundreds of thousands of today's teenagers will die prematurely because they will start smoking this year," said Los Angeles teenager, Spencer Goodman, in a statement issued by the ALA.
03/19/98 CYBERTAINMENT: And the Award Goes to . . . the Best (and Worst) Sites on the Internet LA Times
Best Name for Spoof Awards: Hackademy Awards, handed out by the American Lung Assn. (http://www.lungusa.org/hollywood) for movies glorifying tobacco use.
03/19/98 MOVIES: HackAdemies: The Results Are In ALA
Thumbs Up! Best Picture: AS GOOD AS IT GETS; Thumbs Down! Best Picture: TITANIC
03/20/98 MOVIES: Movie Industry Clings To Cigarettes St. Petersburg Times
When actor Will Smith saves Earth from evil aliens in the movie Independence Day, he's chomping on a cigar. In Titanic, the lead characters smoke cigarettes to rebel against the ship's hoity-toity upper class. Smoking is declining around the country, but it's still rampant in Hollywood films. A new study found 57 percent of leading movie characters in the '90s smoked, which is more than double the rate in the U.S. population. "A kid going to the movies today will come away thinking everybody smokes, and the more you smoke, the cooler you are," says Stanton Glantz, a researcher who did the study.
03/20/98 MOVIES: Hollywood Deals Kept Smoking On Screen Scripps Howard/Austin American-Statesman
Newly released company documents show that Philip Morris supplied "The Muppet Movie" filmmakers with tobacco products. Similar deals were made for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?," "Die Hard," "Crocodile Dundee" and dozens of other films that had huge youth audiences. . . The Philip Morris documents show arrangements for "Jaws II," "Grease," "Rocky II," "Blade Runner," "Mr. Mom," "Crocodile Dundee," "Robocop," "Die Hard," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and "Field of Dreams." . . . "When you have the lead actor in "Titanic' smoking through almost the whole movie and you have Bruce Willis puffing away in "Die Hards' 1 through 13 or whatever, you're telling me that doesn't influence kids?" [Sen. John] McCain said.
03/21/98 OPINION: The Tobacco Gestapo David Harriman, The Ayn Rand Institute (Date Unknown)
The settlement between the tobacco industry and the government describes the new arrangement as an "historic change." That much is true � but not in the sense the drafters intended. This settlement represents a frightening, unprecedented violation of individual rights. Under its proposed terms, the government will become the de facto owner of all the tobacco companies; the nominal owners will just follow Washington's orders, as their property is effectively expropriated.
03/21/98 OPINION: Commentary: I Lost Mom To Tobacco, But It Was Her Choice Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
My mother smoked cigarettes by her own choice, not because of commercials or a conspiracy of "Big Tobacco" to hide the addictive and deadly qualities of their product. Like all other known bad choices, multitudes take the risk in spite. Does a nonsmoker, whether teen or adult, really make a beeline for the tobacco counter because they saw a Joe Camel, Kool or Marlboro Country billboard? Despite public health campaigns and Surgeon General's warnings right on the packs and billboards, people by their own choice light up their first through last cigarette.

TODAY'S DEBATE: The Tobacco Settlement USA Today

03/20/98 EDITORIAL: Blinders Hide Tobacco Deal's Flaws
Big Tobacco has a politically enticing offer for lawmakers. Give us some legal protection against our past sins, and we'll pony up billions of dollars every year to fund your pet programs. The offer proved too much for state attorneys general. They signed a loophole-ridden settlement deal last June that gave a slap on the wrist to the industry and threw new roadblocks in front of the regulation of nicotine by the Food and Drug Administration . . . Sens. Tom Harkin, John Chafee and Bob Graham broke the pattern with a bipartisan bill that has won over key health advocates. Whatever its merits, this is the minimum acceptable. Yet the risk that Congress will gut it and pass a flimsy substitute is enormously high(FDA).

03/20/98 Proposal Is A Disaster D. Scott Wise
The Harkin-Chafee legislation is unconstitutional, unrealistic and incapable of producing the benefits its supporters seek. . . The proposed tobacco resolution can fundamentally change the way in which tobacco products are made, marketed and sold in this country. . . Picking some liability provisions while discarding others, as this bill does, may give the appearance of producing a compromise. In fact, it will only produce punitive taxes for adult smokers, economic upheaval and no overall advancement of public health policy.

03/22/98 Congress Pushes Ban On Tobacco Advertising Detroit News
But in their zeal for advertising restraints, lawmakers may be exaggerating the effectiveness that Joe Camel, the Marlboro Man and other tobacco promotions have in hooking young people on cigarettes. . . "If you (could do) only one thing to discourage smoking, the best evidence we have is on price increases," said Michael P. Ericksen

03/23/98 MISSOURI: The Week Ahead: Legislation Aims To Strengthen State's Tobacco Case AP
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon joined about 20 other attorneys general last year in seeking billions of dollars from tobacco companies for smoking-related illnesses and deaths. This week, he'll ask lawmakers for help. "This issue put in front of the Legislature clearly presents them the opportunity to vote against big tobacco -- or jump in bed with big tobacco," Nixon said in an interview with The Associated Press.On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on a bill that seeks to reclaim Missouri's Medicaid payments for tobacco-related illnesses during the last five years.

03/23/98 CALIFORNIA: S.F. shop smokes tobacco industry Item in "Examiner's ad campaign gives public a shot of the Willies," San Francisco Business Times
Battling against a threatened repeal of California's new smoke-free bar law, the American Cancer Society turned to Grant, Scott & Hurley for an emergency, pro-bono attack ad. . . The ad shows tobacco execs with hands raised swearing to tell the truth under these quotations: "There is no proof that cigarettes cause cancer." "We don't believe that nicotine is addictive." "We never marketed tobacco to children." And "Assembly Bill 297 is about individual rights."

03/23/98 CALIFORNIA: Filmmaker Rob Reiner Participates in Town Hall Children's Meeting at Exceptional Parents Unlimited PR Newswire

03/23/98 MASSACHUSETTS: A Warning On Smoking Boston Globe
Vice President Al Gore brought his crusade against teenage smoking to Dorchester recently and waswarmly greeted by a crowd of students and politicians. Yet Gore's appearance may have been upstaged by a series of public service announcements that made the case against smoking more powerfully than even a vice presidential visit could.

03/22/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Youths At Rally Urged To Tune Out Smoking Boston Globe
In addition to LeShore's troupe, yesterday's "Kick it! No Puff, No Snuff, No Tobacco!" festival featured a performance by Dance Umbrella's Jazz Tap Hip Hop group and words from EC Hill of the New England Blizzard Basketball team, JAM'N 94.5 disc jockey Pebbles and state Senator Dianne Wilkerson.

03/22/98 MASSACHUSETTS: Hearings To Be Held On Ag's Proposed Crackdown On Tobacco Sales AP
Someday retailers who sell cigarettes might have to post a warning to their youngest customers - "KIDS: SMOKING CAN KILL YOU." It's part of a proposal by state Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to crack down on tobacco sales to minors. Hearings will be held this spring on the plan to enact consumer protection laws that would regulate tobacco sales to children and ban tobacco advertising near schools

03/23/98 NEW JERSEY: Tobacco Gains As Bootleg Choice Bergen Record (NJ)
Cigarette smuggling is a growth industry: Federal officials report a 300 percent increase nationwide since 1992. But it is expected to explode in New Jersey now that the state's tobacco tax has doubled. As a counterpunch to the burgeoning crime wave, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has created a specialized unit aimed at thwarting the bootleggers. ATF agents also have begun huddling with their counterparts from New Jersey's Division of Taxation to plot local strategies. Their most recent meeting was held Wednesday in Trenton.

03/22/98 NEW YORK: ALBANY: Tobacco Ad Law Snuffed For A Bit Albany Times-Union
Amid widespread uncertainty among stores owners and officials alike, the city has postponed enforcement until April 1 of its tough new local law restricting tobacco advertising. On the eve of the law's scheduled debut Monday, at least one flaw had been found, resulting in confusion about what ads are banned under the YOUTH PROTECTION AGAINST TOBACCO PROMOTION ACT. It also remains unclear how much of the city is affected and also exactly how much advertising store keepers will be permitted to display inside and outside their businesses.

03/22/98 Confusion Forces Delay Of Albany's New Cigarette Ad Ban AP
Widespread uncertainty among store owners has forced one upstate city to postpone enforcement of a new law that cracks down on tobacco advertising.

03/22/98 KENTUCKY: Poll: Tobacco Growers For Limit Cincinnati Enquirer
What the poll found: A poll of 400 Kentucky tobacco farmers commissioned by two health advocacy groups found these results during a survey conducted Feb. 10-19. *73 percent support establishing a national minimum age of 18 for buying tobacco products. *64 percent support prohibiting tobacco companies from marketing or advertising to children. . .*84 percent say health groups concerned about smoking are a threat to tobacco farmers, and 76 percent say restrictions on smoking pose a threat to farmers.

03/22/98 TEXAS: TARRANT Sheriff Wins Anti-teen Smoking Grant Fort Worth Star-Telegram
A $25,000 grant from the state comptroller's office may be used to stake out businesses that illegally sell cigarettes to minors in Tarrant County. The county's Sheriff's Department was among five agencies awarded $25,000 grants to be used to deter teen-age smoking. The other four were the Houston, Dallas, Austin and Pasadena police departments.

03/21/98 FLORIDA: Police Hope To Snuff Out Teen Smoking Ch. 6, Miami/MSNBC
Circle K employees are being trained to again to ask for identification from anyone who appears to be under the age of 30 and wants to buy a pack of cigarettes. Seventy Circle K employees from South Florida, learned the do's and don'ts of the "We Card" campaign.

03/21/98 CALIFORNIA: Sneak Peek at Anti-Lungren Ad San Francisco Chronicle
State Party Chairman Art Torres unveiled a television commercial planned to air before the June 2 primary that depicts Lungren as a statue that cracks and falls apart. The spot, which intones that Lungren is "not all he's cracked up to be," attacks him on tobacco, education, . .

03/21/98 CALIFORNIA: BERKELEY May Limit Tobacco, Liquor Ads Contra Costa Times
The Berkeley City Council will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. Tuesday to discuss an ordinance banning tobacco and alcohol advertising within 1,200 feet of schools and parks. The hearing will be in the council chamber, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. For information, call 510-644-6480.

03/23/98 B.C. Hikes Penalties For Selling Smokes To Minors CP
Small local retailers can make a big difference in the fight against tobacco addiction, Health Minister Penny Priddy said Monday. Priddy made the comment at an anti-tobacco conference held as new regulations governing the sale of tobacco products went into effect in British Columbia. She said big national retail chains are much more likely to carry in-store tobacco advertising than small local retailers.

03/17/98 CANADA: Ban Anti-tobacco Activists Globe and Mail
NEW research by the World Health Organization (WHO) has failed to find any connection between exposure to second-hand smoke and lung cancer. News of the research has created a furor in Europe, where a brief summary of the study's findings appeared in the biennial report of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of WHO. The study, one of the most comprehensive ever undertaken, seems conclusive enough in itself.

03/23/98 SRI LANKA: Smoking, Alcohol Kill More Than War South China Morning Post
GASTON DE ROSAYRO in Colombo Tobacco and alcohol account for a far higher number of deaths in Sri Lanka than those caused by the country's secessionist war, according to a committee commissioned by the Government. The presidential committee on tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs, which investigated the effects on the population of smoking and consuming alcohol, advised the Government it needs to take action to curb the vices.

03/22/98 AUSTRALIA: Backlash To Global Treaty Sunday Herald Sun
PARLIAMENT'S power would be decimated and decisions made by corporate cowboys subject to no controls if Australia signed a controversial treaty, a lobby group has warned. . . Stop MAI, a national coalition of academics, community groups, unions and environmentalists, was formed in January to stop the federal government signing the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. The 29-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations are in the final stages of negotiation on the draft treaty in Paris. . . The Stop MAI group says the treaty threatens Australia's national sovereignty. Stop MAI founder Richard Sanders, from Griffith University in Brisbane, said: "There won't be any substantial controls over what corporate investors can do, and because they will be able to sue governments if they take decisions that affect their profits or reputation, governments will be loathe to make those decisions. "For example, if the government embarks on an anti-smoking campaign, the tobacco industry can sue the government for loss of profits."

03/23/98 Spain's TABACALERA Offering To Begin April 13 - Source AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
A source close to Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) told Dow Jones Newswires Monday investors can begin ordering shares in the government's privatization of the company starting April 13.

03/24/98 Spain's TABACALERA To Boost Salaries 2.1% In 1998 AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/23/98 Spain's TABACALERA Could Reduce Workforce By 800 In 1998 AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA's (E.TAB) inhouse analysts said the company could reduce its workforce by 800 in 1998 from a program of early retirement and voluntary resignations.

03/24/98 INDONESIA: Price Rise May Cut Cigarette Output 15pc Agence France-Presse/South China Morning Post
A price rise next month is expected to cut this year's Indonesian cigarette output 15 per cent. Cigarette output is estimated to fall to 170 billion sticks from 200 billion sticks this year amid lower consumption expected following a 100 per cent rise in cigarette prices in April, the Bisnis Indonesia daily quoted the president of a cigarette distribution company as saying. "But even though the domestic volume of production will fall, the earnings of cigarette producers will rise because of the rise in retail prices," Alfa Retailindo chief Joko Susanto said.

03/23/98 STANDARD COMMERCIAL Elects New Director PR Newswire
Standard Commercial Corporation has elected William S Sheridan to its Board of Directors.

