Tobacco News on the Web
Archive, July, 1998
Note: These articles wink in and out of existence with the frequency of sub-atomic particles. Many links will be dead. In that case, these pages can be approached as bibliographies, both noting the event, and showing where you might look for further information.
- Suffolk County restaurant owners filed a legal challenge today to the county's ban on smoking in bar areas of restaurants. The suit, filed in the Eastern District of the U.S. District Court, seeks to enjoin enforcement of the law and to have the ordinance declared unconstitutional. Eight restaurant owners have joined the suit which argues that Suffolk's new smoking ordinance violates their right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution by allowing smoking in stand-alone bars while banning smoking in the bar areas of restaurants.
- A novel whistle-blower suit that accused an indoor-air consulting firm of acting as a secret front for tobacco companies in their war on smoking bans has been settled out of court for $100,000--with the money to be paid by tobacco companies and split between the U.S. government and the former employee who filed the case. The settlement with HEALTHY BUILDINGS INTERNATIONAL of Fairfax, Va., resolves the 5-year-old case in which a former HBI executive had charged the firm with defrauding federal agencies that hired it to perform air quality inspections of their buildings. HBI had done so, the suit claimed, by concealing a secret agenda of exonerating tobacco smoke as an indoor pollution cause
- Today, somewhere in Seattle, lawyers for the tobacco industry and the state of Washington are meeting for secret negotiations. They are exploring ways to settle one of the biggest lawsuits in Washington history. If they fail, which is more than likely, a jury trial will begin in two months. . . But while the popular perception is that tobacco companies are on the run, some experts believe the opposite. Gregoire could encounter more resistance than previous litigants because the legal momentum has shifted to tobacco's side.
- Blumenthal asked a state court judge in Litchfield, Connecticut, to attach $2 billion each at Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., Loews Corp., UST Inc. and B.A.T Industries Plc's Brown & Williamson unit. Blumenthal's filing, the first such move in any of the 37 pending tobacco suits by states, cites Connecticut's unfair trade practices law, which allows asset freezes without a jury trial if there is "probable cause" that the state will succeed in its case.
- "Mr Blumenthal is simply attempting to distract the citizens of his state from the setbacks he has suffered in his case," Thomas McKim, assistant general counsel for the tobacco company said. In particular, McKim said Blumenthal is trying to distract attention from the U.S. Supreme Court's recent refusal to hear his appeal of a Second Circuit Court of Appeal's decision on the tobacco industry.
- Five inmates have sued the state Department of Correction for the right to use peace pipes, herbs and beads for religious ceremonies. "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," according to the suit. . . The inmates, all members of the Native American Spiritual Awareness Council, said they meet daily for prayer and discussion
- D'Amato defended his record on tobacco legislation, saying that despite taking donations from cigarette companies he has voted to protect the health of children. He said he voted with Democrats against allowing the filibuster to continue on the tobacco bill and he voted against waiving liability claims, both stands against the industry's wishes. "I'm proud of voting for the health of our kids and opposed to the interests of the tobacco companies," D'Amato said. The tobacco industry contributed $41,166 to D'Amato since 1993
- Moving to quash a potentially damaging campaign issue, Geraldine A. Ferraro has decided to donate to charity the after-tax proceeds of a $20,000 honorarium she received from the tobacco industry last year, her aides said yesterday.
- Sen. Mitch McConnell yesterday told Central Kentucky tobacco farmers that he would "fight like hell to save this program, until hell freezes over or we don't have enough votes." That was pretty much what farmers wanted to hear. But after what many in burley country perceived as the Republican senator's defection in the June fight against the tobacco settlement bill, most were cautious. "He's out trying to heal his wounds," said Jim Barton
- U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell is doing some political cultivating this week in meetings with tobacco farmers around the state. The main topic has been an ill-fated tobacco bill - why it collapsed in the Senate and why McConnell had backed a plan to buy out production quotas and end a 60-year-old price support program. In light of the bill's defeat, "I think the best approach is to cling to the program as long as we can," McConnell told about 60 farmers at the Shelby County Cooperative Extension Service on Wednesday.
- Beginning Saturday, employees and visitors to Joliet's Provena St. Joseph Medical Center who want to smoke will have to leave the hospital's 33-acre campus to light up. The medical center, which long has banned smoking inside its buildings, has extended the ban to the property surrounding the hospital complex
- "Now we begin to see the power and influence of this industry, " state Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III said Wednesday.
- Cigarette makers spent $250,000 to lobby in Minnesota in the first half of 1998, according to the first detailed disclosure reports filed Wednesday. PHILIP MORRIS, the industry-leading manufacturer of Marlboro cigarettes, spent the most, paying $75,742 to its own lobbyists, plus $81,121 to the Tobacco Institute, the industry trade group, and two other organizations. The second-largest cigarette maker, R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO Co., spent $57,860 on its own lobbyists and contributed $22,473 to the institute and another group during the six-month period.
- But it was the chief backer of a petition to overturn the ban on smoking in Corvallis bars who puffed in protest Wednesday and got the first citation under the new law. At about 3:45 p.m. police handed Mike Kelley a $100 ticket for smoking cigarettes inside Squirrel's Tavern. Kelley's protest wasn't the only result of the first day of the ban. Local bar owners already were complaining of fewer customers while others were raising questions about how the law will be enforced.
