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Roman Catholics in western New York are being asked to give more money to make up for the shortfall caused by the decrease in Bingo revenues. The Roman Catholic Diocese in the Buffalo area expects to lose about $1 million to $2 million this year because of government regulations that required non-smoking bingo. In many parishes, Bingo profits are down by 75 percent.

The topic: Republican SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL's plan to eliminate the federal tobacco program. Tobacco farmers love the program, which keeps prices high. Many vow revenge not only against Mr. McConnell when he runs for re-election in 2002, but against his GOP ally, REP. JIM BUNNING, who is running for the Senate now -- even though Mr. Bunning says he disagrees with Mr. McConnell.

There's no butts about the benefits of a smoke-free home, a Fort McMurray father says. Eddie King, 34, won a seven-day Caribbean cruise for declaring his home smoke-free as part of a provincial anti-smoking campaign. "This is a wicked prize and my heart is pounding," said the single father of an eight-year-old son upon learning he'd won the trip aboard the world's first smoke-free cruise ship.

The Fianna F�il MEP, Mr Mark Killilea, has defended the way he voted in the recent EU tobacco advertising and sponsorship votes in the European Parliament. ASH Ireland, the anti-smoking lobby, criticised the Connacht MEP, saying it was surprised he appeared not to have supported the Minister for Health and his party colleagues

Zila, Inc. (Nasdaq: ZILA), international provider of healthcare products for dental/medical professionals and consumers, announced that Taiwan has initiated a national oral cancer screening program using OraTest�, Zila's oral cancer detection system.

If the plan fails, the state could be left with up to Z$4,5bn worth of unsold tobacco, further encumbering the budget deficit and Zimbabwe's relations with the International Monetary Fund.

Local experts are warning tobacco farmers to be on the lookout for a fungal disease that could threaten their crop. Blue mold has been found in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Kentucky and Tennessee and, if the winds blow it this way, it could arrive in Pennsylvania as well.

Tobacco growers are finding an opportunity in raising organic tobacco for the SANTA FE NATURAL TOBACCO CO. plant. The Oxford company's primary products are cigarettes and other tobacco products that have no additives and are made of tobacco grown without chemicals or substances other than organic matter.

For starters, his cold-caller avoided pushing anything speculative at the outset . . . Explaining that WARREN BUFFETT owned UST shares, the broker, JOHN P. CLANCY, made the most of rumors that the famed Nebraska investor would buy more.

"I'm sorry Paul, but you're not coming to France." . . At Sheryl's Hertfordshire home he awoke today to the realisation that he has paid a high price for smoking 20 cigarettes a day and having too many late nights out. Hoddle had decided that Gascoigne was too unfit to be included in the final squad of 22 players. However, sources close to the England team say the decision was based purely on "football and fitness"

The New Carrollton establishment is one of dozens of religious nightclubs that have popped up across the country in the last few years, offering Christians a smoke-free, alcohol-free, sex-free alternative to secular nightspots.

Average annual household expenses, by age of head of household: Tobacco products and smoking supplies: 55 to 64 years 314; 65 years and older 139

An Italian friend of his was visiting after a long absence from New York. Over dinner, he talked about how impressed he was with the cleanliness of the city and the quality of life campaign. However, he said he was surprised that the campaign seemed to condone what appeared to be an increase in prostitution. How had he come to that conclusion? his host asked. Well, he said, everywhere he went there were groups of well-dressed women idling in doorways smoking.

A lifelong Baptist, Tom Lanier credits his apparent recovery from inoperable lung cancer to his strong religious beliefs. . . Tom Lanier blames his lung cancer on heavy smoking over a long period of time. That's why he has renounced his family's tobacco heritage. . . He says such talk outrages his cousins, who still raise tobacco in Harnett County. He won't back off, however.

My journey toward fitness began two years ago with the giant step of quitting a 35-year smoking habit. After many halfhearted attempts to quit before, I had resigned myself to always being an obese smoker, and I might as well just accept it. After spending a long weekend playing music in a particularly smoky bar, I awoke the next morning feeling terrible. . . Two days later, I put on my first patch and never looked back.

Harbortown Market, the grocery and specialty food store at the gates of the Harbortown Community on East Jefferson, is snuffing out cigarette sales. "Recent government actions against smokers have caused Harbortown to reexamine its commitment to sell this product," says Tom George, Harbortown co-owner. "Being forced to collect a tax which appears to be punitive to our customers seems counterproductive in a store which strives to serve its customers."

The nation's fight over tobacco came to Baltimore yesterday with the introduction of a City Council bill that would tax cigars and pipe and chewing tobacco 36 cents to 90 cents per sale. The bill, introduced by Southwest Baltimore Councilman Norman A. Handy Sr., comes a month after the state legislature balked at adding a $1.50-a-pack tax to cigarettes. . . Maryland is one of only seven states that does not tax cigars and other tobacco.

Maryland gubernatorial candidate EILEEN M. REHRMANN, currently Harford county executive, yesterday called for an increase in state cigarette taxes and a new tax on smokeless tobacco. Rehrmann (D) said the amount of the increases should be decided after Congress acts on proposed cigarette taxes at the federal level. But Rehrmann said any money collected should be used to reduce youth addiction to tobacco and to help farmers convert to new crops.

In Chicago, Cook County and across Illinois, tax collectors are finding it harder to count on so-called sin taxes from alcohol and cigarettes. Cigarette sales are down 300 million packs in the past 10 years, a 24 percent drop.

The new ad, part of the state's $22-million-a-year anti-smoking campaign, portrays a black-tie gala. A debonair man wearing a tuxedo eyes an elegant young woman dressed in a clinging gown. She gazes at him. He lights a cigarette. His cigarette goes limp. She smirks, shakes her head and walks away.

California is unloading on the tobacco industry with a new $22 million ad campaign that takes aim at smokers -- directly below the belt.

The Marlboro Man needs Viagra. That's the implied message from a not-so-subtle California ad campaign illustrating a link between smoking and impotence.

Images of men smoking limp cigarettes, suggesting a link between smoking and impotence, are among the latest ads in the state's $22 million assault on tobacco this year. The 25 radio, TV and print ads begin airing next Monday as part of a three-year, $67.5 million anti-smoking state campaign.

Ads Target Tobacco Industry Marketing to Kids, Secondhand Smoke ... and Impotence

California's top health officials will unveil the state's new tobacco education advertising campaign -- 25 ads that target the tobacco industry's marketing to kids, secondhand smoke... and impotence. Impotence?

The British Columbia government is clamping down on tobacco companies and the people who sell their products. It introduced amendments to the TOBACCO SALES ACT on Tuesday that call for the public disclosure of ingredients and additives in cigarettes. The amendments also seek the disclosure of toxic emissions and health hazards of tobacco products sold in the province.

WEST Australian Premier Richard Court yesterday moved to stem Cabinet infighting over anti-smoking regulations to prevent key ministers from feuding publicly over the issue. . . In an extraordinary prelude to the Cabinet meeting, Labour Relations Minister Graham Kierath and Health Minister Kevin Prince took to commercial radio yesterday to sell their conflicting positions on passive smoking regulations. Mr Kierath claimed the Occupational Health and Safety regulations he snuck past Cabinet last year, combined with an employer's legal responsibility to provide a safe workplace under the OHS Act, would effectively ban smoking in all enclosed workplaces.

Labelling requirements for cigarette tar levels are to be tightened next month and overall content cut by 2000, Xinhua reported yesterday. Packaging will be required to specify tar content in milligrams per cigarette, replacing vague statements like "medium" or "low" tar, State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau official Yu Minfang said.

Poor people have a death rate as much as three times higher than that of other groups. But smoking, drinking, overeating and lack of exercise account, at most, for 13 percent of the gap, researchers concluded in a study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. Instead, experts speculated that lack of medical care, the stress of poverty, dangerous jobs and polluted homes and neighborhoods account for much of difference. "For a long time, we've been focusing on trying to reduce risky health behaviors, such as smoking, drinking and being physically inactive," said PAULA M. LANTZ, the study's author and a professor of public health at the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. "That's an important goal, but it won't fully close the gap between poor people and other people."

Of the stinky workplace smells reported in the BANISH(TM) Smoke Odor Survey, tobacco smoke odor offends 72 percent of Americans, ranking behind only body odor (95 percent) and bad breath (92 percent). "Whether you smoke or not, smelling like an ashtray can burn bridges to employment and career growth," said workplace etiquette expert Susan Morem. "A spritz of perfume or cologne won't overcome the lingering smell of tobacco smoke on hair or clothing -- nor the consequences."

The second fire started at about 11:10 p.m. at 15 Crawford St., at a two-story single-family home, Lt. Richardson said. The cause appeared to be a cigarette left burning in a couch in the second-floor living room. The fire was confined to the room, a nearby hallway and concealed space between the second floor and the first-floor ceiling.

A woman suffered second-degree burns on her leg and smoke inhalation when a fire erupted on the couch where she had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette, authorities said. Martha Lopez was treated at St. John's Regional Medical Center after the 3 a.m. fire Sunday at Plaza Vista, a city-run apartment building for senior citizens at 801 South C St.

Time to dis the derriere patch, smokers. There's a hip new way to stub out cigarettes -- and it tastes good, too. Lick a lollipop! "It's been embraced as the healthy and sexy alternative to smoking, as well as something fun and childish," explains Greag Heanue of Chupa Chups (pronounced CHOO-pa choops), the world's largest producer of lollipops.

When NASA travels to Mir for the last time, an ex-cosmonaut who lost 55 pounds to fit into a spacesuit will be along for the ride. VALERY RYUMIN, the tough-talking, gruff-looking director of Russia's Mir-shuttle program, hasn't been in space for 18 years. . . Despite his space credentials, Ryumin strikes many as a politically incorrect choice for reasons other than weight and language. This is the guy, after all, who: . . Supposedly snuck a smoke aboard Salyut 6, a serious violation even by Russian standards. When asked recently if this was true, Ryumin guffawed and replied: "All sorts of experiments may occur in the environment."

The call by black religious leaders here to ban tobacco billboards near homes, schools, churches and wellness and recreation centers here should come as no surprise. . . Tobacco industry officials are no fools. They spend lots of money in minority communities. Various minority organizations and events rely on the industry to survive. . . . Black publishers may be less likely than others to decry the effects of tobacco on African-American communities because of that. . . In the last two years, R.J. Reynolds has given out more than $800,000 to groups ranging from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to the Korean American Liquor Market Association. Meanwhile, Phillip Morris spent $24 million last year doing business with minority-owned companies, much of it on advertising with struggling ethnic papers and magazines. . . . those in the advertising industry know that savvy billboards and ad placement can make a significant difference in sales. The tobacco industry knows that. It will take courage for some aldermen to vote for the measure.

"Since cigarettes are still being sold illegally to children, what needs to be done to stop this and help keep children from smoking?" Bugg-Bey asked. Satcher is used to being grilled about tobacco regulation, but usually the questions come from reporters, politicians, or lobbyists. However, Bugg-Bey and other students ages 9 to 14 had Satcher in the hot seat to ask about tobacco concerns.

A corner grocer whose business dried up after he quit selling alcohol and tobacco said he will likely lose his store after it was sold for back taxes. Lenzlea Mosby Jr. said he closed the business in January and declared bankruptcy because of the decline in sales after he stopped carrying beer, wine and cigarettes in March 1997. . . "I didn't want to be the cause of any more young people starting to smoke." He said his sales plunged as much as 75 percent, and most people who supported him when he publicly poured out beer and made a bonfire of tobacco products didn't shop at his store afterward. "I can understand," he said. "They didn't live in this area and it was out of their way for them to come by."

The Fairfax County Attorney's office has snuffed out a proposal to prohibit county employees from smoking off the job. County Attorney David P. Bobzien, in a letter sent Monday to the Board of Supervisors, said the county does not have the legal authority to require its employees to be nonsmokers. The board, at the request of Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland, D-Mount Vernon, voted unanimously last month to explore whether the county could hire only nonsmokers, force new employees to stop smoking or give preference to abstainers in the hiring process.

Most of the late campaign money came from big business and organized labor. Tobacco giant PHILIP MORRIS, for example, gave $60,000 to Assembly Republican Leader BILL LEONARD last weekend, and its beer-making subsidiary, Miller Brewing, gave $10,000 to Assembly candidate Tom Calderon, a Whittier Democrat and brother of state Sen. Charles Calderon (D-Whittier), who ran for attorney general.

Mirjana [Spasic] died in February from cancer her doctors say was linked to two decades of heavy smoking. But her legal war on the tobacco industry will continue. She had launched a $1-million lawsuit against British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco . . But she knew she would die before the case ever went to trial, so her lawyers had her testimony recorded. Mirjana's 4,000 answers, tears and all, are preserved on close to 80 hours of videotape that is now in the possession of a downtown Toronto law office. The tapes are her legacy. "It is powerful testimony," said the family's lawyer, Andreas Seibert. "The cross-examination was rigorous. This is a woman who had terminal lung cancer and brain cancer facing a team of probing lawyers. But she persevered."

The privatization of the state-run Spirit and Tobacco Administration is aimed at complying with a customs union deal with the European Union that requires the elimination of state monopolies. The 1995 customs deal is designed to make Turkish firms more competitive within the 15-nation EU. Along with the privatization of spirit factories, the government also moved to lift the state monopoly on tobacco production.

Heavy advertising of alcohol and tobacco may be encouraging young people to take drugs, a damning Government report warns today. . . "For many young people alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs inhabit one and the same world," says the Home Office's ADVISORY COUNCIL ON THE MISUSE OF DRUGS. . . Welcoming the report, Home Office drugs minister GEORGE HOWARTH said: "It recognises that drug problems do not exist in isolation and can only be tackled by considering the wider social environment."

Heavy advertising of alcohol - particularly alcopops - and cigarettes may be encouraging young people to take illegal drugs according to a report published yesterday. If young people are to avoid taking illicit drugs, the way we treat alcohol and tobacco must be seen as part of the whole context

Though the management of Khyber Tobacco Company Limited (KTCL) has portrayed a picture as if the company was not operational during 1996-97, but official record and comments of the Employees Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) Mardan regarding the affairs of KTCL revealed that the company during that period was operational. Official record revealed that the factual position is that M/S KTCL was closed . . . Later, the new management started production, keeping EOBI and other department in dark so that to avoid payment of contribution to EOBI of their labourers.

If all Maoris gave up smoking they could save the equivalent of the $1 billion "fiscal envelope" allocated for Treaty of Waitangi settlements, National MP Georgina Te Heuheu says. Mrs Te Heuheu said that 48 per cent of Maori adults -- 172,000 people -- smoke, spending $34.4 million dollars a year on cigarettes.

NICOTINE puffers may not find an ally in JOSEPH ESTRADA. The President-elect plans to ban smoking in government offices. The pending move elated SEN. JUAN FLAVIER, former health secretary of the Ramos Cabinet . . . Flavier also said he will file a bill curbing smoking especially among teens. His bill is known as Stop Tobacco and Other Products or (Stop) for Health Act, or the Health Act of 1998.

Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA's (E.TAB) latest alliance means its stock has an upside of around 32%, Grupo BBV's brokerage arm said Wednesday.

"We will align our marketing and selling practices here in the USA and overseas so that we cannot be accused of marketing cigarettes to youth," GEOFFREY C. BIBLE, chairman of the nation's largest tobacco company, told employees in New York. Pledging to put the youth-marketing issue "behind us once and for all," Bible said he recently appointed a senior executive to "design more actions" to back up the company's long-held claim that it does not try to appeal to youngsters.

DIMON Incorporated this week announced that it has successfully merged on to the information superhighway with the opening of its home page on the Internet. In doing so, DIMON became the first of the world's major leaf tobacco dealers to open an official site on the World Wide Web. The interactive Web page can be accessed at www.dimon-inc.com

Lexington Mayor Pam Miller said yesterday she will create a task force on immigration. Miller's announcement came amid discussion of several other initiatives aimed at improving services for Central Kentucky's growing numbers of Hispanic workers, both legal and illegal: . . Miller met yesterday with Lexington Hispanic Association President Ben Figueras, who asked the city to help families left behind after INS officials arrested more than 80 illegal immigrants at a Lexington tobacco company in May and sent them back to Mexico.

Two of Spain's largest retailers -- the tobacco company TABACALERA SA and clothing distributor CORTEFIEL SA -- have teamed up to create one of the first electronic-retail chains in Europe. . . The chain, called ViaPlus, will offer products ranging from theater tickets, books and records, to television sets, flowers, gourmet foods and clothing. Tabacalera will own 75% of the venture and Cortefiel will own the remainder. . . Scheduled to begin operating in October, ViaPlus will have electronic stores in tobacco shops, Cortefiel stores, supermarkets and other public areas "where large numbers of people pass through every day"

Here was a man who, in 1964, went to Florida to argue against Social Security, to North Carolina to attack tobacco subsidies

For the mostly new faculty [at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill], it's a sweeping, and at times superficial, seminar on wheels, looking at the geography, history, culture and economics of North Carolina. Between hurried stops, the faculty members lecture each other on a range of topics, from the importance of tobacco farming in the state's economy to local politics.

As they roar at fantastic speeds around the curves of the Belle Isle Grand Prix race course this weekend, the NicoDerm-Nicorette Champ Car and the Kool Team Green car will target cigarette smokers. Those behind the Kool Team Green car and other tobacco-sponsored cars in the Grand Prix want smokers to identify with their brands and light up. The NicoDerm team is the first in major league auto racing whose sponsor wants people to quit smoking.

Rochester City Councilman Tim O. Mains is reviving legislation that calls for a limit on tobacco advertising in the city. . . Now, Mains is focusing only on tobacco ads within 1,000 feet of schools, recreation centers, playgrounds and day-care centers.

NEW YORK, June 4 (UPI) - A 44-year-old Queens man is accused of using a home computer and a printing press in his garage to run a multimillion dollar counterfeit operation. German Sevillano has been charged with creating cigarette tax stamps and selling them to tobacco smugglers.

The city of Buffalo is considering an ordinance that would ban outdoor advertisements for cigarettes within 1, 000 feet of schools, community centers and playgrounds. City Council President JAMES PITTS says the council realizes there should be legislation like this because of the effect cigarette advertising has on young people. The ordinance could be voted on as early as July.

After fielding several inquiries from smoking opponents in southern Orange, county leaders are studying the idea of of taxing federal allotments for tobacco, a crop that is grown almost exclusively at the other end of the county. Maybe the county will tax the allotments and maybe it won't, but one thing is sure: The issue will strike sparks in the rural and more conservative north, where residents often complain that Chapel Hill and its larger population have too much influence in county matters.

Winston Bryant, generally attacking, and Blanche Lincoln, usually responding, pestered each other over Medicare, debates, campaign contributions, Social Security and other things. . . In closing remarks, Bryant criticized Lincoln for signing a letter opposing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's regulation of tobacco while in Congress. . . "Giving FDA the capability to regulate the sale of a product, the advertising of a product, all of those things, goes a little bit beyond FDA's constitutional capabilities, or certainly their constitutional rights," Lincoln had said.

Fourteen candidates for statewide office publicly swore off tobacco money for their campaigns Wednesday, joining 15 others who previously took the pledge promoted by the American Heart Association. . . . Lawyers who represent tobacco companies aren't covered by the pledge. Since the pledge was unveiled in July, all of the major-party candidates for governor except LT. GOV. JOANNE BENSON and Waverly businessman DICK BORRELL, both Republicans, have taken it.

A new poll says Minnesota Attorney General HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, surfing waves of publicity from his legal victory over the tobacco industry, leads other DFLers and also the leading Republican candidate for governor.

In the Pioneer Press/MPR/KARE-TV poll, 30 percent said the tobacco case makes it more likely they will vote for Humphrey, while 21 percent said it makes them less likely to do so. Forty-nine percent said it would have no effect. The Minnesota Poll said the trial boosted Humphrey' s name recognition to 95 percent from 90 percent. But 53 percent of that poll' s respondents said the trial would make no difference in their vote, and roughly equal numbers said the trial made them more likely or less likely to support Humphrey, 23 percent to 20 percent. " Tobacco is over. Now it' s time to talk about all the other issues, " said Freeman.

The first test, however, comes this weekend when state DFL Party convention delegates in St. Cloud decide whom to endorse.

Four leading tobacco companies are fighting moves to ban smoking in public places and cigarette advertising.

Britain's tobacco companies said on Wednesday they had launched leading a legal challenge against what they said was a flawed official report that made recommendations to government on the dangers of smoking. In a joint statement, B.A.T Industries Plc, Gallaher Group Plc, Imperial Tobacco Group Plc and Rothmans (UK) said they had applied for a judicial review of the process which led to the report of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH), published in March. SCOTH advises the ruling Labour government's Department of Health on tobacco issues. The companies contend that SCOTH failed to consult the tobacco industry and experts, so that many of the report's conclusions are "unsubstantiated and flawed." "The tobacco companies hope that the courts will instruct SCOTH to revise or withdraw its report, and that the government will not use (it)," said the four in a statement.

An influential group of British scientists hit back at the tobacco industry on Thursday, saying it had considered their views before submitting a damning report to the government's chief medical officer. . . On Wednesday Britain's four leading tobacco firms launched a legal challenge to what they said was a flawed report that made recommendations to government on the dangers of smoking. In a joint statement, B.A.T Industries Plc, Gallaher Group Plc, Imperial Tobacco Group Plc and Rothmans (UK) said they had applied for a judicial review of the process which led to the report by the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH), published in March.

With Imperial Tobacco sponsoring SPRUCE MEADOWS' MASTERS tournament under its du Maurier brand name with $725,000 in prize money, Rock's announcement was greeted with relief by Spruce Meadows' founder Ron Southern. "Du Maurier has been super to us here and their support of the event is not just the prize money," Southern said. "They've helped in transporting people and networking of advertising. It's far more than the prize money that the competitors and the fans see."

She reiterated the industry's view the Tobacco Act is unconstitutional because it violates cigarette manufacturers' freedom of expression. Ironically, Lapointe's views coincide with those of many health activists who predict the sponsorship ban, scheduled for 2004, is unlikely to stand up to industry pressure over the intervening years. "We are profoundly worried," said Louis Gauvin of the Coalition for Tobacco Control, a Quebec anti-smoking group. "We know very well the organization and power of the tobacco industry."

JOHN STERNE admits to a "little tear" when he read about the latest federal regulations for tobacco companies' sponsorship of cultural and sporting events. The executive director of ORCHESTRA LONDON, which recently completed its du Maurier-sponsored Russian festival, says of the rules: "It's another source (of funding) taken away from us."

Health Minister ALLAN ROCK has received qualified praise from both sides of the country's polarized tobacco debate with his five-year reprieve to arts, sports and cultural events dependent on cigarette sponsorship. But the minister drew angry fire in the House of Commons from opposition parties, which accused him of pandering to the tobacco lobby and watering down existing legislation.

Health activists are angry but not surprised at the federal decision to permit tobacco-industry sponsorship of arts and sporting events for another five years. They say the latest move fits a pattern of steady concessions to the industry which has characterized the Liberal government since it was first elected. "It's consistent with what this government has done so far on tobacco," said Cynthia Callard of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. "On a scale of one to 10, I'd give them a zero."

Antismoking groups, along with Reform and NDP health critics, say it is the young Canadians entering high school now who will pay the price for the amendments to the Tobacco Act tabled yesterday by Health Minister Allan Rock. "I look upon those just entering high school now . . . those are the kids that are being left without the protection of this government," said Reform critic Dr. Grant Hill.

The Canadian government announced plans to restrict tobacco sponsorships of sports and cultural events in two years and ban them in five years.

The federal government must stop bargaining with the tobacco companies. These companies have known for years about the damage their products have inflicted. They have hidden the evidence of that damage. They should be in absolutely no position to dictate anything to the Canadian public or its government. Ottawa was wrong to give in to them.

In a retreat from the Liberals' hard-line anti-smoking stand, Health Minister Allan Rock will table a watered-down amendment to the Tobacco Act in the Commons today.

Canadian Health Minister Allan Rock, battered from fights over a tainted blood scandal, now risks igniting the wrath of health workers with a plan expected to help groups such as the Grand Prix keep their tobacco sponsorships. Rock will unveil amendments on Wednesday to last year's tough new law restricting tobacco advertising, his spokesman Derek Kent told Reuters.

SANDRA POST is thrilled at the growth in Canadian women's golf. . . That's why Canada's best-known female golfer hopes the LPGA du Maurier Ltd. Classic, and the five-event series for the development of women in the country, will continue despite a new tobacco bill coming into effect Oct. 1. . . "I really hope the Classic survives. That's my first concern because it does so much for our country nationally and internationally," said Post

Provincial officials said the disclosure requirement, along with new rules aimed at shaming and fining retailers who sell tobacco to minors, are part of an effort to reduce youth smoking and make the industry more accountable. "If we can force the tobacco companies to tell the public the whole truth about deadly poisons in tobacco and tobacco smoke, then people can make more informed choices about what they put in their bodies," Health Minister Penny Priddy said in a statement.

AN accused tobacco executive told a jury he was paid $33 million for giving legitimate help to a multi-billion-dollar Taiwanese cigarette smuggling operation. JERRY LUI KIN-HONG, 42, said he helped CHEN YING-JEN find distributors for Japanese cigarettes smuggled in from Hong Kong and passed on market intelligence. At the time of the first payment Lui was working for BROWN AND WILLIAMSON Tobacco Corporation in Taiwan but said he did not see helping Chen as a clash of interests. Lui denies conspiring with former directors of GIANT ISLAND, including Chen, to accept $33 million in advantages between August 1988 and May 1993.

Lui said that at the time he met Mr Patten, he knew the Independent Commission Against Corruption had raided his Hong Kong home and sent officers to look for him in the Philippines. He told the Court of First Instance he had not been acting like a fugitive and hiding away, but had been running his business in Subic Bay.

One of the most copied B.A.T products is 555 cigarettes, Vietnam's top-selling brand. Not a month goes by without several new versions popping up, Mr. Wilson says. Variations include "5555" and "333." The top of the 5555 packaging boasts the purported autograph of Omar Sharif, a Hollywood heartthrob from a bygone era.

Zimbabwe's High Court is to be asked to rule whether President Robert Mugabe's government is liable for up to Z$1bn worth of fraudulent bills issued by Roger Boka's failed United Merchant Bank on behalf of the parastatal Cold Storage Commission. Government liability for the Z$2bn debts of Boka's failed group of companies, including giant Z$200m tobacco floors, could again push the budget deficit beyond targets agreed with the International Monetary Fund and endanger further support, announced by the IMF board in Washington on Monday.

Blue mold has arrived in Lancaster, threatening the county's $22 million tobacco crop. The fungal disease already hastaken up residence on three county farms, according to county agronomy extension agent Bob Anderson.

As if financial losses, lawsuits and allegations of cigar counterfeiting were not enough, Miami-based Caribbean Cigar now faces yet another problem: finding a new top executive. The maker of premium stogies announced on Wednesday that its president and chairman, RONALD G. FARRELL, had resigned -- just two months after he'd taken the helm.

Caribbean Cigar Co said Tuesday that RONALD FARRELL resigned effective immediately as president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board. . . Until a replacement is found, EDWARD WILLIAMS will serve as interim president, the company said in a statement. STEPHEN WERTHEIMER also resigned from the board of directors due to conflicts with other responsibilities.

40% of GMs report that cigarettes and liquor combined account for the most frequently shoplifted items of 1998 -- that's an increase of 180% from 1997 for these two product categories.

[A]ccording to a survey by the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in North Carolina. . . . Sixty-four percent of respondents said they would not work in certain industries because of ethical concerns. Top of the blacklist were tobacco producers (91%) - perhaps surprising in an area where economic prosperity has been built on tobacco. Second came alcohol manufacturers (22%).

Before the music begins, the audience will be shown an anti-smoking public service announcement starring those caring, young, good Boyz. "There are a lot of teen-agers that smoke a great deal," vocalist SHAWN STOCKMAN says. "A lot of the teen-agers that are smoking are getting into it because of peer pressure. We're just trying to make teen-agers more aware and more conscious of their decision."

"I said, `No, I'm not going to smoke a cigarette of TV.' Davis was clear in his conviction. "The reason I wouldn't do it was that somewhere out there, there would be one person watching, looking and saying, `Well, he smoked. So I'll smoke a cigarette, too.' "In doing that (smoking on TV), I figured that I might be the reason that that person's chances to be in sports, even be an Olympian, might be ruined. I just didn't want to be the reason that someone would do that."

The House action also corrected errors in legislative language that would eliminate $15.4 billion in veterans health benefits for tobacco-related ailments to partially offset the increase in highway spending.

A legal opinion from the state's attorney's office said the proposed ordinance goes "way beyond any express or implied authority the county has." So the County Board's Public Health and Human Services Committee on Thursday decided to ask the state's attorney's office to help write a new ordinance to regulate cigarette-vending machines.

That proposal went down in flames after restaurants and bars complained they might go out of business if the Village Board approved such a ban. In recent days, the health board has begun kicking around a new idea: providing financial incentives to encourage restaurants and bars to ban smoking in the way of reduced licensing fees and possibly lower sales tax.