03/23/98 CANADA: ETHICAL FUNDS Profited From Smokes, Missiles Vancouver Sun
Investors with a social conscience may be disturbed to learn they have profited from Canadian companies involved in tobacco and the weapons of war. By participating in the Toronto Stock Exchange 35 Index last year, Vancouver-based Ethical Funds invested indirectly in tobacco giant IMASCO and missile-maker Bombardier.

03/23/98 Asian Billionaires Lost $61 Billion During Crisis, Says Forbes AP
In terms of percentage loss, Indonesia's PUTERA SAMPOERNA suffered most among Asia's billionaires. The collapse in the stock price of his tobacco company, H.M. Sampoerna, has cut the value of his majority stake by 93 per cent to $162 million.

03/21/98 PEOPLE: Aussie BIBLE Picks Up $30m For Year's Toil The Age
GEOFFREY BIBLE sure has found the lucky country: the Australian who heads up PHILIP MORRIS Companies Inc collected all of $30 million for his efforts in calendar 1997. Bible, the 60-year-old chairman and chief executive of Philip Morris, was paid a salary of slightly more than $2 million and then came the extras - a $2.86 million bonus, a $9 million long-term incentive bonus, and one million options to buy Philip Morris shares, valued at about $16 million.

03/22/98 Mom And Pop Shops Hurt, Too / Tobacco Cuts Leave Small Businesses Reeling Richmond Times-Dispatch
Smith, owner of a small machine shop in Chesterfield County, makes parts for a major equipment supplier for Philip Morris. Last fall, Philip Morris canceled orders for that supplier to rebuild 15 high-speed cigarette-making machines. That led to the layoff of 20 skilled machinists who worked for the supplier, Molins Richmond Inc.

03/22/98 AGRICULTURE: Farmers Fear Life Without Leaf Raleigh News & Observer
Richard Newsome grows some of the best tobacco in the world here in the rusty red clay of Stokes County -- just as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather did. But unlike every other patriarch of his clan this century, Newsome is being forced to think about a future without tobacco. And what he sees isn't much of a future at all, at least not for farming. "Tobacco is the only thing that we can grow at a profit here in the northern Piedmont," Newsome said, referring to the band of rural counties that runs along the Virginia border north of the Triangle and Triad. "The farms are way too small to grow anything else and make money. Tobacco is it."

03/22/98 TV: "TEEN SMOKING: TRUTH OR DARE?" Smoking-study Tests A Revelation For Twins Denver Post
In the last month, however, the subject of smoking - what it's doing to her health, whether she should quit, even how and if she could quit - has been paramount in Beccah Campbell's mind. She and her identical twin sister, Karen - a freshman at Colorado State University and a nonsmoker - were selected by a Los Angeles production firm to be part of an hour-long TV special to air in late May on UPN, the United Paramount Network. (The exact date isn't known yet; locally, the show will be seen on KTVD-Channel 20.) "TEEN SMOKING: TRUTH OR DARE?" will look at how many teens smoke, why they start, what it's doing to them, and how some of them are trying to quit. Teen smokers across the country have been interviewed, along with doctors and an addiction expert who will address how difficult it is even for a young smoker to give up cigarettes.

03/22/98 No Smoking on Most Airlines Memphis Commercial Appeal
Sun, Mar 22 1998 This month Air France joins most of its European counterparts in banning smoking on all trans-Atlantic flights.

03/24/98 FIRES: Authorities Trace Fire's Cause Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Discarded smokingmaterials caused the fire Saturday afternoon that damaged a Maple Grove apartment building, officials said Monday. The fire destroyed two apartments and severely damaged six others at Mallard Ridge, in the 13300 block of Maple Knoll Way. The 16-unit building is uninhabitable.

03/23/98 Recovery Network Announces '24 STRAIGHT: AMERICA'S DAY OF RECOVERY,' Set For March 24, 1999 PR Newswire
Recovery Network and the Partnership for Recovery & Prevention today announce "24 STRAIGHT: AMERICA'S DAY OF RECOVERY" for March 24, 1999. The Recovery Network and the National Partnership for Recovery & Prevention today said they will initiate an unprecedented national event to create America's first 24-hour nationwide forum of community-driven events to address and highlight the positive values of freedom from abuse of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use, addiction, of being "straight" or "sober."

03/23/98 SCHOLASTIC INC. and THIRTEEN/WNET Announce Six National Student Winners in Conjunction With MOYERS ON ADDICTION: CLOSE TO HOME Series for PBS PR Newswire
Six young writers and artists, ages 11 to 17, from across the United States were selected from thousands of entrants as national winners in Close to Home: A Writing and Art Contest About Addiction. The contest, conducted nationally by Scholastic Inc. and Thirteen/WNET in New York, is part of a national outreach campaign for Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home, a five-part series about the science, treatment, prevention and politics of addiction premiering March 29 at 9 p.m. on PBS. The series is anchor ed by award-winning journalist Bill Moyers. Scholastic featured the contest in its classroom magazines. Asked to write an essay or poem or to create a piece of artwork in response to the theme "Has addiction affected your life?" thousands of students responded with candid, thought-provoking and moving entries exploring the many ways addiction -- to tobacco, alcohol, illegal or prescription drugs -- impacted them at home, at school and in their communities.

03/23/98 Casino Workers At Risk From Tobacco Smoke Reuters
"NIOSH has determined that ETS poses an increased risk of lung cancer, other lung disease, and possibly heart disease to occupationally exposed workers and recommends eliminating or restricting tobacco use in the workplace," Dr. Douglas Trout from NIOSH and colleagues write in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The investigators studied 279 full-time dealers and dealer supervisors -- including both smokers and nonsmokers -- at a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to evaluate their exposure to ETS.

03/23/98 TV: THE PRACTICE: One Step Back: Emotion on Faces Speaks Louder Than Words The New York Times
Maybe that's why I've been less gripped by the plots . . . than by Lindsay Dole's eyes. . . Better still was a recent episode in which Lindsay confronts her old law professor. He is played by Edward Herrmann, that paragon of hulking WASP noblesse oblige. Now the professor is a tobacco lawyer whose clothes are all but made of money. . .

03/23/98 Senate reopens ad deductibility issue; Ad groups mobilize to oppose proposal on tobacco Ad Age
The seemingly dead issue of advertising deductibility is being resuscitated in Congress. A proposal to drop tobacco advertising's deductible status is among ideas the Senate Finance Committee will examine this week as it looks for ways to reform the Internal Revenue Service.

03/25/98 Joe Camel Advertising Took Cues From Jack Daniel's, Budweiser Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
RJR's internal documents shed light on what company representatives were thinking as they crafted Joe Camel. In a confidential 1988 report, officials studied the merchandising of alcohol brands Budweiser and Jack Daniel's for insight on how to market to younger people.

03/24/98 MISSOURI: Tobacco Industry Supporters Decry Changes Proposed In Bill St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"This would strip us of many of our defenses," said J. William Newbold, a lawyer for Philip Morris and other tobacco companies. . . Designed to bolster Attorney General Jay Nixon's lawsuit against cigarette makers, the bill would let Missouri base its lawsuit on a class of Medicaid recipients rather than identifying individual smokers. It also would let the state use statistics alone when arguing that smoking causes disease.

03/25/98 ARIZONA: State's Pact With Tobacco Legal Team Is Opposed Arizona Daily Star
A Republican contender for attorney general wants to void the contract Arizona has with private attorneys to sue tobacco companies. Sen. John Kaites, R-Glendale, will file legislation today to void the deal to pay outside lawyers 18 percent of whatever the state gets. Instead, the fees would be limited to $1 million.

03/24/98 MASSACHUSETTS: BAT Industries PLC to remain in Mass. tobacco lawsuit AP/Boston Globe
A judge has denied a bid by BAT Industries PLC to be removed from the state's lawsuit against the tobacco industry. . . The British company argued it should not have to defend itself in the case because any alleged wrongdoing would have been committed by its subsidiaries, not BAT. But Middlesex Superior Court Judge Martha Sosman ruled last week that the company must stay in the case.

03/24/98 Weight Gain In Ex-smokers Impairs Lung Function News Tips From the Journals of the American Thoracic Society
Analyzing data from the large Lung Health Study, investigators found that weight gain after smoking cessation did affect lung function but the benefits of quitting still outweighted any damage. They also found that in the 5,000 cases study weight gain was worse in men than women. The data from the study was acquired from the multicentered randomized intervention trial that was carried out in 10 U.S. states and Canandian communities.

03/25/98 Advisory/CALIFORNIA To Launch Public Awareness Campaign Targeting The Increase In Cigar Use; New Ads Dispel Myth That Cigars Are Safer Than Cigarettes
California's top health officials release new evidence documenting a dramatic increase in cigar use among California teens and young adults. They will also unveil the state's aggressive new advertising campaign to combat this increase in cigar use. . . MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1998, 10 a.m.

03/25/98 California Targets Cigar Smoking AP
"Cigars have become the glamour prop of high-profile actors, actresses, models -- even athletes, " the state Department of Health Services said in a news release Tuesday. " As a result, an alarming number of teens and young adults are taking up the habit." The agency plan to use several hundred thousand dollars from the state' s 37-cents-a-pack tobacco tax to combat movie and television smoking and tobacco sponsorship of sports and community events. " We' re dealing with a very savvy and very deep-pocket industry that takes a lot of different tactics that we just have to respond to, " said Carla Agar, department spokeswoman.

03/25/98 MARYLAND: Panel Rejects Cigarette Tax Rise Baltimore Sun
[A] Senate committee rejected legislation yesterday that would have increased the state's tax on cigarettes and created Maryland's first tax on smokeless tobacco products and cigars. The vote by the Budget and Taxation Committee effectively ends debate on the tobacco tax issue for the remainder of the General Assembly's 90-day session, lawmakers said.

03/25/98 MINNESOTA: ST. PAUL: Coleman Upbeat In State Of The City Address Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Coleman said the city will expand its Web site to provide information about drug treatment centers throughout the metropolitan area and expand treatment centers. The city also will aggressively enforce laws to discourage underage drinking and smoking, especially laws that make it illegal for adults to serve alcohol to minors.

03/25/98 WASHINGTON: LOCKE To Sign Measure Allowing $50 Fines Against Minors With Tobacco The Oregonian
Carol was asked Tuesday about Gov. Gary Locke's scheduled signing Wednesday of a measure that would make it illegal for people under 18 to possess tobacco. Minors caught in possession of tobacco would face a $50 fine, four hours of community service and an order to enroll in a smoking cessation class.

03/24/98 New Lung Association Guide Provides Details On State Tobacco Laws Enacted in 1997 PR Newswire
1997 STATE LEGISLATED ACTIONS ON TOBACCO ISSUES (SLATI), the only up-to-date, comprehensive guide to state tobacco-control laws enacted in 1997, has been compiled by the AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION. The 216-page 1997 SLATI includes: state-by-state information, tables, maps and matrixes on tobacco-control laws plus a quick-read two-page guide to state tobacco laws. . . Highlights include: . . . Despite tobacco industry efforts to preempt local control activities, seven states successfully defeated preemption bills. The only loss was in Indiana, where the legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto to enact youth access preemption. In a huge victory, Maine became the first state to repeal preemption!

03/24/98 MAINE: Treasurer Finds Tobacco, Other Treasures, Tucked Away In State's Vault AP/Boston Globe
Open the thick, stainless-steel door of the state Treasury's vault, and what riches will you behold? Gold? Silver? Huge piles of cash? . . Besides the other castoffs, McCormick found 540 cans and cellophane packs of stale cigarette tobacco amod the other treasures and neatly stacked boxes of documents.

03/24/98 KENTUCKY: Smoking At Airport Under Fire; Activist Invokes Disabilities Act Cincinnati Enquirer
An anti-smoking activist said Monday he would invoke the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) to force Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to become smoke-free. Billy Williams of Dallas, a former American Airlines employee, said the action, which he plans to file with Gov. Paul Patton in the next two days, is a challenge to Kentucky's smokers' rights law.

03/24/98 MISSOURI: New State Law Makes It Easier To Find Lobbyists' Contributions To Legislators Ky3, Springfield, MO/MSNBC
Rep. Charles Ballard, R-Marshfield, also took one of those baskets from the tobacco lobby. Norma Champion's total was $71, followed by Rep. Doug Gaston, R-Houston, and Rep. Phil Wannenmacher, R-Springfield. . . Lawmakers are allowed to see the reports and make corrections before the Ethics Commission releases them to the public. Those lobbyist reports are available by writing to the Ethics Commission at PO Box 1254, Jefferson City, Mo. 65102. Software is also being developed to make the reports available on the Internet.

03/24/98 OHIO: Tobacco-Free Ohio and the Ohio Commission on Minority Health Team Up to Combat Smoking PR Newswire
Tobacco-Free Ohio and the Ohio Commission on Minority Health are joining together during Minority Health Month in April to focus on the problem of tobacco use in the African-American community.

03/24/98 COLORADO: Romer Snuffs Tobacco Use At Schools; Governor Signs Bill Closing Loophole That Allowed Exemptions Rocky Mountain News
Gov. Roy Romer signed an outright ban Monday of tobacco products on all Colorado school grounds and in school buildings. "We need to do all we can to make sure kids don't become addicted to tobacco," Romer said as he signed the bill into law. "I don't know of an issue I feel stronger about."

03/24/98 CALIFORNIA: BERKELEY: Government Meetings: West Contra Costa Contra Costa Times
BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL, 7 p.m., council chamber, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, 510-644-6480. The council will hold a public hearing to discuss a proposed ordinance barring alcohol and tobacco advertising within 1,200 feet of schools and parks. Council also will begin discussing the 1998-99 budget.