Lobbyists for scores of national interests - including tobacco, HMOs and Indian gambling - will host a Washington fund-raiser this month for GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH. . . Mr. Bush's Democratic foe, GARRY MAURO, has sought to capitalize on such events . . . Those lobbyists represent clients that include BROWN AND WILLIAMSON Tobacco Co. . . A Bush campaign spokeswoman noted that Mr. Mauro is the only candidate in the governor's race who has accepted a campaign contribution directly from the tobacco industry, through a company political action committee.

The proposal sailed through a subcommittee of the Recreation and Park Commission yesterday and appears likely to win final approval from the full commission in two weeks. Larger parks, including Golden Gate Park, would not be included in the ban. . . "These are defined areas where children play," said Michael Morlin, assistant superintendent of neighborhood services for the Recreation and Park Department.

LAWS banning duty-free shopping in the European Union from next June will not apply to shops that move - ferries, cruise ships and planes - P&O has been advised. . . "There is nothing in the legislation stopping you selling duty-free goods in international waters," Vic Moorcraft, P&O's indirect tax manager, said yesterday.

A tripartite four-day national seminar on globalisation and its impact on industrial relations organised by the INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (ILO) was concluded in Colombo recently. In the keynote paper presented by Institute of Policy Studies Executive Director Dr. Saman Kelegama called for enhancing the capacity of Labour Department Officials. . . CEYLON TOBACCO COMPANY Director of Personnel J.D. BANDARANAYAKE in his presentation noted that there must be the will of the people in the enterprise particularly the leadership to protect the enterprise from destruction and raise the standards to generate excellence.

On Monday, an international anti-smoking day, the government decided to activate its anti-smoking law, but tobacco smoke still filled public offices and courthouses around the Jordanian capital, Amman, throughout the week. The public, government employees, public prosecutors and even judges smoke in their offices and in hallways where ash trays line walls plastered with large "No Smoking" signs.

The Israel Medical Association petitioned the High Court of Justice against Minister of Health Yehoshua Matza and Israeli cigarette companies in an application to declare nicotine and tobacco as "dangerous drugs." The Association demands to have controls and restrictions imposed on the growth, production, sale, import and use of tobacco, nicotine and cigarettes in Israel.

SJI Group, Inc., one of the country's leading distributors of premium cigars, today announced that the Premium Product Lines of Swisher International Group Inc., which recently entered into a joint marketing agreement with SJI that named Swisher as the exclusive sponsor of SJI's CIGAR BUS, has unveiled an extensive appearance schedule for the Cigar Bus. The schedule includes appearances at a number of Senior PGA Tour events this year, including the upcoming BellSouth Senior Classic in Nashville, Tennessee (June 12 -14). Swisher also plans to use the Cigar Bus during the course of the year at upcoming industry trade shows and in conjunction with events and promotions it will be conducting with certain of its and SJI's retail accounts.

Indonesia listed cigarette maker PT Gudang Garam (P.GGR) posted first quarter earnings of IDR227.1 billion, up 33% from IDR170.4 billion in the year-ago period.

Duke loved modern dance, an art form born and bred in this country. She studied with Graham and, in fact, supported the modern dance pioneer, who was one of ADF's founders. Duke supported Alvin Ailey and Katherine Dunham, too, long before most of America knew or cared about modern dance.

SHERINGHAM's photo was splashed across British newspapers Friday, showing him with a cigarette in his mouth and his arm draped around a young woman in a bar on Portugal's Algarve coast.

ENGLAND'S soccer squad arrived at their Buckinghamshire headquarters yesterday with one player, TEDDY SHERINGHAM, the focus of attention because of his moonlight activities. Sheringham, 32, was reported to have spent two successive nights this week drinking in Portuguese bars. . . Newspaper reports said Sheringham had been drinking, smoking cigarettes and in intimate proximity with an English blonde in a nightclub in Albufeira at 6.45am on Wednesday.

OF all the clobber England's footballers take to the World Cup - tracksuits, eucalyptus creams, cans of miracle cold spray - the most important objects will be 22 black and yellow plastic keys. . . The key is an electronic spy that unlocks a machine called a Technogym. . .The machine also monitors heart beats, using a chest belt that transmits the pulse to a receiver on the treadmill. This was Gazza's "fagbuster", the device that could not lie about the impact smoking was having on his performance

And a 12-year-old boy wasn't able to share a joyful hug with the father who led him down this academic road to victory.Instead, the boy was up in his room venting his anger and hurt -- writing a letter to tobacco manufacturers. . . Brian [Weiss] had come up with a better plan. With his rabbi's blessing, he was using the letter as his act of good deed for his bar mitzvah next year--using it to gather signatures for a anti-smoking petition to send to tobacco manufacturers and politicians. A 12-year-old boy going out and spreading the word to anyone who will listen about how it is to lose a father you love very much to a bad habit that kills.

David Walsh, the maverick Canadian mining promoter who died in the Bahamas on Thursday, pocketed millions of dollars as a key figure in one of the world's biggest gold frauds and left a legacy of recriminations and lawsuits. The pot-bellied, chain-smoking former president of BRE-X MINERALS LTD. died at Doctors Hospital in Nassau just four days after a massive stroke left him on life support. He was 52. "David was overweight, he smoked and he drank. If anybody was a candidate for a heart attack, I would say he was a good one," family friend George Damianos told Reuters from the Bahamas.

WE MIGHT NEVER KNOW why it took Fairfax County Attorney David Bobzien two whole weeks to snuff out Mount Vernon Supervisor Gerry Hyland's ridiculous idea of hiring only non-smokers or forcing county employees to quit smoking. It was obvious back on May 18, the day Brother Hyland floated his proposal, that it would flat-out violate state law and be an egregious violation into the personal lives of county employees besides.

What would you do about cigarettes? As a provincial politician, you know cigarettes are deadly and that more Quebecers die of lung cancer than just about anywhere else on the continent. That's why you: A. Offered restaurants another 10 years to put in a no-smoking section. B. Gave dealers in contraband cigarettes an attractive tax break.

House Republican leaders overcame enormous resistance within their own ranks Friday to pass a controversial 1999 budget plan . . TOBACCO: The House budget does not factor in the potential effects of tobacco legislation lawmakers are considering. . . If a bill becomes law, it would determine how the money is used, overriding any proposals in the budget.

In what lawyers acknowledge is an unusual move, the industry asked the Court of Appeals on Thursday to overturn the decision of Baltimore Circuit Judge EDWARD ANGELETTI allowing a case to proceed as a class action instead of as suits filed individually by smokers seeking money from tobacco companies. GARY LONG, a lawyer for the industry, said the extraordinary nature of the suit warrants what he acknowledged was an extremely rare attempt to overturn a ruling authorizing a class action suit. . . . "Why let the action proceed for years and years ... if it's only going to be reversed later?" Long said.

U.S. District Judge Jose Antonio Fuste has denied a series of motions by the defendants to dismiss the case against them. Of particular note, Judge Fuste rejected a move by four industry law firms to remove themselves as defendants in the lawsuit, a ruling which is the first of its kind. He also ruled that there is sufficient evidence to allow Puerto Rico's claim under the civil Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act to go to trial.

Little-noticed court rulings, including a recent state supreme-court decision, have gone its way, undercutting the ability of some states and local governments to recover health-care outlays for treating sick smokers. A wave of similar suits brought by union health funds to recover their payouts linked to smoking also has, by and large, hit a wall.

Attorney General SCOTT HARSHBARGER, the earnest statewide office holder who has received a cool reception from party regulars, won the Democratic convention by a hair on Saturday. . . A relaxed-looking Harshbarger doffed his suit jacket to give his speech to delegates and hit some light notes when he criticized CELLUCCI, who has the advantages of incumbency as well as a massive war chest. The criticisms came in the form of a mock letter to Cellucci, telling hime what Harshbarger had been doing in recent years. ``While you were busy vetoing health care for poor kids - I was tackling Big Tobacco,'' Harshbarger said.

When KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON first ran for the Senate she depended on contributions from tobacco interests to help fill her campaign coffers. But more recently, the Texas Republican decided to kick the habit, joining an increasing number of lawmakers trying to distance themselves from an unpopular industry. . . "I decided they were not telling the truth," she said.

Minnesota Secretary of State Joan Growe says she plans to offer a resolution next Thursday at the State Investment Board to ban new tobacco investments.

Raising cigarette prices, a central element of proposals to reduce teen smoking, is viewed as a meaningless exercise by more than 60 percent of Minnesotans. Indeed, nearly half of the respondents to a Star Tribune/ KMSP-TV Minnesota Poll -- 48 percent -- strongly disagreed with the notion that higher state and federal excise taxes would discourage smoking.

Billboard and alcohol companies are fighting hard against City Councilman MIKE FEUER's plan to virtually eliminate alcohol and tobacco billboards from the city of Los Angeles.

Maryland anti-smoking activists asked all gubernatorial candidates to sign a tax pledge . . . Only GLENDENING has signed the pledge to increase the cigarette tax by $1.50 a pack and begin taxing other tobacco products such as cigars, snuff and chewing tobacco. Ms. REHRMANN would increase the tax, but will not sign the pledge because she does not want to commit herself to the spending program it contains, said George Harrison, her campaign spokesman.

Overdue debt rescheduling, fresh loans to pay debts and tax exemptions or reductions will be curtailed for distilleries, breweries, sugar mills, cigarette makers and garment and textile manufacturers.

A third of new zealand's MAORIS die from diseases caused by smoking, according to a new study. This toll, described as "devastating" by the New Zealand Ministry of Maori Development, is almost twice as high as that caused by smoking in the country's non-Maori population--and higher than that recorded in any indigenous population worldwide. The study was conducted for the ministry by Health New Zealand, a consultancy in Auckland.

The parent company of Zimbabwe's main tobacco auction floor says the volume of the crop being sold will make up for the disappointingly low prices being paid.

The fine print in Health Minister Allan Rock's tobacco amendment contains a huge loophole allowing the government to delay the sponsorship ban indefinitely, critics say. Health groups and opposition MPs are up in arms over the final clause of Rock's controversial amendment to the Tobacco Act introduced Wednesday. It says it's up to cabinet to "prescribe a day" for the amendment to kick in. Although Rock said he intends to make cultural and sporting event organizers wean themselves from tobacco sponsorship money by 2003, the fine print reveals that time-line is entirely arbitrary.

Among the schemes they use to hide the money trail is ``smurfing.'' Here's how it works: . . The brokers hire people in the United States to open checking accounts at U.S. banks with small deposits. One broker can employ dozens of people, who are known as ``smurfs'' after the diminutive blue cartoon characters. . . Businesses in Colombia that need U.S. dollars to import goods buy the checks from the currency brokers with Colombian pesos, fill in the payee's name, and cash the checks. The businesses then ship or smuggle the goods -- most often computers, cars, appliances, liquor and cigarettes -- into Colombia.

When the ban on event sponsorship kicks in in 2003, cigarette makers will lose one thing that prevents them from all looking the same in consumers' eyes: the alchemy of image. . . They will lose their back door into the magic of modern marketing: their access to the alchemy of image. Corporate sponsorships allow cigarette makers to imbue boxes of otherwise indistinguishable white sticks with personality, say marketers.

For years, a hush-hush committee of lawyers -- the Tobacco Institute's Committee of Counsel -- was allegedly the primary architect of the unyielding fight-and-deny strategy that turned Big Tobacco into such a national pariah. An investigation of recently released documents to be published in the June 15 issue of Business Week reveals the inner workings of a group allegedly so powerful that even high-level executives felt unable to challenge it

It usually is better, as you suggest in your letter, to give her "a few months" to make other living arrangements if she can't or won't quit . . . If the tenant still won't cooperate after the notice of change of terms of tenancy expires (i.e., she keeps smoking and won't move), you will have to give her a three-day notice to abide by the rental agreement, which now includes the no-smoking provision, or move out.

Followers of the legal saga of Lyle and Erik Menendez firmly believe in Menendez karma. . . Now, it seems, Menendez karma is paying a visit to SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE NANCY BROWN. . . The California Commission on Judicial Performance announced last week that it has initiated formal proceedings against Brown, a 62-year-old courthouse veteran. She also is accused of displaying an artificial marijuana plant in court, banning an administrator from her courtroom and smoking cigarettes (not the funny kind) in her chambers, where lighting up is banned, as it is throughout the courthouse.

Charles A. Whipple of Falmouth and Naples, Fla., a retired Philip Morris Co. executive, died Friday at Brighton Gardens Nursing Home in Naples. He was 75. Mr. Whipple worked for Philip Morris for 37 years, the last 14 years as a vice president of retail sales for Miller Brewing Co. He retired in 1986.

His name was Barry Morris Goldwater, and he was a most unlikely revolutionary. He was the grandson of a Jewish peddler-turned-millionaire; a college dropout whose book "The Conscience of a Conservative" (1960) sold more than 3.5 million copies and was once required reading at Harvard; a man who never smoked a cigarette or drank a cup of coffee but kept a bottle of Old Crow in his Senate office for after-five sippin'

"Life Prerecorded" maps out the moods and transgressions of a pregnant reformed smoker. . . But she doesn't stop night-dreaming and day-dreaming about smoking, about her past and her fears for the future. At story's end, her young daughter is pretending to smoke. " 'I'm pretending it's long, long ago. Back when cigarettes were good for you,' " little Gwendolyn says. "With that she takes another puff and blows her smoke my way, and I lean close to breathe it all in."

"For example, the story "Life Prerecorded" [about a pregnant woman looking forward and back] began with a lot images, dreams, fragments that I wanted to put into words. I didn't think how they would all connect. At the start I thought they wouldn't. The glue that connected them was the smoking image that emerged in the writing. Quitting smoking, early memories of smoking, growing up in a town that thrived as a tobacco market, images of my father long before I knew him, I saw I could use that to pull together this story about birth and rebirth."

I explained the rationale behind the gun and tobacco litigation is that the producers have knowingly sold what they know to be potentially life-threatening products and, in the case of tobacco, may actually have conspired to make their product more addictive. . . "And I suppose burgers and fries are being marketed to Steve Forbes, Bill Gates and the du Ponts," the cabby said. "You think they're not trying to make Big Macs and Quarter-Pounders as addictive as they can? You think I enjoy looking like this? They've hooked me is what they've done, and I'm suing them for all they're worth."

Maybe, just maybe, before the second stage of the reprieve kicks in, those rocket scientists who want to tell us what and what not to do with our lives will realize the tobacco industry's sponsorship of events - estimated to be more than $60 million a year - isn't hurting anyone.

Mr. Starr was the lawyer who invoked attorney-client privilege, however irrelevantly, before an appellate court in 1995 to further his client's efforts to intimidate and frustrate Henry Waxman and Ron Wyden . . . The red-hot evidence Mr. Starr was trying to shield with attorney-client privilege and other legal red herrings was not of perjury about an alleged sex act but of a possibly criminal conspiracy to destroy the health of millions of Americans. . . What can't be explained, even by us armchair psychiatrists, is what possessed the independent counsel to deliver a speech trumpeting his guilt. . . Or is there an internal struggle going on here that's more Robert Louis Stevenson than Harper Lee?

After denying that nicotine is addictive four years ago, company executives have since testified before Congress and in court that it might be. Revisiting those inconsistencies as Congress weighs national legislation now, said Mr. Black, was likely viewed inside Philip Morris as counterproductive. . .

As part of the settlement announced Friday, Philip Morris is creating a $105 million fund for the benefit of shareholders who bought stock in Philip Morris from June 11, 1991 through May 6, 1994. . . Philip Morris and former officers named in the suit "continue to deny any liability with respect to the claims alleged" in the suit, the statement said. . . It accused Philip Morris and some of its officers and directors of violating securities laws by making false and misleading statements about cigarettes' addictive qualities. The settlement is subject to a number of conditions, including approval by the court. A hearing has been set for Oct. 16.

Philip Morris Cos. Inc. (MO - news) said Friday it will establish a $105 million fund as part of an agreement to settle a pending shareholder securities class-action litigation against it and several former officers. The fund for the benefit of the class will include people who purchased common stock from June 11, 1991 through May 6, 1994 and will also cover attorneys' fees and other expenses ordered by the court, the company said in a statement.

The town wants to prevent kids from smoking with a law that would prohibit stores from selling tobacco products from racks that are accessible to customers. School and town officials say the law is needed because Freeport schoolchildren are getting cigarettes by stealing them from the racks.

Anti-tobacco crusader WARREN TOLMAN has won the Democratic party's endorsement for his shot at lieutenant governor. . . Tolman is known for championing a first-in-the nation tobacco ingredients disclosure law. But that bill has been tied up in court, where tobacco companies are arguing that it would force them to reveal trade secrets. He also supports campaign finance reform.

The White House says tobacco companies knew about and facilitated a huge Canadian/U.S. Indian cigarette smuggling operation. TONY LAUGHING, a Mohawk Indian, is accused of smuggling almost $700 million in cigarettes into Canada.

Barry Ford, a 35-year-old lawyer with the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, announced that he would seek to unseat [Rep. Edolphus] Towns in the Sept. 15 primary. . . Ford's sharpest attacks have been on Towns' relationship with the tobacco industry . . . Ford said Towns had "always voted the interests and concerns of the tobacco industry." . . "Barry Ford claims that the tobacco industry has given me $60,000 over a period of 10 years," the congressman said. "Legally, they could have given me $780,000. I've gotten most of my money from the health-care community."

And Weiqing says they saw similarities between southeast China and northeast Kentucky. "In terms of the climate, in terms of the precipitation, even the (limestone) mountain ranges, the physical environment is so similar to Guangxi," he said. There are also economic similarities. Guangxi has some coal mining. Tobacco is a major cash crop there. Guangxi doesn't have a surgeon general. But smoking is under attack there, too. Cigarette packages carry health warnings, smoking is prohibited in many public places, and tobacco products are heavily taxed, says Huang Shengjie, 35, planning division director for Guangxi Tobacco Co.

Gov. Frank O'Bannon has accepted tobacco money while supporting a lawsuit that accuses the industry of violating Indiana law and deliberately marketing cigarettes to children. The state's major party organizations, both U.S. senators and all four Indiana legislative caucuses also have taken campaign money from defendants in the suit.

Admitting a conflict with his "children's agenda," GOV. FRANK O'BANNON will return some of the $30,000 he accepted from the tobacco industry during the past three years. He received nearly a third of those campaign contributions since the state of Indiana filed a lawsuit accusing the industry of deliberately marketing cigarettes to children, according to an analysis by The Times of Northwest Indiana. The Times study showed O'Bannon wasn't the only politician to take a campaign handout from tobacco interests.

Although he is one of the Senate's top recipients of campaign contributions from the tobacco industry, D'Amato has been voting with the anti-smoking forces in the early rounds in the fight over tobacco legislation. . . Those votes help undercut Democratic charges that D'Amato is often willing to help special interests in return for their campaign contributions.

Hollywood producer and actor ROB REINER and MIKE ROOS, head of the education reform group LEARN, are sponsoring a proposition to raise cigarette taxes 50 cents per pack to pay for various child education and health programs.

Blanche Lincoln picked up the state teacher union's endorsement Friday in her race with Winston Bryant for the Democratic Party endorsement for the U.S. Senate. . . Bryant also criticized her after a news report said she had not carried over tobacco contributions from 1996 to this year's Senate race.

South Korea will start to sell state-run corporations to foreign investors in the second half of this year, Korean television said on Sunday. . . The corporations would include . . . Korea Telecom and Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Corp, it said.

For centuries, what the Chinese call "the swallowing disease" has been a main killer in this rugged region; these days a stunning 20 percent of the deaths in this area of several million people are from this cancer alone. . . Dawsey expressed frustration that more than a decade of work has not unraveled the riddle of what causes esophageal cancer in Linzhou. Part of it is diet: Scalding hot tea, a persimmon cake with coarse husks, moldy pickled turnips, grain laced with silica fragments and consumer priorities that favor TVs over refrigerators all might play a role in causing the disease. Widespread smoking may also be a factor, as well as genes.

Cuba is vowing to maintain the quality of its world-famous cigars, but smokers are unhappy about plans for increased production. "Quality always comes before quantity," said Francisco Linares, president of Habanos and the man responsible for marketing Cuba's stogies abroad.

Cuba boasted on Friday that every one of its world-famous Havana cigars was still "a work of art" despite fears abroad of a possible decline in quality as output soars to a record 160 million this year. "The number one priority is quality before quantity," said Osvaldo Encarnacion, head of Cuba's state-run group of tobacco producers. "Each cigar that leaves the hands of a Cuban tobacco-maker is a work of art in its own right."

COHEN said the company is putting more money behind its Marlboro brand, an effort that is improving volume trends. The analyst is also encouraged that Congressional efforts to increase the dollar amount of the proposed multi-billion-dollar tobacco bill are not floating.

Nabisco's restructuring plan that will cut its workforce by six percent does not appear to be a prelude to a long-expected spin-off by majority parent RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., Wall Street analysts said.

RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. said on Monday it would take a second-quarter charge of $216 million for the restructuring at its Nabisco food business, of which RJR owns an 80.7 percent stake. The after-tax charge, which translates into $0.67 per diluted common share, is to cover the sweeping restructuring announced on Monday that includes shutting some facilities, streamlining others and sharply hiking promotional spending for its biscuit unit.

A key to diversifying Kentucky's farming economy is being hatched in a barn in southern Kenton County. Efforts to raise shrimp in ponds on Kentucky farms have been under way for several years now.

"As they've replaced Joe Camel, they've replaced it with a campaign that's very enticing to young people," says Cathryn Cushing. She is media coordinator for Tobacco-Free Tri-Counties, an anti-smoking coalition in the Portland, Ore., area. The hidden camel reminds Cushing of the children's book "Where's Waldo?" "Kids love where the image eventually pops out if you look at it long enough," she says. "If anything, it's probably more appealing than Joe Camel ever was. It appears more grown-up."

Risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking, lack of physical activity, and being overweight account for only a small part of the excess mortality among low-income and less educated Americans, according to a new University of Michigan study. . . "After taking baseline health status and personal health behaviors into account, we found that people with lower incomes still had a much higher risk of dying," Lantz said. . . A combination of other factors associated with lower income likely play a greater role than personal lifestyle factors in explaining the elevated mortality risk. These include the greater chronic and acute stresses of daily life, decreased social supports, lower self-esteem, heightened levels of anger and hostility, and a decreased sense of control. Other key elements thought to be associated with high mortality rates among the disadvantaged include increased exposure to occupational and environmental health hazards, and lack of preventive medical care.

Super strong mints offered from chic little tin boxes have become the must-have accessory for the trendy -- particularly after all those caffe lattes and expensive cigars. . . "The mint and the tin have become the latest gentlemanly accessory," said Cydney Halpin, Dunhill's director of marketing. "It's one more item in the arsenal for the polished gentleman." While originally made for cigar smokers, 50 percent of Dunhill's mint buyers don't smoke cigars.

Would you trust the government with your most private medical records? How about a tobacco company? . . . Massachusetts has sued the industry, as did 40 other states, in part to gain reimbursement for tobacco-related health care costs. . . Michael York, an attorney who speaks for tobacco giant Philip Morris Inc. on litigation matters, said the information is important at every stage of the trial: . . . "In order to test the model or rebut the model or challenge the model, at the very least there should be a due process right" to the underlying data that a state used, York said.

Lobbyist: SUE HESS has spent the last two decades working for Maryland arts. . . Hess already has many plans in the works for her retirement. . . And possibly more lobbying: Her husband, who smoked, died in 1994 of cancer. "I may see if there's anything I can do to stop the tobacco companies."

"With Rebecca, there's no smoking in our home," she says. "So I end up sneaking cigarettes behind a tree in the playground and enduring other mothers' disapproving looks. Right now, that's keeping me to well under half a pack per day. So I just have to hang in there."

Tips for Parents: Many studies confirm that adult behavior has a profound effect on young people's decisions about alcohol and tobacco. The National Parent-Teachers Association's program, "Common Sense Strategies for Raising Alcohol- and Drug-Free Kids," provides 10 tips to help parents model healthy behavior for kids. We've excerpted four here: 1. Share your values. . . . If you can't think of how to complete the sentence, here's an example from Tiffany, age 14: "Something I wish I could teach parents is not to smoke or do any drugs around kids . . . or even at all. You're supposed to be our role models for how to behave, not for how not to behave."

Stan Glantz is already yelling into the receiver, even though the door to his office is wide open and a reporter is sitting nearby. As he excitedly plots with a colleague the best rejoinder to critics of his latest research paper, Glantz leans back in his chair until his short legs leave the floor. One foot starts swinging as an incongruous smile gradually betrays his pleasure at the controversy.

Governments could kill two birds with one stone if they raised taxes on cigarettes and used the additional funds to bankroll those events currently funded by tobacco companies. They could even throw a nod to the cigarette folks by including a line in every poster or program, noting: "This event brought to you by the unfortunate victims who are addicted to such-and-such cigarettes."

Dear Ann: As I watch my mother struggling for breath, dying a horrible death from emphysema, I feel resentment and rage. Though she's in and out of a morphine haze, my mother still manages to sneak cigarettes. She has an oxygen tube in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Meanwhile, she is choking to exhaustion. . . I pray that something said here may serve to prevent some other mother from dying slowly in her daughter's arms, choking and drenched in tears.

The city does not need more laws on the books that mean nothing and have no teeth. . . The Rec-Park subcommittee that urged the draconian smoking ban is not alone in wanting to stamp out teen smoking and to eliminate the rude behavior of leaving cigarette butts in children's sandboxes. And we endorse and encourage such civility. But in this case, a law is not the answer.

Tobacco company executives had begun to team up with smugglers more than ever before in an attempt to force the Canadian government to lower its steep tax on tobacco, according to Laughing. Laughing's claim is backed up by another accused smuggler, Larry Miller of Massena, who said tobacco executives helped him move cigarettes back into Canada to avoid taxes. The number of Canadian-brand cigarettes exported to New York state rose from 500,000 in 1989, when a hefty tax was imposed, to 20 billion in 1993. Those brands, such as Export A's and DuMauriers, don't have near that many American customers. They were clearly headed for the black market in Canada, according to tobacco industry experts.

A Florida jury adjourned on Tuesday without reaching a verdict after a day of deliberations in a product liability lawsuit against Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. filed by the family of a long-time smoker who died of lung cancer.

An attorney representing the family of a smoker who died of lung cancer suing Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. told the jury, ``Don't let them get away with it.'' The three-man, three-woman jury will begin deliberating Tuesday morning after being instructed by Duval Circuit Judge Charles O. Mitchell.

Former co-workers of a West Palm Beach man whose family is suing a tobacco company said he often joked about cigarettes, calling them cancer sticks and coffin nails. "Let's put another nail in our coffin," Betty Powell said Roland Maddox joked when the two Winn-Dixie supermarket employees would take a cigarette break together.

A long-time smoker whose family sued cigarette companies over his death knew about the dangers of smoking and joked about "coffin nails" and "cancer sticks," defense witnesses testified on Friday as the product liability trial drew near its close. Florida Circuit Judge Charles Mitchell dismissed the jury until Monday morning after it heard the videotaped deposition of Eugene Gladstone, the former son-in-law of Roland Maddox.

The lawsuit is one of more than 30 suits filed across the country, coordinated by the Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds. One of the suits has been certified as a class-action in Washington state . . . The Utah suit . . . also names the industry's trade association, The Council for Tobacco Research, and law firms that represented the industry. . . The suit also names the KIMBERLY-CLARK CORP., which manufactures cigarette papers, and EASTMAN CHEMICAL CO., which makes cigarette filters.

Three union trust funds representing Utahns working in construction have sued cigarette manufacturers, demanding reimbursement for millions spent on medical costs related to smoking or chewing tobacco. . . The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, contends such workers' trust funds have paid for damages inflicted by addiction to tobacco. "Blue collar workers spend from 10 to 14 percent of their medical expenses each year on tobacco-related illnesses and deaths," said lead counsel Windle Turley, an attorney from Dallas.

The vast majority of tobacco cases that would have been settled under the 1997 accord are still in the courts. But some of them, in particular a number of class-action cases, risk being pre-empted by federal tobacco legislation or are given little chance for success at trial. Fears that the fees will be scaled back has inspired intense lobbying by trial lawyers from more than 65 firms nationwide, who are spending millions of dollars in an effort to insure that the fees are paid.

The association says the ''uneven playing field'' will result from the ban applying to restaurants but not to bars, private clubs, or hotels and motels with private function rooms. The lawsuit - dubbed by one observer as a ''line in the sand'' by the tobacco industry to head off smoking bans throughout Massachusetts - will seek a judge's ruling preventing the ban from going into effect on the basis that regulations imposed by city public health officials must be ''reasonable'' and generally applied.

Arecent survey conducted in California revealed a majority of adults support the state's six-month ban on smoking in bars. Simply put, nonsmokers no longer want to breathe in secondhand smoke. To that end, a number of restaurants across Ohio will go smoke-free during "Eat, Breathe and Dine Smoke-Free Day" on June 11, 1998. Sponsored by the Ohio Department of Health, the goal of the campaign is to eliminate exposure to cancer causing secondhand smoke by asking restaurants to go smoke-free for the day.

Cigarette makers' heavy contributions in Florida are part of a national mosaic, according to an analysis of state party financial records conducted for The New York Times by the Campaign Study Group, a private research firm. . . The $1.8 million in tobacco contributions to the state parties is important in light of legislation being debated in the House of Representatives to ban corporate and labor union contributions to the national parties. If such legislation is enacted, other industries could follow the tobacco manufacturers' lead and begin contributing much larger amounts to state parties. Many states allow unlimited contributions to a state party. . . According to the analysis of the tobacco industry's state-level political contributions, one cigarette maker, the Philip Morris Cos., accounted for 62 percent of the $1.8 million given by tobacco interests to the state parties. And 70 percent of the $1.8 million went to Republicans.

The smokers don't want their picture taken. They don't want to be branded. . . the heat is on smokers again -- and not just in Fairfax County. . . But the mere fact that the county is talking about such issues is disturbing, say the American Civil Liberties Union and others. "I don't know what those [supervisors] are smoking," said Lewis Maltby, director of the ACLU's national workplace rights office. "They can't do that. It's illegal --and for very good reason." . . The roadblock in Virginia is a 1989 state law, amended in 1997, which explicitly forbids the state or its subsidiary political jurisdictions from dictating employees' private-time smoking habits. But other locales around the country aren't prohibited from keeping smokers off the payroll. Several Florida cities have such a policy

A South African laboratory posing as a legitimate company was a secret murder factory making poisons for the apartheid-era military to use against its opponents, a scientist who worked there said Tuesday. Schalk van Rensburg, a former director of Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL), said the facility produced more than 500 items ranging from chocolates laced with botulism to cigarettes with anthrax and whiskey with weedkiller.

Smuggling on a small scale across the border into France and Spain has traditionally played an important role in Andorran life, but in recent years it has shown worrying signs of expanding and turning the principality into a mecca for criminal gangs. They buy up millions of imported cigarettes and smuggle them back to their country of origin, particularly Ireland and the UK, where they sell them on the black market. The European Union is taking steps to investigate the problem.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien said yesterday compensating all hepatitis C victims could open the door to demands for compensation from victims of cancer caused by smoking. "What about those who have cancer because of tobacco? Should we compensate them?" Chretien said. "We've known for years that tobacco is not very healthy. Not only that, we're making money with tobacco. Most of the price of a cigarette goes in taxes. Should we compensate everybody that has cancer because of tobacco?" It's the second time Chretien has lumped tainted-blood victims of hepatitis C in with victims of non-related diseases to defend his decision to compensate only those who contracted hep C between 1986 and 1990.

Quebec's law on tobacco sponsorship will not jeopardize the future of the Canadian Grand Prix, Premier LUCIEN BOUCHARD said Sunday. "The Grand Prix was distinguished in the bill," Bouchard said as he attended the auto race. . . Under the provincial bill, he said, "there is a two-year moratorium where (tobacco companies) can continue to sponsor events. "For the remaining three years, when tobacco companies can no longer sponsor them, the Quebec government will create a fund to pay for the events."

: Shoplifting increased at the nation's grocery stores last year, according to a survey by the Food Marketing Institute. . . Cigarettes were again the most frequently stolen item, followed by health and beauty care items.

Bennett S. LeBow, chairman and chief executive of Brooke Group Ltd. (BGL), updated previous filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell up to 9.18 million shares of common stock.

Standard Commercial Corporation (NYSE: STW - news) today reported record earnings of $26.9 million for its fiscal year ended March 31, 1998, compared to $16.9 million for fiscal 1997

The poignant, difficult predicament of the farmers is captured in "Tobacco Blues," a new film from "P.O.V.," the PBS summer series of documentaries with a "point of view."

There are pretty scenes in ''Tobacco Blues'' but no clear sense of the cycle of the growing year or what's happening at the picturesque auction we see. The deeper qualities of the subjects themselves are missed in the course of talking-head interviews dominated by moralistic questioning.

Tobacco Blues" is a fresh, humanizing approach to a subject that has been thoroughly demonized in recent years. In answer to the question, "Can good people grow tobacco?," the producers, Christine Fugate and Eren McGinnis, visit with four Kentucky families who bear no resemblance to the cigarette executives who have come to personify the ills of smoking: it's innocence by dissociation.

After the hearing ended, both sides declared that they were pleased with how the argument had gone but neither was willing to predict victory. "I thought [Justice Department lawyer] Gerald Kell did a brilliant job of laying out the law," said David A. Kessler, who had pressed for tobacco regulation as FDA commissioner until early last year. But he cautioned: "This is a long haul. I've learned never to get up or down on the basis of any one point." Charles A. Blixt, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s general counsel, lauded the presentation of the industry's lead lawyer, Richard M. Cooper, but added: "You never can tell how the arguments are going."

No decision was issued after nearly three hours of oral arguments. It is unclear when the judges will rule on the case, which potentially could continue to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

"This is how our political process is supposed to work, with action by Congress," said Cooper, a partner in a Washington law firm. "If the public wants additional restrictions on tobacco, then the Congress surely will enact them."

"At the heart of this case is whether Congress intended the FDA to have the authority to ban tobacco products," said Charles A. Blixt, Executive Vice- President and General Counsel, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. "Clearly, the elected representatives of the people -- the U.S. Congress -- did not intend to delegate such sweeping authority to the FDA."

Tobacco companies and the Clinton Administration are battling this week over a landmark appeal of a lower court decision that would have allowed expanded federal regulation of tobacco products but blocked additional restrictions on cigarette advertising. . . "The word last time was that the government didn't do a very good job of presenting their case, so I think this is a good opportunity for them to regroup," said Scott Ballin, a policy consultant with health advocacy group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Wisconsin officials cannot join a Janesville couple' s lawsuit suing the tobacco industry for illness caused by smoking, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. State officials failed to prove the couple represented a class of people who have been harmed by smoking and thus cannot be part of the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge BARBARA CRABB ruled.

Tenants who refused to pay the rent at an apartment where smoke seeps in from a bar downstairs cannot be evicted and the landlord must stop the smoke from getting in, a judge ruled. Boston Housing Court Judge E. George Daher ruled Tuesday that secondhand smoke was a health threat that interfered with Kristy and Reece Haile's right to "quiet enjoyment" of their apartment.

In what is believed to be a first-in-the- nation ruling, a Boston housing court judge has decided that exposure to second-hand smoke can be used by tenants as a defense against an eviction by a landlord.

Yesterday, the board voted to hold a July 14 public hearing on a proposed ban that would restrict nearly all tobacco ads visible from streets and sidewalks. Stores that aren't within 1,000 feet of a school, playground, park, bus stop or other sites regularly used by minors would be allowed to display "tombstone" ads, which are black-and-white signs bearing only price and brand information.

A public hearing on the SNOHOMISH COUNTY proposal was set for July 14 by the Snohomish Health District board Tuesday. . . If approved, the measure would generally prohibit outdoor advertising of tobacco and tobacco products beginning Jan. 1. The ban would extend to any advertising visible from public streets and walkways, including billboards, signs on the front or sides of buildings, free-standing signboards, posters, neon signs and video displays.

Tobacco industry campaign contributions swayed legislators' tobacco policy votes in five of six politically disparate states examined, according to a UC San Francisco study reported in the June 9 issue of American Journal of Public Health. The UCSF researchers analyzed legislative voting patterns in CALIFORNIA, COLORADO, OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY and WASHINGTON. . . "The results," said the principal investigator of the study, STANTON A. GLANTZ, PhD, a professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology and a member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF, "were significant even after control for partisanship, majority party status and leadership effects." Glantz and his co-author FRED MONARDI, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies, concluded that as tobacco industry contributions increase, a legislator's tobacco policy becomes more pro-tobacco industry. Likewise, it showed that pro-tobacco votes are rewarded with larger campaign contributions. . . Campaign contributions had the largest effect in COLORADO, where a $1,000 contribution was associated with a decrease of 2.5 points in the tobacco policy score. NEW JERSEY was the only state that did not present with a statistically significant influence of campaign funds on voting.

Two men who were ordered to stop smoking inside Aventura Mall reacted violently Tuesday night, shoving and then firing shots at the mall's security guards, police said. No one was hit by the bullets fired about 8:15 p.m. inside the mall at 19501 Biscayne Blvd., police spokesman Lt. Skip Washa said. Police arrested Felix Archila, 22, and Manlio Cruz, 21, both of North Miami Beach.

County and city lawmakers moved Tuesday to prohibit alcohol and tobacco billboards in residential areas or within 1,000 feet of schools and parks. In separate actions, the county Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a package of bans on ads in unincorporated areas, and two City Council committees supported a similar set of laws that now will be considered by the full council.

WEST Australia's maverick Labour Relations Minister, Graham Kierath, flouted Cabinet discipline and further angered senior ministers yesterday by raising the prospect of voting against the Court Government's passive smoking regulations. . . Backbenchers expressed concern Mr Kierath's stance on smoking had turned what should have been a well-received health policy into a public relations disaster. On Tuesday, Cabinet decided to override the Kierath regulations with its own measures that would prohibit smoking in enclosed public places, while retaining exemptions for some hospitality venues. The move was interpreted by the local press as a backdown on smoking and earned the wrath of the Australian Medical Association. Mr Kierath, who . . . took his fight to the radio airwaves yesterday morning, warning the issue was "far from being resolved" and predicting the Government amendments would be defeated in the upper house.

NEW moves to ban smoking in pubs and restaurants would result in a prohibition-type mentality, hotel operators warn. Their comments came in response to the Australian Medical Association which is lobbying for changes, based on the health and safety of workers, which would see smoking banned in all work areas.

Swedish tobacco and lighter company Swedish Match AB (SWMAY) said cigarette prices will drop by up to 22% following a cut in tobacco taxes. In a statement, the company said it will cut its margins on cigarettes following the tax cut, resulting in a steep drop in prices on the consumer level. "This is a step in the right direction and Sweden will now begin to approach the price levels in other European Union countries," said Bo Aulin, a Swedish Match director.

The Vegafina cigars were introduced June 1 in Spain and are the first hand-made premium cigars to be manufactured by Tabacalera.

"We get some very bizarre requests," CAROL BUTLER, director of licensing of Elvis' image for ELVIS PRESLEY ENTERPRISES Inc., said in an interview Tuesday at Licensing 98 International, a licensing industry convention. . . Elvis is even going into the cigar business. Butler said that Presley smoked cigars but "he didn't like any pictures taken of him when he was smoking."

The PBTA [Pro Billiards Tour Association], which was fronting the money for the convention centers, was losing money at every event. Mackey contends Camel, which is owned by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., reneged on promises to reimburse the PBTA for losses sustained during the 1996 tour and also on its promise to sponsor the 1997 tour. Camel eventually decided to stage a tour of its own, leading Mackey to conclude Camel intended all along to steal its trade secrets and then run its own tour.

Carolyn Aldige, president of the Cancer Research Foundation of America, said she was pleased to hear last month that her organization would receive money from Dresses for Humanity, a traveling charity exhibition of designer gowns worn by Diana, Princess of Wales. But her excitement did not last long. Soon afterward, Ms. Aldige said, she was shocked that a tobacco company had joined the list of benefactors -- a fact she learned only upon seeing a banner at a news conference that listed the Philip Morris Cos. as a sponsor of a gala banquet set for Thursday to kick off the tour of the exhibition.

"It is hard to think of a more compelling case for government action," he said. "Cigarette companies say such action is unnecessary because they will solve the problem of youth smoking on their own. Hogwash! "I've watched the tobacco industry make promise after promise to avoid government oversight for the past 40 years. . . . With every promise they buy enough time to hook another generation. Back-room deals and gentlemen's agreements never have worked with this industry and never will." The many conservatives who oppose federal tobacco restraints ought to take note.

Major corporations and trade associations are increasingly angry at Republican congressional leaders they see as determined to accommodate the Christian right -- by adding abortion and religious amendments to foreign policy bills -- and to mine the China technology scandal, both at the expense of business. . . These concerns are compounded by a host of other complaints, including that a Republican Congress has allowed one industry -- tobacco -- to become a public whipping boy, a dangerous precedent that could be used against industries as various as those engaged in the alcohol, motorcycle, pharmaceutical and other businesses.

"It's the biggest judgment in history. It's the first punitive in history," he said. "Now there's a ruling that the industry conspired and all the industry was in it together. And that they deliberately tried to deceive public health authorities."

We believe the Widdick verdict, combined with recent horsetrading of votes by McCain, increase odds that Congress will grant legal protections acceptable for the industry to return to the bargaining table, permitting spinoffs. * The size of the Widdick award . . . is far too small to create a ground swell of new suits. Because RJR walked off with two easy victories in the same jurisdiction against the same plaintiff attorney and experts, this appears to be more a B&W problem than an industry problem. . . * We do not see a change in sentiment among the American public

"The first award of punitive damages against tobacco is important, especially as Wilner made extensive use of industry documents," Feldman said. "Critically, Wilner was successful in shifting the focus of the jury onto the alleged conduct of the industry, and away from the smoker," he said.

K. Timothy Swanson, a tobacco industry analyst for A.G. Edwards Securities, said: "The floodgates have been opened. Jury members have become more sympathetic to plaintiffs."

"The problem becomes . . . when you have verdicts like this for $1 million it attracts lawyers," remarked Gary Black, tobacco analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. The anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health put it more baldly. "Decision Will Bring Lawyers to Court Like Blood Does to Sharks," it crowed in a press release. . . In the Maddox case particularly, lead plaintiffs attorney Norwood "Woody" Wilner "was successful in getting the jury . . . to focus on the conduct of the industry rather than the conduct of the plaintiff," Feldman said.

Tobacco industry analyst Mary Aronson said yesterday that after this verdict, lawmakers "might want to turn around and make sure that liability caps are preserved, so the industry's resources are preserved for future claimants."

But in this case, the plaintiffs were helped by Florida's consumer-friendly laws. Florida juries are allowed to award damages even if they find the plaintiff 99% at fault. Throughout the trial, Mr. Wilner, a self-deprecating but well-prepared lawyer who has filed hundreds of similar cases, acknowledged that Mr. Maddox was partially responsible for his health problems. Mr. Doski, the juror, said he believes Mr. Maddox was "probably 60%, maybe 70%" to blame.

Brown & Williamson is shocked by the jury's verdict. There was nothing B&W did or could have done that would have in any way influenced Mr. Maddox's decision to smoke. . . We intend to ask the judge to set aside the verdict and, if necessary, we will appeal the decision.

"This is the first standard tobacco liability case where the jury got angry at the companies and awarded punitive damages," said Richard Daynard, chairman of Northeastern University's Tobacco Products Liability Project, a public health advocacy group. "The crucial thing is there's nothing that distinguishes this case from thousands or potentially tens of thousands of cases to follow," he said. "It's a tremendous breakthrough."

The jury . . . agreed with the Maddox family lawyer's argument that the company was negligent, made a defective product and conspired with other tobacco companies to hide the health risks of smoking from the public.

A jury Wednesday found in favor of a family of a cigarette smoker, ruling that Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. was negligent and must pay relatives at least $500,000 for the man's death. The family of Roland Maddox had claimed that he contracted lung cancer in the fall of 1996 after smoking Lucky Strike cigarettes for almost 50 years. Maddox died in May 1997 at age 67. The jury awarded $500,000 in compensatory damages to the Maddox family, which had sought $850,000, and $52,249 to Blue Cross and Blue Shield as repayment for Maddox's medical expenses.

"They should have notified the public," said Collier, who has never smoked nor chewed tobacco. "The secondhand smoke is as hazardous of the cigarettes themselves."

JOHN COLLIER, 48, said Wednesday that tobacco companies have known for decades that secondhand smokes causes cancer. "They should have notified the public," said Collier, who claims he has never smoked nor chewed tobacco. "The secondhand smoke is as hazardous of the cigarettes themselves." Collier filed his class-action lawsuit May 27 in U.S. District Court in Biloxi against R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Lorillard, Brown & Williamson and Liggett tobacco companies.

King County Superior Court Judge George Finkle has granted the state's request to use key portions of a document the state claims will provide strong evidence of wrongdoing by the nation's largest tobacco company, RJR Tobacco. . . In a second ruling, Judge Finkle gave the state legal jurisdiction to prosecute British American Industries, P.L.C. (BAT Industries) a conglomerate and parent company of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company. In his order, the judge acknowledged that a jury could conclude from the evidence that BAT Industries was an active partner in conspiracy and fraud with its subsidiary, and subsequently is subject to prosecution.

Brown & Williamson . . . contended that Circuit JUDGE BRIAN DAVIS should not have awarded the $1.78 million in attorneys' fees on top of a $750,000 verdict the company was ordered to pay to GRADY CARTER in 1996. After Carter won the judgment, Davis awarded the law firm of Spohrer, Wilner, Maxwell, Maciejewski & Matthews the additional money. The request was made on Tuesday before the 1st District Court of Appeal.

Of the six plaintiffs, three work at Trump Plaza, one at Trump Marina, one at Harrah's and one at the Sands. "We lay out the full panoply of product-liability claims, based on their putting this product in the stream of commerce," Clobes said. "The tobacco companies have known for some time about the health risks of cigarette smoking, and have covered up that information."

"With the billboards down, the tobacco companies are placing more advertising on cabs, which are on San Francisco streets 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," said Supervisor Gavin Newsom. "It's a loophole that we need to address."

Judge Richard A. Paez ruled last week that Tony Touma and Kamil Yousef of Ventura Avenue Liquor had to pay M.B. Hanrahan. . . In August, Touma and Yousef whitewashed half the mural Hanrahan and 300 others, mostly youngsters, painted in the summer of 1994 on the facade of the store. . . Hanrahan said she would probably redo the old mural because its anti-smoking message may be more important today than it was four years ago.

For several years, [Bruce] Bereano was the top-earning lobbyist in Annapolis, representing big-buck clients such as the Tobacco Institute. But the institute and several other clients abandoned him after he was convicted in November 1994 in a federal mail fraud case. . . He attributed his recent resurgence to hard work and clients willing to give him a second chance. "I doubled what I did last year," he said.

Tobacco was long a blessing for Bryantsville United Methodist Church. Last winter, it became a burden. The congregation had dug deep into its pockets to buy a 93-year-old farmhouse for use as a parsonage. Buried in the fine print of the deed, and unknown to the church before the purchase, was a valuable commodity: a permit to grow 1,850 pounds of tobacco. . . But what began with excitement grew into a painful dispute over emphysema, cancer and the responsibilities of churchgoing Christians regarding tobacco -- topics once taboo in Bryantsville, a town of about 500. The debate resonated deeply in a part of the country where some locals say, "Jesus is Lord and tobacco is king."

Starting in July 1999, tobacco billboard advertisements will no longer be a part of the scenery in places where children often play. Such ads, already banned in at least 20 cities nationwide, were snuffed out by the Warren City Council on Tuesday night with a new ordinance. The ordinance, which goes into effect July 1999, requires that tobacco billboard ads be at least 1,000 feet from schools, school playgrounds and playgrounds at public parks.

After posting a "For Sale" sign in front of the State Capitol on Monday, Sen. John Marty launched another gubernatorial primary campaign trained against the influence of monied interests on politics. "Minnesota government should not be for sale to the highest bidder," Marty said, adding that he wanted to influence other candidates to get off "the auction block." . . Marty challenged candidates to refrain not only from taking money from tobacco companies -- many already have made such a pledge -- but also to "break the addiction to all special-interest money."

On Tuesday, the City Council unanimously endorsed the idea of banning all self-service tobacco displays and asked the city attorney to draft an ordinance. They also approved several other measures intended to bolster laws banning tobacco sales to minors.

Designated smoking areas will now be put into over half the restaurants operated by the Liverpool-based organisation. The smoking zones will be "discreet, well ventilated, and account for a quarter of the seating area". A spokesman said it was "a result of the competitive market place where provision of smoking facilities is common practice".

The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation is launching the Kids Against Tobacco Smoke (KATS) campaign at an international conference ion London.

Half the children smoking cigarettes today will die of their habit if they don't give up. That's the stark message which will be delivered to a special one day conference on smoking to be held in London on June 12 by Dr Ray Donnelly, Founder and Chairman of The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. The international conference - to be held in The Cafe Royal in Regent Street - has been called under the UK Presidency of The European Union and will be addressed by EU Commissioner Padraig Flynn as well as Britain's Public Health Minister, Tessa Jowell.

British Columbia, the only Canadian province threatening a lawsuit against the tobacco industry, said on Thursday success by U.S. authorities fighting cigarette makers will make its legal action easier. British Columbia also announced it would hit the Canadian tobacco industry with C$20 million in new licensing fees, but imposed restrictions that health officials said will prevent the new costs from being passed down to smokers.

The British Columbia government plans to charge tobacco companies licence fees totalling $20-million annually for the right to sell their products in the province -- money the government says it needs to fight smoking. "What we are trying to do is level the playing field," a government source said in an interview. "We are calling on the tobacco companies to pay for our public-health initiatives that wouldn't be needed if it weren't for their activities in targeting teens and kids and other smokers."

Britain's Tobacco Manufacturers Association called on Thursday to be included in talks with the government over its campaign to deter children from smoking. In a letter to Tessa Jowell, minister of state for Health, the Association said it had re-iterated the industry's long-stated policy that children should not smoke. "Of course anti-smoking groups will try to exclude us on principle but we expect better from the UK government.." said the Association's chief executive David Swan in a statement. "...given that co-operation with the industry over many years has seen adult consumption decline in the UK faster than virtually anywhere else."

"The pattern is for families to save resources for the fathers," said Dr. Anugerah Pekerti, the chairman of World Vision Indonesia, an aid organization. "When the fathers are asked why they smoke cigarettes instead of buying food for their hungry children, they say, 'We can always make more children."'

A group of MPs and experts yesterday called for nicotine patches and gum to be made available on prescription to help smokers quit, and thus reduce the financial burden on the National Health Service.

Brooke Group Ltd. announced today that it has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of $0.075 per share, payable June 30, 1998, to holders of record as of June 23, 1998.

Shares of Brooke Group Ltd. (BGL), parent of Liggett Group Ltd., the fifth-largest cigarette manufacturer in the U.S., are getting a big boost as new life has been pumped into the national tobacco bill.

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, 110 hot houses (under plastic) netted $8.7 million for Grainger County farmers. Tobacco, by comparison, generated about $6.2 million. Cavin says tomatoes aren't the answer for replacing tobacco in all counties. "People send their kids to school on their tobacco money," he said, and more study is needed on replacement products.

When Eloise Woodfield was a girl, she would come home from school and rush out into the fields of her family's 84-acre farm to pluck worms off tobacco and vegetable plants. Her pay: a penny a worm. . . Earlier this year, the farm in Clarksburg was designated a Maryland Century Farm, an honor given to 76 farms in the state that have been continually operated by a single family for 100 years or more.

You're driving along. A billboard catches your eye. What are they trying to sell, anyway? All you see is a squiggly design that looks like a refugee from a '70s disco poster. Squint harder, and eventually a figure emerges from the pattern. Is it . . . a dog? A cow? A horse? Oh. It's a camel. Welcome to the post-Joe Camel world of cigarette advertising.

RJ Reynolds' new ad campaign spoofs criticism of cigarette advertising. The ads are peppered with multiple messages and feature scenarios in which the traditional Camel dromedary logo is hidden. . . According to RJR vice president of marketing Fran Creighton, the cluttered and irreverent imagery are meant to get smokers to linger over the ads. Ken Harris, a marketing consultant of Cannondale Associates, comments, "It's a very aggressive posture. They're saying, 'If we're going to get a stigma, we might as well make light of it.'"

While stressing that he's not involved with his firm's representation of tobacco companies, Dole urged his old colleagues to work out their differences. "I think they ought to get something done up there," he said. "I think they've lost sight of the issue of children smoking. It's all, who can pile on the most dough now."

The current issue of MAD . . . savages trendy cigar smokers with a parody magazine cover of Cigar Aficionado renamed Cigar Addictionado, with a picture of Joe Camel using a stogie to burn a copy of the federal tobacco agreement with the headline, "Goodbye Cigarettes, Hello Cigars!"

Pushed aside are lawmakers with a clear focus on the proper goal of any tobacco bill: slowing the annual march of hundreds of thousands of kids to tobacco addiction. At a minimum, that will require hefty taxes to discourage teen smoking. It also will require tight regulation of the tobacco companies, who've been caught manipulating nicotine levels to increase addiction. Those are the real issues on the table. Discussing how to spend the money can wait.

There's a point beyond which this will cease to be an anti-smoking bill except in name. The instinct of this Congress will be to vote for the label of a strong tobacco bill without the content. Its leaders have already indicated as much. The president and public health advocates need to make clear that they won't go along with such a step, or they become complicit in it.

House Speaker NEWT GINGRICH wants to use a BB gun. With the speaker's encouragement, Bucks County Republican JIM GREENWOOD is drafting a mini-bill: It would simply end the $1.7 billion-a-year tax deduction for tobacco advertising and deluge teens with the best anti-smoking ads that $1.7 billion can buy. Better than nothing, maybe, but pure tokenism compared to the broad assault in the McCain bill.

Is there any comparison to be made between the feds' tobacco policy and their shameful refusal to compensate everyone who contracted hep C through tainted blood? Better yet, is the PM, in his convoluted way, admitting government officials were as negligent in their handling of the tobacco file as they were in failing to ensure the blood supply was tested? . . Maybe it shouldn't surprise us that a government that can't decide whether tobacco is just another product or a health hazard, can't tell the difference between choosing to smoke and accidentally being transfused with tainted blood.

As editor of The Big Issue magazine, I know that almost all our homeless or long-term unemployed vendors smoke. . . But a vendor recently explained to me that she, like many low-income people, wants to give up smoking but lacks support. In her view, quitting is easier if you have access to costly treatments, supportive family or friends and fewer worries. . . As cigarettes are still relatively cheap, many low-income people will continue to get their comfort smoke where they can, whatever the cost to their appearance. Smoking, like fat, will become a mark of class.

The proposed change in law would deny VA compensation to a veteran whose disability is due either "in whole or in part" to tobacco use. This means that, for example, a veteran who develops lung cancer from exposure to toxic fumes while serving in the Gulf War may be denied VA compensation if it is a matter of record that he or she ever smoked. So veterans who have both earned and need the best this nation has to offer are to be denied even basic medical care and small monetary compensation in order to pay for excessive spending in the Transportation Bill

Only a True Cigar Lover . . . would drool over the naturally wrapped Montecristo in a cigar advertisement rather than the naturally unwrapped model hawking it

Greedy?! The Senators fighting to make a tobacco settlement more effective in reducing youth smoking aren't greedy. The hogs swilling at the greed trough of millions of tobacco campaign dollars are Lott's own band of Republicans. And they're protecting the greedy tobacco industry. An industry which has lied, fought in court, mounted a $50 million disinformation campaign, legally bribed legislators and stalled just so it can continue to manipulate our children into life-long addictions and early deaths all in the name of tobacco profits. Now, that's "hog wild" greed, Mr. Lott.

Any injuries allegedly caused by smoking were inflicted on individual smokers who can file personal-injury cases, said Philip Morris attorney Alan Sullivan. The state's economic losses -- paying Medicaid claims for tobacco-related illnesses -- are too indirect to support its own lawsuit, he contended. . . "They lie . . . we have to pay," Peterson asserted. "This is not a very complicated series of events." U.S. District Judge Dee Benson took the tobacco companies' requests to dismiss the suit under advisement.

Students at Dartmouth College say teaching medicine and investing in tobacco just don't mix. . . "It is inconsistent for the college to support the manufacture of tobacco and also have ... institutions dedicated to countering the effects of tobacco," said Case Dorkey, a student assembly vice president.

Starting next fall, students at Blackhawk Technical College won' t be able to take cigarette breaks outside the doors of campus buildings. The college board has prohibited smoking near building entrances.

The Wheaton Tobacco Control Commission has fined two businesses in the Danada area $250 each for selling cigarettes to a 15-year-old girl on April 10. Dominick's Finer Foods, which had not been cited in Wheaton for underage tobacco sales violations since 1993, and Phillips 66, which had not been cited in the city since 1994, pleaded guilty to the charges.

Nervous over the financial hits the tobacco industry has sustained in recent weeks, the state Board of Investment on Thursday decided to stop investing in companies that derive more than 15 percent of their revenues from tobacco products. . . Secretary of State Joan Growe, who led the move to limit new acquisitions, said tobacco stocks simply aren't good investments. . . "It doesn't make much sense for us to invest pension funds in companies whose stock is so volatile, and [for which] there is no light in the future," she said.

Second-hand smoke has been linked to heart disease and lung cancer in non-smokers. Moreover, it is a recognized cause of bronchitis and pneumonia in children. Nevertheless, in 1995, less than half of smoking parents with children under the age of five restricted smoking in the home. . . The survey showed that teenagers were the most likely age group to be exposed to second-hand smoke and that this exposure was most likely to occur at home.

In a bid to eliminate fraud and the sale of contraband cigarettes on native reserves, the Quebec government is removing the 7.5-per-cent provincial sales tax from tobacco products and recouping the lost revenue with an equivalent increase in the province's tobacco excise tax. The new tax-collection method will take effect June 23

Introduced by the Minister of Health and Social Services 14 May 1998 Passed in principle 3 June 1998 Report from the Committee on Social Affairs tabled 11 June 1998 (Amendments under S.O. 252)

Other archetypes making recent ad debuts are the Snow Queen (for tampons), Peter the Great (he has a brand of cigarettes named for him -- made by an American company) . . . On occasion, assertiveness dips into veiled aggression: An ad for the Russian cigarette Yava shows a pack of cigarettes flying ominously over the Statue of Liberty, like a missile penetrating the old Cold War early warning system.