03/24/98 CALIFORNIA: School Ballot Measure Circulated UPI
U.S. Sen. DIANNE FEINSTEIN and Los Angeles MAYOR RICHARD RIORDAN have received state approval to circulate their public school ballot proposal among California voters. . . The constitutional amendment would reduce the vote threshold for passing local school construction bonds from a two-thirds to simple majority vote. It also would raise about $1.5 million a year by imposing a tax of 5 cents per cigarette, and equivalent amounts for other tobacco products.

03/24/98 NEW ZEALAND: Beer Sales Fall Again, Cigarettes Also Decline The Press
Statistics NZ reports the number of cigarettes available in December was 2% fewer than a year earlier. In July, the legal minimum age to buy cigarettes rose from 16 to 18. . . However, tobacco (other than manufactured cigarettes) for consumption rose 16.3% in 1997 to 765 tonnes. Martyn Bullimore, manager of Bronskis Dairy in Linwood, says he noticed two factors in the swing to loose tobacco from "tailor made" cigarettes. The first was the law change which banned sales of cigarettes singly or in packets of 15 or fewer. The minimum purchase is now 20 cigarettes for about $5.50 for cheaper brands and $6.15 for standard brands.

03/09/98 JAPAN Ads Sell Women On Smoking Christian Science Monitor
Yet in the past 10 years, US tobacco companies have repeatedly run ads for brands such as Virginia Slims using images of liberated, Western, cosmopolitan women. Over the same period, the number of female smokers has climbed and young women in particular have been lighting up in droves. . . Japan's experience with the advertising ban could hold lessons for the US, where Congress is debating sweeping restrictions on tobacco advertising and the White House is urging voluntary restrictions. But the US is also serving as a model for Japan.

03/24/98 CANADA: Ex-Smoker Loses Case Against Tobacco Giant Vancouver Sun
A David-and-Goliath court battle between an ex-smoker and the tobacco giant she blamed for her former habit ended Monday in the company's favor. Cecilia Letourneau, of Rimouski, wanted Imperial Tobacco to reimburse her $299 for the cost of the nicotine patches she used to help her kick the habit. Judge Gabriel de Pokomandy, of Rimouski small claims court, rejected Letourneau's request, arguing that she continued to smoke, even though she was aware of the health risks involved.

03/24/98 UK: Girls Smoke To Appear Cool For Their Boyfriends The Independent
TEENAGE girls do not start smoking because they want to lose weight - as is popularly believed - but rather because they want to appear tough and attract older boyfriends. . . The report, which looked at 3,500 schoolchildren, warns that young people are not at all influenced by media warnings on the harm smoking causes. They are fully aware of the health risks but just do not envisage themselves ever getting old enough to have to endure them. While girls were generally more concerned about thinness than were boys, there was "little evidence to link this concern with cigarette smoking", found the team from the TRUST FOR THE STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE.

03/24/98 UK: MPs Vote for Smoking Ban in Commons Electronic Telegraph
To the horror of a dwindling band of parliamentary smokers, the Administration Committee has decided to restrict the practice in most general areas of the building. In addition the catering department is reviewing its rules for the Commons canteens and bars. Already prevented from smoking in public sessions and committees, MPs are being told they cannot smoke in private committee meetings, conference, interview and family rooms and in most corridors.

03/23/98 UK: Britain on Alert for Anthrax Attack AP
Britain's air and sea ports have been put on alert to the threat of deadly anthrax being smuggled into the country by Iraq, the prime minister's office said Monday. The all-ports warning follows a threat by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to flood Britain with the toxin disguised inside "duty free" bottles of alcohol, cosmetics, cigarette lighters and perfume sprays, according to a report Tuesday in The Sun, a tabloid newspaper.

03/25/98 Analysts Trim RJR NABISCO 1Q EPS; Cite Higher Mktg Expenses Dow Jones (pay registration)
Several securities analysts have sharply cut their first-quarter earnings estimates for tobacco giant RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN), citing, among other things, higher marketing expenses and sharper currency exchange losses.
Here's part 2

03/25/98 RICHEMONT Says VENDOME Minority Buy-out Effective AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
COMPAGNIE FINANCIERE RICHEMONT AG (RCHMY), the holding company of a diversified tobacco, media and luxury goods group, said Wednesday that the buy-out of a 30% minority stake in VENDOME LUXURY GROUP became effective today. As a consequence of the transaction, Vendome will become a wholly owned unit of Richemont.

03/25/98 Cigar Maker Still On A Roll After 45 Years Bloomberg/(Newark, NJ) Star-Ledger
Daniel Blumenthal started selling cigars at 86th Street and Broadway on Manhattan's West Side in 1953 with $1,500 in his pocket. Two years ago he sold his business to General Cigar Holdings Inc. for $91 million in cash. "I hated to sell and so did my partner, but my father always said, 'You can never lose money taking a profit,'" said Blumenthal, resplendent in a dark suit and suspenders with an unlit Punch Pitas stuffed into his right cheek. "It was the right time and the right thing to do."

03/25/98 Austin Entrepreneurs Hope Their Cigar-making Business Gets On A Roll Austin American-Statesman
Three Austin entrepreneurs who have dabbled in everything from Sixth Street bars to Continental cuisine are now betting that another hot trend will catch fire in Austin. Former bar owner Chris Ruhling has teamed up with two other local businessmen to start HAVANA HARBOR CIGAR FACTORY, where workers hand-roll cigars for sale at its West Sixth Street headquarters and elsewhere.

03/25/98 Fittipalidi Drops Suit Over Cigar Firm The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Things have been moving fast at Emerson Fittipaldi's recently launched cigar business, Fittipaldi Cigar Co. Mr. Fittipaldi, car-racing star and Miami resident, earlier this month sued his partner in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, alleging the partner breached a shareholders agreement he signed with Mr. Fittipaldi and drove the company to insolvency.

03/25/98 More Dislike Health Companies: Poll UPI
A new Harris poll finds the oil industry is the only one that is more highly rated _ presumably because of falling gasoline prices. . . The tobacco industry was the only one more people said was doing a bad job _ only 32 percent say they are doing a good job.

03/25/98 NEW YORK: ADVISORY/Smoking...Drinking...DragKing... A Slice of LIFE with OUT and l.a. Eyeworks Entertainment Wire
OUT, America's best-selling gay & lesbian magazine is sponsoring l.a. EYEWORKS' Third Annual cocktail-and-dance party to kick off the OPTICAL SHOW being held at the Jacob Javits Center this weekend. Dozens of fashion, eyewear, and publishing VIPs will gather at LIFE for cocktails (courtesy of TANQUERAY) and dance to D.J. St. Peter's tunes for a luscious evening that will culminate with performances by drag kings MO B. DICK, DRED, and JULIE WHEELER. When: Friday, March 27 1998, 8 to 11 PM. Where: LIFE, 158 Bleecker Street (between Thompson & Sullivan) BY INVITATION

03/25/98 After the Oscars, A Total Implosion Of Stars Small graph in Washington Post article
Sometime way after midnight, on the patio of MORTON'S, the host of the highest-wattage Oscar party in town was finally to be found. GRAYDON CARTER, the editor of that fat, glossy and heavily perfumed old gal, VANITY FAIR, stood, as pleased with himself as a pasha . . . The place was smoking. Literally. Forget California's new ban on tobacco use in nightclubs -- it seemed as if all of Hollywood was waving a Marlboro Red around. Want to know why there's so much gratuitous puffing in movies? Everyone smokes!

03/25/98 Protecting Barney's Image From Bogus Beasts Washington Post
Lyons Partnership, the Texas company that licenses an estimated $500 million in trademark Barney gear, has filed federal lawsuits against 20 Washington area costume stores and children's entertainers. . . "The negative effects on children of cursing, removing the costume head, smoking, drinking and other unseemly conduct by unauthorized performers are unacceptable to Lyons, which suffers irreparable injury to its goodwill and reputation as a result," said a complaint filed this month in U.S. District Court in Arlington, Virginia.

03/24/98 Translating Discoveries from the Lab to Clinical Practice is Focus of 89th Annual Meeting of American Association for Cancer Research PR Newswire
In order to catalyze the movement of basic research findings from the laboratory bench to the cancer clinic, scientists from around the world will converge next month to share the most up-to-date developments in the rapidly advancing areas of basic, clinical, and translational cancer research at the 89th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). The meeting will take place from March 28-April 1 at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. . . Tuesday, March 31 10:00 a.m. -- 10:45 a.m. Tobacco and Lung Carcinogenesis

03/24/98 GARAGIOLA Wages War Against Use Of `Spit Tobacco' Philadelphia Inquirer
Joe Garagiola gets angry when he has to think about the human carnage his enemy has caused. He gets teary-eyed when he sees what that foe is still doing.

03/24/98 It May Be Smokeless Tobacco, But It's Still Playing With Fire; The Lure Is Powerful, The Danger Terrible. Bill Lyon, Philadelphia Inquirer
I have a son who has a brown crater in his mouth. Wanna see? He pulls down his lower lip. "Gross, isn't it?" he asks. Yes. Yes, it is. His tone is not the prideful defiance of the rebellious young. His tone is filled with disgust. And with fear.

03/24/98 IYD Releases America's Youth: Measuring the Risk; Most Young People Succeeding in Face of Five Related Risk Factors PR Newswire
THE INSTITUTE FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT (IYD) has released AMERICA'S YOUTH: MEASURING THE RISK, 2nd edition, a comprehensive review of data showing that, while young people are at risk of being snared by a "web" of five, inextricably linked risk factors, most are successfully navigating adolescence. The five major risk factors facing youth today -- alcohol, drugs, sex, tobacco, and violence -- are interconnected, the report concludes. For example, youth ages 12-17 who smoke are 8 times more likely to use illicit drugs and 11 times more likely to drink heavily than nonsmoking youths.

03/24/98 TV: TELEVISION REVIEW: The Courage And Candor Of SELDES Boston Globe
He was the first American writer outside of scientific journals to publicize the perils of smoking. "The American press and radio," he wrote in "In fact" in 1942, "have suppressed the facts ... that the more tobacco a person uses the earlier he dies." . . "Nothing can stop the march of an informed people," he would write, and nothing could stop Seldes himself. His enemies, like Pershing, were not inconsqeuential. Mussolini had Seldes expelled from Italy for exposing the fascist leader's murderous tactics. . . He was one of the great watchdogs of our free press, which he was convinced through long experience and close attention, was not nearly as free as it wanted the public to believe it was.

03/24/98 OPINION: What The Antismoking Zealots Really Crave Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
Nicotine may be pleasurable, but it's nothing like the high of forcing others to behave the way you want them to. Power over other people's pleasures is very addicting, isn't it? "The true nature of the crusade for a smoke-free society," Sullum writes, is "an attempt by one group of people to impose their tastes and preferences on another." It's illiberal, it's vindictive, it's intolerant. It's you.

03/22/98 EDITORIAL: Medicare, The Budget, and the Great Irony Smokeout New York Post
Domenici's approach is much more sensible. He wants to use the tobacco settlement money to shore up the moribund Medicare system . . . But for you fans of irony out there, here's the biggest irony of all: If you're worried about health-care costs, smoking is a help. Smokers who die prematurely, after all, have spent a lifetime contributing taxes to Social Security and Medicare they will never recover. Only in Washington, it seems, can people argue over money they don't have, to be spent on things they don't need.

03/24/98 WISCONSIN: MADISON: New State Street Shop Lets Freedom Ring With Patrons Badger Herald (Madison, WI)
Freeedom . . . boasts one of the fastest-growing collections of skateboarding gear and clothing in Madison. The shop also provides a questionably healthy supply of tobacco-smoking paraphernalia. . . "I want kids to feel like they can come in, relax, cool off on a hot day so we can get to know them," [Manager Keef] Habeck said. "I cater a little bit to everybody." Freedom patrons can watch one of many skateboarding videos that play constantly, or browse what Habeck said will be one of the largest selections of cigars in Madison.

03/25/98 UTAH: LEAVITT Vetoes 7 Bills From '98 Session Deseret News
Gov. Mike Leavitt had a busy evening Tuesday . . . Among the bills Leavitt allowed to go into law without his signature was one that requires tobacco products be kept out of the easy reach of juvenile shoplifters. The bill was controversial because it also pre-empted local governments from enacting more stringent regulation of tobacco.

03/26/98 CALIFORNIA: OCEANSIDE: Ban on Open Display of Tobacco Weighed San Diego Union-Tribune
Although the City Council did not take an official vote on the matter during an informal workshop yesterday, Mayor Dick Lyon said the sentiment was unanimous to prepare an ordinance banning such sales. The mayor instructed City Attorney Duane Bennett to write the new law after the council listened to a 60-minute presentation on the proposal. Kim Lichtenberger, 17, who attends North Coast Alternative High School in Encinitas, told the council, "I started smoking the summer before the seventh grade and quit in my sophomore year." Always, she said, she found it easier to buy -- or shoplift -- cigarette packages in open displays.

03/26/98 CALIFORNIA: Legislator Targets Retirement Plans' Tobacco Stocks LA Times
Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) pushed a bill that would require the retirement systems to purge their investment portfolios of about $1.7 billion in tobacco company investments. Affected most by both measures would be the $128-billion portfolio of the Public Employees Retirement System that provides retirement and health care benefits for 1 million state and local government employees.

03/26/98 NEW YORK: Ct Dismisses Antitrust Claims In Union Suits Vs Tobacco Cos Dow Jones (pay registration)
A federal judge Thursday dismissed two antitrust claims in lawsuits brought by New York union health-benefit funds against the tobacco industry, but will allow most of the unions' remaining claims to proceed. U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled that the union funds don't have standing to pursue claims against tobacco companies over allegations of antitrust violations. She also threw out the lawsuits' allegation of unjust enrichment on the part of the companies.