The anti-tobacco lobby celebrated a major victory yesterday after the state of Western Australia banned smoking in all restaurants and most pubs. In the most draconian anti-smoking crackdown in Australia, it will be impossible to puff away in the majority of eating, drinking and entertainment areas.

Cuban cigars are the latest rage among the rich in New Delhi. Havana's finest smokes are the trendiest prop for politicians, businessmen and young socialites, and are the hottest topic of discussion in the capital's exclusive circles. And despite their price - up to 1,400 rupees (HK$250) each - they are still selling like wildfire.

Corrupt ex-tobacco executive JERRY LUI KIN-HONG lost his long fight to escape justice yesterday when a jury found him guilty of plotting to receive bribes of $33 million. Lui, 42, who was export director for British American Tobacco (HK) Ltd, evaded the Independent Commission Against Corruption for 20 months before being arrested in Boston in December 1995. . . The judge will also consider the extent to which he should reduce Lui's sentence to take into account the time he spent in US custody. During the trial, the court heard of the billions of dollars which can be made by smuggling popular brands of cigarettes.

Hong Kong's high court on Thursday found guilty a former tobacco executive extradited from the United States on bribery charges, the territory's anti-corruption police said. JERRY LUI KIN-HONG, who fought a long and unsuccessful battle against extradition, was charged with accepting HK$33 million (US$4.24 million) in bribes in connection with a cigarette smuggling syndicate. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said Justice Yeung would announce Lui's sentence on June 15. Lui has been remanded to custody.

Federal District Court Judge Susan C. Bucklew ruled on June 10, 1998, in favor of FUENTE in a trademark infringement suit brought by OPUS ONE. The ruling clearly indicated no infringement whatsoever by Fuente. The Mondavi/Rothschild partnership, in its October 1996 suit, alleged trademark infringement by Fuente and the world renowned and highly regarded Fuente Fuente OpusX(R) cigar. The Opus One partnership produces and markets a wine entitled Opus One.

Philip Morris Cos Inc (MO - news) plans to launch a strategic 10-year mark transaction, joint lead managers CSFB and Deutsche Bank said on Friday.

B.A.T and Swiss insurer Zurich gave no clues about the future of Eagle Star Re, the British tobacco and financial services group's reinsurance unit, at extraordinary shareholders meetings this week.

Shareholders in BAT Industries meet this morning to vote on plans to merge its insurance division with Zurich Insurance and split off the tobacco business as a separate company. Barring unforeseen circumstances, they will back the proposals, already endorsed yesterday by the Swiss company's shareholders.

A hugely popular local comedian since the late 1980s . . . Vass deliberately made herself scarce in recent years for several reasons, she said. She'd prefer not to wear out her welcome through overexposure. She's "allergic to cigarette smoke and stupidity," both of which can be abundant in comedy clubs

US Airways Club members also will be able to enjoy US Airways' new 23,300 square-foot club, which is the largest and most modern in the US Airways system. The 440-seat club provides a panoramic view of the airfield, and includes a full-service bar, private telephone booths and an isolated smoking area, along with the other amenities typical of US Airways' elite Clubs.

Ten years ago: A federal jury found cigarette manufacturer Liggett Group liable in the lung-cancer death of New Jersey resident ROSE CIPOLLONE, but innocent of misrepresenting the risks of smoking. (An appeals court later overturned the jury's award of $400,000 and ordered a new trial; the family dropped the lawsuit in 1992.)

"I use herbal cigarettes," says actor William B. Davis, 60, a former two-pack-a-day man who swore off nicotine almost 20 years ago. Honey Rose is the health-conscious brand that he sucks on the hit TV series and in "X-Files: Fight the Future," coming to movie theaters on June 19. Often, Davis will go through entire packs just to film a 30-second scene.

What: Drexel University holds its 111th Commencement over three separate ceremonies for the 2,000 members of its Class of 1998. . . Who: Keynote speakers and honorary degree recipients: * 9:30 a.m. -- BENNETT S. LEBOW, Class of '60, chairman and chief executive officer of BROOKE GROUP LTD., a publicly held diversified holding company that includes the LIGGETT GROUP, a tobacco company.

Falwell, who was in Salt Lake City for the Southern Baptist Convention, also took aim at the tobacco industry. He said the Southern cash crop is addictive and he favors a cigarette-tax increase to pay for health care -- but only if alcohol taxes go up too. . . On tobacco, Falwell said he "would like to see concurrently equal heat put on the liquor industry, certainly beginning with a user tax. If tobacco is addictive, and it is, then so is alcohol." President Clinton has been trying to push Sen. John McCain's tobacco bill despite much opposition. The Arizona Republican's bill would charge tobacco companies $516 billion over 25 years and raise cigarette taxes by $1.10 a pack. It also would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate nicotine. "Unless we're going to come down equally hard on the liquor industry," Falwell said, "we're playing the hypocrite to beat up on the tobacco industry because they're more vulnerable."

My father smoked and he should not have. My mother smoked and she should not have. They died of lung cancer. . . If I live to 67 - not too far away - like old Roland [Maddox], after I have burned the candle at both ends and in the middle, I will tip my hat to the Almighty. And if my kids sue a cigarette company or a liquor company, I will haunt them like Casper the Ghost.

Chairman Robert Smith, R-Ore. . . Narrative: Smith, the Agriculture Committee chairman who is not seeking re-election, took six free trips from agriculture interests, including an excursion to London with a family member last August, care of the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp.

The Florida judge in a massive sick-smokers lawsuit said on Friday legal tangling over secret cigarette industry documents from a Minnesota case would dominate court hearings leading up to a scheduled July trial. Miami-Dade County Court Judge ROBERT KAYE set aside the entire work week beginning June 29 for arguments between cigarette company lawyers and the husband-and-wife lawyers pressing the class-action suit on behalf of sick smokers in Florida. At a hearing on Friday, Kaye fixed the next hearing in the so-called Engle case for June 25.

A Jacksonville law firm's telephone rang off the hook yesterday after news of its historic victory over a tobacco company. "From all over the world," said Norwood "Woody" Wilner, who fielded calls from Israel, Ireland and England on a day that started with a live interview on NBC's Today show.

Researchers are looking for 1,000 users of chewing tobacco or snuff to test a new quitting program sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. The goal is to see if telephone counseling and self-help techniques can help chewers overcome the addictive forces that make a smokeless tobacco habit especially tough to kick. . . The study is open to residents of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. Lichtenstein said enrollment will continue for up to six months.

Former Rep. GERALDINE FERRARO, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate from New York, accepted a $20,000 speaking honorarium from Philip Morris Cos. last year, according to financial disclosure forms made public Friday. . . Ferraro's disclosure . . . could harm her among Democratic primary voters who many politicians believe are angry with the tobacco industry. It could also make it harder for her to attack Sen. ALFONSE D'AMATO, the Republican incumbent, over the $56,200 in contributions he has received from the tobacco industry since 1991.

"Gerry's spoken in front of many groups, some she agrees with and some she does not agree with, to present the Democratic point of view. That's what she was doing with this 'Crossfire' program," Eichenbaum said. "It clearly does not influence her in any way." . . . New York City Public Advocate Mark Green, a Ferraro opponent in the Democratic primary, criticized Ferraro, saying it's "wrong to profit politically or personally from the tobacco industry." "You really have to ask what she was thinking to take $20,000 in tobacco money at a time when Democrats ... were trying to crack down on the industry for addicting children," said Green, who sued R.J. Reynolds in 1990 over its Joe Camel character.

"They have been targeting you and they have been doing it for years," CHILES told North Florida middle- and high-school students at a MINORITY TEEN EXPO held as part of the state's anti-smoking campaign. . . The event was taped for airing as part of BET's Teen Summit program, probably in July.

Three new curricula - Life Skills, TNT, and SQUADS - have been approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for use in the school system, said Kathleen Bowles, supervisor of health education for the county. Life Skills, TNT (Towards No Tobacco Use), and SQUADS (Study, Question, Understand, Act, Debrief, Success) will be added to the curriculum in the fall, Bowles said. "We hope these new techniques and strategies will help kids make a choice not to use tobacco," she said.

The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it will work in partnership with the state of Utah to crack down on tobacco sales to minors. Although the compliance checks are a nice first step, they're "by no means enough," said Utah Rep. Steve Barth, D-Salt Lake City. . . "Utah is one of the few states where teen smoking is up," he said. "The money is nice, but if we really want to make a difference, education is the way to go."

In an annual event held Thursday at UCLA's Wadsworth Theater, officials from the Los Angeles Unified School District joined representatives from AnimAction, a Los Angeles-based company that provides animation programs to schools and communities, in honoring the students. A total of 27 district middle schools were honored for involvement in creating anti-smoking public service announcements. To do so, students participated in intensive 12-hour animation workshops, funded by the Proposition 99 excise tax on tobacco products.

A new law means that Polish cigarette packets will carry big warnings covering a third of the carton from Sunday, public television said on Saturday. The new packets carry blunt warnings such as "Tobacco Smoking Causes Cancer" and "Smoking is the Cause of Heart Disease."

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has directed the Media Ministry to instruct all state media including print media not to accept advertisements of alcohol and tobacco from January 1, next year. She has also directed the ministry to instruct the authorities concerned to abide by the Rupavahini and the SLBC codes of ethics which disallow promotion of alcohol and tobacco products.

The Sri Lankan government has announced a complete media ban on the advertising of tobacco and alcohol. . . It's not clear if sporting events and billboards are included. A presidential task force has also recommended that television programmes should avoid scenes of smoking and drinking. The health minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told the BBC that the alarming rise in tobacco and alcohol consumption in Sri Lanka was one of its biggest health hazards.

The government proposes to introduce a comprehensive legislation to reduce the use of tobacco in the country, according to health and family welfare minister Dalit Ezhilmalai. Replying to supplementaries during question hour in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, the minister also said that the issue of banning the consumption of gutka would be taken up with related ministries.

The tobacco field marauder already has spread to eight North Carolina counties, including four in the mountain burley belt, where it destroyed 15 percent of last year's crop. "Farmers are sometimes slow to react and don't always have the preventative treatment on in time," warned Paul Shoemaker, a North Carolina State University plant pathologist in Fletcher. "If they don't protect it now, we'll have a large loss potentially"

Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) clarified Friday that its Havatampa and Max Rohr units manufacture cigars, rather than cigarettes.

Condominium directors frequently inquire as to whether there is a legal basis to control smoking in units. . . Until a court specifically rules that smoking in a unit is a prohibited nuisance, directors must find solutions that balance the conflicting rights of individuals to engage in a lawful activity while protecting their neighbors, who may be indirectly harmed.

Reg Smythe, who created the world's most politically incorrect cartoon character Andy Capp and drew him for more than 40 years, died Saturday aged 81. Smythe died of cancer at his home in northeastern England . . Andy and Flo changed little in 40 years, though when Smythe gave up smoking in 1983 he removed the cigarette that dangled precariously from Andy's lower lip. "I couldn't carry on when Andy had stopped," he said.

Bennett LeBow, a 1960 Drexel University graduate and now the embattled executive of a cigarette company, stood before the aspiring business men and women of the 1998 Drexel graduating class yesterday and gave them some unusual, heartfelt advice: The dual pressures of economics and politics in the business world, he said, will frequently challenge your instinct to "do the right thing." Resist those pressures, he urged. Listen to your moral voice, and don't be afraid to break from the pack, even if it costs you and your company a lot of money.

QUARTZ HILL--Claire and Barbara Ludwig, both disabled and unable to walk without assistance, died when their house near Lancaster caught fire, a blaze apparently sparked by a smoldering cigarette, officials said Friday. . . Clifford and Muriel Wachlin, who live next door and called the Fire Department on Thursday night, said they weren't surprised to hear smoking might be to blame. About a year ago, Claire Ludwig dozed off with a lit cigarette and set the living room carpet on fire, the Wachlins said, but woke up in time to snuff out the flames. The Ludwigs' caretaker confirmed the incident. "We've always been concerned, because they smoked a lot. I mean a lot," Muriel Wachlin said

despite increasing popular demands for control of campaign giving and spending, we send to Washington men and women who represent not the people's will or welfare but the interests of those who contribute the most money to candidates' campaigns. . . To be fair, it should be noted that McConnell defends free speech when it permits contributions to the senatorial campaign treasury. Indeed, he is the Senate's chief shill for campaign funds. No one questions his sincerity on that count. If it brings in the dough, that's free speech, and he will hurl himself against the foe in its defense.

Last year I tore up my American Civil Liberties Union card. I was appalled that the ACLU takes tobacco money and opposes antismoking regulation, that it resists campaign finance reform on the bizarre theory that money equals speech. But this year I'm joining again, and you should, too. Despite some peculiar stands on extraneous issues, its core work of defending civil liberty is urgently needed.

But the juxtaposition of Bliley's criticizing industry executives, followed just days later by a tobacco PAC donation, has caused a number of health activists to wonder whose side he's really on. "I think Bliley is a conflicted man," said Bill Novelli, president of the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids. "He considers Philip Morris to be an integral part of his district and his political family. He probably feels he can fight with them and still kiss and make up," Novelli said.

"The sacredness is totally different from smoking cigarettes. It's not the same thing," said Rhodes, who is from the Fond du Lac reservation. . . "Smoking is the fastest-growing health risk behavior for teens, and that includes American Indian teens," said Kathleen Crow, a health educator for the Indian Health Board of Minneapolis.

Some Californians think the latest measures are extreme. But the state's decadelong assault on smoking may be working: although 25 percent of all American adults are smokers, only 18 percent of adult Californians smoke, and the state now has the second lowest adult smoking rate in the nation, after Utah. Through years of marketing studies, the state Department of Health has learned that to some people, a flaccid cigarette is a more horrifying image than a blackened lung. KIM BELSH�, director of the California Department of Health Services, which developed the campaign, hopes it will be effective in reaching men between the ages of 18 and 30, a group that has been particularly intractable when it comes to changing smoking habits.

Militant black empowerment campaigner Roger Boka, whose huge financial empire has been frozen during investigations of a billion-dollar fraudulent bill issue, had been allowed by President Robert Mugabe's government to fly to the US for medical treatment, a relative confirmed. "Diabetic persons have a habit of dying in their sleep and to ensure that this does not happen, the family decided to have him attended to by private nurses on a 24-hour basis," a Boka "family spokesperson" told the state-run Sunday Mail yesterday. The newspaper said: "There was also concern Reserve Bank investigators were tormenting Comrade Boka despite his ill health."

The Air-Cured Tobacco Association (ACTA) of Zimbabwe says although the price for burley tobacco has firmed slightly since auction floors re-opened last month, farmers will not be able to sustain last year's production levels in the coming season. . . The entire African region is suffering form depressed prices.

Kraft Foods this fall will launch an unusual, new $50 million "umbrella campaign," stuffing an array of food items such as Kool-Aid, Philadelphia cream cheese, Post cereal and Tombstone frozen pizza into a single television spot or Sunday circular. The idea is for Kraft to create an image that transcends its products . . . Mona Doyle, president of Consumer Network Inc., a research concern in Philadelphia, says Kraft's new campaign may alienate antitobacco activists who know Kraft is a unit of cigarette giant Philip Morris, or purists who hold a grudge against Kraft for moving into processed cheese with some nondairy ingredients. But, she says, "Overall, I think it will have a positive impact in shoppers' minds."

Although big pension funds have been unloading Philip Morris stock for investment and philosophical reasons, the overall Wall Street sentiment is in Philip Morris' favor. Among 18 analysts who follow the stock, there's just one sell and two holds, according to the I/B/E/S International research firm. The remaining recommendations are either strong buys or buys.

Yet for Martin Broughton, BAT's chief executive, the demerger hardly seems to offer the most sparkling career prospects. Having selected Zurich as its financial-services partner, BAT was in no doubt about who would control that end of the demerger - Rolf Huppi, Zurich's chief executive, is not a man to share power. So the bright, but mild-mannered Broughton is left with tobacco. Although it has its exciting areas - international expansion being one - BAT tobacco looks a hard slog

TOBACCO major ITC Ltd is investing in three new hotel properties - two in Mumbai and one in Bangalore, at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore.

Some additional findings from the latest poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on what news stories are attracting voters' interest and what issues voters think are most important to them and the country. -Potential regulation of health maintenance organizations was an issue seen as of national importance by 68 percent of those surveyed. Other issues seen as important were the outcome of the 1998 congressional elections (51 percent), campaign finance overhaul (47 percent), corporate mergers (42 percent) and tobacco regulation (40 percent). -By a two-to-one margin, those surveyed backed the government in its efforts to rein in the tobacco industry.

And just little bit further up the road, another place that hangs onto history in the middle of modern activity is the Granville County Museum. . . Now through December, the two-story museum is dedicated to the exhibit, "GRANVILLE GOLD: HISTORY OF TOBACCO." Interim director Pam Thornton apologized when she described the exhibit as "politically incorrect," but she pointed out that tobacco fascinates people. . . The museum did not have to go far to find these artifacts. Almost every one is on loan, many from Granville County residents.

The day he graduated from John Marshall High School, Julien Binford McCarthy started his career at American Tobacco Co. as a cigarette machine operator. At his retirement 44 years later, he had become an executive vice president. Mr. McCarthy, who was later a mechanic, a floor foreman and Virginia branch manager for the firm, died Saturday at Westminster-Canterbury. He was 84.

• 06/15/98 Dangers Dissipate In Open Space USA Today
  
  While available science shows that long-term exposure to second-hand smoke can slightly boost the chance of lung cancer and other lethal ailments, none has found that infrequent exposure to tiny amounts of cigarette smoke harms anyone. As they say in toxicology, the dose makes the poison. In the past, Big Tobacco rightly has been attacked for abusing science to serve its corporate interests. With the rash of outdoor smoking bans, government is the party guilty of science abuse.
  
  
• 06/15/98 Restrictions Make Sense Julia Carol and Robin Hobart
  
  There are two types of outdoor smoking ordinances. Those eliminating smoking in crowded outdoor areas, such as sports stadiums, and those creating smoke-free zones at building entrances. Most of these ordinances are in communities that already eliminate smoking in enclosed public places - which makes sense. In smoke-free buildings, smokers tend to congregate directly outside the doors. This is not just a problem for those entering and exiting; smoke gets sucked back into the buildings and ventilation systems, defeating the idea of a smoke-free building. Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights has spent 22 years helping communities decide for themselves how they want to deal with the problem of second-hand smoke. Our experience is consistent: We face very little opposition except for that created and bankrolled by Big Tobacco. . . We believe in a well-informed adult's right to smoke. We just believe that right comes with the responsibility to keep the smoke from harming anyone else. It's that simple.

Dave Schlebecker knows exactly what I mean, because he struck a blow for sanity the other day out in Silver Spring -- all by himself. . . Good Humor should have the right to sell candy cigarettes. Still, I love Dave's sense of purpose and the speedy way he arranged a voluntary resolution. Let's hope his fix lasts. Let's also hope the lesson spreads to other Good Humorists who might sell candy cigarettes at other child-busy locations all the time.

Zap lawyers who duck calls, like Hugh Rodham Esq., of Ferrel & Fertel in Miami. How many millions will his firm get from the tobacco settlement? What's his cut? What did he do for it? Who steered him into the Fertel field? (Hoo-boy, will I get a chiller-diller from Hillary's brother's lawyer.)

For the first five months of the year, inflation ran at a 1.5 percent annual rate. Minus the volatile food and energy sectors, the "core rate" of inflation advanced at a 2.7 percent annual rate, compared with a 2.2 percent increase for all of last year. Most of the deterioration in the core rate can be traced to price increases by tobacco companies preparing to settle multimillion-dollar liability lawsuits. Cigarette prices rose 2.6 percent in May. They're 7.7 percent higher than at the end of 1997.

Poised to jump in now are a handful of California attorneys massing on the border of the next tobacco battle front: private suits on behalf of individuals. Perceiving a change in the public's attitude toward tobacco -- and convinced that legislative efforts to procure a settlement with Big Tobacco won't provide the industry with immunity from individual suits -- a small cadre of hopeful lawyers are moving ahead with their own suits.

Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds PR NewswireThere has been considerable comment in the media lately on the question of whether the tobacco industries need to exhibit any genuine concern over the many civil suits facing them or whether these suits have only nuisance value. The tobacco companies, possessed of the largest megaphone, have put their spin on this question. . . Below, sans spin, are a number of facts on this most crucial of topics.

"The whole history of smoking has been bottom up," said Greg Connolly, director of Massachusetts' Tobacco Control Program. "What we're observing is catch-up from Congress." According to the article, state officials believe the best way to curb smoking is a comprehensive approach that targets all smokers, not just young people. Increasing tobacco taxes is one important piece of a comprehensive approach. . . Source: Wendy Koch, "States Blaze Trail For Anti-Smoking Laws."

This old shoreline community is considering stripping itself of outdoor cigarette advertisements in an attempt to deter teen-agers from taking a puff. The proposed ordinance would ban any "sign, poster or placard, device, graphic display" and any other form of tobacco advertising in outdoor public places. It would not bar cigarette vending machines.

The city of Mountain Home is drawing criticism over a new ordinance prohibiting smoking in city parks. Unless the council recinds the action at tonight's meeting, the ordinance goes into effect next week and carries fines from $25 to $100. Alderman MONTE MANCHESTER says he sponsored the ordinance after hearing complaints about cigarette smoking in ballpark bleachers and playgrounds, but an opponent of the smoking ban has collected 1,300 signatures on a petition demanding a referendum on the issue.

Financial disclosure reports from Mississippi's congressional delegation show U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson led the pack in sponsored travel last year. . . His others included travel to St. Louis paid for by the National Black Mayors Association, a trip to Arizona paid for by the Tobacco Institute and a trip to Mariana Island paid for by the National Security Caucus.

Investing state pension money in tobacco companies is becoming a campaign issue among those running for statewide office. DFL state auditor candidate Nancy Larson criticized incumbent Judi Dutcher' s vote last week against ending pension investments in companies that derive more than 15 percent of their revenue from tobacco products.

A mother has been convicted of a provincial offence for buying two packs of cigarettes for her 18-year-old son. The woman was given a suspended sentence in provincial court Monday so she won't have to pay a fine. . . "We know a lot of parents buy cigarettes for their kids, but we are saying it is a crime," said Jarman, who enforces Ontario's Tobacco Control Act, which prohibits supplying tobacco to anyone under 19.

Introduced by the Minister of Health and Social Services 14 May 1998 Passed in principle 3 June 1998 Report (amended) from the Committee on Social Affairs adopted 12 June 1998

The Ukrainian government has banned the export for barter of sunflower seed, sunflower oil, wine, liquors, vodka, tobacco, cigarettes , amber, coke, coal, semicoke, raw and semifinished hides, precious stones, waste, scrap and some types of rolled metals, an official confirmed Tuesday.

Kupat Holim Maccabi yesterday filed a NIS 1.75 billion suit against the Dubek tobacco company to cover its costs in treating members' smoking-related illnesses. The insurer is demanding NIS 250 million for its expenses for each year since 1991, the last year before the statute of limitations. The suit, filed in the Tel Aviv District Court, is separate from a class-action suit filed last fall on behalf of 15 former smokers, or families of deceased smokers.

In depth research on select companies will soon be available through www.mdcinc.com a leader in the distribution of internet financial information. By simply visiting the site and completing the brief, free registration form, visitors will gain access to the most comprehensive financial website on the internet in addition to the future publication of research on a variety of different companies. Companies such as . . . Phillip Morris . . . are currently slated for review by the website and are under consideration as subjects for research.

Indonesia's largest listed cigarette producer PT Gudang Garam (P.GGR) announced Wednesday that it will distribute IDR230.8 billion for its 1997 dividend, or IDR120 per share.

850 Cigar Bar at Montgomery St., a bar/ restaurant that is cigar-friendly. Yep, that's not a misprint. They can do it because the bar is owned by seven partners, who all enjoy a stogie from time to time, and there are no waiters or even busboys.

CHAT.LYCOS.COM Thursday, June 18, 1998, 9:00 p.m. ET, 6:00 p.m. PT

Reason, the monthly magazine of `free minds and free markets,' this week issued the first official edition of Reason Express, a weekly e-mail newsletter with information and commentary on hot topics in the news. Reason Express covers diverse subjects ranging from education reform to tobacco policy, and places a special emphasis on developments involving government regulation of technology.

California's ban on smoking in most public places didn't extinguish the recent 10th annual Gentleman's Smoker at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Dana Point. The tuxedoed cigar enthusiasts just wafted outside, around the main pool at the resort hotel, where they puffed their way through an eight-course meal to the strains of a string quartet.

It is paradoxical that South Carolina, a major tobacco-producing state, has chosen to prosecute women for child abuse in these situations. In this month's issue of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, we present the comparative effects of fetal exposure to nicotine versus cocaine. . . South Carolina's stance flies in the face of scientific evidence about the relative fetal risk of cocaine versus tobacco.

Veterans advocates and VA officials contend that Congress went too far and want the designation overturned in a so-called technical corrections bill. They may have gotten strong support in a June 5 memo drafted by Kenneth W. Kizer, the VA's undersecretary for health. . . "It seems to be that before one could posit willful misconduct, you would have to conclude that the individual was exposed to a consistent message about the impropriety and health hazard of tobacco use from both the government and society at large," Kizer said. "In the absence of such, I do not see how one could reasonably assume that smoking constituted 'deliberate or intentional wrongdoing' or 'wanton and reckless disregard' of the probable consequences of tobacco use for an individual."

Citing troubles that have sprung up in South Asia, the Balkans and other regions, Albright told Senate appropriators . . . this year, we have been given an unacceptably low allocation." . . "We deal with hard dollars," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told Albright. "We cannot deal with prospective streams of revenue," an allusion to the money the administration had counted on raising from the proposed tobacco legislation. "As a consequence, it is my sad duty to tell you that there is just no more money."

Lawsuits by Blue Cross-Blue Shield plans in 43 states against the nation's big tobacco companies are moving ahead - without Tennessee. Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Tennessee, the state's largest health insurer, was a charter member of the coalition when it announced the lawsuit April 29. A week later, Tennessee dropped out. One reason: pressure from state legislators. "We are a pro-health company. At the same time, we realize what state we're in," said Ron Harr, spokesman for the Chattanooga-based Tennessee Blue Cross health plan.

The DC Latino Festival is rejecting money from tobacco and alcohol sponsors for a second straight year, but organizers admit they're having trouble raising enough money to fund the event. . . The Latin American Festival is the largest Latino festival in the nation. The two-day event draws up to half a million people. Since they started refusing money from alcohol and tobacco sponsors, organizers say their $170,000 budget has been cut in half. . . Public health advocates and other minority groups praised the organizers for making the festival alcohol and tobacco free. The festival will be held July 25 and 26.

Last Thursday in Richmond, one of the country's major tobacco processing centers, Republican Gov. JAMES GILMORE and Virginia AFL-CIO president DANIEL LEBLANC put aside decades of ideological antagonism and, standing shoulder to brotherly shoulder at a "Tobacco Workers Summit," pledged unity in the fight to save the industry. . . LeBlanc praised both the Republicans and Democrats who gathered to hear union concerns. But he added pointedly, even portentously, that in the future big labor's goal in the tobacco fight would be to have its voice "not only heard but heeded."

The county Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to bar outdoor tobacco advertisements within 1,600 feet of schools, playgrounds and youth centers. The ban would also apply to most advertisements on store windows. Self-service tobacco displays would also be banned, as would the sale and distribution of tobacco brand-name promotional items to minors.

Reiner's plan is simple: Raise the California tobacco tax 50 cents a pack and have counties spend the windfall on education, health and social services for pregnant women and young children. Then wait for the results, and for the country and world to sign on.

The EUROPEAN UNION COMMISSION said Wednesday it's fining Italy's only wholesale distributor of cigarettes 6 million European Currency Units (ECU) for anti-competitive practices. The commission, the E.U. executive branch, said the fine on AMMINISTRAZIONE AUTONOMA DEI MONOPOLI DI STATO (AAMS) results from efforts by AAMS to restrict the sale in Italy of cigarettes manufactured in other E.U. countries.

Zimbabwe's tobacco association urged producers on Wednesday to cut output by 10 to 15 percent in the coming 1998/99 (November-April) cropping season to try and boost prices that have fallen on oversupply. Association president ROBERT WEBB told the ZTA's annual general meeting that low prices and high interest rates and taxes had put the industry, which contributes about 30 percent to Zimbabwe's export earnings, on a viability knife edge.

The Zimbabwe Tobacco Association launched a strong attack on Wednesday against anti-tobacco lawsuits in the United States, saying they must be ringfenced to help protect the rest of the world industry. Addressing his association's annual general meeting, ZTA president Robert Webb said the U.S. industry had been faced with outrageous litigation claims from "unreasonable and greedy" people." Webb said.

Mr Justice Wally Yeung Chun-kuen said he wanted to hear from lawyers representing British-American Tobacco (HK) Ltd (BAT) and its sister company, Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation. The judge has to decide whether he should seize bribes of $23.25 million from corrupt ex-tobacco boss Jerry Lui Kin-hong, 42, to give to the two companies which employed him. . . "The evidence seems to suggest that at all material times BAT was in fact aware that this large quantity of cigarettes, worth billions and billions of dollars, would ultimately end up, through smuggling, in the China market," Mr Justice Yeung said.