03/26/98 Judge Allows Union Tobacco Suits To Proceed Reuters
A federal judge Thursday refused to throw out two racketeering lawsuits filed by union health and welfare trust funds against the nation's largest tobacco companies. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin allows the cases to proceed to the next step of seeking class action certification. The cases were filed in federal court in Manhattan by The Transport Workers Union New York City Private Bus Lines Health Benefit Trust and Laborers Local 17 Health Benefit Fund.

03/25/98 ENGLE: FLORIDA Smokers Trial Seen Starting In May Or June Reuters
Circuit Judge Robert Kaye of Miami-Dade County Court has scheduled the first of a series of pre-trial hearings on April 6 and was likely then to set a trial date, beginning with jury selection, lawyers for both sides said.

03/26/98 MARYLAND: No Smoke, And Not Much Ire; HOWARD's Ban: First Fine Imposed Under Year-old Law, Which Has Not Harmed Restaurant Trade. Baltimore Sun
IT HAS BEEN more than a year since HOWARD COUNTY's anti-smoking law took effect, but only one restaurant has been fined for noncompliance. That indicates the food and beverage industry is finding ways to abide by the law without losing as many customers as they feared.
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03/25/98 MARYLAND: Panel Rejects Cigarette Tax Rise; Senate Committee Extinguishes Hopes Of Health Advocates Baltimore Sun
The vote by the Budget and Taxation Committee effectively ends debate on the tobacco tax issue for the remainder of the General Assembly's 90-day session, lawmakers said.

03/26/98 OHIO: Tobacco Farmers Clear Air About Product In Ohio Legislature Columbus Dispatch
Ohio tobacco growers don't like underage smoking. They do like adults to have a choice in whether to smoke. And they do like the $300 million tobacco brings to the state economy and to schools and communities in 22 Ohio counties. That's the message 250 tobacco farmers brought yesterday to state legislators -- some of whom are tobacco growers themselves. "We have had enough regulation," said Bob Koehler, a tobacco farmer and one of three vice presidents of the newly formed Ohio Tobacco Growers Association. "We don't need any more."

03/27/98 Tobacco Firms Sued Over S.F. Billboards Too Near Schools, Suit Says San Francisco Chronicle
In a complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Janet Mangini accused the companies of "outrageous flouting" of the tobacco advertising billboard ban that went into effect January 1. "An easy drive around San Francisco makes it apparent that there is widespread disobedience of that law in California," Mangini alleged in her suit.

03/26/98 CALIFORNIA: Tobacco Firms Sued Over Billboards SF Examiner

03/25/98 French Health Fund To Sue Tobacco Firms Reuters
The health insurance fund in the western city of St Nazaire is preparing to file a lawsuit against tobacco companies operating in France, the daily Presse Ocean reported Thursday. The newspaper said the St Nazaire primary health insurance fund had asked lawyers in Paris to study ways to ensure that the lawsuit charging the companies with "poisoning" was carried through to its conclusion.

03/26/98 UK: High Taxes Keep The Smugglers In Business Times of London
The ever-soaring tax on tobacco is not a health issue, it is an economic issue for corner shops, argues the Tobacco Alliance, the representative of 26,000 independent retailers. Paul Mason, the alliance's national spokesman, says: "Once again the Chancellor has not done anything for retailers. We are the cornerstone of the economy, but every Budget is the same."

03/26/98 UK: Cigarettes And Booze Beloved By Young Brits-survey Reuters
Hard-drinking and hooked on smoking, more and more young Britons are turning their backs on 1980s health culture, a government survey released on Thursday showed. If Oasis can lay claim to be Britain's pop kings of the 1990s, then the survey suggests their smash hit "Cigarettes and Alcohol" could be the decade's anthem.

03/26/98 Health message up in smoke BBC
03/26/98 More Women Are Turning To Drink And Cigarettes Electronic Telegraph
The number of women who smoke is about to overtake the number of male smokers for the first time. . . The General Household Survey, a snapshot of contemporary life in figures and graphs published by the Office for National Statistics every year since 1971 . . . Smoking, by contrast, is more of a working class habit. The report shows that 45 per cent of men and 36 per cent of women from "unskilled" homes smoke, compared with 11 per cent of men and 12 per cent of women from professional homes.

03/26/98 Young Men Turn To Unhealthy Pub Life The Independent
MORE young men are turning to unhealthy pub-based lifestyles, drinking and smoking too much and seeing games of snooker or pool as their favourite exercise. . . Young men were also more likely than any other age group to smoke. In 1996 43 per cent smoked compared to 37 per cent in 1988. Teenagers were most likely to smoke high-tar cigarettes with 79 per cent of men and 66 per cent of women doing so. However, they did smoke fewer cigarettes, with 16- to 19-year-old men smokers averaging 82 cigarettes per week

03/26/98 EGYPT: Smoking To Be Religiously Prohibited? Arabicnews.com
Egypt, Religion, 3/25/98 Nasr Farid Wassel, Egypt's mufti, called for a label reading, "Smoking is religiously prohibited" to be printed on cigarette packages instead of the warning "Smoking is harmful for health." Egypt's mufti said in the assembly of the suggestions and complaints committee of the Egyptian People's Council that smoking by some men of religion does not imply that smoking is permitted, and that there should be penalties for doing so.

03/26/98 TAIWAN TOBACCO & WINE MONOPOLY To Incorporate In 5 Yrs AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)

03/26/98 FOCUS-Spain's TABACALERA sale April 13-27 Reuters
Spain's privatisation of tobacco group Tabacalera (TAB.MC), the latest in its aggressive sell-off campaign, will take place from April 13 to 27, sources at the lead managers for the operation said on Thursday. "The privatisation will start on April 13 and on April 27 the price will be fixed," a source

03/26/98 AGRICULTURE: CONNECTICUT: Tobacco Farmers Hope Destructive Fungus Didn't Winter Well AP/NY Newsday
Tobacco farmers along the Connecticut River Valley have been advised to take extra precautions this spring to avoid another outbreak of the fungus that destroyed up to 40 percent of last year's shade tobacco crop, causing millions of dollars in damages.

03/26/98 AGRICULTURE: MARYLAND: Tobacco Take Compares With Last Year Indian Head Center Gets Gubernatorial Boost, Washington Post
Southern Maryland farmers received lower prices during the first week of this year's tobacco auction than they did in the corresponding period last year, but a heavier crop helped make up the difference to their wallets.

03/26/98 ITC Trims Paper Portfolio, Shops For Speciality Tieup Economic Times of India
ITC Ltd has decided to phase out production of magazine, bond, carbon and thermal papers at its Tribeni mill. . . While cigarette paper will continue to be a key product for the company considering its synergies with the tobacco business, sources said the plan finally was to trim down the number of manufactured products to around three and be a part of a select club internationally in these segments.

03/26/98 CZECH TABAK Falls On Profit Taking Reuters
Shares of cigarette maker Tabak a.s. , the Czech unit of Philip Morris Cos, fell sharply for the second consecutive session on the Prague Stock Exchange, hit again by a round of profit-taking. Tabak shares fell 101 crowns to 9,600 at the bourse's daily price fixing, following a 199 crown drop on Wednesday after the issue hit an all-time high of 9,900 the previous session.

03/26/98 Female Bonding Over Cigars The New York Times
"If you want to play the boys' game," Star Jones was saying, "you've got to smoke their cigars, drink their Scotch and play their golf." Well, one out of three: Ms. Jones, a host of "THE VIEW," a daytime talk show on ABC-TV, was not drinking Scotch or playing golf, but she was smoking a cigar. For it was a women-only night at Club Macanudo, a cigar bar on East 63rd Street, where Ms. Jones said she was a regular.

03/26/98 CVS Sued for Privacy Violations AP
03/26/98 CVS Hit With Class-action Suit Over Mailings Boston Globe
A Massachusetts man has filed a class-action lawsuit against CVS Corp., claiming the chain violated his rights to privacy . . . In allegedly providing information to Elensys - a third party - CVS "committed a flagrant breach of the patient/customer confidentiality relied upon by millions of CVS prescription holders," the law firm said . . . Julie Dean, a Glaxo spokeswoman, said . . . Glaxo had contacted CVS to help educate CVS customers that might be interested in Zyban, a new smoking-cessation product from Glaxo.

03/26/98 FIRES: TEXAS: Cigarette Suspected In Fatal Nursing Home Blaze Houston Chronicle
An early-morning fire at a Jacinto City nursing home Wednesday left an elderly woman dead and another hospitalized for treatment of smoke inhalation. Killed in the 2:43 a.m. fire at the Jacinto City Health Care Center, 1405 Holland, was Willie Burleson, 75.

03/25/98 TV: GIBBONS Opens 'Teen Files' Variety
LEEZA GIBBONS will host "THE TEEN FILES," a series of one-hour syndicated specials addressing topical issues facing teenagers. The series is scheduled to begin May 21 with "SMOKING: TRUTH OR DARE?" and will feature appearances by BOYZ II MEN, supermodel CHRISTY TURLINGTON, U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Resources DONNA SHALALA and actor JUDD HIRSCH.

03/26/98 Smoke Out; Is There A Reason The Mayor Didn't Want To Talk About His Smoking Ban? The Boston Phoenix, March 26 - April 2, 1998
Instead of focusing on public policy -- how best to balance the legitimate needs of smokers and nonsmokers -- the debate becomes an exercise in ethical superiority. . . This is the darker side of the New England spirit -- smug, exclusive, and punitive. And that is not the kind of city that anyone, smoker or nonsmoker, should want.

03/24/98 LETTERS: Comments `taken Out of Context' JAMES F. GLENN, M. D. CEO, Chairman and President The Council for Tobacco Research. Louiville Courier-Jounal
First of all, one could take issue with your headline, which pronounced The Council for Tobacco Research to be "pro tobacco." The Council for Tobacco Research is guided by an independent board of distinguished scientists who direct the funding of basic biomedical research throughout this country and abroad

03/25/98 OPINION: The Province helps spread a mythRobert Broughton, President AIRSPACE , documents a local example of how a media myth spreads without check (or checking).
On Saturday, March 7, I got a call from Claire Ogilvie, a reporter for The Province (a.k.a. The Provincial Enquirer). She asked me for a reaction to a wire service story which originated with the Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper with a pro-tobacco-industry bias. According to the story, a study commissioned by the World Health Organization concluded that there is no link between exposure to second-hand cigaret smoke and lung cancer. . . The Province did not print . . . the opinions of anyone else in B.C.'s pro-health community. However, they found space for quotes from three Vancouver restaurateurs, all of them experts on epidemiology. . . As of March 17, The Province has not printed any sort of correction, retraction, or apology.

03/25/98 EDITORIAL: Amending Tobacco's Sweet Deal The New York Times
The deal would give the industry what it desires most -- protection from future class-action lawsuits and other legal shields, with relatively little impact on future profits. . . A bipartisan plan sponsored by Senators Bob Graham, John Chafee and Tom Harkin has already won favorable reviews from President Clinton and public health experts such as former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. It contains many crucial elements that must be included in any legislation that reaches the Senate floor.

03/24/98 EDITORIAL: Smoke Screens Kentucky Post
With just over three weeks remaining before the General Assembly adjourns, two bills to combat teen smoking appear to be going nowhere. . . House Bill 381 would have allowed, among other things, local communities to ban or restrict the sale the so-called "loosies," the single cigarettes which are cheap and, as such, appealing to teens, and it would have let local communities issue permits to retailers who sell tobacco products. But our legislators balked at turning any control of teen access to tobacco over to local communities even though for years the state has been derelict to handle the problem. . . Furthermore, if Kentucky legislators really wanted to get serious about teen-age smoking, they could enact House Bill 561.

03/18/98 Burning Down The Houses; Big Tobacco's 1997 Congressional Lobbying Public Citizen's full report, which ties all the increased lobbying to the push for the June 20 tobacco settlement.

03/26/98 Party Favors: An Analysis Of More Than $67 Million In Soft Money Given To Democratic And Republican National Party Committees In 1997 Common Cause

1997 Tobacco Industry Soft Money Totals $3 Million
03/26/98 Heads They Win, Tails They Win
Ten companies were six-figure soft money donors to both Democrats and Republicans, giving $100,000 or more to each party in 1997, according to Common Cause. The top 10 soft money "double givers" during 1997 were:

Company Democrats Republicans Total
Philip Morris Cos Inc* $242,923 $1,190,702 $1,433,625
RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co 122,573 475,500 598,073

03/26/98 Tobacco Donations Total $4.4 Million UPI
The tobacco industry gave a record $4.4 million in political donations last year, with nearly half of all current members of Congress taking money from its political action committees. The public interest group Common Cause, in an annual study, found the donations overwhelmingly favored the Republican Party and members of the congressional leadership and the committees handling tobacco issues. The report came two weeks after the Campaign Study Group of Springfield, Va., reached a similar conclusion in an analysis for The New York Times. It found tobacco interests gave $4.5 million to federal candidates and national political parties in 1997, an industry record for a non-election year.

03/26/98 Big Tobacco Gave Congress Big Cash in '97, Study Says LA Times
[T]he nation's cigarette makers poured $4.4 million into the coffers of political parties and members of Congress in 1997, a record for a nonelection year, according to a new analysis. . . . Among the big recipients are lawmakers who are in a position to make critical decisions about the shape of any tobacco legislation approved by Congress, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas J. Bliley (R-Va.) and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina.

03/26/98 Growing on Tobacco Washington Post
Little wonder they call it the golden weed. The $10.3 million that tobacco companies gave Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand last year transformed the law firm into the No. 1 lobby shop in Washington. But the surprise in the just-available 1997 lobbying fee figures is how close previous champ Cassidy & Associates came to Verner's total, and Cassidy, a lobbying and public affairs firm, did it without tobacco money. . . six-figure fees were spread among the firm's base of private universities and hospitals, most of which wanted help getting dollars out of the federal treasury.