TOBACCO bosses were invited by a High Court judge on Monday to answer claims they sold cigarettes worth billions of dollars knowing they would be smuggled to the mainland.

So where are the value managers putting their money today? We called half a dozen of them, looking for some consensus. Turns out, the most popular sectors by far are tobacco and real estate. . . As for the legislation, Dreman is unconcerned: "I think there'll be some kind of settlement. And even if there isn't, these stocks can't sink much lower than they already have, unless they start hanging CEOs."

A committee approved the proposal Tuesday. It next will be considered by the denomination's full 564-member General Assembly, which is meeting this week in the nation's top tobacco-producing state.

Meeting in the nation's top tobacco state, delegates to the annual meeting of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are being asked to take a strong stand against smoking. Before the 564 voting commissioners is a proposal that calls on Congress to outlaw cigarette vending machines and slap a stiff tax on each pack of cigarettes. . . The issue is now expected to come up this morning, committee leaders said. The 210th annual General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is being held through Saturday at the Charlotte Convention Center.

"This is a teachable moment," said Dr. Ronald Davis, chairman of the AMA's Council on Scientific Affairs. He was among half a dozen doctors who spoke in favor of the AMA taking an active role in the issue. When sports champions smoke cigars on national television, they send a dangerous message to youngsters, the doctors said. The league said Tuesday it had not received any reaction from fans to the cigar smoking.

The victory cigar Scottie Pippen savored after the CHICAGO BULLS' win in the NBA Finals drew fire from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop yesterday. Koop issued a "call to responsibility" to sports and entertainment stars to stop touting cigars, a growing craze in tobacco use. Pippen appeared on national television with a cigar in his mouth shortly after the Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz Sunday. "I caution them that America is watching," Koop told an American Cancer Society conference on the health risks of cigar smoking.

The Chicago Bulls may have won a sixth-straight National Basketball Association championship, but the American Medical Association (AMA) is slam-dunking the cigar-puffing seen during the team's televised victory display. The on-air show of stogies so enraged delegates to the AMA meeting here that Dr. Edward Donoghue, Cook County chief medical examiner and a delegate to the meeting, said he will take "the AMA's concern directly to the players involved." Donoghue said he would contact Bulls' stars Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen as well as any other players shown lighting up on national television. "I hope we can get them to admit they made a mistake." . . . the group's Council on Scientific Affairs is asking delegates to endorse a plan that asks the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to push for the creation of non-addictive cigarettes. The Council wants the FDA to require that cigarette makers taper the nicotine content of cigarettes so that in 10 years, the nicotine content will be "so low that the nicotine is pharmacologically inactive," council chairman Dr. Ronald M. Davis of Lansing, Michigan, said.

Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge Richard Wennet set aside a month beginning April 5, 1999, to hear Landers' case. Landers, 58, of Lauderhill, a ruggedly handsome model who appeared in Winston ads in the 1960s, is represented by noted tobacco-foe Norwood "Woody" Wilner.

It also would eliminate the rules governing when the state can sue for tobacco-related illnesses, making it possible to bring a lawsuit at any point after the alleged injury occurred.

To open or not to open? That's the question Mike Golsteyn is trying to answer. The Belmont man recently purchased an old, sealed, pack of cigarettes that may contain a rare baseball card some estimate could be worth up to $1 million. The undisturbed tax stamp on the SWEET CAPORAL cigarettes shows the pack was never opened after being sealed sometime between 1909 or 1910. What's not clear is what's inside.

The tobacco companies counted on (in a Mark Twain paraphrase) the best senators money can buy. . . Never discount tobacco companies' wealth, advertising savvy and practice of the Joseph Goebbels Big Fib Theory: Tell a whopper often enough, people will believe. . . Democrats shared blame. They were mired in squabbles about how to spend the windfall. . . McCain came up $40 million short. But he left the smoke-filled snakepit with honor.

The Tobacco Bill: Do any of the liberals pushing that $516 billion tax increase realize the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 77 percent of all tobacco sales are to families with incomes under $50,000? . . . Do liberals pushing this package really think people who are dumb enough to smoke are too dumb to vote?

Rather than fall all over each other in a race to see who could be toughest on an evil industry, then ending up with nothing, senators instead ought to have reverted to the settlement terms the states negotiated with cigarette companies in the first place. . . Not surprisingly, the tobacco industry has backed out of the settlement agreement and has launched a nationwide campaign of misleading and insulting commercials, further confusing the issue. This didn't have to be get complicated. Forty states, including Utah, . . . were the first to scare tobacco sufficiently that it agreed to harsh terms. All Congress had to do was give its stamp of approval on what was a heroic accomplishment.

By killing tobacco control legislation that would have helped curb teen-age smoking, the Republicans in the Senate have shown that they simply cannot wean themselves from

Montreal GazetteThis is a legal argument, not a political one. If native leaders believe they have a legal case, they should make it and take their chances in court.

Smoking--not to mention drinking and drug abuse--seems to have become a pretty good-sized problem among American young people with little or no help from pro athletes. We should be so lucky as to have a once-a-year image of a cigar-smoking Michael Jordan as our biggest problem in this regard. Get a grip, doctors, and go worry about that Sunbeam problem.

The American Medical Association called Thursday for removal of nicotine from tobacco within five to 10 years, saying most smokers want to quit anyway and could do so without nicotine keeping them hooked. ``We know that cigarette companies can remove nicotine from tobacco. They've already done it through a process similar to that which is used to take caffeine out of coffee,'' said DR. RONALD M. DAVIS of Detroit, chairman of the AMA's Council on Scientific Affairs.

Nick O. Teen, representing a teen-age cigarette, accompanied his mentor to Tuesday's event, which raised nearly $11 million for Republican Senate and House candidates. Both Butt Man and Nick O. Teen, who were making their first appearances of the year, paraded outside the fund-raiser, denouncing the evils of smoking.

With the tobacco deal dead on Capitol Hill, the next big battle could come next month, when the nation's first class-action lawsuit to be brought by smokers goes to trial in Florida -- distinctly unfriendly territory for the industry. The multimillion-dollar case, set to open in state court in Miami on July 6, could involve as many as 500,000 Florida smokers, led by Dr. Howard Engle, a 78-year-old Miami Beach pediatrician with emphysema.

A St. Louis courtroom likely will be jammed on Jan. 24, 2000, when a trial begins on Missouri's claim that the tobacco industry targeted children in ad campaigns and lied about the addictiveness of nicotine. On Wednesday, St. Louis Circuit Judge Jimmie Edwards set an 18-month deadline for the start of the state's suit.

The next state lawsuit against the tobacco industry is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 14 in Washington state. . . Washington's case may be more difficult to win. The judge has thrown out some key claims used in Minnesota, including claims that the tobacco companies unjustly enriched themselves through wrongful conduct and that they violated a ``special duty'' they assumed when they published a statement in 1954 promising to protect the public health.

The next state lawsuit against the tobacco industry is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 14 in Washington state.

Republicans in the state House are moving to exempt from state income taxes as much as $12 billion that could go to North Carolina tobacco growers, quota holders and tobacco workers over the next 10 years if there is ever a national tobacco settlement.

Atkins and his wife, Lonette, own Royster Clark Fertilizer, a small business that sells seed, chemicals and fertilizer in Dobson. About 75 percent of his business is tobacco-related. "We are opposed to any more taxes on tobacco, which we feel are unjust and unfair," he said. "We feel it is an attempt to drive the tobacco farmer and the industry out of business here in the U.S." Atkins is leading the charge for a tobacco rally Saturday in Dobson.

Ben Figueras, Lexington Hispanic Association president, yesterday asked the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative board for $53,000 to address migrant worker problems.

To counter those who say no tax dollars should be used for tobacco price supports, Danny McKinney, chief executive officer of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative in Lexington, said yesterday that growers are prepared to take over the program's $16 million in administrative costs.

Opponents of a sweeping smoking ban in city parks prevailed Tuesday as the City Council adopted a compromise ordinance establishing "tobacco product-free zones" in the parks. The new law bars tobacco use at the city youth center and its parking lot, swimming pool, concession stands and playground equipment areas. Tobacco use also is prohibited in ballpark bleachers, except where designated. . . But Baxter County resident Marvin Kent gathered 1,300 signatures on petitions calling for a referendum on the smoking ban, which would have gone into effect Sunday. Kent said he supports the compromise ordinance and has dropped the referendum effort. "I believe that it's good for the entire community, and it places the burden back on the people [to demonstrate] mutual respect," Kent, a cigarette smoker, said Wednesday.

The failure of the United States Senate to act on anti-teen smoking legislation should prompt the Ohio Senate to speed up efforts to pass legislation in the Senate Health Committee aimed at reducing teen smoking, say proponents of a teen smoking bill now in the Ohio legislature. State Senator Grace Drake (R-Solon) and Tobacco-To-21, a coalition of public health officials and community leaders, are cautioning Ohio senators that failure to pass tobacco legislation quickly at the state level will send Ohioans the message that their elected representatives are not concerned about teen smoking rates that have risen by one-third since 1992 and now stand at a 19-year high.

Supervisors told county staff members Tuesday to write a law to ban tobacco ads within nearly a third of a mile of public schools, playgrounds and community centers. This ordinance would cover ads outdoors and in store windows in unincorporated areas.

For the group, called TIGHT (Tobacco Industry Gets Hammered by Teens), it was a victory that culminated a campaign involving scores of high school students across the county.

Contra Costa County's move to restrict tobacco advertising in unincorporated areas of the county may inspire city leaders to do the same. "It just goes to the next step of awareness," Martinez City Councilman Tim Farley said yesterday, adding that he may sponsor a similar city measure. "The tobacco industry, pardon the pun, has been burned for targeting young people in their advertisements."

Quebec, which has more smokers than the national average, adopted a tough new anti-smoking law Wednesday in the hopes of reducing the number of people hooked on cigarettes. The legislation, introduced by Health Minister Jean Rochon earlier this spring, passed unanimously in the legislature after being in the works for two years.

The Kahnawake band council's decision to tax Ottawa and Quebec for the use of highways, waterways and railways crisscrossing the South Shore reserve is not a prelude to another blockade and armed standoff, community leaders say. "We don't want another 1990," band-council spokesman Don Patrick Martin said yesterday, referring to that summer's shutdown of the Mercier Bridge during the Oka crisis. "People can be assured that the roads will not be blocked."

The Kahnawake band council warned the federal and Quebec governments yesterday it will immediately assert its sovereignty over the South Shore reserve, taking control of highways, railways and waterways, and declaring the community a duty-free zone. Sparked by changes to Quebec tobacco-tax laws announced last week, the band council yesterday issued a sharp reaction that amounts to a unilateral declaration of sovereignty, and a pledge to back it up by taking complete control of Kahnawake territory.

A community of Mohawk Indians is threatening to charge tolls on busy highways through their reservation unless government officials back down in a dispute over cigarette taxes

Debbie Ure believes she is being used to set an example. The 36-year-old woman received a suspended sentence Monday for buying cigarettes for her 18-year-old son, Jason Ure. The sentence did not carry a fine. "They (Windsor/Essex Health Unit) just want to say no one is going to get away with this," said Ure, who said the cigarettes weren't for her son, but for her husband. "Now I have a record for something I didn't do."

Students spend more than four times as much on cigarettes and alcohol than on books, claims a survey of student finances. A survey of students at seven British universities found books to be bottom of a league of ten spending priorities, accounting for only �21 per month. This compares to an average of �52 spent on alcohol and �40 on cigarettes. . . Among the students surveyed, the biggest spenders on both alcohol and tobacco were in Cardiff

The Government could be losing �2.3 billion a year in lost revenue as a result of tobacco smuggling, retailers have claimed. The sum is sufficient to redecorate 3,538 Lord Chancellor's apartments or to build three Millennium Domes, said the Tobacco Alliance.

Several international tobacco companies are in talks with the state-owned Thailand Tobacco Monopoly to set up one or more cigarette-making joint ventures. The companies include Philip Morris Co. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco International Inc. of the U.S., and U.K.-based B.A.T Industries PLC, according to government officials overseeing the Thai monopoly. Philip Morris makes Marlboro and Benson & Hedges cigarettes; R.J. Reynolds, a unit of RJR Nabisco Inc., makes Camel, Winston, and Salem; and a U.S. unit of B.A.T makes Lucky Strike and Kool.

NEARLY one in three Australian adolescents smoked marijuana in the past year, an alarming report says. . . Worrying trends on tobacco smoking also were revealed, including news that 43 per cent of women in their 20s smoke cigarettes. And smoking rates for women in their 30s have jumped to one in three.

Implied volatility on Philip Morris Cos. Inc. (MO - news) firmed on Thursday after the U.S. Senate killed the landmark McCain tobacco bill. ``Everyone was scrambling to buy calls and stock,'' said one options trader. ``Vols were bid as high as 34 percent at the open.... They've come off since.''

The date, July 21, must be approved by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman before tobacco marketing can begin in Georgia, but Glickman and his predecessors have historically followed Irvin's recommendation.

Philip Morris Companies, up 1 5/8 at 40 1/16 RJR Nabisco Holdings, up 5/8 at 24 15/16 In a big victory for the tobacco industry, a sweeping bill to curb teen smoking and bring nicotine under federal regulation perished in the climax to a fierce, four-week struggle in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Rembrandt Group Ltd. (O.RGR), a South African tobacco and industrial holdings concern, Thursday reported a 13% increase in net profit before exceptionals to 2.27 billion rand (ZAR) ($1=ZAR5.2815) for the year to March 31.

The withdrawal means that BAT has abandoned its plans of increasing equity holding in VST to 50 per cent, at least for now. At present, BAT owns 31.73 per cent in VST through two of its affiliated companies - Raleigh Investment and Tobacco Manufacturers Ltd.

As if heavy rains and spotty flooding weren't enough to hinder the progress of the 1998 tobacco crop, farmers are being threatened by another old nemesis: blue mold.

A memorial service was to be held Wednesday afternoon for Bob Leslie, a beloved Petaluma baseball coach whose love of the game and tireless campaign against chewing tobacco made him a local folk hero. Mr. Leslie, the coach at Casa Grande High School, died Monday after a four-year battle with mouth cancer. He was 31 and a resident of Cotati.

Jack Benny is the star, and Humphrey Bogart--in his TV debut--is the special guest, but there's no mistaking that it's Lucky Strike's show. Even before Benny comes on stage in this "Jack Benny Program" (Saturday at 9:30 p.m. on KOCE Channel 50)--which originally aired Oct. 25, 1953--Columbia University football coach Lou Little is touting the relaxing pleasures of Lucky Strike, the series' sponsor. Near the end of the show, singer Dorothy Collins, "the Lucky Strike girl," does the same. . . (Bogart) denies he was the shooter and claims he's got a witness--he doesn't know his name, but the guy was smoking a cigarette. What kind? A Lucky Strike. How does he know it was a Lucky Strike? "Because it was so round, so firm, so fully packed, so free and easy on the draw."

a spokesman for state Attorney General Mark L. Earley (R) said his boss "is not mourning the death of the tobacco bill." Spokesman David Botkins said Earley "stands with Gov. [James S.] Gilmore to keep the focus on those whose livelihood depends on tobacco."

Any celebrations in the country's largest tobacco-producing state were muted, however -- tempered by the sobering reality of a mountain of unresolved lawsuits against cigarette companies, a declining U.S. tobacco market and ever-increasing hostility toward smoking.

Smoking was banned yesterday in San Francisco public parks and recreation centers frequented by thousands of children, drawing cries of discrimination from angry adult smokers. "If I can't smoke, I don't know if I'll be able to continue working," said Marilyn Cassol, an exasperated park employee. . . But the city's Recreation and Park Commission brushed aside such complaints

Barnett's personal anti-smoking campaign hit close to home about two years ago when her mother and grandmother died of cancer within two months. . . Tonight, Barnett and hundreds of other Orange County cancer survivors and others who have been affected by cancer will gather at OCC's Lebard Stadium in Costa Mesa for the American Cancer Society's fourth annual Relay for Life.

Industrial holdings group Rembrandt lifted headline earnings 14,4% to 422,6c a share in the year to March as a lower contribution from the company's mining interests and losses at both Rainbow Chicken and Wispeco Holdings kept a lid on earnings growth. . . Net income before exceptional items and after the deduction of outside shareholders' interests from Rembrandt's trademark business, in which its one-third interest in tobacco group Rothmans International is housed, grew to R1,2bn from a previous R1,1bn, he said. He said Rothmans' results for the year under review were adversely affected by the strength of sterling during the year, and exacerbated by the weakness of Asian currencies, particularly the Malaysian ringgit, "which masked the strong underlying performance of the group's tobacco business".

Diversified tobacco, luxury goods and media company Richemont has beaten the Asian blues, with sales increases around the world outweighing the eastern malaise to show a 9,5% rise in operating profit in the year to March.

Richemont, the Switzer-land-based conglomerate controlled by South Africa's Rupert family, shrugged off worries about the long-term health of its tobacco and luxury goods businesses by reporting a 27 per cent increase in 1997-98 net profits to �386m ($640m).

Sports-marketing consultants say the global gold rush, in large part, is sparked by legislation in the U.S. and Europe that has forced the tobacco industry to strip its once-ubiquitous logos from athletic arenas, particularly along the Formula One racing circuit. "The departure of tobacco is a bonanza for the sports-marketing industry because sports sponsorship is the medium of the new millennium," says Mr. Heussner, adding, "The new companies are looking to come into the game want [sports] they can own, in a figurative sense."

Minnesota may be well known for its support of contemporary music, but lately the state has received a serious challenge from Canada, where the WINNIPEG SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA has been holding a new-music festival of international fame since 1992. . . On what was described as a hunch, the orchestra's artistic director, BRAMWELL TOVEY, decided to try to get a new-music festival off the ground by asking Canada's IMPERIAL TOBACCO Co. for sponsorship.

With prospects dim in Congress for reviving sweeping tobacco legislation this year, the spotlight shifts to the courts, especially the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Senate's sweeping antismoking bill may be dead - but the tobacco industry remains in deep legal trouble.

The tobacco industry hoped to win protection from burgeoning litigation with its unprecedented June 1997 settlement with state attorneys general, but instead, it now faces more lawsuits than ever, with no chance of immunity on the horizon.

The tobacco industry will now have to contend with an increasingly critical American public. Two out of three Americans back the government in its efforts to rein in the tobacco industry, according to a poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Consumer activist Ralph Nader called the scrapping of the bill a "Pyrrhic victory for Big Tobacco" that will inevitably prompt even more lawsuits by states and private citizens. The Clinton administration and Democrats, meantime, are expected to keep tobacco in the public eye in the months ahead by making the deal's failure an issue in the 1998 congressional elections. Courtrooms, in which tobacco companies have for years gone undefeated, have also grown more hostile to tobacco makers.

Will the GOP's rejection of tobacco legislation have a similar effect? "I think it is a modestly mobilizing issue, but only modestly mobilizing," Gans said.

With Democrats maintaining that the Republican leadership was once again trying to delay any final vote on campaign finance, the House voted Thursday to open the debate to a blizzard of amendments. . . Rep. ROSA DELAURO, D-Conn., attributed the demise of anti-smoking legislation in the Senate to the tobacco industry's campaign contributions to the Republican Party. "Take a look at the amount of money the tobacco companies have provided to the Republican committees in 1996," she said, pulling out a chart. "Four and a half million dollars." She went on to quote from a Wall Street Journal article about Rep. LINDA SMITH, R-Wash., who is running for the Senate. In that article, Ms. Smith, first elected to the House in 1994, said she had quickly discovered that it was common practice for Republican leaders to hold up action on bills while seeking more donations from interested contributors.

Two days after the defeat of a federal tobacco bill, Maryland anti-smoking groups are vowing to push through legislation that would nearly double the price of cigarettes in the state. Members of The Maryland Children's Initiative, a coalition of over 280 groups formed to reduce smoking by young people, said Friday it will no longer wait for federal lawmakers to pass substantive anti-smoking legislation. The defeat of the $516 billion federal bill shows that such measures must be passed locally, Vincent DeMarco, executive director of the initiative, said at a news conference.

Moreover, Cellucci's performance Thursday on the issue of a national tobacco settlement plan had to be unnerving for his supporters. The Acting Guv seemed befuddled as he blundered through a Q-and-A with reporters. First he said he supported the settlement. Reminded it would involve billions of dollars in new taxes, he backed off. Then he said he supported the litigation of Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, the Democratic gubernatorial front-runner. Yet, in 1995, the Weld-Cellucci administration adamantly opposed the suit seeking damages from Big Tobacco to cover public health costs.

Tuesday, June 23 ST. PAUL - 10:30 a.m. - Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III asks children to decide which tobacco billboards to tear down first. Girl Scout Council of St. Croix Valley, 400 S. Robert St. Details: Leslie Sandberg at 296-2069.

After several weeks of meeting, the Beloit Smoking Compromise Committee has come up with a suggestion for reducing secondhand smoke in restaurants. . . The committee is asking that Beloit restaurant owners post signs on their properties stating the following message: ``Local Health Professionals prefer that you do not smoke in eating establishments in the City of Beloit.''

The Beloit Smoking Compromise Committee, seeking ways of protecting diners against secondhand smoke, has come up with a watered-down proposal. It would ask restaurant proprietors to post placards reading: " Local health professionals prefer that you do not smoke in eating establishments in the city of Beloit." . . The committee' s modified alternative is to be presented to the council July 7.

BUYING cigarettes could become harder for under-age smokers in Cambridgeshire. Trading standards chiefs say teenagers will have to carry proof of age cards in a bid to clamp down on illegal tobacco use by under-16s. Mug shots, a date of birth and a 16-plus logo may feature on the passes. The idea was agreed at a Cambs County Council environment and transport committee meeting last Thursday, and could be in place by next year.

The Presidential Task Force on Prevention of Child Abuse condemns the promotion of tobacco products for children said the Chairman of the Presidential

Don't ask for the no-smoking section in a Chinese restaurant. There is none. China is one of the most smoke-filled societies in the world, a haven for the tobacco firms being squeezed in the United States.

Dubek is expected to demand that State of Israel side with it in all lawsuits that have been and will in future be brought against it alleging smoking damages. This is because, according to Dubek, 85% of receipts from the sale of cigarettes are taken by the State in the form of various taxes.

Most Wall Street analysts are sticking with tobacco stocks, even though such shares have been battered and still face great uncertainty because of the ever-mounting threat of lawsuits over smoking-related disease and death.

Spreads on bonds of the nation's largest tobacco company, Philip Morris tightened several basis points on Thursday after news of the demise of the U.S. tobacco bill, traders said. "Phillip Morris paper tightened three to five basis points initially and ended three tighter across the board," one industrials trader said.

The death of a contentious U.S. Senate tobacco bill removed a dire threat to the financial health of the nation's largest tobacco companies, analysts said on Thursday.

Most tobacco stocks rallied yesterday in the wake of the Senate's decision to kill comprehensive tobacco legislation, but industry analysts cautioned that the industry still faced mounting legal challenges and the lingering prospect of new legislation. "I think the business has changed forever in the United States," said John F. Kasprzak, a tobacco analyst for Scott & Stringfellow Financial Inc. of Richmond. "I think everybody is worse off except for Philip Morris, who is only slightly worse off."

The father was 82, lying in a nursing home bed, dying of lung cancer. The son, now 59 . . . "I excused myself" - it sounds so simple. But Johnson left a four-year, guaranteed contract worth $3 million. . . On Aug. 8, 1997, Johnson did his last show for NBC's New York City station and abandoned its Rockefeller Center studios. . . The son would patiently feed the father, reversing the roles of infancy. He would provide one of the cigarettes that the father still craved

Davis also lit up for 25 years before kicking the habit 20 years ago, having seen one brother die from lung cancer and his mother develop emphysema. He turned into "Cancer Prevention Man" a year and a half ago by becoming a Canadian Cancer Society spokesman. "The only complaint I've ever had was from someone from a smokers' rights group, who was very upset that I was presenting smoking in such a negative light," Davis cheerfully noted. "Because I'm such a nasty person: I do it in all the wrong places and refuse to butt out for other people."

I cannot recall any of us ever saying, When I grow up, I want to take on the tobacco companies. When MARILYN COWAN PRITCHARD was that age, she certainly never dreamed of such a career. "When I was in 8th grade, I was a smoker," she said. "I was a typical rebellious teenager." But since 1990, Pritchard has been deeply immersed in the tobacco wars. She is coordinator of the county's

Rep. Howard COBLE (R-N.C.), who disclosed ownership of between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in the tobacco-conglomerate RJR Nabisco, gave a speech to Philip Morris Management Corp. for which he earned a $2,000 honorarium to donate to charity. Coble, and Reps. GORDON, Bennie THOMPSON (D-Miss.), Scotty BAESLER (D-Ky.), Sanford BISHOP (D-Ga.), Mike MCINTYRE (D-N.C.), Ed WHITFIELD (R-Ky.) and Rep. James CLYBURN (D-S.C.) also spent four days in Arizona, paid for by the Tobacco Institute, a well-financed industry group. Rep. Bob ETHERIDGE (D-N.C.) went to Palm Beach, Fla., for three days, courtesy of the Tobacco Institute. Sen. Larry CRAIG (R-Idaho) earned a $2,000 honorarium speaking to Philip Morris (a sum that, by law, must be donated to charity), and Reps. Bob CLEMENT (D-Tenn.), Ron LEWIS (R-Ky.) and Chris JOHN (D-La.) earned the same amount for charity speaking to the Tobacco Institute. Two of three speeches Rep. Cass BALLENGER (R-N.C.) gave last year that secured honoraria for charities were for tobacco interests R.J. Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute.

Senate Rules Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Sen. Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.) issued an announcement yesterday putting a smoking ban into effect in the Senate's public spaces. The announcement said designated spaces for smoking are available, and that senators and Senate officers may institute a smoking policy in any office space "assigned to them." As of Monday, everywhere else in the Senate will go cold turkey.

Tobacco bill: Lawmakers decided against approving a bill that would have given the state more power to sue manufacturers of tobacco products to recoup Medicaid costs spent on treating tobacco-related ailments. The bill, supported by Attorney General Dennis Vacco, was designed to boost the state's odds of winning an ongoing lawsuit against the tobacco manufacturers.

"All I want is my day in court before I die," Landers said. . . Landers hopes he can hold out. He plans to. He has already outlived two colleagues in the cigarette ad business -- two former Marlboro Men, David McLean and Wayne McLaren, who both died of lung cancer.

The attorney general says the state should take another look at suing cigarette makers to recover Medicaid money.

The Barley & Hopps restaurant and bar has found a technical solution to bypass a new state law that bans smoking in bars: a lounge where a highly effective ventilation system prevents cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke from wafting into the main restaurant section. The ventilation system, powered by a giant fan on the roof of the restaurant, replaces the air in the lounge every half hour. That airflow creates what is known as negative air pressure and prevents what non-smokers would call the polluted air from flowing back into the main bar.

Tougher smoking restrictions will take effect in Suffolk County restaurants July 1, after restaurant owners Friday failed to persuade a two-thirds majority of the legislature to continue a partial exemption. Smoking will now be banned entirely in Suffolk restaurants, except in fully enclosed spaces with separate ventilation systems. For the past three years, a temporary exemption allowed smoking in restaurant bar areas that were separated by at least six feet from diners.

The newest members of Henrico's finest must agree not to smoke at all, even in the privacy of their homes. And it's all perfectly legal. The no-smoking policy, which went into effect Jan. 1 and affects 27 recruits now in training, is being touted as a means to keep Henrico's police force fit. But the Virginia Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sees it as part of a growing and disturbing trend known as "lifestyle discrimination."

The "no smoking" sign is prominently displayed in a store window. More prominent is the sign above it: "The provincial government dictates that we must display this sign. Please let it be known that we wholeheartedly disagree." The two signs illustrate the dilemma faced every day by those who live and work in Delhi and other communities in the heart of southern Ontario's tobacco country. While the rest of the country is getting tough on smoking in public places, in tobacco country, time seems to be standing still.

So how does such a lofty figure sink to the basement? . . . "So I got up and said, 'You think that was a tasteless joke? Listen to this one.' The minute it came out of my mouth, I thought, 'Oh no, this is a terrible mistake.' " . . . Life is also too short for making the President's daughter the target of a junky, misogynistic crack masquerading as humor.

As I reckon it, you have at least a 75 percent probability that the tobacco industry will continue in a form bearing some resemblance to its present one. . . Is the selling of tobacco immoral? Yes, in my opinion. But it is lega . . . So, though smoking is an irrational bet, buying RJR Nabisco stock, in my opinion, is not.

Acting Governor Paul Cellucci, who has come under fire for failing to push strong antismoking policies, yesterday tried to craft a tougher image in the tobacco wars, but ended up taking flak. First, Cellucci, meeting with reporters, embraced the national tobacco settlement plan and said he hoped it would be revived - but quickly qualified that when told a key component of the plan included tax hikes on cigarettes to discourage youths from smoking.