03/26/98 Parties Continue Soft Money Pursuit February figures are in. AP/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
The biggest GOP soft money donor in February was veteran Republican giver Julian H. Robertson . . . while Philip Morris contributed $170, 000. . . Many groups gave soft money to both political parties in February. The Tobacco Institute contributed $5, 000 to the RNC, $25, 000 to the Senate Republicans and $10, 000 to the Senate Democrats. Bristol Myers Squibb, a pharmaceutical company, gave $25, 000 to the RNC and $30, 000 to the Senate Democrats. The House Democrats received $15, 000 and the Senate Republicans received $25, 000 from Arco.

03/27/98 Sen. Won't Boost Taxes for IRS Plan AP
The Senate's top tax writer decided not to boost cigarette taxes to finance his bill to overhaul the Internal Revenue Service, leaving the measure billions short of revenue. Sen. William V. Roth Jr., R-Del., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, opted against a tobacco tax increase so as not to damage the IRS bill's prospects, an aide said. "These are noncontroversial," Roth spokeswoman Ginny Flynn said Thursday of Roth's proposals to finance the overhaul. "The most important thing is to get the taxpayer protections passed without a controversial (revenue) offset."

03/27/98 And Now, From The White House, An Ad Business Week, April 6, 1998
IT'S A POLICY WONK'S DREAM: a new public-affairs television station that airs entire press conferences from the White House or Pentagon. But wait a second--or 30. Unlike commercial-free C-SPAN, this station will sell ads to trade and public-interest groups. Will viewers appreciate, say, a Presidential press conference on the proposed tobacco settlement--sponsored by the Tobacco Institute? Dennis Dunbar is betting they will. He is CEO and founder of Washington-based Information Super Station, Channel 28. Dunbar began ISS with $2 million from a videoconferencing business he owned.

03/26/98 Unions' Tobacco Suit Cleared to Proceed New York Law Journal
Southern District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled the funds deserve a chance to make their claims that the tobacco companies' deceit about the health risks and addictiveness of smoking significantly boosted the funds' health-care costs, in Laborers Local 17 Health & Benefit Fund v. Philip Morris Inc., 97 Civ. 4550.

03/28/98 GEORGIA: Tobacco Firm To Pay State $1 Million The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first payoff from Georgia's lawsuit against the tobacco industry came Friday with the announcement of a $1 million settlement with Liggett Group. More importantly, Liggett and Brooke Group, its Miami-based parent company, have pledged to cooperate in the state's ongoing lawsuit against the other tobacco companies.

03/27/98 Ga. Settles Liggett Tobacco Suit AP
The state said Friday it has agreed to settle its lawsuit against the smallest of the major tobacco manufacturers for $1 million, a share of pre-tax profits and the company' s cooperation in the litigation against other manufacturers. Including Georgia, Liggett Group Inc. now has reached settlements with 41 states.

03/27/98 BROOKE And LIGGETT Add GEORGIA To Tobacco Litigation Settlements Business Wire

03/27/98 MARYLAND: Bill Allowing State To Collect Money From Tobacco Industry Clears Panel Baltimore Sun
Legislation that would help the state collect billions of dollars from the tobacco industry cleared its first hurdle in a Senate committee yesterday, but only after two members of the panel declined to vote amid concerns about conflicts of interest. On a vote of 6-3, with two abstentions, the Judicial Proceedings Committee approved a measure designed to undo an adverse ruling last year by the judge in the state's lawsuit seeking $13 billion in damages from cigarette manufacturers.

03/27/98 MARYLAND: Tobacco Lobby Dealt Setback in Md. Senate Washington Post
Over bitter opposition from tobacco supporters, a Maryland legislative panel yesterday endorsed a measure that would help the state in its lawsuit seeking billions of dollars from the cigarette industry. The battle took a nasty turn as Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) angrily denied allegations by pro-tobacco lobbyists that he had promised control over one or two state judgeships to a committee chairman in exchange for support of the measure.

03/27/98 Lawyer, Former Colleagues Dispute Fees AP/Biloxi Sun Herald
Pascagoula attorney RICHARD SCRUGGS, who made his fortune suing manufacturers on behalf of workers exposed to asbestos, is embroiled in legal disputes over attorney fees from such cases. ALWYN LUCKEY, an Ocean Springs lawyer who worked for Scruggs on asbestos lawsuits, started the legal fight. Luckey sued Scruggs and Jackson lawyer William Roberts Wilson in Hinds County Circuit Court in June 1994. . . Pascagoula lawyer JOE COLINGO, who defended R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Attorney General Mike Moore's lawsuit, said the public has a right to know what is going on in the asbestos case. Colingo represents Merkel and Mitchell.

03/28/98 GEORGIA: Pharmacist Ends Hypocrisy, Stops Selling Tobacco Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer
Allen Smith is putting his money where is mouth is. . . "It reached the point where I'd be selling them cigarettes, they'd eventually get sick and I'd wind up selling them prescription drugs to treat their illnesses," Smith said. "I just couldn't look into their faces any more." . . And that's not an easy thing to do for an independent druggist. One cigarette company paid Smith $300 a month simply to put its rack in a favorable position on the counter. In all, tobacco advertising brought in almost $1,000 a month.

03/28/98 KENTUCKY: Debate On Teens, Tobacco Flares Lexington (KY) Herald Leader
The House passed and sent to the governor Senate Bill 146, which would allow children to be fined for buying or attempting to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products. But lawmakers refused to even vote on an amendment by Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, that would have allowed judges to punish children caught with tobacco products with up to eight hours of community service. "It's completely illogical to state that it's against the law to sell tobacco products to children but it's OK for them to use those products and it's OK for other adults to give those tobacco products to children," Riner said.

03/28/98 ALASKA: Anchorage Has $12 Million Surplus Short graph in Anchorage Daily News
Also last year, in the months before the new state tobacco tax went into effect, smokers rushed to stores to stockpile cigarettes. That raised the city's tobacco tax revenue by $300,000.

03/27/98 PENNSYLVANIA: PHILADELPHIA: It's Hell, No Butts About It; No-smoking Prisons Have Inmates Rolling Their Own Philadelphia Daily News
Prisoners are willing to do a helluva lot more than walk a mile for a Camel. Like pay $100 for a $2 pack of cigarettes. Like smoking a tampon wrapper filled with tobacco. Puffing on dried tea leaves. Blowing a banana peel. Even trading sex for smokes. This chain-smoking gang is serving time in newly designated smoke-free prisons in Philadelphia, Bucks and Montgomery counties by sneaking drags off illegal butts and by operating an exorbitant black market.

03/27/98 TENNESSEE: Nine Cited in Sales of Beer, Cigarettes to Minors The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN
A random check on the sales of beer and cigarettes to underage youths resulted in citations being issued to nine DeSoto County stores and a vow by Sheriff James Albert Riley to keep up the pressure.

03/27/98 NORTH CAROLINA: Merchants To Review Tobacco Law Fayetteville (NC) Observer-Times
Although a new state law banning tobacco sales to minors went into effect in December, many merchants are just now receiving the information and required signs to enforce the law. Hoke County Chief Deputy Sheriff Wayne Gardner said the kits for local merchants arrived this week. An information and training meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the public library on Main Street in Raeford.

03/28/98 CHINA: Shanghai Industrial Buys Tuen Mun Site For Tobacco Factory South China Morning Post
Shanghai Industrial Holdings - the listed arm of Shanghai municipal government - has bought an industrial godown site for $51 million at a government tender. A company spokesman said it would develop the 36,748 square feet site in Tuen Mun into premises for tobacco production for its subsidiary Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Co.

03/27/98 INDIA: ASCI Plays Censor, Snips Stars From Tobacco Ads Economic Times of India
THE ADVERTISING Standards Council of India (ASCI) has formulated a stringent code of conduct for advertising tobacco products in India. This includes ban of personal testimonial by stars or well known personalities. The Code will be implemented only from October 1998, so as to give the industry enough time to adapt its communication. According to the Code, released by Mr Dorab Sopariwala chairman of ASCI, no advertisement shall be targeted at underage consumers and that anyone shown holding a cigarette or smoking, or using any tobacco product will be clearly over the age of 25.

03/27/98 THAILAND: Two firms reminded of deadline; Formulas must be lodged by April 10 Bangkok Post
All tobacco manufacturers and importers must disclose the ingredients of their products by April 10 as scheduled, the Public Health Ministry reaffirmed yesterday. Its announcement was a reminder to two companies - Philip Morris and British American Tobacco - which have not yet lodged their cigarette formulas with the ministry. The ministry earlier extended the original deadline of February 10.

03/27/98 HONG KONG: Universities Look At Stubbing Out Smoking South China Morning Post
SHIRLEY KWOK Smoking could be banned at all universities under laws that come into effect from next Wednesday. Under amended anti-smoking laws, tertiary institutions will be able to ban smoking and impose a penalty of $5,000. Campus managers will be able to order people to put out cigarettes and order them to leave.

03/27/98 RJR Chief Got Paid Less Cash In '97,But Can Earn More Later Dow Jones (pay registration)
A new component of RJR's bonus compensation last year are performance notes, or "phantom units," whose value can fluctuate based on certain financial benchmarks already determined by RJR's board. So since RJR's earnings of $1.1 billion, excluding charges, exceeded the company's net income target, Chairman and Chief Executive Steven F. Goldstone received 7,813 performance notes, which, at $32 apiece, have an initial value of roughly $250,000.

03/28/98 SPAIN Authorizes TABACALERA Privatisation Reuters
The Spanish government on Friday approved the full privatisation of tobacco giant Tabacalera (TAB.MC) in the latest major step in the state's aggressive sell-off campaign. Tabacalera, Spain's biggest cigarette producer and the world's No. 1 one cigar maker, has said it would carry out a five-for-one stock split before the privatisation gets under way. Tabacalera's stock closed trade on Friday 1.54 percent higher at 17,360 pesetas, following the Spanish cabinet's decision.

03/27/98 PROFILE: JOHANN RUPERT: No Haze About Rupert's View On Unions Business Day (Johannesburg, SA)
Johann Rupert smokes without apology throughout an interview about where he is now and where he is going, report. As maker of ROTHMANS, DUNHILL AND STUYVESANT cigarettes, he evidently believes in the product. And as son of the founder and head of the family firm, he is not about to apologise for lighting up.

03/27/98 UST Inc. Cut Chairman's '97 Bonus To Reflect Lower Earnings Dow Jones (pay registration)

03/27/98 IMPERIAL Up After Broker "Buy" Advice
Shares in Imperial Tobacco Plc rose on Friday after analysts at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter repeated a "buy" recommendation following recent weakness in the stock, dealers said. The stock -- which has retreated from its record peak of 460p set in January -- traded 12p or 2.9 percent higher at 430p by 1027 GMT, in volume of just under one million shares.

03/28/98 Teens Find Profit and Loss in Work Short graph in Washington Post article
A federally funded study of 12,000 students in grades 7 through 12, conducted by the University of Minnesota and the University of North Carolina, found that the teenagers who worked more than 20 hours a week were more likely to smoke, have sex and use alcohol and illegal drugs. Researchers say the reasons for that link are not entirely clear, although some have speculated that it is because such teenagers have more money and spend less time with their parents.

03/27/98 BOOKS: Cigar Asphyxianado by Eric Spitznagel. Due in June from Warner Books. You can order here

03/24/98 Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Sounds Alarm on Sports Illustrated for Linking Tobacco and Athleticism US Newswire
"With its level of readership by young people, Sports Illustrated has a responsibility to be accountable for the advertising in its magazine," said Bill Novelli, campaign president. "The fact that a magazine with a focus on physical ability and athletic excellence would accept ads from an industry whose products cause addiction and deadly health problems is astounding. To make matters worse, several of the tobacco ads in the swimsuit issue blur the line between editorial content and advertising by using imagery similar to that of the swimsuit pictorials. It is as if Sports Illustrated and its tobacco advertisers went out of their way to work together to integrate the editorial and tobacco advertising content."

03/28/98 LETTERS: The Danger Is Tobacco, Not the Deal Readers, including BILL NOVELLI, respond to JAMES GLASSMAN'S "The Danger in the Tobacco Deal." Washington Post

03/28/98 LETTERS: Sultriness May Sell, But a Cigar is Still a Cigar 3 letters on varying aspects of tobacco. The New York Times

03/26/98 EDITORIAL: Corrupting the Congress Arizona Daily Star
And our senators and representatives are showered with money from RJ Reynolds and Phillip Morris and the other cigarette makers. . . Once again this year, the Senate has failed to pass the McCain- Feingold campaign-reform act or to offer a workable alternative. The House Speaker has ensured the death of any similar legislation. The American public cannot continue to accept the claim of Congress that it has no sickness. Intervention is necessary at the ballot box.

03/27/98 OPINION: Tobacco Industry Doesn't Deserve The Legal Immunity It's Seeking Donald L. Clark, president of the American Lung Association. Salt Lake Tribune
"The industry is not getting `immunity,' " Big Tobacco professes. The Chafee-Harkin-Graham legislation "would not provide the tobacco industry with any immunity," the senators argue. But it would reward the tobacco companies with an unprecedented special protection -- caps on damages -- in effect, the immunity they want so badly. . . But rewarding this rogue industry with a special deal isn't the way to go. Let's remember the five-year-olds whom the industry sought to "hook." And let's hope that Congress does what's right, not just what's politically expedient.