Air Canada replaced Players as title sponsor . . . Federal health minister Allan Rock was quick to applaud the five-year agreement, effective next season. "Today's announcement should send a strong signal of encouragement about the willingness of non-tobacco companies to step forward and associate themselves with sponsored events," Rock said in a statement released in Ottawa. "Air Canada should be congratulated for this very positive step."

Wendell is seeking national attention for its history as a tobacco hub. For more than a year, the town has been working on its application to have its downtown business district at Main and Third streets listed in the National Register of Historic Places

The future of Durham lies in its past, in the now vacant brick tobacco warehouses that once brimmed with life. As economic development floods the Triangle and Durham's suburbs, it is only now beginning to trickle into downtown.

And while we wait for Congress to heed the call of America's families, I'm instructing the Department of Health and Human Services to produce the first-ever annual survey on the brands of cigarettes teenagers smoke, and which companies are most responsible for the problem. Parents, quite simply, have a right to know. Public health officials can also use this information to reduce youth smoking. The tobacco companies' automatic and angry dismissal of this new survey shows their continued disregard for their children's health and parents' concerns. We have a right to know.

To get an idea what brands are most popular among young smokers, listen as All Things Considered takes an informal poll of teenagers at Union Station in Washington, D.C.

Clinton will issue an executive order today directing the Department of Health and Human Services to begin documenting which brands enjoy favor among smokers age 12 through 17, as part of the yearly National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, senior administration officials said yesterday.

• 06/23/98 CORRECTIONS Washington Post
  
  Clinton's direction to HHS to perform the surveys, which he formally announced yesterday, did not require an executive order.

The Food and Drug Administration's operation to enforce its ban on tobacco sales to children under age 18 will be active in nearly every state by the end of the year, up from only 10 states last year, said William Schultz, FDA deputy commissioner for policy. Moreover, the FDA wants to start reviewing cigarette ingredients' safety and looking at new tobacco products that claim to reduce risks of disease. But that is going to take money. And key congressional committees rejected the agency's request for an extra $100 million in the coming federal budget to begin regulating tobacco and boost enforcement of its ban on sales to minors

The Supreme Court today let tobacco companies try to block Connecticut from forcing them to repay the state for Medicaid funds spent to treat smoking-related illnesses. The justices, without comment, turned away the state's argument that federal courts should refuse to hear the tobacco companies' effort to head off the state's $1 billion claim.

The companies maintain that the Attorney General's lawsuit violates their rights under the Due Process, Equal Protection, Commerce, Supremacy and Takings Clauses, as well as the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Attorney General's suit violates not only federal law but also common sense.

A statewide coalition of public health organizations voiced its support today for PA Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf's (R-Montgomery) plan for a multimedia counter-tobacco advertising campaign and other tobacco use prevention programs funded by a five cents per pack increase in the state cigarette tax. "Sen. Greenleaf's plan is based on what other states have found to be most effective in reducing tobacco use, the number one cause of preventable death in Pennsylvania," said Jeffrey Barg, president of the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Pennsylvania.

Several hundred people gathered at the Surry County Courthouse to warn that higher tobacco taxes would threaten the livelihoods of untold numbers of people. . . About 35 companies -- from banks to insurance companies -- set up exhibits to show how they would be affected by higher tobacco taxes. U.S. Rep. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who opposed the bill drafted by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told the crowd he and others in Congress, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich, are working on a bill focused on reducing teenagers' access to tobacco.

"Welcome to Killing Field," the billboards read. Signs like these have begun appearing everywhere in Florida . . . Cigarette billboards, which remain ubiquitous in most of the country -- especially in urban centers -- no longer exist in Florida. . . Thousands of elementary school children statewide are receiving specially printed anti-smoking children's books, also paid for with tobacco money. Anti-smoking rallies are being organized with tobacco profits. And when Florida police write tickets for teenagers caught smoking, their pay is reimbursed with tobacco money. This is what the nation might have eventually looked like if the comprehensive tobacco bill hadn't died in the Senate.

According to public hearing testimony June 11, major support exists for regulations proposed by the Board of Health to increase nonsmoking sections of city restaurants from at least 50 to 75 percent of seating as of November and to 100 percent smoke-free seating by January 2000. All but two of the 21 individuals who spoke at the hearing supported limiting smoking in city restaurants.

Bone Sucking barbecue sauce, Moravian sugar cookies and cigarettes all can be bought and consumed practically anywhere at PIEDMONT TRIAD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. But you can't get a pack of chewing gum there. . . The ban on gum sales at the Triad airport stems from the day new carpet was laid and airport directors decided they didn't want gum on the carpet. . . Piedmont Triad may be anti-gum, but it's smoker-friendly . . . In fact, the prevalence of smoking may prove to be the Achilles heel in the chewing gum policy. Johnson said many customers are asking for nicotine gum in advance of cross-country, non-smoking flights.

" The data were so strong that either DARE has no effect, or that in suburban communities like Shorewood, it could be worse than having no program at all, " she said. The committee recommended DARE be replaced with another program, Life Skills, for students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades. . . Student surveys showed drug, alcohol and tobacco use was higher in 1995, after DARE began, than in 1992, before DARE, he said.

California has America's toughest anti-smoking laws yet Hollywood continues to glorify cigars, cigarettes . . . In this image-conscious state, the tobacco battle is on split screen: In Sacramento, the government approves America's harshest anti-tobacco laws; in Hollywood, filmmakers and magazine publishers glorify smoking and romanticize cigars as the new status symbol of celebrities from Wayne Gretzky to Demi Moore. Even the young stars of the record-breaking Titanic smoke to defy adults and celebrate lovemaking. . . There's no cigar bar exemption but a loophole allows Beverly Hills an entire block of such cigar bars.

"No matter what happened ... there have been more people talking about what tobacco farmers do, learning more about what's happening with small-scale agriculture, than ever before," she said. Indeed, the tobacco talks of the past year have put the situation of tobacco farmers in the spotlight. And in Kentucky, there has been a renewed awareness of the changing way of life for tobacco farmers and their communities, say those close to the issue.

So, about five years ago, John Bell, 29, began supplementing traditional crops with peppers, pumpkins and tomatoes for the wholesale market. The farm now has about 20 acres of vegetables, 54 acres of tobacco and 250 head of cattle. For the Bells, tobacco is still an integral part of the farm. But, preparing for the eventual loss of burley's economic power, the family is trying to diversify.

And most farmers don't think that the demise of proposed national tobacco legislation is much of a reprieve from the ever-present threat to the federal price-support system. . . The Hoffmans, who are "scared to death" about what would happen in their area without the tobacco program, grow mixed produce and raise goats, but it's tobacco that's helping to send their 17-year-old daughter, Megan, to Transylvania University this fall.

An alert Minnesota legislator might have realized that the array of letterheads for these organizations -- which together represent hundreds of Minnesota businesses -- all bore the same address: Briant's office. . . Briant's tactics, detailed in newly released documents from the Minnesota tobacco trial, offer a glimpse of the smoke-and-mirrors lobbying effort the industry is using intensively this year to fight tobacco legislation in Washington and dozens of states. In addition to a daunting lineup of big-name lobbyists, Philip Morris Cos., R.J. Reynolds and other cigarette makers have waged a broad, subterranean campaign, enlisting respected business and nonprofit groups as their front-line troops. Many of the battalions in the industry's lobbying army don't have "tobacco" in their names, and their industry connections are not immediately visible.

Archie Norman, the chairman of Asda and Tory MP, who was appointed the party's chief executive and deputy chairman designate in this month's reshuffle, has told colleagues that he intends to turf out smokers at Conservative Central Office in the heart of Westminster. . . One insider said: "He is going to face a furious fight on this but it looks likely to go ahead anyway. He is absolutely determined to do this." A number of William Hague's closest aides will be affected.

The head of Russia's Federal Security Service told President Boris Yeltsin on Monday that "commercial" amounts of alcohol and tobacco were being imported into Russia by foreign diplomats who use their privileges to avoid taxes. Nikolai Kovalyov, the security service chief, told Yeltsin that shipments intended "supposedly for embassies' needs" were bringing "commercial amounts" of alcohol and tobacco into Russia, presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said.

Smoking and pregnancy would be listed on death notification forms, the SA INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH said at the weekend. Health authorities said the data on the new death notification forms, to be printed within the next few months, would reflect the "background" to fatalities. At present causes of death did not explicitly point to pregnancy complications or tobacco. . . Similarly, a person might die of "inability to breathe" without any reference to smoking-related lung cancer.

The WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION and the newly formed SA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION announced yesterday that they would create an information centre in Pretoria to raise awareness among southern African doctors and nurses, who would then pass it on to "each and every patient". Although the professionals learn about the dangers of smoking from their training and life experience, "doctors themselves smoke and drink because of stress. We must convince them that smoking itself is a disease," said EDOO BARKER, vice-chairman of the SA association's science and education committee.

Swedish Match AB (SWMAY) said Monday it signed an agreement with Australia's WSGAL/BRYANT & MAY to acquire its match and lighter operations in Australia and New Zealand for 49 million kronor (SEK) on June 30.

But this summer, one group of Southside planters has very different goals in mind: They're researchers, and their genetically altered tobacco is designed to produce human proteins that could be used for inexpensive drugs. They are preparing for the possibility that some Virginia tobacco farmers will one day sell their crops to high-tech factories that make proteins for drug companies and enzymes for chemical industries. "It's nothing like what we're doing now in field production," said Jim Jones, director of the Southern Piedmont Agricultural Station in Blackstone. "This is an altogether different culture. We're not concerned with maturity. We're trying to maximize protein production."

Ranking of the world's richest people as estimated by Forbes magazine, excluding dictators and royalty. . . Name, Country, Net Worth ($mil), Source of Wealth; 154 (Tie), Wonowidjojo family, Indonesia, 2,100, tobacco; 186 (Tie), Tan, Lucio, Philippines, 1,600, tobacco, airlines, beer

"Eighty-five is nothing," said Thomas Perls, a geriatrician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who is leading a Harvard University study of centenarians. "Eighty-five is young. Eighty-five is 15 years away from 100." Living to be 100 is no longer viewed as a quirk of nature, but as a distinct possibility, something to be worked for. . . None of the centenarians in the Harvard study has smoked cigarettes, Dr. Perls said. "They tend to do things in moderation," he said.

Given a list of issues to chose from, more people named regulation of the managed health care industry as the most important to them personally and for the country, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. Tobacco finished fifth, after such issues as campaign finance reform and the outcome of this year's congressional elections.

Robert Leslie, a high school baseball coach who counseled against the use of smokeless tobacco in a video widely shown in the nation's high schools, died on Monday in Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. He was 31 and lived in Cotati. Leslie had been suffering from cancer of the mouth, and said he believed that the cancer had resulted from years of stuffing wads of smokeless tobacco between his gums and lower lip.

"The process of quitting is why people go back to smoking," she said. "I made the mistake, and I made it over and over again, that I could control this addiction. At first, you have to fight the urge 100 times a day. Then it gets less and less."

. By Marguerite Feitlowitz (Oxford University Press: 302 pp., $30) Feitlowitz also devotes a chapter to the under-reported kidnappings and killings of tobacco farm workers in the remote northeastern province of Corrientes who were persecuted for organizing Agrarian Leagues.

A: A number of states such as Colorado and New Hampshire have laws prohibiting discrimination against people for lawful activities such as smoking. But California isn't one . . . You should take a hard look at whether smoking was the real reason you didn't get those jobs. Maybe something else in your attitude or background turned the companies off, and they were using smoking as an excuse. Or maybe you really do need to deal with an odor problem because of your smoking.

In the years since my father's death, Father's Day has become a holiday I observe rather quietly. . . "You would have been able to cuddle those grandsons you wanted so much to keep the family's name alive. . . Why didn't you leave those cigarettes alone?" Because he couldn't. I know that now. . . the truth has been revealed. Nicotine levels in cigarettes were manipulated to keep smokers hooked. . . And yet, I'm not angry at the company, either. Maybe I would be, if Daddy had died just recently. But it has been 18 years. Anger or revenge won't bring me the person I still miss, the person I think about almost every day.

Business has a huge stake in ending this epidemic. The lost productivity of tobacco users -- more sick days, for example -- costs Minnesota businesses $766 million annually. . . First, the business community should increase its efforts to provide employees with information, incentives and resources to quit tobacco. . . Second, the Minnesota business community should take an active leadership role in reducing tobacco use. . . What has taken the tobacco industry 40 years to develop and billions of dollars a year to sustain will take a concerted and sustained community-wide approach to change. The business community should be counted among the leaders in this campaign.

Have you seen the latest Camel ad? It's a two-page color spread featuring a voluptuous young girl smoking a cigarette under the sheets, looking out a window. On the front step is an angry father holding a shotgun, and running from the house is a young man with his shirt unbuttoned. On the bottom, it says, "Viewer discretion advised. This ad contains satisfied smoking, farm violence and animal nudity." (There are a few unclothed roosters.) Tobacco companies say they're not trying to appeal to young people. Who are they kidding? . . .

But the order, which will be carried out by the Department of Health and Human Services, is also part of a concerted effort to keep the issue of tobacco alive for Democrats as they head into the November elections

Those three brands - Marlboro, Camel and Newport - account for 90 percent of the cigarettes smoked by eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders surveyed last year in a Monitoring the Future study at the University of Michigan. They also dominated the youth market in a 1993 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Which raises a couple of questions: If surveys already tell us what brands kids smoke, why is the president asking for another one? And just why do they smoke them?

Stung by the defeat of tobacco legislation, President Clinton Monday sought to shame the cigarette industry and punish its political allies by ordering the government to track which brands are favored by underage smokers. The decision to study how well companies have penetrated the illegal youth market was designed to embarrass cigarette makers into cutting underage smoking while making their backers in Congress pay a political price for killing the bill.

"Parents quite simply have a right to know," Clinton said. . . . "Once this information becomes public, companies will then no longer be able to evade accountability, and neither will Congress," Clinton said

The state Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that Gov. Jeanne Shaheen's school financing reform plan is unconstitutional. . . Shaheen's hybrid statewide property tax plan would have had the state, rather than wealthy towns, pay to help poor communities provide adequate schools. She wanted to raise the needed state money from a tobacco tax increase and video gambling at race tracks.

Recipient organizations and specific contribution amounts are: * United Way of Rockingham County -- $30,000 * Annie Penn Memorial Hospital Foundation -- $5,000 . . . * Rockingham County American Red Cross -- $3,000 * Rockingham County Council on Aging -- $4,000 * Rockingham County Partnership for Children -- $2,500

Smokers who want to light up in a public place in Marquette had better head to the local bar, bingo hall or tobacco store. Nearly everywhere else, it's about to become illegal. Beginning July 1, every employer in this Upper Peninsula city of about 22,000 will be required to provide a smoke-free workplace for employees.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY Executive DOUGLAS M. DUNCAN yesterday urged the County Council to tax pipe tobacco as well as cigars and smokeless tobacco products, county officials said. Duncan (D) said he hopes to enact by October a local excise tax on snuff, dip, cigars and pipe tobacco similar to the one that failed this year at the state level. He already had said he intended to propose a tax on cigars, snuff and dip, but yesterday, when he formally presented the plan to the council, he added pipe tobacco.

Saying it is now "an imperative state issue," Democratic gubernatorial nominee Glenn Poshard pledged an all-out battle to snuff out smoking among children Monday, but he confessed he did not have a specific plan. . . "The amounts contributed by PACs--nameless, faceless entities--are so great that they even can defeat a bill to save our children from the health risks of tobacco," Poshard said.

Glenn Poshard claimed Monday that U.S. senators bowed to tobacco-lobby campaign money in killing an anti-smoking bill last week, and he promised action at the state level if he is elected governor. "We must prevent another generation of youngsters from getting hooked on cigarettes," Poshard said. The Democratic congressman from Southern Illinois said as governor he would push legislation designed to combat youth smoking, but he said he has not had time to work out any specifics.

Durham police reported two incidents Monday that seemed to add weight to President Clinton's efforts to curb cigarette addiction.

However, the Company is at a loss to explain how the Order of Pharmacists of Quebec can claim to forbid the sale of tobacco products in premises adjacent to the pharmacies while the legislator has just sanctioned a law allowing pharmacists to continue the sale of these products for a period of two years.

In a news release, the company said Mr. COUTU plans to appeal the tribunal's decision. It said his attorneys believe that the tribunal's decision contravenes the Quebec National Assembly's Tobacco Act. A company spokeswoman said the National Assembly has approved a law allowing Quebec pharmacists to continue to sell tobacco products until Oct. 1, 2000.

The Quebec Order of Pharmacists yesterday began sending letters to the owners of the 1,460 pharmacies across the province, informing them that the sale of tobacco products in their establishments contravenes pharmacists' professional code. Quebec's Tribunal des Professions, which governs professional bodies, ruled last Friday that Jean Coutu is guilty of contravening the pharmacists' code of ethics.

Ontario is the only province where smokers need a doctor's prescription for nicotine patches and the stronger nicotine gums. "That means in Ontario today, then, it is easier to buy cigarettes than it is to buy the products that are designed to help smokers quit. We find this unacceptable," said the Ontario Lung Association's Jill Palmer.

John Bagwell had stormed through the aircraft after passengers sitting near him lit up on the flight from South Africa to London in December.

Poet John Bagwell, aged 42, stormed the cockpit of the South African Airlines Boeing 747 just as the captain was carrying out vital manoeuvres.

THE German Government yesterday made its pitch for the nicotine addict vote by announcing its intention to challenge the Brussels ban on tobacco advertising at the European Court of Justice. The complaint will be filed in Luxembourg by the beginning of September, weeks before the general election. It is therefore bound to figure in Helmut Kohl's re-election campaign.

The European Union gave final approval Monday to a law phasing out tobacco advertising in the 15-nation bloc. The law will abolish almost all tobacco advertising by 2006. Approval was a formality after the ban received the backing of EU health ministers in December and a majority of legislators in the European Parliament last month.

The ANTI-CANCER COUNCIL OF VICTORIA yesterday called for a federal inquiry into the tobacco industry after revelations that the tobacco giant PHILIP MORRIS had tried to derail Australia's anti-smoking lobby. Further pressure on the industry came with confirmation that the federal Health Minister, Dr MICHAEL WOOLDRIDGE, was demanding that it disclose its research on the harmful effects of smoking by the end of July.

By Sept. 15, tobacco companies must disclose all additives and ingredients in each cigarette brand as well as chemicals used to treat filters and papers. By Oct. 31, tobacco companies must provide reports on 44 selected poisons found in tobacco smoke.

British Columbia, June 22 (Reuters) - Tobacco companies that sell cigarettes in British Columbia will have to disclose all ingredients, including additives used to treat the paper and filters, provincial health officials said on Monday. The province, which has already announced plans for a lawsuit to recover smoking-related health costs, will also require the industry to test and report on 44 poisons health officials claim are contained in cigarette smoke. . . "There are 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, and people are entitled to know what they are," Priddy said in a statement announcing details of the recently announced testing and disclosure requirement.

PETERBOROUGH, Ont. - Trial begins for two nurses accused of smoking in prohibited area of hospital. VANCOUVER - Health Minister Penny Priddy news conference to release details of new regulations to force tobacco industry to disclose ingredients and toxic chemicals in cigarettes. 10:30 a.m. John Jambor Room, B.C. Cancer Agency, 600 West 10th Ave.

JAPAN TOBACCO Inc (2914.T) (JT) said on Wednesday that it has granted development and sales rights for its diabetes drug to Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc .

The only way to explain such a radical pricing anomaly is that investors think a total wipeout is likely. They expect the tobacco industry to be either legislated or sued out of existence. My firm thinks differently. We have a substantial investment in RJR Nabisco, as well as several other tobacco stocks.

Hundreds of doctors across the country own and profit from tons of tobacco, despite decades of health warnings, scolding from peers and in some cases their own ethical reservations. . . "I won't smoke," says Stephen Jackson, an orthopedic surgeon in Paducah, Ky., who co-owns the government rights to grow 1,400 pounds of burley tobacco a year. "I mean, it will kill you."

The scent of one's co-workers is the subject of a new survey by CNS Inc., a Minneapolis-based consumer-products concern. More than 77% of the 1,000 people surveyed say they work with someone whose clothing or hair often smells of tobacco smoke. Nearly 72% say if people regularly smell of smoke, it could hurt their careers. "It definitely creates a negative impression," says Susan Morem, a Minneapolis workplace-etiquette consultant.

The government, if it really needed to know, could get this information right now, cheaper, faster and in more detail, by buying it from a reputable market research outfit. . . This survey, in itself, will do nothing to curb teen smoking; it is pure public relations designed to keep the tobacco bill alive as a political issue. The Department of Health and Human Services has more productive ways of spending its time.

A NEW SURVEY on teenagers and substance abuse has a reassuring and daunting message for parents -- what they teach matters. The 11th annual survey by PRIDE, a nonprofit drug-prevention organization, found that for the first time since the beginning of the decade, use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs for students in grades six through 11 declined or stayed the same.

What's so disturbing about the recent report of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University ("Under the Rug: Substance Abuse and the Mature Woman") is its revelation that women age 60 and over are seated in the last row. . . With a life expectancy of 83 and climbing, a 60-year old woman has more than a quarter of her life ahead of her. Yet our medical system, perhaps reflecting attitudes of society at large, sees these women as though they are within walking distance of the grave. How many of us have said, "What's the point of trying to get mother to quit smoking? She's old and set in her ways." . . Congress has given plenty of attention to discouraging smoking among young girls. But most members are oblivious to the needs of the 4.4 million mature women whose smoking threatens them with premature death and loss of years of independent living.

In a startling display of unanimity sparked by several GOP concessions, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee voted 40 to 0 yesterday to grant immunity to four witnesses who might help in its search for foreign money that went into Democratic coffers. . . The U.S. distributor of Red Pagoda Mountain cigarettes, KENT LA, is a business associate of TED SIOENG, a major target of the committee's inquiry. Sioeng, his family and his business interests, Burton noted, contributed a total of $550,000 during the 1996 campaign to the DNC, California state Treasurer MATT FONG (R) and the NATIONAL POLICY FORUM, a Republican think tank founded by then-RNC Chairman HALEY BARBOUR.

The proposal, passed by the subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services by a vote of 8 to 7, calls for the most drastic cuts so far as the Republican-controlled Congress works its way through 13 appropriations bills that Congress must pass to keep the government running in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. . . Rep. DavidObey, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said that the Republicans were cutting programs to come up with money for medical research that would have come from tobacco companies under a bill that died last week in the Senate. "By killing the tobacco bill, Republicans have made it much harder to fund the president's health initiatives," Obey said. "In order to pay for an increase in NIH funding, instead of using money from the tobacco settlement, they have decided to take that funding out of the hides of the weakest and most vulnerable people in society."

The reversal, based largely on a legal technicality, did not fully refute a jury verdict that awarded $750,000 in damages to a 68-year-old retired air traffic controller who smoked Lucky Strikes for 44 years, health advocates said. "Even with some of the losses that we are experiencing, everything builds on (these cases)," said Janet Williams, an American Lung Association spokeswoman. "(The tobacco companies) are still running from state to state and court to court."

"A single decision by an intermediate appellate court is not very important, other than that the case was such a high-profile case," said Richard Daynard, a professor at the Northeastern University School of Law and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project.

Attorney Norwood Wilner said Monday he and Carter will ultimately win because they are on the right side. The case's next stop in the appeals process would be the Florida Supreme Court.

But the appeals court also said it would have ordered a new trial on other grounds that could have broad implications for tobacco litigation in Florida, where Mr. Carter's lawyer alone has 150 suits pending, and a smokers' class-action lawsuit is due to start trial next month. Some of the legal reasoning also could be used to attack a $1 million verdict returned earlier this month against Brown & Williamson in the same Jacksonville courthouse where Mr. Carter's case went to trial.

"We conclude that the evidence shows beyond dispute that Grady Carter knew or should have known, before Feb. 10, 1991, that his lungs were injured and he was on notice that the injury was probably caused by smoking," the court ruled. "Therefore, by the time he filed suit on Feb. 10, 1995, the four-year statute of limitations had run. Neither absolute knowledge nor medical confirmation is required for a cause of action to accrue," the court ruled.

But the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled 3-0 that the lawsuit "was filed more than four years after Grady Carter knew or should have known ... that he had a smoking-related disease." Even if Carter had sued on time, the appeals court said, the verdict would have been reversed because of a 1969 federal law that bars lawsuits that argue that the wording of the cigarette warning label is inadequate.

In a unanimous opinion, the Court agreed with all five of B&W's points of appeal. . . Statute of Limitations. . . Preemption. . . Irrelevant Evidence. . . Attorney-Client Privilege. . .Speculative Testimony.

Two Burlington store owners have challenged the city's new tobacco ordinance that limits tobacco advertising and displays in stores. The owners of Old North End Variety, Beverly and David Rockwood, and the owner of Kerry's Kwik Stop, David's brother William Rockwood, filed suit in U.S. District Court Monday. The attorney for the Rockwoods says the law violates their First Amendment rights and the city lacks the authority under state law to adopt the regulation. The suit also charges that federal law preempts the ordinance.

Brandwein is in charge of enforcing the billboard law, which bans tobacco advertising within 1,500 feet of any school or public park. It passed last year and went into effect three months ago. . . Brandwein said that he would send Lamar Advertising a letter telling them the company was breaking the law. However, within two hours after we asked Brandwein whether it, workmen were covering up that ad.

Federal and state officials Tuesday announced the start of a 60-day radio, newspaper and billboard ad campaign that attempts to use humor to curb teen smoking. But the Illinois Retail Merchants Association doesn't find it very funny. "Certainly this subject is too serious to be funny about," said David Vite, IRMA president, whose group represents more than 25,000 stores. "Why they would come up with a demeaning, insulting campaign written for kids but aimed at adults, I don't know. You can't attack this problem by just attacking the supply side, you have to go after the kids who are smoking. Where's the program for them?"

The Democrat trying to unseat incumbent CONGRESSMAN J.D. HAYWORTH says there is no good reason the tobacco bill failed to pass. STEVE OWENS filed his nominating petitions at the state capitol yesterday. Owens says his father died of lung cancer after smoking since he was 13. Owens accuses Hayworth of taking large contributions from tobacco companies. Owens narrowly lost his challenge to Hayworth in 1996.

Associate Health Minister TUARIKI DELAMERE wants to achieve the impossible: get Deputy Prime Minister WINSTON PETERS to stop smoking. In a speech to the Smokefree Towards 2000 conference in Wellington yesterday, Mr Delamere said he would like to see the precincts of Parliament become smokefree. Later, Mr Delamere said he encouraged Mr Peters to give up smoking.

Haci Sabanci, No. 2 executive in one of Turkey's largest conglomerates, died of lung cancer Wednesday, hospital sources said. Sabanci, 63, . . . was vice president of the board of Sabanci Holding, Turkey's second-largest conglomerate. Its 50 companies are involved in tourism, textiles, food, autos, tobacco and banking.

The insurer is demanding NIS 250 million for its expenses for each year since 1991, the last year before the statute of limitations. . . Health Minister Yehoshua Matza "congratulated" Maccabi on the suit, according to a ministry statement.

Toronto health officials will avoid public consultation as they start work on a new megacity no-smoking bylaw. "Public meetings ... are not particularly effective for obtaining detailed information or arriving at decisions," says a report presented to the city health board by the medical officer of health yesterday. . . But public health honchos do plan to meet with "key stakeholders" in the smoking legislation -- like the Ontario Restaurant Association, the Ontario Hotel and Motel Association, the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco and the Canadian Cancer Society -- as they try to draft a new bylaw.

A British judge set a January 2000 trial date for a landmark lawsuit against the country's tobacco industry, clearing the way for Europe's first group-action case by lung-cancer sufferers against cigarette makers. . . At a hearing, Judge Michael Wright said the trial would be allocated up to six months of court time, but he left open the issue of how many plaintiffs will be allowed to take part.

PLANS by ARCHIE NORMAN to ban smoking at Tory Central Office have prompted outrage down the road at the TOBACCO MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION. Former Tory MP JOHN CARLISLE is its spokesman and as a non-smoker, declares in Voltairean fashion: "I believe that everyone who wants to smoke should be able to. For Archie Norman to impose a ban on smoking shows that he's out of line wtih mainstream Conservative thinking. Only last night ANN WIDDECOMBE said she was opposed to the tobacco advertising ban.

William Hague was last night accused of failing to rid his party of its "sleazy" links to the tobacco industry after Tory MEPs tried to block the European directive banning tobacco advertising in sport and on billboards. The claims were made by anti-smoking campaigners on the eve of the publication of a dossier alleging that the tobacco companies covered up the evidence of links between smoking and cancer.

Last week, Amministrazione Autonoma dei Monopoli di Stato (AAMS), a state-owned company, was fined 6m ecus (�4m) and has been asked to change its practices, after the European Commission found that it had offered ROTHMANS and REYNOLDS "impossible" distribution contracts. AAMS, which manufactures, wholesales and distributes cigarettes, would only let importers each sell up to 5m cigarettes a year on the launch of a new product.

The Sri Lankan government is pushing ahead with moves to curb the "negative" influence ofalcohol and tobacco usage, including investment restrictions on related industries, officials said Wednesday. "The government will not allow any liquor or cigarettes duty-free", said Gamini Laksman Peiris, deputy minister of finance. Incentives granted under the Board of Investment program, will not be allowed for firms investing in liquor or tobacco, he said.