03/27/98 OPINION: Campaign Reform: Not The FCC's Business Sen. John McCain, Washington Post
If you need any evidence of the ineffectiveness of free time absent more fundamental campaign reform, consider this: President Clinton, in the midst of intensive deliberations on the tobacco settlement, recently attended a soft-money fund-raiser hosted by a tobacco litigator. The president, of course, is the impetus behind the FCC chairman's free-time initiative, but all the free time in the world won't be enough to address the fundamental problem highlighted by his attendance at that fund-raiser.

03/28/98 OPINION: Will Congress Blow Smoke in the Public's Eyes? Marie Cocco, NY Newsday
The unwritten ending will tell us if Congress still is capable of delivering on a complex, controversial public issue - or provide the final proof it is hopelessly hogtied by money and partisanship.

03/30/98 FLORIDA: New Ways to Think of Smoking Detroit Free Press
Or how about comparing puffing to inhaling cow flatulence? Those are, like, real ads. They're being pegged toward teenagers on television stations in south Florida where health officials said it was the kids who screened and picked the ads. Figures.

03/29/98 Yucky Florida Tobacco Ads Target Teens
A vivid series of anti-smoking ads being aired in Florida -- aimed at teens and selected by teens -- compares cigarette smoking to inhaling cattle flatulence and ingesting pus from a dead bird's eye. Florida health officials can't wait to see what the kids come up with when they get to write their own. A group of Florida teens will get that chance to make peer-oriented anti-smoking commercials for radio and television at the Florida Governor's Teen Tobacco Summit, which was to begin Sunday in Haines City, Florida.

03/29/98 State Taps Teens For Ideas Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
He and his sister Jessica will be two of about 600 students, including 13 from Broward County, eight from Palm Beach County and 16 from Miami-Dade County, who will meet in Haines City this week for a Teen Tobacco Summit. On Wednesday, they will help launch a $200 million advertising campaign designed to curb teen smoking. Financed by the nation's cigarette companies, it will be one of the first visible results of Florida's $11.3 billion settlement reached with the tobacco industry in August.

03/29/98 State Studying Way To Stretch Anti-smoking Ad Program Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Organizers of the Teen Tobacco Summit this week want to make sure a $200 million anti-smoking campaign reaches today's teens -- and, eventually, their little brothers and sisters.

03/29/98 CALIFORNIA: INTERVIEW: GARY YATES On the Role of Health Foundations in Caring for California's Poor LA Times
Q: Four years ago, the [ California Wellness Foundation] spent about $4 million on TV commercials on Proposition 188 that the tobacco industry was sponsoring. It was defeated. Now, isn't that lobbying? A: It certainly would have been lobbying if we had taken a stance on it one way or the other. If we'd have said, "Vote Yes for 188," or "Vote No on 188," that would have crossed the line. We gave a grant to another organization to do a public education campaign that was neutral on 188. It basically said the citizens of this state should get the facts about that ballot initiative. It was an important health initiative. People who saw those ads were shown what one side said about it and what another side said about it--straight out of the voter guide.

03/29/98 NEW YORK: Bronx Pol: INDIANS Ship Smokes To Kids Second NY-NJ-CT Regional News Report, UPI
A New York state assemblyman from the Bronx says American Indians are robbing the state of millions of dollars by selling tax-free cigarettes though the mail. He also says the sellers don't check the buyers, shipping the cigarettes to anyone, even minors. Assemblyman JEFFREY KLEIN says Native Americans advertise the smokes as duty-free, and let people buy them over the phone with credit cards or money orders. Klein says a 17-year-old intern in his office had no trouble getting a carton shipped to her home.

03/29/98 VIRGINIA: Officers Pay Calls To Schools Regularly Richmond Times-Dispatch
A survey's sampling of substance abuse among New Kent County youths may be small, but as far as Lt. Col. J. Joseph McLaughlin is concerned, use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs by students is a big concern. . . For that reason, and others, county law enforcement officers visit New Kent schools at least three days a week. McLaughlin said the officers teach Drug Abuse Resistance Education to students in the fifth, seventh and 10th grades. "We're trying to make every effort in the enforcement area, as well as in the prevention area," he said.

03/29/98 Parvati Launches Hunger Strike Some info on the wave of suicides among tobacco, and other farmers in India. Hindu Online
The NTR-TDP president, Mrs. N. Lakshmi Parvati, on Saturday launched her party's district-wise hunger strike in protest against the indifference of the State Government towards the unabated suicides by cotton growers. . . Mrs. Parvati referred to the miserable condition of the cotton farmers in the State which drove her to focus the problem. The inept handling of the situation by the State Government was all the more reason why she had decided to undertake districts-wise agitations. She said after the death of 280 cotton farmers since October, the tobacco, sugarcane and groundnut growers were now ready to end their lives unable to come out of the debt trap. The situation was explained to the Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, but he was busy shuttling between Delhi and Hyderabad to protect his seat.

03/29/98 SOUTH AFRICA: PROFILE: NKOSAZANA ZUMA: South Africa's Bitter Pill for World's Drug Makers The New York Times
But its effort to force down prices has set off a pitched battle between the health minister -- a doctor and Zulu princess named Nkosazana Zuma -- and the powerful global pharmaceutical industry. . . She is pro-abortion, which is not very controversial here, and anti- smoking, which is. Infuriating the big tobacco companies, she threatened to ban all cigarette ads.

03/28/98 JAPAN: In A Smokers' Nirvana, Lighting Up Is Crucial To Economic Growth Sydney Morning Herald
Japan is a smoker's nirvana and Japan's Government wants to keep it that way. At around $A3 a packet, smoking costs about half as much as a cup of coffee. When most of the world is turning off the habit, Japan's health authorities seem unconcerned. . . Japan's tolerance of smoking can be blamed directly on the Liberal Democratic Party Government of the Prime Minister, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, himself a notorious chain-smoker.

03/29/98 PEOPLE: JAN PHILLIP REEMSTMA: Kidnapper Of German Tycoon Arrested In Argentina Reuters
Police in Argentina have arrested the ringleader of the highly publicised 1996 kidnapping of German tobacco tycoon Jan Philip Reemtsma, German public television reported on Sunday. German television, citing Argentine police, said a man believed to be Thomas Drach was discovered by German investigators in Argentina as he inquired about a Rolling Stones concert.

03/29/98 Suspect In Germany's Richest Kidnapping Arrested AFP

03/27/98 No Ifs, Ands Or Butts; Anti-smoking Groups Light Up The Internet With Youth-oriented Sites Detroit News

03/30/98 SPORTS: Silk Cut Captures Latest Leg
British Olympian and America's Cup sailor Lawrie Smith finally lived up to expectations today, whipping his Whitbread 'Round-the-World Race entry Silk Cut home first in the 4,750-mile leg from Sao Sebastio, Brazil.

03/30/98 British Yacht Improves Rank in Race AP
Britain' s Silk Cut crossed the finish line four days early Sunday to win the sixth leg of the Whitbread Round-the-World Race and immediately celebrated with beer and burgers. The 64-foot yacht was met by pleasure boats and water cannons as it pulled into Port Everglades about 80 minutes ahead of second-place EF Language of Sweden.

03/30/98 It's Showtime! Getting a Product on QVC Is an Entrepreneur's Dream. Here's How the Network Picks 'Em. The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Not guns, pornography or tobacco . . . Mr. Ellis says he tries hard to avoid rejection by screening obvious no-no's from the beginning. For ethical reasons, guns, pornography and all forms of tobacco are immediately rejected. "There's the cigar craze, but we can't do anything with it," he says.

03/29/98 Crop of Ethical Questions Knight-Ridder/St. Paul Pioneer Press
For decades, churches along the country's tobacco roads have largely answered the moral questions about the crop with an uneasy silence. As national efforts to reduce smoking intensify, and tobacco growers face painful questions about their future, that silence is starting to break. . . "But at the same time, they really feel they are caught in forces larger than themselves, on both sides of this issue." He added, "It's not absence of Christian virtue to try to find a way to stay on one's land."

03/28/98 World View: Lexington Seminary Ousts Tobacco Stock Salt Lake Tribune
The trustees of Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky, a school affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) deep in tobacco country, voted this month to divest its stock in major tobacco-manufacturing companies.

03/28/98 Spirituality Cuts Mortality Risk Reuters
In a second study of 5,000 individuals, ongoing for almost 30 years, researchers with the Human Population Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, report that those who go to church once a week or more have 25-35% lower mortality rates from all causes than nonchurchgoers. "Some of the clues that this study brought up help us to understand why religious involvement might help to extend survival. The frequent church attenders were more likely during the 28 years to stop smoking, increase exercise, maintain their marriages and, in general, lead healthier lifestyles," Koenig noted.

03/29/98 AIR TRAVEL: European Airlines Ban Smoking Houston Chronicle
British Airways, joining a worldwide trend, will ban smoking on all flights beginning today. And Air France becomes smoke-free on all trans-Atlantic routes and on flights between Los Angeles and Tahiti.

03/29/98 Traveler's Notes LA Times
Starting today, Air France is giving up its short-lived experiment with " smoker's bars"--curtained-off and specially ventilated areas in cabins--in the U.S. and will ban smoking on all flights involving U.S. destinations. However, the airline will retain smoker's bars on flights from Paris to South America and Asia.

03/29/98 BOOKS: DIRTY BUSINESS: Smoking Out The Culprits Times of London
Peter Pringle's Dirty Business (Aurum �16.95) is about the unravelling of a 40-year conspiracy to sell a deadly, but hugely profitable product to the public without admitting to, or paying for, its harmful consequences. Mainly, it is a riveting story about how lawyers and the law brought the tobacco companies to some form of justice. . . It is an enthralling and exciting tale, told with great clarity. Complicated legalities and scientific evidence are explained with admirable simplicity, and Pringle excels at vividly portraying the people in the drama. . . Tobacco officials here ought to read Dirty Business; it will teach them the lesson that, in the end, they cannot win.
You can order Pringle's "CORNERED," the US version, here

03/29/98 From the Moyers Family to Yours Sharing What They Learned About Addiction Washington Post
03/28/98 Bill Moyers Hosts Five-part Pbs Series On Addiction AP
Bill Moyers wants you to know that "addiction" isn't just a fancy word for "habit." "We're talking about an obsessive desire," Moyers says at the start of his five-part PBS series, "where a chemical you take, drink or smoke becomes the master of your mind and the tyrant of your life."

03/29/98 'Titanic' Letter Survived By Not Making Trip Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
His letter survived, too; that's because it was handed overboard at the dock before the ship sailed. The letter is handwritten on Titanic stationery, dated April 10 and addressed to a London merchant who had sold him expensive cigars. My dear Mr. Mike [the name is difficult to read], While I sit here at the writing desk peacefully and complacently smoking "one of your best," I just want to thank you ever and ever so much.

03/29/98 FIRES: Homeless Man Barely Escapes Fire Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
A homeless man who fell asleep with a lighted cigarette had to run through flames on Saturday to escape from the fire he sparked, rescue workers said.

03/28/98 Kung Fu In Concert; Buddhist Monks Display Skill In Martial Arts San Francisco Chronicle
But to be on the safe side, the SHAOLIN MONK SOLDIERS know their kung fu. . . Although these are ascetic Buddhists, the tour is a bit commercial. Compact discs and one-hour videos are for sale, and the oversize tour program is underwritten by a full-page ad for MEMPHIS CLASSIC cigarettes.

03/29/98 OPINION: Smoke Rising From 'Titanic' Has Tobacco Foes Fuming John Hall, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Last week, the American Society of Travel agents said there had been a 14 percent increase in inquiries about cruises since the movie "Titanic" opened. . . The annual Academy Awards remind us how influential movies are, often in perverse ways. . . I have not seen "Titanic," but understand that its faithful attention to historical detail was its strongest point . . . One of those historical details was that some people, and particularly fashionable women of the age, smoked like chimneys. . . . And what about history? Maybe we'll feel better if the skipper in the next remake says "Thank you for not smoking" as the Titanic goes down. We can all call up our travel agents and lay on a smoke-free cruise.

03/30/98 OPINION: Notable & Quotable The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
From "Personal Income Taxation" by Henry C. Simons (University of Chicago Press, 1938): . . [T]axes like the tobacco taxes are the most effective means available for draining government revenues out from the very bottom of the income scale. The usual textbook discussions on these points hardly deserve less lampooning than their implied definition of luxuries (and semilux uries!) as commodities which poor people ought to do without and won't.

03/28/98 OPINION: Money Isn't Enough Andy Czajkowski, CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Washington Post
And as tempting as the hundreds of billions of dollars may be, money alone can't buy the health of a future generation of smokers. If we allow the tobacco industry to buy its way out of years of deceit, then we will have failed our children miserably. . . Financial settlements only punish the tobacco industry. Disclosure changes the industry. . . Four years ago, executives of the major tobacco companies testified before Congress that nicotine wasn't addictive and smoking didn't cause lung cancer. The landscape has changed dramatically since then. Today, executives from those same companies are at a negotiating table. It's now up to us to hold them accountable.

03/28/98 OPINION: Putting Out the Flame of Desire for Young Smokers S.J. Diamond, LA Times
Talking and smoking, my 17-year-old son and a friend stood outside the old Fox Theater in Westwood before the show. Up came a policeman, asked for their driver's licenses and said they were smoking illegally. . . "It's important to hold the kids accountable," said Pamela A. Davis, Juvenile Court referee in Santa Monica, "so they see there are consequences . . ." The smoking cases are dealt with quickly. But even if they become a hassle, it will be worth it--for teenage smokers and the rest of the village as well.

03/25/98 OPINION: CALIFORNIA: Smoking In Bars : Just Put It Behind You Contra Costa (CA) Times
If it passes the Senate, I will be able in 30 years to tell my grandchildren that I was lucky enough to live during that Golden Age of 1998 : when it was safe to go into bars and not have to trade some lung capacity for a Coors. . . I'll hoist a cold one to the majority leadership if they snuff this bill. Here's to the Golden Age. I remember when.