"Vigorous action will be taken to curb production and sale of illicit alcohol, illicit drugs and smuggling of cigarettes with the cooperation of enforcement agencies, i.e. the judiciary and the police. Divisional Secretariats will receive public complaints regarding the above contraband. Punitive measures will be enhanced. Duty free importation of cigarettes to be abolished. All sponsorship by tobacco and alcohol industry will be prohibited.

The Sri Lankan government is pushing ahead with moves to curb the "negative" influence ofalcohol and tobacco usage, including investment restrictions on related industries, officials said Wednesday. "The government will not allow any liquor or cigarettes duty-free", said Gamini Laksman Peiris, deputy minister of finance. Incentives granted under the Board of Investment program, will not be allowed for firms investing in liquor or tobacco, he said.

News Corp. named Geoffrey C. Bible a director, increasing the board's size to 15. In a press release Tuesday, News Corp. said Bible is chairman and chief executive of Philip Morris Cos.

Tobacco warehouse operators across the Southeast are concerned about the Washington debate over the future of tobacco but look for business as usual when flue-cured auctions open next month. . . During this week's meeting of the Bright Belt Warehouse Association, operators were warned the debate is far from over.

The early years of NASCAR had a preponderance of car, beer and cigarette sponsors. Not today -- now there's the McDonald's car, the Family Channel car, the Cartoon Network car, the Circuit City car, etc.

The smokers' underground -- those poor souls are as furtive as Christians in the catacomb days -- have a refuge at Seals Cove on the waterfront. Several people were smoking like chimneys the other noon when I dropped by.

A close friend says the perky former congresswoman was upset because CBS rejected her story ideas, including getting Sen. John McCain on the show to discuss tobacco, and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to talk about Ireland.

TOKYO - Japanese airlines, which are among the last in the world to ban smoking, are taking the plunge later this year. All NIPPON AIRWAYS, Asia's largest airline, is to ban smoking on all domestic flights in Japan from October 1 (http://www.ana.co.jp). ANA introduced non-smoking services on its business class flights within Japan from December last year. In addition, JAPAN AIRLINES is also to ban smoking from September 1 on its 240 daily domestic flights.

A new kind of cigarette is growing in popularity, especially among teenagers. . . The slim, pungent smokes are called Bidis. They are made in India from tobacco just like regular cigarettes, but they are wrapped in eucalyptus leaves and sold in flavors like strawberry and menthol. And smokers say they pack an extra punch.

Police and fire officials were investigating the death Tuesday of a 94-year-old blind woman who witnesses say set herself on fire while trying to smoke a cigarette in her South Side home.

Rob Cunningham of the Canadian Cancer Society took a slightly different view: "This is a very important breakthrough, giving information to consumers that for a segment will be an influence on quitting smoking or not taking up smoking." And then he added: "If B.C. can do it, the federal government can do it." So can Alberta. . . with the ingredients listed, at least people can make informed choices.

In this land of the free, in which millions of people would not make it through the day without prescription drugs like Prozac, and being overweight threatens to become a national trademark, smokers are in the dock. The puritanical campaigners are launching such an anti-smoking offensive that even the usually politically correct media will now fight in the smokers' corner from time to time, standing up for their right to decide for themselves.

Todd Paulson, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota, requested a committee hearing, following a series of newspaper disclosures about secret tobacco industry payments to labor lobbyists and industry gifts to several legislators' favorite charities. The latest gift-giving incident was self-reported by SEN. DOUG JOHNSON, DFL-Tower, longtime chairman of the Senate Tax Committee and a Democratic candidate for governor.

Documents released under last month' s settlement of the Minnesota tobacco case name former House Speaker Irv ANDERSON, DFL-International Falls, Sen. Steve NOVAK, DFL-New Brighton, and former Senate Republican leader Dean JOHNSON of Willmar. " It shows the influence of tobacco money on the Legislature, " said Jeanne WEIGUM, president of the Association for Nonsmokers-Minnesota . . . The three legislators denied Tuesday that the donations influenced their legislative positions.

Missouri and Kansas are moving forward with lawsuits against tobacco companies following last week's demise of federal legislation that would have settled cases in 36 states. Missouri's lawsuit is set for trial January 2000 in St. Louis. No date is set for the Kansas case, which will be heard in Shawnee County District Court in Topeka.

Gov. Jim Gilmore's selection of a Fairfax resident who previously served as president of a tobacco industry trade group to the College of William and Mary's board of visitors has drawn a mild rebuke from a leading health advocate. Walter Lawrence, a Richmond oncologist who is past president of the American Cancer Society, said the appointment Wednesday of Jeffrey L. Schlagenhauf ``sounds regrettable.'' Lawrence said Schlagenhauf, a 1980 history graduate of the Williamsburg school, ``must have some other attributes'' besides his role as president of the Smokeless Tobacco Council.

Two years after Colorado voters approved strict limits on political spending, top Republicans are using a loophole in the law to funnel corporate cash into state campaigns without public scrutiny. A nonprofit group called COLORADO VOTES! was set up to let companies pump extra money into local legislative races. . . Asked whether Colorado Votes! had been bankrolled by a $50,000 contribution from tobacco and food giant Philip Morris Co., another group director, former state House Majority Leader Chris Paulson, said: "I've heard that gossip. I'm not going to answer any questions about that gossip.''

State Attorney General TOM MILLER is seeking information on marketing strategies from makers of candy cigarettes. Miller said the candy smokes may encourage smoking among minors.

A second group of American Indians has sued the state Department of Correction for the right to use peace pipes, beads and herbs in religious ceremonies in prison. "Just as Catholics use rosaries, Protestants use crosses and Jews use the Torah, the (plaintiffs) use ceremonial pipes, tobacco and natural smudge, etc., to express our religion," the five inmates said in the suit.

The American Lung Association of Nassau-Suffolk is commending Suffolk County lawmakers for their historic legislation making all restaurants 100 percent smoke-free. The organization's executive director says this kind of law is necessary for people who have asthma or other lung diseases or for those people who are particularly susceptible to the dangers of second-hand smoke.

GOV. JAMES S. GILMORE III (R) today named the recent president of the SMOKELESS TOBACCO COUNCIL, along with three others, to the Board of Visitors of their alma mater, the College of William and Mary. JEFFREY L. SCHLAGENHAUF, 40, of Fairfax, was appointed to the board to "provide oversight and accountability," and his connection to the tobacco industry was irrelevant, according to Gilmore spokeswoman Lila Young. "What he did in the past doesn't relate to the Board of Visitors at all,"

The disclosures immediately roiled the political waters in Minnesota. "It's a scandal. It's broader than tobacco," said Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, also a candidate for governor. "It's just a way to curry favor with public-policy people they want to influence." .. . Common Cause Minnesota, a public watchdog organization, called on the Legislature to hold hearings on the revelations. Todd Paulson, executive director of the organization, said "the lobbyist-disclosure system in Minnesota is clearly broken and is crying out for someone to fix it."

Rep. Geri Evans, of New Brighton, named former House Speaker Irv Anderson as the official who she said told her that her anti-smoking bill wouldn't be considered because the DFL received too much campaign money from the Tobacco Institute. Anderson, DFL-International Falls, a 34-year House veteran, called her remarks "a damn lie."

Joe Camel is dead and physician Joel White wants to bury the rest of tobacco advertising with him. White is the clinical director of the Radiation Oncology Center Medical Group in Walnut Creek and has spent the last 14 years working to strengthen tobacco control legislation. . . His latest effort to head off lung cancer took him before the Tuesday, June 16 meeting of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors to speak out against tobacco advertising targeted at children. The supervisors voted unanimously to draft an ordinance banning tobacco advertising within 1,600 feet of schools.

One day, the Joe Camel billboard advertised "genuine taste." The next day it read "Am I Dead Yet?" The Marlboro man's billboard turned into a real sleeper, changing from Marlboro to Marlbore overnight, with the word "yawn" added near his mouth for effect. . . The Billboard Liberation Front is back, bringing its own twist on advertising and social commentary to Apple's billboards around the Bay Area, the latest in a 21-year history of ad alterations. "It's getting harder and harder for people to speak their minds - that's what we're doing," said Jack Napier, a founder of the group. His name (not his real one) is also that of Batman nemesis the Joker's alter ego. "Having a diversity of opinions out there is better."

Vincent A. GIERER, Jr., chairman of the board and chief executive officer, UST Inc., today announced executive level changes which were approved by the Boards of Directors of UST Inc. and United States Tobacco Company (USTC). The Board of Directors of USTC elected A. Gary SMITH, president, and Richard M. FASANELLI, vice president, responsible for marketing. The Board of Directors of UST Inc. elected Dr. Robert H. LAWRENCE, Jr., senior vice president, and James D. PATRACUOLLA, vice president. The actions are effective immediately.

That's why, earlier this year, when she saw them advertised in FAMOUS SMOKE SHOP's catalog for $4.25 each, she wasted no time in calling the retailer's toll-free number. . . Since then Biden has called the New York City-based Famous at least half a dozen times, and each time the story is the same -- no Short Stories. Yet she remains an enthusiastic customer, largely because of the one-on-one attention Famous pays its customers. Every time she phones, a system known as an ACD (for automatic call distributor) immediately kicks in to answer the call and route it to the appropriate contact among the company's 32 employees.

* Three in 10 under the age of 50 say they smoke regularly, while only two in 10 over 50 are regular smokers.

This week, smokers had their say in an informal survey conducted at the cigarette-themed tavern Drag on Ninth Avenue. The Best Cigarette Film Ever? It's a tie between "Cold Turkey," the Norman Lear-directed farce about an entire town that tries to quit smoking, and Denis Leary's filmed stand-up show, "No Cure For Cancer."

The tobacco wars are over for Juanita D. Duggan. The vice president of federal relations for Philip Morris Cos. is joining the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America as executive vice president and chief executive. A former Reagan and Bush White House aide, Duggan replaces the retiring Douglas W. Metz.

Cigar-loving actor Jack Nicholson has toured one of Cuba's most famous tobacco factories during a secretive four-day visit to the island, local state news media said Wednesday. . . "Nicholson visited the Havana cigar house in the company of his wife and lawyer, and at the end he promised to return here to take back to the United States with him some of the most expensive cigars," domestic news agency AIN said.

Wearing a tropical shirt and sunglasses, the three-times Oscar winner arrived at the restaurant laughing, clutching a bottle of rum and smoking a Havana cigar. He then enjoyed a typical Cuban meal with members of the Cuban Film Art and Industry Institute (ICAIC), which is hosting his visit.

Literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, who is at the scandal's epicenter, was his guest. It had all the elements that make the "Drudge Report" compelling: tantalizing stories about an unlaundered dress and presidential secretary Betty Currie being locked in a White House bathroom. But it was hard -- no, impossible -- to tell whether these tales were true, or just a Clinton-hater's fictions. Drudge's interview was so friendly that Goldberg felt comfortable enough to smoke a cigarette on the air.

The U.S. Postal Service issued a final regulation barring smoking in postal buildings and office space, including public lobbies. The rule is effective June 25.

The lone House Republican to vote against the IRS overhaul bill Thursday said she was protesting an item tacked on at the last minute that failed to save some health benefits for veterans. . . Both Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and [Linda] Smith wanted to restore disability benefits for veterans who can prove they became addicted to tobacco during military service. . . Smith's vote was praised by the American Legion, which represents 2.9 million veterans.

Butt Man has a new protege: Nick O. Teen.

But now that the massive tobacco bill is dead, along with its $516 billion in potential revenues over 25 years, the enthusiasm for spending so much money on children seems only a memory. President Clinton, who proposed his own version of the child-care initiative, is not pushing alternative funding. Congressional support is in doubt.

Attorney General Frank J. Kelley praised today's decision by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Glazer in the state's tobacco litigation, stripping claims of attorney-client privilege from 834 documents. Kelley said: "Opening these documents to the eyes of the court is a major victory for the public."

The goal of the Orinda camp is to pass on Native American traditions. But this year, with new funding from a state grant, the camp is also teaching tobacco prevention. . . "In Native American heritage, it was used to drop in the fire so that as the smoke goes up it will carry your message to your creator. It wasn't smoked," Spencer told the campers.

As Mr Justice Wally Yeung Chun-kuen observed, that amounts to assisting international criminals. . . If the tobacco companies want the public to believe that they are now behaving better than they have in the past, they must immediately apologise and sack those of their staff who connived in such illegal activities.

But I'm not about to suggest that laws be passed to force people to adhere to my sense of propriety or good taste, nor do I look fondly upon those who do. . . And me? I'll be annoying you with my Marlboros, sans the cowboy outfit, unless, of course, you've permanently parked your car.

That she was one of David Kessler's closest deputies should be an asset to Dr. Jane Henney when her nomination to succeed him as Food and Drug Administration commissioner goes to the Senate. That Henney's association with Kessler may instead hurt her speaks to the super-partisan atmosphere in the Capitol and some confusion about the FDA's real mission. . . Above all, the FDA exists to protect the public, not to placate pharmaceutical manufacturers, food processors or cigarette makers. Jane Henney appears to understand that mandate and should be allowed a chance soon to demonstrate that to the Senate.

On Saturday at the John Adair Middle School in Columbia, those interested in coaxing a living from their land can pick through a smorgasbord of ideas. . . With the jobs gone and the tobacco program at risk, maybe this is the perfect time to think about new markets and new ways of farming.

An image of quiet erudition,
Once available to
scholarly types,
Disappeared from the
American scene
When men stopped
smoking pipes.
--Howard Upton.

270 prospective jurors have filled out an exhaustive questionnaire to help lawyers pick and choose among them. The 124-question survey asks people their beliefs about whether nicotine is addictive and whether smoking causes lung cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, plus lifestyle questions including reading habits, college courses and views on gun control. Circuit Judge Robert Kaye told attorneys at a pretrial hearing Thursday he could easily see jury selection taking a month after the first group arrives in court July 6.

Robert Heim, who is representing Philip Morris Cos Inc. in the suit, said the defendants would file two motions stemming from a Florida appeals court ruling this week overturning a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff in a product liability suit against a tobacco company. . . "Almost every word in the opinion was wrong," Wilner said.

An Ingham County judge has ordered tobacco companies to turn over 834 documents to state lawyers that detail how the companies and their lawyers made decisions about scientific research, politics and public relations.

As the cotton growers continue to grapple for their rights, dark smoke clouds billowing from bonfires of tobacco threaten to rock the Naidu government again. If crop failure played havoc with the lives of cotton growers, the season of surplus has plunged the tobacco farmers in dire straits.

LEADING South African tobacconist Colin Wesley says the international cigar boom has only just started to hit this country. The inquiries and orders coming in to his business from retail outlets, hotels and bars are growing from a steady stream into a flood. Wesley is adviser to SA's main public cigar club, Cigafrique.

A trade mission to China could bring Ontario tobacco farmers a new market, Ontario's Agriculture Minister said Wednesday. No contracts have been signed, but Noble Villeneuve said Ontario and China are working on potential business deals. . . China is interested in tobacco from Ontario because it would sweeten the taste of the more bitter Chinese leaves, Villeneuve said. During the 11-day visit, the TOBACCO GROWERS MARKETING BOARD assured Chinese officials that blue mould from Ontario tobacco wouldn't spread to Chinese plants.

Dr. Bill Anderson said Thursday that Alberta pharmacists should follow the lead of other provinces like Ontario, New Brunswick and, most recently, Quebec, that have taken measures to remove cigarette sales from drugstores.

President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, in a summit heavy on symbolism, are looking to achieve some substance, too. . . On other issues, the two presidents will likely agree to step up U.S. training of Chinese judges and lawyers and establish ways to reduce environmental pollution in China. Agreement also is likely on cooperative approaches to health issues such as birth defects, polio and the effects of tobacco use.

Anti-corruption agents say they have uncovered a global network of bank accounts containing nearly $1.6 billion in cigarette smuggling profits. The ICAC says the cash - which is still under investigation - forms part of a massive international tobacco-smuggling money trail. It is understood to be in accounts in Luxembourg, Jersey, Toronto and Guernsey. . . The discovery of the money follows the investigation into Lui, but there is no suggestion it is linked either to him or Giant Island.

Justice Wally Yeung said it was clear British American Tobacco (HK) had for years put commercial interests above its moral duty to society by supplying blackmarket traders. "Tobacco companies must be discouraged from taking an irresponsible attitude towards our society purely for their financial interest," the judge said.

Irresponsible tobacco companies are helping international criminals, a judge said yesterday. . . Mr Justice YEUNG spoke as he jailed former British American Tobacco (HK) Ltd executive, JERRY LUI KIN-HONG, 42, for three years and eight months. Lui was fined the maximum $500,000.

A court sentenced a former tobacco company executive to jail yesterday for bribery involving millions of dollars, Hong Kong's anti-graft police said. Jerry Lui, convicted in June of accepting $4.2 million in bribes between June 1988 and December 1993 in connection with a cigarette smuggling syndicate, was jailed for three years and eight months, the Independent Commission Against Corruption said in a statement.

Following is the text of the Second Supplementary Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies between Indonesia and the International Monetary Fund dated June 24 and released on Thursday in Jakarta. . . The clove marketing board has been dissolved and cigarette manufacturers are now free to purchase supplies from any source.

But because of a courageous/stupid/traitorous (opinions vary that much) decision by Kentucky's Republican godfather, a genuine disagreement on tobacco has become part of the campaign to fill an open seat in the Senate. During the long summer days, when Rep. SCOTTY BAESLER (the Democrat from Lexington) and Rep. JIM BUNNING (Republican from northern Kentucky) travel the state's burley-lined backroads, they will both be talking about tobacco, plenty.

The 45-year-old systems programmer from British Columbia said he's thrilled with his hefty dividends from Philip Morris (MO). In fact, he recently bought stock in rival cigarette maker RJR Nabisco Holdings (R). "Philip Morris is a fabulous stock," Matthews said. "As far as the moral issue, I hate smoking, but at least I can profit from it, so it doesn't bother me as much."

Rarely are Fargoans associated with the cigar puffing craze celebrities sparked into a national trend. But specialty retailers Darren Patterson and Chad Peda sucked up the national cigar hype and lit the trend ablaze in Fargo. They used it to market their own brand: the Desires cigar.

IT MUST be one of the supreme ironies of the last half of the 1990s that the hand-made cigar trade should be flourishing as never before in the face of huge pressure to curb the advertising and promotion of smoking.

Does anyone remember the time--oh, pick a date between the 20s and the 80s--when this ad would have been seen as obviously targeting children?

Tobacco specialist David Conrad can't see or smell the blue mold spores, but he knows they are out there, lurking in the humidity. It may be only a matter of time, he said, until the spores sprout their bluish-gray fuzz on county tobacco fields.

This year, as soon as Rohrer heard blue mold was found in Kentucky and that the restricted fungicide Acrobat MZ was given an emergency label use, he began spraying his Strasburg fields each week. "Last year really scared me," he said. "I got proactive. It's the only insurance we've got."

The industry is winning lawsuits and prevailing in Congress. Buoyed by its improved standing, companies are pushing ahead with an aggressive PR campaign - and fighting back in court. Indeed, tobacco executives, once considered pariahs, are now castigating public-health advocates as "extremists" who killed any chance for a tobacco agreement. They are even willing to sign their names to their advocacy ads, which lash out at opponents. "It's an incredible comeback," says Richard McGowan, author of a book on the industry and a professor at Boston College.

Cara Biden, an electronics sales rep in Tacoma, Wash., enjoys a good cigar as much as the next person. . . That's why, earlier this year, when she saw them advertised in FAMOUS SMOKE SHOP's catalog for $4.25 each, she wasted no time in calling the retailer's toll-free number.

During the past few weeks McCain's comprehensive tobacco legislation went down up in smoke in the Senate; he had to apologize for an off-color joke he told at a GOP fund-raiser about Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno; and the Supreme Court struck down the line-item veto law that Congress passed in 1996. McCain, R-Ariz., was one of the law's original sponsors. McCain, speaking with reporters Thursday following the court's ruling, said, "I would like to point out that this has been a wonderful two weeks for me personally. I really haven't had quite so much fun since my last interrogation in Hanoi."

"I'd like to get rid of smoking on the screen," said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. "I've talked to a number of directors and producers, but they tell me that even though many of the actors and actresses don't smoke, they still use cigarettes for character development. "In 20 seconds, with a cigarette, you can show nervousness, arrogance, anxiety."

By the time the documentary "Dear Jesse" comes to an end, one question above all seems to press for an answer: Is this film, written and directed by Tim Kirkman, likely to change any voter's mind about Jesse Helms, the conservative Republican who has represented North Carolina in the Senate since 1972? . . . When it is suggested that big business, including the tobacco industry, lies behind Helms' success, "Dear Jesse" makes no effort to pursue the assertion. Intrepid journalism is not its strong point.

It's all in the family for Michele Lee's "Jacqueline Susann" for the USA network. . . Bruce McDonald directs the Lee version and among the transformations (she looks amazingly Jackie-ish) she had to learn to smoke -- chain smoke! I saw her smoking tests. Pretty funny!

MY PAL Martin pulled me into Draper's tobacconist the other day and bought a couple of little stogies. He was determined to have a relaxing afternoon, and after we'd had lunch, he introduced me to the pleasures of Shelly's Back Room (1331 F St. NW, 202/737-3003) where we went to blow smoke rings and catch some World Cup action. . . I'm no cigar freak, but Shelly's Back Room has done everything right to attract a crowd.

Some economists who favor privatization -- notably Professor Martin Feldstein of Harvard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Reagan administration -- vigorously oppose any plan that has a government-run retirement fund buy big chunks of American business. He fears political manipulation of investment decisions -- for example, by ruling out the purchase of shares in tobacco companies -- though Aaron and other liberal economists say government investments could be insulated against that threat.

THE LAST OASIS for the Marlboro Man, the one remaining sanctuary for smokers -- the U.S. Senate -- was finally closed to tobacco last week. . . At the last count of the Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, 30 members of the House and six members of the Senate smoked. They include House Majority Leader, and born-again Christian, Dick Armey and openly gay Democratic liberal Barney Frank (he smokes cigars); the ever-tan Ohioan John Boehnor, the chain-smoking chairman of the Republican Conference, and rumpled Martin Sabo, a Minnesota Democrat who tools home with smoke billowing out of his car windows. Venerable Virginia Democrat and former Senate majority leader Robert Byrd puffs on cigars, and woe be the fool who crosses him on Senate tradition.

But over the last couple of years, a new activism by the chief legal officers in many states has made their job more consequential. . . In addition, the failure of federal tobacco legislation has returned a national focus to the states' tobacco suits, including suits pending by New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

"Have you heard or read anything recently that cigarette smoking may be a cause of cancer of the lung?" . . The Lincoln, Neb., polling group has put tobacco-industry lawyers on notice that using the 90% figure as evidence in several recent tobacco trials was misleading. Gallup maintains that far from proving that the link between smoking and lung cancer was commonly known, its 1954 poll actually showed a high degree of doubt and confusion about the dangers of smoking. The 90% figure, Gallup contends, reflected knowledge of the controversy, not a widely held belief that smoking causes lung cancer. Meanwhile, it says, responding to another question in the poll, only 5% said they thought smoking causes cancer.

Now playing at the Third District Court of Appeal: The Objectors, a squadron of attorneys from around the country who oppose a $349 million settlement of the second-hand smoke suit between Big Tobacco and thousands of the nation's flight attendants. The settlement has been on hold since October, while lawyers fight it out.

Democrats are bashing Sen. Lauch Faircloth's absentee record in the U.S. Senate, where 91 of the 100 senators have better attendance than Faircloth. . . The most recent vote Faircloth missed was a week and a half ago when Democrats tried to tack the tobacco bill onto an appropriations bill. Faircloth, who opposes the tobacco bill, was in Greensboro collecting $500,000 for his campaign at a fund-raiser with Gov. George Bush of Texas. The Edwards campaign quickly fired a salvo: "When he had the chance to stand up and represent North Carolina in the tobacco debate, Faircloth was too busy raising his special-interest money for his campaign." The Faircloth campaign retorted that Edwards declined last week to say how he would have voted on the tobacco bill.

Monday, June 29< 12:30 p.m. - Gubernatorial candidate Ted Mondale announces his plans to create a Senior Citizen Drug Program funded by tobacco settlement money. Ravoux Assisted Living Program, dining room. 280 Ravoux Ave., intersection of Marion and Ravoux streets. Details: Jenn Hathaway at 927-7227 or 802-4939.

The 221st session of the New York state Legislature ground to a close at 6:02 p.m. on June 19, not with the usual lofty declarations of achievement and unity, but with a general acknowledgment by lawmakers that in an election year of partisan attacks and personal animus, many important issues were left unaddressed. . . LEGISLATION FAILED Would have increased penalties for selling cigarettes and tobacco products to minors.

During Iran's 1979 revolution, MAHBOOBEH ABBAS-GHOLIZADEH campaigned hard against the monarchy, and she later studied at one of the famed seminaries in the city of Qom. Now the editor of the women's intellectual magazine FARZANEH, Abbas-Gholizadeh -- a divorced mother of two girls who smokes MARLBOROS and likes mountain climbing -- writes editorials challenging the same revolution.

LUNG cancer victims have hit a new hurdle in bringing the first action in Britain against cigarette companies after the High Court ruled that if they win, they will recover only a proportion of their costs. The ruling by Mr Justice Wright earlier this week at a pre-trial hearing puts at risk the group action by 54 people who are seeking to sue Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher. . . The judge ruled that if 80 per cent of the cases, for example, are successful, then the tobacco companies would have to pay 80 per cent of the overall costs.

Reform of the Europe Union's common agricultural policy (CAP) is finally under way after farm ministers agreed to a controversial revamp of the olive oil and tobacco subsidy regimes. . . The reform of the Ecu1bn-a-year tobacco regime has also been controversial because anti-smoking campaigners argue it is hypocritical for the EU to support the industry at the same time as agreeing measures aimed at stopping consumption such as banning tobacco-related advertising.

At a closed monthly meeting here, the ministers decided to increase aid for the production of higher-quality tobacco and reduce aid for the production of lower-quality tobacco, the officials said. They also decided to increase grower-funded aid for a tobacco research fund and to introduce quota buy-back and other quota transfer schemes, the officials added. The changes will take effect from the 1999

The Canadian experience was among the strongest weapons used by the forces that defeated the sweeping tobacco bill in Congress in early June. Raise the cigarette tax by $1.10 per pack, as the now-dead bill would have done, and a black market will follow, opponents warned. . . But there are major investigations into whether U.S. and Canadian tobacco companies and their employees were themselves complicit in the Canadian black market. Canadian anti-smoking advocates also argue - with ample data - that the companies had to be aware that the bulk of their exports to the U.S. were being smuggled back into Canada.

More and more of Cumberland County's tobacco farmers are yielding to age and economics. The result, according to one official, is an 84 percent decline in the number of tobacco growers over the past 15 years. . . One reason for the decline is the "graying of agriculture." More tobacco farmers are reaching retirement age and, because of economic and other reasons, are not being replaced by their children.

"My father did well," said Boyd, a third-generation tobacco and soybean farmer in Mecklenburg County, Va. "My whole family lived off this farm. They built a home, kept up-to-date equipment and sent me and my brother off to college." . . But today, Boyd and other African Americans complain about a historically hostile climate within the U.S. Department of Agriculture that makes it more difficult for them than white farmers to apply for federal loan assistance and to receive government subsidies.

Hundreds of doctors across the country own and profit from tons of tobacco, despite decades of health warnings, scolding from peers and in some cases their own ethical reservations. They're family practitioners who warn teen-agers not to smoke, psychiatrists who treat addiction, oncologists who identify malignant tumors and surgeons who remove them. One tobacco-owning doctor was a longtime regional medical director for the American Cancer Society. Another runs a public health department. A third writes a newspaper's health tips column.

As director of public health in Jefferson County, Ala., DR. CAROLE SAMUELSON has seen what tobacco can do to people. But she sees no connection between that and her 22,500-pound tobacco allotment back home in North Carolina. "I guess I don't consider it's my tobacco," she says of the farm inherited from her mother's family and managed by her brother. "I guess I would think it was a problem if it hadn't been in my family the length of time that it had."

DR. EDWARD FLOYD . . . and his wife have more than 932,000 pounds of tobacco allotment in South Carolina, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture records. That's enough to make 26.3 million packs of cigarettes a year. . . His mother's people were the doctors. His great-uncle founded the Florence hospital where Floyd practices. The tobacco comes from his father's side, the roots going back four generations. Floyd cannot divide the two halves of his identity. Tobacco, he says, "holds our community here together, ... it's a way of life."

Wisconsin physicians are ridding their state of tobacco in a backhanded way: They're buying the tobacco rights, then not raising it. In Wisconsin, if you don't grow or lease your tobacco allotment two out of every three years, it is cut by 50 percent in the third year, says George Nettum, manager of the Northern Wisconsin Cooperative Tobacco Pool.

The Associated Press cross-checked two primary sources to find nearly 770 doctors and other health care workers who own tobacco-growing rights. -- A U.S. Department of Agriculture database of tobacco owners. -- Medical licensing records

The federal government grants people the right to grow tobacco in specified amounts, known as quotas and allotments. The Depression-era program was established to restrict annual production and stabilize prices.

Proponents of the technology say the global possibilities are huge. A major sporting event broadcast in 80 countries could carry virtual signs with enough different messages to cover every market. It would also allow the potential to advertise selectively products that are banned from television in some markets, such as tobacco and alcohol.

VIRGINIA TECH scientists and commercial researchers are starting the first phase of a multiyear, $754,000 state-funded project on turning tobacco plants into pharmaceutical factories. The researchers this summer are planting thousands of genetically engineered tobacco seedlings at the university's agricultural research stations at Blackstone and Glade Springs. The seedlings will someday produce human proteins that could be used to create new drugs, said Carole Cramer

A labor-led boycott of Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield over smoking lawsuits made its first mark yesterday when Philip Morris USA said it was yanking a chunk of business from the state's largest health insurer. . . The cigarette maker's decision came at the urging of the 600-member Machinists' union, whose leadership has targeted Trigon for joining a national coalition of 43 Blue Cross companies suing major cigarette companies such as Philip Morris for smokers' health costs. "I really think this is a dirty thing for Trigon to pull," said Stephen Spain, the Machinists' chief who is spearheading the boycott.

This is The News & Observer's annual Guide to the Triangle

• DURHAM has High Tech Future, Blue-Collar Past
• SMITHFIELD's Small Town Field
• ANGIER Transforming Itself
• Past Still Shows in BENSON
• WENDELL Wants Historic Recognition
• Parks and Attractions
• Museums

All it takes is a scratch from an errant coyote during a jog in Griffith Park to turn Janet--a needy, irritating young Silver Lake secretary who clings to her engagement ring like a life raft--into the vodka-swilling, chain-smoking, all-night-partying, profanity-hurling Coyote Woman

Mr. Martelle, 55, might be familiar to some television viewers in the United States because he recorded a commercial for the American tobacco industry's campaign against higher cigarette taxes. . . "Smugglers were everywhere," he said in the ad, his baritone deep as a well. "And I'm not talking about small-time dealers selling packs out of their trunks. The criminals that showed up in Cornwall threatened my life and the lives of my family." Mr. Martelle has urged the United States Congress not to go ahead with a plan to raise taxes sharply to curb smoking among teen-agers. "I'd hate to see the same thing happen to your town," he said. "If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere."

With any luck, times will get truly worse for Oliphant and his pen. "I'll do the tobacco thing tomorrow," he vowed at the notion of the death's-head tobacco merchants he mercilessly draws. "All humor and malice," he added, brightening.

Compiled by the National Council for Research on Women, the report also found that 13 percent of girls in 1991 said they smoked cigarettes compared with 21 percent in 1996, outpacing the increase for boys. . . But some connections are worth considering. Studies show that significantly more girls than boys consider themselves overweight, and they may be smoking in an attempt to control their weight. The simple fact is that the increased freedom that successive generations of girls are enjoying has opened the door not only to greater educational and career choices but to greater temptations as well.

The problem of passive smoking in pregnancy remains underappreciated by both healthcare workers and the public.

A complaint seeking class action status was filed June 30, 1998, in the action Hogue, et. al. v. Philip Morris Companies, Inc., et. al., in Circuit Court in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in Hillsborough County, Florida, against Philip Morris Companies, Inc. . . The action alleges, among other things, that Defendants engaged in deceptive and unlawful conduct in connection with the manufacture, distribution, advertising, promotion and sale of Marlboro Lights cigarettes by falsely claiming that the product contained lowered tar and nicotine in comparison to regular cigarettes. Plaintiff also states that Defendants failed to disclose the existence and proper use of ventilation holes and that they intentionally manipulated the tobacco used in Marlboro Lights so as to boost or increase its addictive propensities.

Thomas Strong, a lawyer in Springfield, Mo., who has given more than $20,000 to Democratic causes, has been hired to lead a team of lawyers in Missouri's suit against the tobacco industry. On Monday, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon announced Strong's hiring as a special assistant attorney general. Nixon praised Strong's national reputation and legal prowess.

"There are some plaintiffs lawyers who have asked how can I get up there and speak on behalf of asbestos companies," Kazan adds. "My view is that if this succeeds, I am getting a whole lot of money into the system for asbestos victims. If it benefits these companies, that's also a good thing, because they will be around longer for us to sue."

Wanted: 24 Miami-Dade County residents to spend at least three months listening to scientists and tobacco officials analyze nicotine addiction and smokers' choice. Must be willing to discuss their deepest beliefs with a bunch of attorneys. Potential jurors for next month's Florida smokers' class action trial passed their first test by filling out an extraordinary 124-question survey now getting careful scrutiny by legal teams on both sides. On July 6, the first batch of 270, chosen randomly from licensed drivers, will appear for questioning in Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Robert Kaye's courtroom on Flagler Street.

But Bond never voted to cut off debate and in the end sided with the Republican majority to help kill it. Suddenly, Bond was taking the Ashcroft view. "What was initially a legitimate effort to stop teens from smoking morphed into a massive tax-and-spend bill that raises taxes on millions of Americans who cannot afford it," he wrote in a letter to the Post-Dispatch. He didn't mention he had been for that "massive" tax just a few weeks earlier. What happened?

Badly out-financed Democratic gubernatorial nominee Robert Huntley is blasting Republican Dirk Kempthorne for agreeing to accept another $8,500 from the tobacco industry only weeks before helping kill tobacco legislation the industry bitterly opposed.

The candidates -- GERALDINE FERRARO, MARK GREEN AND CHARLES SCHUMER -- struggled to keep the focus on the Republican incumbent, ALFONSE D'AMATO, and avoid the recriminations that marred the Democratic contest six years ago. . . Green questioned Ferraro's judgment in accepting a $20,000 speaking fee from a tobacco company. . . And then, seeking to turn the tobacco tables on Green, she said: "Mark, you've taken money from an officer of Philip Morris during your public advocate campaign." . . . After the debate, Eichenbaum identified the Philip Morris executive as David Dangoor, an executive vice president who he said had contributed $50, a minimal contribution by today's standards, to Green's campaign in 1993. Green said he did not know Dangoor, and would return the $50 if Ferraro returned the $20,000 she received.

DFL gubernatorial candidate TED MONDALE on Monday proposed using more than 60 percent of the state's recent tobacco settlement to establish a prescription-drug program for senior citizens.

An increasing number of lawmakers in city councils, the General Assembly and Congress have smoked their last cigarettes, possibly signaling an end to the era of "smoke-filled room" politics. Although some observers see the growing number of puffless politicians as an outgrowth of more constituents quitting, smoking opponents welcome the trend as an emotional weapon in their fight against tobacco. "It helps us greatly that legislators know firsthand how addictive and damaging smoking is," said Vincent DeMarco, executive director of Maryland's Children's Initiative, whose goal is to eradicate teen smoking. "They know how hard it is to quit because a lot of them started when they were teen-agers."

While the crop plays an important role in some rural areas of Kentucky, its statewide importance is overblown, The Courier Journal reported yesterday. The newspaper cited economists and government and industry figures. "It's minor compared to some of these other export industries," said Paul Coomes, a University of Louisville economist.

Tobacco's value to Kentucky's overall economy pales alongside automotive, home appliance and other businesses that produce goods headed out of state, The Courier Journal reported. The tobacco industry accounts for less than 3% of the more than $80 billion worth of goods and services produced each year in Kentucky, and less than 6% of the $51 billion in total wages paid annually to workers, according to records examined by the newspaper.

The early favorite is Republican Jim Ross Lightfoot, who was in Congress for a dozen years before losing a Senate race two years ago. Lightfoot, 59, cruised to victory in a three-way GOP primary and will face state Sen. Tom Vilsack, a lawyer who narrowly won the Democratic primary. Trailing in the early polls, Vilsack, 47, has wasted absolutely no time launching his campaign. He has ripped into Lightfoot as a tool of Big Tobacco

But the bill to limit smoking in the workplace and to ban it in the lobbies of high-rise apartment buildings failed to clear the House Health and Human Services Committee when Rep. Tom Huntley's unexpected "nay" left the vote tied. Huntley, DFL-Duluth, says he soon realized that he had been "misinformed" by a lobbyist for retailers closely aligned with the tobacco industry, who persuaded him that the bill would cost union jobs.

A majority of Texas hospitality business owners and managers say they would expect a decline in business if a smoking ban were imposed on the hospitality industry, according to a poll conducted for the Texas Restaurant Association which was released this week at the annual Southwest Foodservice Expo. . . Three hundred Texas proprietors and managers in the hospitality industry participated in the poll which was conducted by the Eppstein Group and funded with a grant from The Accommodation Program, courtesy of Philip Morris Incorporated.

If you're under 18 and caught buying tobacco, you'll pay a $100 fine instead of $50. County commissioners can pass laws banning minors from possessing cigarettes and chewing tobacco beginning Wednesday, just like cities already can.

For M.B. Hanrahan, there is nothing quite as frustrating as a large, looming, preposterously pristine wall. "I see a wall like that and I go, 'Hmmmmm,' " she said. "I go over to it, I touch it, I measure it, I get a feel for it. A blank wall is an empty canvas--something just needs to be there." . . "It's ugly!" moaned Tony Touma, the owner of Avenue Liquor in Ventura. "I'm an American and I'm a businessman, and I don't care for either her or her mural."

The Ventura artist who won a federal case over her damaged mural started to repaint it Thursday as the man who damaged it vowed to do so again. Muralist M.B. HANRAHAN pulled up at Avenue Liquor on Thursday morning with ladders, chalk, measuring tapes, paints, several helpers, and an order from U.S. District Judge Richard A. Paez. The court document allows her to repaint the portion of an anti-drug, anti-tobacco, anti-alcohol mural that had been whitewashed by the liquor store owners, TONY TOUMA and KAMIL YOUSEF.

JOSEPH ESTRADA, a former movie star who transformed his appeal into a successful political career, assumed the Philippine presidency today, promising to give his greatest performance ever. . . He also openly acknowledges a history of womanizing, heavy drinking and gambling, but insists he now has given up all vices - including cigarette smoking, which he quit several weeks ago.

The Republic of Nicaragua has retained the professional services of the law firm Fleming, Hovenkamp & Grayson, P.C. of Houston, Texas, to pursue recoveries on behalf of Nicaragua for the past and future healthcare and related costs resulting from the conduct of foreign tobacco companies in the county.

A Sri Lankan tailor has become the first smoker on the island to try to sue a tobacco company for damages. The man, Kurukulasuriyage Cecil Perera, is claiming about forty-thousand dollars from the Ceylon Tobacco Company, which, he says is responsible for his addiction and illnesses, including lung cancer.

A Sri Lankan tailor dying of lung cancer is suing a British- and U.S.-owned tobacco company, a newspaper reported Monday. Kurukulasuriyage Cecil Perera, 46, filed the lawsuit claiming 2.5 million rupees ($1=LKR65.37) in damages on Friday against the Ceylon Tobacco Co., claiming it was responsible for his addiction to nicotine, the Island newspaper reported.

But one of the industry's less moderate marketing tricks, the cigarette packet trade-in, still thrives in Hong Kong. It works like this: Smokers exchange empty packs for gifts. The more you smoke, the more gifts you get. The effectiveness of these promotions was seen again Friday by Philip Morris Cos., maker of Marlboros. Thousands of people lined up for up to eight hours, battling rain and bus fumes in the busy Causeway Bay shopping district to trade in their empty Marlboro cigarette boxes. In return, they received knapsacks, lanterns, Zippo lighters and other knick-knacks sporting the Marlboro name.

But the evidence on passive smoking is more equivocal than it seems, and "political correctness" among scientists has led to weak evidence being viewed as impressive support. Now IMPERIAL Tobacco, GALLAHER, ROTHMANS and BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BAT) have joined forces to accuse Scoth of ignoring evidence that does not support its views. On Friday, lawyers for the four companies will ask for a judicial review of SCOTH's actions, which could lead to the report being thrown out before the Government can act on its claims.

Blue mold, which caused millions of dollars in losses and damaged about 30 percent of last year's tobacco crop in the state, has been found in SOMERS. Scientists with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in Windsor confirmed Monday that the fungus was spotted Sunday at a farm they declined to identify.

The death of the massive tobacco bill in the Senate two weeks ago was the best news Wall Street has gotten in many months. But with the future of the industry still subject to the vagaries of Washington politics, this year's crop of All-Star analysts are playing it very safe. Right now the safest bet is Philip Morris, the world's largest cigarette maker and marketer of the powerhouse Marlboro brand. Indeed, Philip Morris is the only major tobacco stock recommended by two of the industry's top three All-Star stock pickers.

ALLAN KAPLAN The most decorated of this year's Hall of Famers, this Merrill Lynch analyst earned his honors this year with four All-Star awards for stock-picking skill and earnings-estimate accuracy in both the beverages and tobacco industries. . . In tobacco, despite a couple of cigar-stock recommendations last year that turned soggy, Mr. Kaplan earned second place for stock picking and fourth place for earnings estimates.

Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) said Tuesday its cigar unit has agreed to buy Sociedad Tabacalera Nacional Dominican SA for about $6 million.

TOBACCO machinery maker Molins will slash another 400 jobs from its workforce and close its Peterborough factory as the dramatic slump in demand in Asia and America continues to bite. Molins - which laid off 250 employees in Britain in November - said there was no sign of improvement in the tobacco machinery industry and that it was determined to bring capacity into line with demand.

Loss-making cigarette machinery group Molins is to axe 400 staff in the UK on top of the 250 laid off since last November. The group is to close its Peterborough machine making plant to concentrate on production in its site at Saunderton, Buckinghamshire. Around 370 jobs will be lost at Peterborough, while further cuts are expected from the reorganisation needed at Saunderton.

But there is another, less visible propellant for the Philip Morris juggernaut: Retail Masters, a sales-incentive program that is turning independent retailers into Marlboro cheerleaders. The eight-year-old program rewards participating retailers with payouts based on sales and display of Philip Morris cigarette brands. Philip Morris backs it up with an army of salespeople who press retailers to take down rivals' signs and even redesign entire store layouts to put Marlboro in the choicest position. . . Last year the FTC began investigating whether Philip Morris unfairly restricts the distribution of competing brands.

• 06/29/98 Brazilian Leaf Is Smoked Around The World -- Even In American-made Cigarettes Dimon vs. Universal. Richmond Times-Dispatch
• 06/29/98 Brazil's Tobacco Used To Be Filler
  
  "Twenty-five years ago, Brazil was not looked at as a rival of American tobacco," said Robert Jones, president of Universal of Brazil. "It was looked on as filler."
• 06/29/98 Smoking Ads Pervade Brazilian Downtown / Even The Names Of Streets Describe Favorite Cigarettes Richmond Times-Dispatch
• About 4,000 Miles South Of Richmond, The Queiroz Family And Thousands Of Others Grow The Kind Of Tobacco That Made Virginia Famous. They Call It . . . 'Fumo Virginia'
• 'There's No Way We Can Compete' / Virginia Grower Sees Offshore Battle Brewing
  
  "Dimon is right here in my front door," said Bobby Wilkerson, who grows tobacco near Danville, "and they've taught the Brazilians to grow tobacco because of the cheaper price. That has bothered me for a long time. "They're spending millions of U.S. dollars basically to drive us out of business." Dimon spokesman Todd Haymore said he understands such frustration, but he said the company simply is responding to customers' orders for different kinds of leaf for cigarettes -- American, Brazilian, and African.
• Harvesting 'Virginia Crude' / Tobacco Keeps Rest Of Farm Afloat
• Portrait Of A Brazilian Tobacco Farm Family
  
  Brazilian farmers operate on a much smaller scale than Virginia growers do.
  • MAP: Tobacco's World War Production, Import/Export Figures
  • MAP: Brazil's Tobacco Belts

Tobacco and electricity have fueled a lot of good works in the Carolinas. The DUKE ENDOWMENT in Charlotte, created in 1924 by industrialist JAMES B. DUKE, has contributed $1.3 billion in the two states to support higher education, health care, child care and rural churches. The Endowment, the largest foundation in North Carolina and one of the biggest in the United States, is the subject of a new book by Duke University historian Robert F. Durden to be published July 31. "LASTING LEGACY TO THE CAROLINAS, THE DUKE ENDOWMENT, 1924-1994" (Duke University Press) examines the philanthropic legacy of James B. Duke, who was instrumental in the creation of the American Tobacco Co., Duke Power and Duke University.

Coordinator of drug, alcohol, tobacco and violence prevention programs for the Newport-Mesa schools

SUPERMODEL Elizabeth Hurley has finally quit smoking and no one could be happier about it than boyfriend Hugh Grant. But I do hear the suits at Estee Lauder (where Hurley is paid many millions to promote their cosmetics) are worried that she's gaining a few pounds.

AMALIA RUGGIERI BARONE, Connecticut's oldest resident who walked three miles a day to church until she turned 90, died Friday in her sleep. She was 113. . . Born Oct. 6, 1884, in Italy, Barone never smoked and rarely ate meat. She enjoyed lots of vegetables and pasta, along with an occasional glass of wine.

Richmond International Airport . . . along with a California-based concessions company and cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, today will celebrate the opening of "The Hitching Post," a restaurant and bar designed to suck up smoke from cigarettes before it reaches the nostrils of nonsmokers. . . "A nonsmoker can sit next to a lighted cigarette without catching a whiff," said Steve Mora, executive vice president of Metropolitan Culinary Services, the Burbank, Calif. . . The cigarette maker provided free consulting for the project and also paid an undisclosed fee for advertising, including a western-style wall mural evoking images of Marlboro Country.

"I believe that alcohol is the worst drug that we have today," Mr. Graham continued. "In the United States, alcohol is involved in over one-half of all automobile accidents. We're trying to ban cigarettes and tobacco, but you never hear a word about banning alcohol. Jesus Christ can provide mind- altering things to cure the mind and body for their craving for things that destroy. Evil thoughts are a suicide of the soul."

JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK -- Careless shooting and smoking may have touched off an 800-acre wildfire on the outskirts of this desert preserve, authorities said yesterday.

Juanita Patterson, who was severely burned Thursday night when a small explosion touched off a house fire, died early yesterday. The fire started just before 7 p.m. when Patterson, 84, lit a cigarette near an oxygen tank, which exploded, fire officials said.

In its zeal to curb teen smoking, the governor's war is tossing about dubious statistics that would do the tobacco executives proud. Among them is the claim that tobacco-related illness will eventually claim the lives of 300,000 of Florida's young people.

There is an apocryphal tale in my family that while my mother was in labor, driving to the hospital during a snowstorm in February, she insisted that my father pull over so she could run into the drugstore to get cigarettes. There is another, mostly true story that I was born weighing only four pounds, eight ounces . . . The family smoking habit is sort of like the way we are all Jewish. It is something you are born into. You don't need to practice to refer to yourself as part of the culture. And to deny it would be to deny the very core of who you are.

It took a full year for a Senate bill that would ban tobacco advertising on billboards to move out of committee and onto the floor for action by the Michigan House. . . And it's no secret that many House members and senators prefer to remain cozy with both lobbies -- billboards and tobacco -- and milk 'em for every cent of campaign cash they can get. Meantime ... Well, only 3,000 young people take up smoking every day. So what's the rush, eh, Mr. Speaker?

Cal Thomas Perhaps nothing is more amusing or more pathetic than adults determined to force adolescents to do their bidding. The defeat of the tobacco bill in Congress and pledges by the Clinton administration to continue to search for ways to "save our children" from the ravages of tobacco smoke and addiction to nicotine will be about as effective as Prohibition. Today the crusaders are named Bill Clinton, C. Everett Koop and John McCain. More than 90 years ago there were Chicago's Lucy Page Gaston and her Anti-Cigarette League of America. Gaston's crusade paralleled the work of the Women's Christian Temperance Union

Newsagents and corner shops face being banned by law from selling cigarettes if they persistently turn a blind eye to under-age buyers. The penalty, which ministers believe could cripple offending shops, is being planned by the Government as part of a range of drastic new curbs on smoking. Ministers are also considering offering nicotine patches free on the NHS to pregnant women to help them break the cigarette habit. The new anti-tobacco drive, which will be unveiled in a White Paper in the autumn, could also tighten the limits on smoking in public places.

Bootleggers are abandoning their favoured white Ford Transit vans for Volvo estates and Range-Rovers in an effort to fool Customs officers into thinking they are returning from family holidays on the continent. The cross-Channel smugglers have been forced to change tactics because Customs officers are seizing their vehicles at a rate of 60 a week. The 2,929 vehicles captured last year represented a 500 per cent increase in three years.

Cigarette companies feel the excise duty hike is excessive and would retard the growth of the industry. They are, therefore, pressing for a rollback of excise duties in this sector. The Tobacco Institute of India (TII) has formally written to the finance ministry asking it to either reduce the rate of duty increase to six per cent or bring back excise duty to the pre-Budget level.

Breaking news and in depth research on select companies will soon be available through www.mdcinc.com, a leader in the distribution of internet financial information. . . Companies such as . . . Brooke Group . . . are currently slated for review by the website and are under consideration as subjects for research.

With their opponents in the field of politics temporarily defeated, farmers are concentrating on enemies in their fields of tobacco. There's not much they can do about them. Yellowed, stunted and shriveled plants are scattered among the tobacco fields of North Carolina, most victims of the soil-borne Granville wilt disease.

Parents are likely to underestimate the probability that their children are abusing drugs, according to a team from the Harvard Medical School. . . They report in the July Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry that the children reported higher rates of use than the parents believed were taking place. . . The sole exception was cigarette smoking, with parents suspecting that 16% of their sons smoked, while only 13% said they did. Parents' awareness was greater if the children were younger or having social problems.

Initial findings indicated the cause of the fire was accidental, according to fire officials. "The residents of the apartment appeared to be heavy smokers," said Lieutenant Henry T. Hickey, an investigator with the Fire Department. "We're not sure yet of the actual cause."

Former Beatle George Harrison disclosed Sunday that he has been battling throad cancer since last summer -and is winning. "I'm not going to die on you folks just yet. I am very lucky,". . . He had surgery in August to remove the lump, which was found to be cancerous, followed by two courses of of radiation therapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital, Britain's leading cancer treatment center. "I got it purely from smoking. I gave up cigarettes many years ago but had started again for a while and then stopped in 1997," Harrison was quoted as telling the paper.

Cincinnati Reds hitting coach KEN GRIFFEY Sr., used examples as far back a 1975 for his decision to leave the team for a day last week. More recently, Griffey has felt as if he's an outsider in the coaches' room. "I'm out of the loop because I don't drink whiskey, smoke cigars and listen to old stories," said Griffey in a reference to manager Jack McKeon, who invites all of his coaches to his suite on the road, Griffey included.

The nightmare that is occurring in the cigarette industry should be the only public relations lesson that any business executive or owner ever needs. The smoking industry is the target of the most powerful, most systematic, and unprecedented anti-business campaign in American history. Yet, cigarette makers are absolutely helpless to do anything about it because they committed the most unpardonable public relations sin. They lied.

Mitch Berliner, co-owner of Berliner Specialty Distributors, which stocks Good Humor trucks in the Washington area, said he has asked all his drivers "not to carry this product and to urge your fellow vendors . . . to stop selling candy cigarettes today."

But, like him, I was hard-core, not a casual or habitual smoker. One cigarette, just one, and I'm back to two packs a day. . . I have come to despise those who continue to make money by promoting this addiction, who argue that we have only ourselves to blame for getting hooked, who pretend that smoking is a voluntary act. . . These people should be no more welcome on charity boards, in political gatherings or at social events than the heads of drug cartels

Q. How can I get a smoke odor out of an upholstered sofa? A. Dampen the upholstery with a wet sponge, then sprinkle a whole bunch of baking soda on the damp surface. Leave it for an hour, then sweep up and throw away. You also could use carpet freshener, which is perfumed baking soda. You could mound up salt over the damp surface, let dry, and throw away. The reason you wet or dampen the upholstery: Baking soda will not absorb dry materials very well, but it will do a good job of pulling dampness out, thereby pulling the smoke odor out, too.

I do not know whether onstage smoking violates the public accommodations and service section of the Americans With Disabilities Act. I suspect it may. But at the least, advertisements for productions containing extensive smoking should contain the words: "Smoking Onstage. Unsuitable for Persons with Respiratory Ailments." Posting a notice in the lobby, as some theaters now do, is insufficient. At that point, people already have committed themselves to an evening of theater and paid handsomely for tickets, parking and perhaps a babysitter. And a mailing also should be sent out to the holders of season tickets in advance of individual shows that include smoking offering them a full refund for the show in question.

For months, HHS has been preparing a survey of 20,000 individuals between the ages of 12 and 17 to measure their use of cigarettes, snuff, chewing tobacco, cigars, pipes and roll-your-own tobacco. President Clinton this month announced that as part of an effort to monitor youths' smoking habits he has instructed HHS to expand the survey to identify the cigarette brands teens smoke. . . Last month, HHS issued a request for information (RFI) asking industry for recommendations on how to use computer technology to conduct the survey.

"It comes at the bottom of the list of things that people want," said Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. "Their eyes glaze over when they look at particular solutions." . . One reason for the failure of both tobacco and campaign finance legislation was the lack of a clear perception by the public that the proposals were the right approach.

The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it has amended its 1973 Enforcement Policy Statement (Policy Statement) concerning requirements for clear and conspicuous disclosures in foreign language advertising and sales materials. By amending this Policy Statement, the Commission is clarifying its original intent that disclosures be translated into the language of the audience to which an advertisement is targeted. The revised Policy Statement will appear in the June 26, 1998 Federal Register and will become effective immediately.

Cigarette ads aimed at ethnic communities were printed in Vietnamese or Chinese or Spanish - with one exception. The surgeon general's warning was in English. "It was deliberate, it was part of a continuing effort to mislead and deceive the public, and to recruit new smokers," says health worker Anh Le, a Vietnamese American.

So two years ago, LE, who works with the Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project at University of California at San Francisco, launched his effort to force a change. His main ammunition were letters from health officials and Asian American children urging an advertising crackdown. Friday's FTC amendment, effective immediately, requires advertising disclosures, such as the surgeon general's warning, be in the language of the ad's target audience. According to the notice published Friday in the Federal Register, the FTC said some advertisers had "subverted" the original intent of a 1973 mandate for "clear and conspicuous disclosures" in foreign language ads.

Attorney General DAN LUNGREN's push to have his cases against the tobacco industry heard in conservative San Diego County has other tobacco foes suggesting that politics are guiding the AG's litigation strategy. "There is absolutely no rational reason for him to go to San Diego," said Joseph Cotchett Jr., one of several members of the plaintiffs bar who has leapt at the chance to go after the tobacco companies. "There is only one possible reason -- he doesn't want to share any credit with LOUISE RENNE."

Connecticut Attorney General RICHARD BLUMENTHAL asked a state judge on Wednesday to freeze more than $10 billion in tobacco company assets. Blumenthal, a Democrat, also told a news conference he was requesting an immediate trial on Connecticut's claim that the companies violated antitrust laws. . . "These new strategies are designed to combat the two most common tactics adopted by the companies, which are essentially denial and delay," Blumenthal said.

It is ridiculous and absurd for Mr. Blumenthal to try to force the tobacco industry to pay money before a trial on the merits," said Little. "Unfortunately, politics and publicity, rather than the law, seem to be the guidelines by which the attorney general pursues his goals. Every business in Connecticut should feel threatened by a publicity-seeking attorney general who would file a speculative lawsuit and then attempt to grab the money before the claims were fully tested in a court of law."

The trade of tobacco may face worldwide gradual restrictions, aimed at minimising its use due to perilous impact on human health. Official sources told NNI Monday the United Nations is to convene an anti-tobacco summit in New York shortly to issue new guideline to control trade and use of tobacco. All the 180 member countries of the United Nations will attend this global moot.

The industry ministry is considering a proposal to allow foreign investors to pick up 50 per cent equity stake in the domestic tobacco companies. While the final view on the matter is yet to be finalised, the ministry has ruled out giving majority equity stake to foreign companies in any tobacco venture.

Tracking U.S. health behavior | Highlights of a study that measures how Americans are faring in health-promoting behaviors . . . Percent of adults who: Don't smoke '84--70%, '96--72%

According to figures compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics . . . Smoking among pregnant teenagers increased, particularly among Mexican, Puerto Rican and black teens, though overall smoking during pregnancy continued to decrease.

The percentage of unmarried black women giving birth dropped to a record low in 1996 after seven years of steady decline, the government reported Tuesday. . . The report, released Tuesday, also found . . . a continued drop in the percentage of women who smoke while pregnant.

Bruce's case is not an isolated one. I get calls regularly from people in his position who are being made sick just from going to work each day. . . For every eight smokers who die from tobacco use, a nonsmoker dies, as well. Who is responsible for protecting their rights? Our city council and county commissioners are the people to turn to for help. These elected officials have the responsibility to protect residents by giving them a safer workplace and eliminating this 100-percent preventable condition.

In a weekend letter to U.S. Tobacco Co., obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, SATCHER accused the company of manipulating federal statistics in a campaign to persuade lawmakers not to revive national anti-tobacco legislation. . . "Everybody's been told that the use of smokeless tobacco by minors is going up. Everybody's been told wrong," U.S. Tobacco wrote in newspaper ads last week.