03/27/98 Anti-tobacco Video Smokes / Democrats Seek Support For Tough Law Richmond Times-Dispatch
A searing video that scores tobacco giant Philip Morris and other cigarette companies is set to debut around the country soon, as part of what leading congressional Democrats described as an effort to drum up grass-roots support for tough legislation. The video was produced by Senate Democrats and released yesterday. It portrays rows of tobacco plants changing into gravestones, a 14-year-old boy who says he can't stop smoking, and a dying former tobacco lobbyist admitting about his work, "I lied. And I'm sorry." Footage of a Philip Morris executive defending the safety of smoking in 1975 is used to kick off the video. "If anyone ever identified any ingredient in tobacco or its smoke as being hazardous to human health or as being something that shouldn't be there, we could eliminate it. But no one ever has," says the executive, identified as James Bowling. . . The American Lung Association and American Heart Association were named as groups that will distribute the video, but at least one other leading public health group isn't participating out of concern the video was partisan, a group official said.

03/30/98 GOP Holds Fast Against Pressure to Slash Taxes LA Times
Republican divisions over tobacco money, surpluses and tax cuts are likely to surface during this week's debate on the budget. Senate Finance Committee Chairman William V. Roth (R-Del.) and other senators will offer amendments calling for bigger tax cuts. Roth wants a $65-billion tax cut financed with revenues from the tobacco settlement, but Budget Committee sources predict his amendment will not pass.

03/30/98 Republicans Draft Tax Bill to Aid People Without Health Benefits The New York Times
House Republican leaders are drafting an election-year tax bill that would create new tax breaks to help people who receive no health benefits from their employers in buying health insurance. . . Republicans plan to pay for the tax breaks with revenue raised from higher cigarette taxes, saying they would try to impose such taxes, to raise cigarette prices and discourage smoking by teen-agers, even if Congress could not agree on comprehensive tobacco legislation this year.

03/30/98 VERMONT: NRA Sees Tobacco Liability Bill Affecting Gun Industry AP/Boston Globe
The National Rifle Association is working to defeat a bill that would make it easier to sue tobacco companies, fearing that the the firearms industry could be next. NRA members in Vermont have been receiving prerecorded telephone messages from the NRA advising them to contact legislators on the issue and to attend a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday. Initiated by Attorney General William Sorrell, H.749, "Recovery of Tobacco-Related Medicaid Expenditures," passed the House on Feb. .25 by a 78-60 margin.

03/28/98 Judge Refused To Dismiss Vermont Tobacco Lawsuit Fosters Online
A Superior Court judge has turned down tobacco manufacturers' request that she throw out the state's lawsuit alleging the industry has violated state law. Judge Linda Levitt rejected each of the arguments made by the industry and ordered Thursday that the case proceed into the discovery phase in which each side tracks down records, interviews witnesses and builds its case.

03/28/98 Tobacco Trials Update from Norwood S. Wilner.
We will be trying our fourth cancer suit against the industry when MADDOX v. B&W opens 5/4/98 in Jacksonville

03/30/98 ARIZONA: Districts Could Build Using Tobacco Taxes The Arizona Republic
Lawmakers grappling with the sticky school finance issue still have found time for a little mischievous money maneuvering. Conservatives are drafting a footnote to the state budget that would take $5 million of tobacco-tax funds from the Health Department's campaign against smoking. The money would be used to deliberately overpay schools for advertising on school buses.

03/30/98 OHIO: Doctor Says New Studies Illustrate Costs of Teen Smoking Tobacco-to-21 PR Newswire
The facts revealed by these two studies confirm that smokers and non- smoking taxpayers share the costs of this addiction," asserted Dr. Rob Crane, a family medicine physician at The Ohio State University Hospitals and founder of Tobacco-To-21. "If Ohio continues to tolerate skyrocketing teen smoking rates and the costs it forces on us, our state's physical and economic health will continue to deteriorate."

03/30/98 CALIFORNIA: California Launches Public Awareness Campaign Targeting the Increase in Cigar Use PR Newswire
The California Department of Health Services (DHS) Monday announced the launch of the first-ever statewide public awareness campaign to address the significant increase in cigar use, especially among California young adults. State health officials also released the first data regarding cigar use among teens in California. "The campaign's objective is to increase awareness about the serious health hazards connected with cigar smoking and to dispel the false belief that cigars are safer than cigarettes because cigar smoke is not inhaled," said Sandra Smoley, R.N., secretary of the State's Health and Welfare Agency. . . The commercials will begin airing statewide immediately.

03/30/98 NORTH CAROLINA: N.C. To Start Sting On Underage Tobacco Sales AP/Winston-Salem Journal
Top tobacco-producer is first state to make contract to enforce new regulations

03/30/98 Doctors Call For Ban On Smoking In All Public Places ITN
03/30/98 Voluntary Smoking Bans Will Not Work, Say Doctors Times of London
The profession is concerned that repeated delays in publication of the promised White Paper on tobacco control mean that the Government is being pressured by the industry to water down the proposals. After TONY BLAIR offered an exemption from a ban on tobacco sponsorship to FORMULA ONE racing, doctors fear that the industry is again using its economic muscle.

03/30/98 BMA fumes at Government The Scotsman
DOCTORS' leaders are calling on the Government to accept what they claim is "irrefutable evidence" and impose a total ban on smoking in public. An open letter sent from the British Medical Association to the public health minister Tessa Jowell calls for urgent steps to curb passive smoking and expresses health professionals' concern at the lack of new government measures to control tobacco consumption.

03/30/98 UK: Health Chiefs Press For Public Smoking Ban PA
Health chiefs are demanding that the Government accept the "irrefutable evidence" and impose a total ban on smoking in public. The British Medical Association (BMA) has sent an open letter to public health minister Tessa Jowell calling for urgent steps to curb passive smoking and expressing concern at the lack of new measures on tobacco control. In a hard-hitting attack which describes cigarette manufacturers as "public enemy number one", BMA chairman Dr Sandy Macara said: "The evidence is now irrefutable and accepted by all but the tobacco industry that the health risks associated with passive smoking are sufficiently serious to warrant regulation and, if necessary, legislation."

03/30/98 Call For Cigarette Machine Tokens Electronic Telegraph
"I would like to emphasise that we must not lose sight of the fact that the tobacco industry is public enemy number one. We must examine every avenue to put increasing pressure on an industry that demonstrates by its actions that it has no concern for the health of the nation."

03/31/98 Spain's Tabacalera To Invest ESP100 Bln In New Products AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) said Monday it will invest a minimum of 100 billion pesetas (ESP) ($1=ESP156.15) in new products, as well as investing ESP7 billion in its Spanish operations.

03/30/98 Spain's TABACALERA Plans Investments, Job Cuts Reuters
Spanish tobacco giant Tabacalera (TAB.MC) said on Monday it planned to invest more than 100 billion pesetas in new projects while cutting its work force by 25 percent and reducing production.

03/30/98 Tobacco Company's Secret: Learner' Cigarette For Teens Scripps Howard/Bergen Record
Documents show that the company proposed in 1973 that "youth jargon" be studied for a "good brand name" for the cigarette. "Pre-smokers" find the taste of cigarettes disgusting and smoke "harsh and irritating," the Reynolds document said. The answer, it said, was to produce a cigarette "tailored for the beginning smoker" to get him or her through the "largely physically awkward and unpleasant 'learning to smoke' phase."

03/30/98 Cigarette Seller Gives Voice To Smokers' Rights Contra Costa (CA) Times
Vice president of tobacco store chain talks of why he wages battle against anti-smoking legislation. SMOKER'S CREED I smoke because I like to smoke. I smoke because I want to smoke. Smoking pleases me. My life is better because I smoke. I accept responsibility for all my actions. I want the freedom to choose to smoke. I can choose how to make myself happy. I own myself. Smoking is my choice. -- John and Ned Roscoe

03/29/98Smoker Group's Thick Wallet Raises Questions Funding: Alliance Amassed $45.9 Million But Very Little From Members' Dues, Irs Reports Show
The National Smokers Alliance has become a major force in public smoking battles in California and elsewhere, while portraying itself as "a nonprofit, grass-roots membership organization with more than 3 million members." . . But a review of the group's annual reports to the Internal Revenue Service shows that a tiny fraction of the putative members pay the nominal $10 dues the group says it charges. According to the IRS reports, of the $45.9 million amassed by the group in its first three years, very little came from dues. In fiscal 1996, for example, when total receipts were more than $9 million, dues contributed just under $74,000. In other words, the group collected enough dues for 7,400 members.
Here's the article at the Houston Chronicle

03/30/98 MOTOR SPORTS: Tobacco Under Fire; Sports Advertising Could Be Jeopardized iRACE
"The liberal attitude in Washington wants to do our thinking for us," said John Deery, president of Rockford Speedway in Rockford, Ill. "Someday, someone is going to get on the horn and say Budweiser's bad. It's just government interference, and I'm very much against it."

03/24/98 Minorities Fight Tobacco's Lure / Lawmakers, Activists Aim At Restricting Ads
Anti-smoking groups and minority lawmakers are lobbying to include provisions that would restrict advertising and marketing to children, especially those of color - who they say are the latest targets in the tobacco industry's drive to expand its customer base.

03/30/98 PROFILE: THOMAS S. OSDENE: A Silent Witness in Cigarette Trials The New York Times (LINK DEAD! NY Times has taken this story offline.)
Although former colleagues say he long dreamed of creating a safer cigarette for his employer, the Philip Morris Companies, Osdene may have also found a different calling, safeguarding research potentially damaging to the company. "He was the keeper of the secrets," said Ian Uydess . . .A tired-looking man of 70 who once smoked up to 80 cigarettes a day and now suffers from heart disease and emphysema, Osdene was a silent witness. Some 135 times, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against forced self-incrimination.

03/30/98 OPINION: Watch Out for the Lurking Tobacco Police Peter Beaudrault, LA Times
Ross Volbrecht is just one of the latest victims of a "nanny culture" that places its vision of public health--defined by any number of special interest groups--ahead of the right to personal choice. From the efforts of parents to stop drug use among students, this campaign has grown to extreme and bizarre proportions, as in the anti-smoking activists' crusade to ban tobacco products in the U.S. Ross' story would have been improbable 10 years ago. Today, with tobacco squarely in the sights of the public health fanatics, his predicament was inevitable.

03/26/98 EDITORIAL: Smokescreens for Health SF Examiner
Instead of pushing outright repeal, opponents of the ban should seek exemption based on installation of air filtration systems that suck up and screen out pollutants. These smoke screens can't be mere cosmetic props, however. They must work to protect health, and work well. If that can be proven, then opponents of the smoking ban have a case. Until then, they can light up on the sidewalk.

03/31/98 Wrangling Over the Federal Budget Outlives a Dying Deficit The New York Times
And he said the situation still remained very confused because of uncertainty about whether Congress will pass legislation intended to curb smoking, largely by forcing a sharp increase in cigarette prices, a move that would raise billions of dollars that both parties want to dedicate to their priorities. "This is a bizarre year for the budget," Mr. May said.

03/31/98 GOP Considers Tobacco Revenue to Pay For Health-Care Coverage of Uninsured The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Wrapping two sticky campaign issues into one neat package, House Republicans are considering using tobacco revenues to pay for programs aimed at expanding health-care coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.

03/31/98 LIGGETT Tells Gov't About Cigarette Ingredients Reuters
In its disclosure to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the company provided information on all its ingredients, in descending rank order by weight, added during the manufacture of cigarettes sold by Liggett. . . "This will serve to increase our knowledge of the effect of ingredients in cigarette on health," Llelwyn Grant, a CDC spokesman, told Reuters.

03/31/98 LIGGETT Voluntarily Provides Centers for Disease Control and Prevention With Brand-Specific Information On Its Cigarettes Business Wire
"By providing disclosure to the CDC of the ingredients in Liggett's cigarettes on a brand-by-brand basis, we hope to enhance the ability of the CDC to conduct its research on the health effects of various cigarette ingredients," said BENNETT S. LEBOW, chairman and chief executive officer of Brooke Group.

03/31/98 PHILIP MORRIS Underwrites Feeding Work Richmond Times-Dispatch
Philip Morris Companies Inc. is underwriting a national campaign designed to help feed thousands of elderly Americans. Through the "SENIOR HELPINGS" program, 57 organizations across the country, including two in Virginia, will receive portions of a $2.1 million grant to eliminate waiting lists for MEALS ON WHEELS programs or to expand feeding programs for the elderly.

03/31/98 Tobacco Stks Weak As Bill Grants Little Liability Relief Dow Jones (pay registration)
Investors apparently aren't too happy that a tobacco bill, originally intended to give the tobacco industry broad legal-liability protection, now basically grants no such thing.

03/31/98 Philip Morris/Moody's-2:Tobacco Cos. Confirmed; Outlook Neg AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
Moody's Investors Service said it has confirmed the ratings of five tobacco companies competing in the U.S. market, but expressed a very negative outlook for the ratings following the release of the Senate Commerce Committee's summary of the draft legislation entitled 'National Tobacco Policy and Youth Smoking Reduction Act.'

03/31/98 Tobacco Cos Remain On S&P CreditWatch With Neg Implications Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/31/98 S&P Could Still Cut Ratings Of Tobacco Companies S&P Press Release
Standard & Poor's debt ratings of tobacco companies with U.S. litigation exposure, including PHILIP MORRIS Companies Inc., ( MO - news) RJR NABISCO Holdings Corp., (RN - news) LOEWS Corp. (parent of LORILLARD Tobacco Co.), and B.A.T. Industries PLC (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BATS.L)and related entities, remain on CreditWatch with negative implications, where they were placed April 17, 1997 as a result of heightened litigation risk and the potential costs of an industry settlement.

03/31/98 DCR Places Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco on Rating Watch -- Down PR Newswire
Duff & Phelps Credit Rating Co. (DCR) has placed the ratings of Philip Morris Companies Inc. (MO) and RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN) and their subsidiaries on Rating Watch -- Down in response to the increased uncertainty and risk related to the originally proposed $368.5 billion comprehensive tobacco industry settlement and following yesterday's announcement by the Senate Commerce Committee that it would propose legislation that would roughly double the tobacco industry's financial obligations and provide no significant legal protection against class action lawsuits or punitive damage awards.

03/31/98 Schweitzer-Mauduit International Announces Forty-Five Day Extension to Supply Agreement with Philip Morris PR Newswire
Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. (NYSE: SWM - news) today announced that Philip Morris and SWM have agreed to extend the initial term of their fine papers supply agreement from March 31, 2000 to May 15, 2000 in order to extend a March 31, 1998 notice deadline in the agreement for an additional forty-five days, to May 15, 1998.

04/01/98 Austria Tabak 1Q Sales Higher Than Expected AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
03/31/98 Austria Tabak To Raise Some Cigarette Prices Avg 3.3% AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
Austria Tabakwerke AG (R.ATW), Austria's dominant tobacco group, said Tuesday it will raise the prices of 14 of its brands of cigarettes by an average of 3.3% from April 1.

03/31/98 Spain's Tabacalera Hldrs Approve 5-For-1 Stk Split AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)

03/31/98 SPORTS: BASEBALL: Devil Rays' Field Caters to Smokers AP
Want to light up a stogie at a Devil Rays home game? You can. You can sip a brandy with it. Or down a brew. And sit in a comfortable, oversized leather armchair, too. It's not what you find at your typical baseball game. In fact, it's unique in the major leagues. It's a Cigar Bar, an upscale haven for smokers at Tropicana Field, the home of the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

03/31/98 SPORTS: BASEBALL: Oral Exams Reveal Tobacco Risks AP
"About 35-40 percent of major league players are (chewing tobacco) users, about half of those have lesions," said Dr. John Greene, dean emeritus of the University of California San Francisco School of Dentistry, who examined the players as part of the fledgling National Spit Tobacco Education Program. "Those are scary."

03/31/98 SPORTS: BASEBALL: For SHALALA, A Toss Celebre The Reliable Source, Washington Post
Seems Shalala has been tapped in President Clinton's absence to throw out the first pitch at the Orioles' season opener this afternoon. And she's a perfectionist. "The secretary intends to get this ball over the plate," says Victor Zonana, her press secretary. Nobody clocked her, said Zonana, but "she was smoking them today." . . . She'll also use the occasion to join Joe Garagiola in pitching Major League Baseball's new program to drive chewing tobacco out of the national pastime.

03/31/98 MAGAZINES Feel Increased Pressure From Advertisers Only a small mention of tobacco in LA Times article
The threat--and the reality--of canceled advertising has always been a risk of doing business for magazines and newspapers. . . Until relatively recently, many magazines--men's magazines, women's magazines and general magazines alike--also omitted one kind of story certain to offend major advertisers: stories on the connection between cigarettes and lung cancer.

03/31/98 TV: Repeats With That Extra Pop LA Times
When a mental patient (guest star Jon Lovitz) lights a cigarette and talks to it, a bubble will bounce up with a familiar-sounding bloop to reveal that 95% of schizophrenics are smokers. . . And so on, as "NewsRadio"--about a quirky family of co-workers coping with life at fictional New York station WNYX--meets "Pop-Up Video," cable outlet VH1's irreverent vehicle that uses edgy factoids to spice up often-timeworn music videos. NBC hopes that the crossover stunt will expose the brightly written sitcom to the MTV crowd.

03/31/98 HISTORY: World War I Museum's New Drive on the Home Front
With a tower soaring 217 feet from the center, the Liberty Memorial became Kansas City's commanding landmark from a hillside overlooking Union Station. . . There is a handwritten note from King George V welcoming American troops to England, and one of the brass boxes containing candy and cigarettes that Princess Mary gave British troops in 1914.

03/31/98 Body Spritzes Promise To Dispel Smokers' Odors The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Ostracized by restaurants and banished from the workplace, smokers are undergoing yet another indignity. They are being told they smell by consumer-goods marketers and urged to spritz themselves with new odor-busting products. . . Among the entrants in the new field is Procter & Gamble Co., which has been test-marketing FEBREZE "fabric refresher" and is soon expected to launch the product nationally. CNS Inc. of Bloomington, Minn., has introduced BANISH, a "personal smoke deodorizer" that promises to remove smoke odor from clothing and hair. Meanwhile, French beauty giant L'Oreal SA is peddling a new "antismoke" STUDIO SENSE line of hair mists targeted at the youthful nightclub crowd.

03/31/98 PROCTER & GAMBLE Creates New Product Category With The National Introduction Of FEBREZE PR Newswire
03/31/98 P&G Set To Introduce Spray To Remove Fabric Odors Reuters
Procter & Gamble Co.(PG - news), the world's largest maker of household products, said on Tuesday it would introduce a spray product designed to remove odors from fabrics. R. Kerry Clark, president of P&G's North American laundry and cleaning products business, said the patented product, called Febreze, would create a new category of fabric care. "It really does eliminate odors; it doesn't cover them up," Clark said in an interview. "It should be on store shelves by June." . . . Among the odors the product is intended to work on are those from pets, tobacco smoke and cooking fumes, which can be removed from a wide variety of fabrics such as upholstery, carpets and clothing.

03/31/98 OPINION: ILLINOIS: Political Pap Marcy Kreiter and Greg Tejeda, UP Eye on Illinois
The Illinois House has given approval to a measure allowing for $25 fines for teenagers caught smoking cigarettes. What's the world coming to when the General Assembly wastes time on trivial stuff like this? But then again, the bill is sponsored by state REP. CORRINE WOOD, R-Lake Forest, the GOP lieutenant governor nominee. Considering that the rookie state rep hasn't done much else during her term in the Legislature, she needs to have at least one accomplishment to brag about as she campaigns this summer.

03/31/98 OPINION: CALIFORNIA: The Wrong Smokescreen George McGovern, Washington Times
Our "peace dividend" is fractured by the we-know-what's-best-for-you crowd. . . California's ban has much more to do with stifling choice than stopping smoking. Iran tried a similar ban in 1996. Its law was declared unconstitutional. The contrast is amazing.

03/31/98 OPINION: Light Up and Live Richard Klein, The Wall Street Journal (pay registration)
Jacob Sullum, in a compelling new book titled "For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health" (Free Press, 338 pages, $25), sees the proposed legislation as a decisive infringement on the right to smoke and a vast extension of what he calls "the public health movement," which seeks to regulate our pleasures and legislate our risk-taking down to the smallest details of what we ingest or enjoy. . . Like all crusades, the one against smoking is conducted with religious, sometimes fanatical zeal by "activists, scientists, and bureaucrats" (he might have added lawyers), whose different interests are all tinged with the moralizing arrogance of secular ayatollahs whipping us into shape for our own good.

03/31/98 OPINION: Counterpoint: Joe Camel Just Represents The American Way G.R. Anderson, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Indeed, why are we not attacking any industries that market surreptitiously to young consumers, and not always with those consumers' best interests in mind? . . So Camel concluded that Joe Camel was a successful creation, that of "a vital/energetic brand personality." Well, I say good for them. Isn't that, after all, the American way?

03/31/98 Cancer Society Gives to Governors AP
Trying to sit at the same table as tobacco lobbyists, the American Cancer Society this year contributed $30,000 to Democratic and Republican party accounts.

03/31/98 NEW YORK: Kids Celebrate ACS's Tobacco March Third New York News Report, UPI
A large crowd of elementary-school children are gathering outside Chelsea Piers this morning, but they're not trying to get into the game room, the basketball courts or the mini- golf course. The fourth, fifth and sixth graders are celebrating the second successful year of the American Cancer Society's March Against Tobacco. The rally is scheduled to begin in the Sky Rink at 10:30 a.m.

03/31/98 NORTH CAROLINA: Report On Women's Health Worries Leaders; North Carolina's First Assessment Of The Health Of Its Female Population Finds Disturbing Trends As Well As Some Encouraging Ones. Raleigh News & Observer
Diabetes-related deaths . . . are also on the rise. So are rates of emphysema and fatal lung cancer, a devastating outcome of so many women buying the notion decades back that smoking cigarettes is glamorous.

03/31/98 FLORIDA: SMOKE SCREEN Tobacco lobbyists pull nifty delaying tactic Miami Herald
With the recent death of the House bill enabling local governments to impose tougher laws against smoking in public than state law provides, tobacco lobbyists succeeded Monday in convincing senators that there is no point in pursuing the legislation this year. The Senate's Commerce Committee on Monday was scheduled to debate a bill that could lead to a ban on smoking in restaurants where communities forbid it -- even scheduled a special time to take it up. But the lobbyists prevailed, and debate on the bill (S 148) was postponed.

03/31/98 ILLINOIS: House Backs Fines For Teen Smokers UPI
The Illinois House has approved a measure calling for fines or community service for teenagers who are caught smoking cigarettes. The House voted 95-17 for a bill by state Rep. Corrine Wood, R-Lake Forest, that calls for penalties against those under 18 who smoke.

03/31/98 MINNESOTA: DULUTH Cracks Down On Stores That Sold Cigs To Minors Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

03/31/98 CALIFORNIA: State Sounds Alarm: Cigars Are Deadly, Too San Diego Union-Tribune
03/31/98 Media Blitz Aims To Snuff Out Cigar Smoking Reuters
Faced with a big jump in youth cigar smoking, California health officials Monday launched the country's first media blitz against one of the strongest hold-outs in the tobacco wars. "It's not grandpa who's smoking cigars today," Director of Health Services Kim Belshe said at a Sacramento news conference "It's our kids and our up-and-coming adults."

03/31/98 State Unveils TV Ads Against Cigars LA Times
Health: Campaign says that the fad is 'the big new trend in cancer'

03/31/98 Calif. Campaigns to Snuff Out Cigar Smoking Reuters

03/31/98 GUATEMALA: To Save Mayan Artifacts From Looters, a Form of Protective Custody The New York Times
Visitors to the ruins will see replicas instead of the real thing. Half the cost is being covered by a $160,000 gift from the Guatemalan unit of the Philip Morris Companies, the embattled American tobacco giant, whose business in Guatemala is growing. . . Mr. Vela Mena wants to encourage other corporate donors and is not troubled by the tobacco connection. . . "We think it's important for any company interested to help us preserve our country . . . Besides, the Mayans gave the world tobacco -- Mayan priests used it in ceremonies."

03/31/98 THAILAND: Cigarette Importers Locked In A Legal Battle With Thailand AP/Dow Jones (pay registration)
Thai smokers craving a Marlboro Light are facing forced withdrawal thanks to a month-long dispute between the government and importers. The Public Health Ministry put regulations into effect Feb. 10 requiring importers to disclose the ingredients of their cigarettes to ensure they contain no toxic substances.

03/31/98 AGRICULTURE: Tobacco Farmers Frustrated With Washington, Weather Reuters
With a wary eye on Washington and weary eye on the weather, the nation's tobacco farmers are planting this year's crop and hoping for the best. In the heart of North Carolina tobacco country, farmers gathering for breakfast on Tuesday at the Orrum General Store were more interested in their ham biscuits and grits than a new $28.5 billion Senate proposal to buy out their tobacco quotas.

03/31/98 TODAY in History AP
In 1970, President Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television, to take effect after Jan. 1, 1971.

03/31/98 3 Unlikely Allies Built a Broad Anti-Tobacco Wave Last of 3 superb articles from the Washington Post
Alone, no member of the troika could have brought the powerful industry to its current weakened state. Together, MORRIS's political ambition, GORE's personal revenge and KESSLER's desire for a crowning policy achievement combined to form a political tidal wave, its size and velocity drowning out the skeptics.

03/30/98 Wounding the Giant; Small-Town Blow Exposed Cigarette Industry's Soft Spot The SCRUGGS/MOORE Connection. Second of an in-depth three-part series from Washington Post

03/29/98 For Cigarette Industry, a Future Without GOP Support First of a three-part series that looks at how change in public perception has led to the fall of Big Tobacco. Washington Post
While cadging a ride to California on the U.S. Tobacco corporate jet one day recently, NEWT GINGRICH delivered a most unwelcome message to his hosts: Their long ride with the GOP was over. No longer would the GOP automatically represent the industry's interests as it presses its fight to win a long-term truce in America's tobacco wars. "You guys have screwed us," the House speaker lectured the group of tobacco lobbyists aboard the plane, according to industry officials. "The Republican Party has been saddled with tobacco. . . I will not let Bill Clinton get to the left of me on this," he said. . . The outcome is anything but certain, promising only one of the more byzantine Washington battles in recent history.

04/01/98 Senate Panel Approves IRS Overhaul AP
A bill to make far-reaching changes at the IRS and extend dozens of new rights to taxpayers won unanimous approval from the Senate Finance Committee. . . The committee turned down an attempt to raise tobacco taxes by 10 cents a pack and speed up the first phase of a tobacco tax increase in the 1997 tax bill to fully pay for the IRS overhaul.

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�1997 Gene Borio, Tobacco BBS (212-982-4645). WebPage: http://www.tobacco.org).Original Tobacco BBS material may be reprinted in any non-commercial venue if accompanied by this credit

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