- The City Council has given final approval to a tough new anti-smoking ordinance that goes beyond state law including a citywide ban
- The report, released Tuesday by the Minneapolis Department of Health, is a detailed breakdown of how Minneapolis stacked up in a 1997 national study by the Chicago Department of Health of 46 urban areas. . . For example, men have higher rates of suicide, traffic deaths and lung cancer deaths than women in Minneapolis. And blacks have higher rates than whites of teen pregnancy, infant deaths and smoking during pregnancy. Although St. Paul was one of the comparison cities in the original study, it is mentioned only in passing in the Minneapolis report. Most notably, it ranks third, right behind Minneapolis, in cities with the highest rate of smoking during pregnancy among blacks.
- Russia's Federal Security Service said Thursday it had begun a large-scale investigation into the importing of alcohol and cigarettes by diplomats. The agency said last month that foreign diplomats were bringing in "commercial amounts" of alcohol and tobacco and using their status to avoid paying taxes.
- Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) said Thursday that it signed a pre-agreement with Spain's major trade unions. . . The basic premise of the labor agreement revolves around voluntary early retirement at 55 years of age, the company said.
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Profits (Billions Of U.S. Dollars)
- #7--PHILIP MORRIS--6.31
- Directors of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. today declared the regular quarterly cash dividend of $578.125 per share, or 57.8125 cents ($.578125) per depositary share (the 1/1,000 share units that trade on the New York Stock Exchange), on the company's Series B Cumulative Preferred Stock.
- The city's first X-rated store added another attraction Friday when three peep show booths opened in the store across the street from City Hall. Odyssey II, which surprised city officials two weeks ago when it opened for business, started advertising the peep shows on its facade. . . The store's applications described it as a cigar bar that would be a "recreation-amusement facility for leisure-time activities." Mary Mastro, Occupational License Division director, said she met with store officials last week and told them another license was needed for the store to operate. That license, used specifically for adult-oriented businesses, would normally cost the company about $500, she said.
- Hooker McDonald sees trouble growing on the tips of his tobacco leaves. They're brown and crispy like the inside of the Camels he's smoked for 50 years, not the lush green of a healthy plant. Hooker McDonald shows a shooter on a tobacco plant. Hot weather has caused problems with tobacco growth. Staff photo by Sam Wolfe He's not desperate yet, but the Bladen County farmer needs some cooler, rainier days to keep his tobacco from turning to ash.
- VICTOR Kiam, the flamboyant American investor, has stepped in with a bank guarantee for Ronson, enabling bankers to extend the cigarette lighter company's overdraft until the middle of next month.
- POLITICALLY INCORRECT bargain hunters should check out Compagnie Financière Richemont (estimated fiscal 1998 revenues, $7.5 billion), the Swiss firm that owns the world's fourth-largest tobacco company. Its global brands include Rothmans and Pall Mall. Through its Vendôme subsi diary it owns Cartier jewelry, Piaget watches and Montblanc pens.
- Best- and worst-performing industry groups globally in the first six months of 1998
Worst Performers Performance
Tobacco -7.60
- We're probably still safe in calling Sotheby's the world's most famous auction house. Robert Lacey's wildly entertaining new book, "SOTHEBY'S - BIDDING FOR CLASS," demonstrates that it isn't the oldest, as the firm has always claimed, nor, in some seasons, even the biggest. . . (Lacey offers an amusing account of the failure of the Sotheby's cigarette, which was supposed to bail the firm out of one of its periodic financial crises.)
- Money to Burn Department: A cigarette butt that was puffed by Bette Davis in 1960 sold at auction Monday for $345.
- How you smell could hurt your career, according to a survey by CNS Inc., a Minneapolis consumer-products concern. More than 77 percent of 1,000 people surveyed say they work with someone whose clothing or hair often smells of tobacco smoke.
- He has battled addictions to drugs, alcohol and cigars. . . Now against all expectations, Mr. Osbourne has become one of the biggest money makers on the road. . . "What I was doing last year was I was smoking loads of cigars and it was messing my chest up and my voice was getting bad. Plus I've suddenly developed allergies and asthma. But this year I've been working on it. For me the audience can lift me up out of anything: they're better than Prozac or a shot of whisky."
- QUESTION OF THE DAY: "Why," asks a tobacco company's billboard on the Long Beach Freeway, "do politicians smoke cigars while taxing cigarettes ?" Hmm. Can't remember Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, California's two U.S. senators, puffing on stogies. WHICH REMINDS ME: Les Woodson of San Pedro is amused by the Winston cigarette ads that say, "No bull," coming as they do during the controversy over additives in cigarettes. "Does that mean," Woodson asks "that they no longer have cow manure in them?"
- On the I-95 expressway that links Washington, DC with New York city, there is a huge billboard that asks: "Why do politicians who smoke cigars want to tax your cigarettes?" . . . Nobody can put on an advertising blitz like Marlboro or a giant health company, certainly not an under-funded public interest group. In America, it is no longer enough for industries to buy politicians. Now they buy issues, too.
- Bruce Jenkins I saw no hooligans, but I saw upper-crust British men in crisp suits and ties, scrappy yobbos just off work and slinky, elegant women, looking to have come right off the fashion catwalk, coolly puffing on their cigarettes. Ah, the smoke -- it was everywhere, thank God. No one in Europe would even think of banning it. The smoke-filled room goes so naturally with jazz, blues, bohemia, passionate conversation -- and the big sporting event. I don't smoke, but I heartily inhaled it. (One of a thousand maladies could do me in, perhaps tomorrow, but I guarantee you it won't be second-hand smoke. That's like being killed by a Miles Davis record.)
- On Easter Sunday, 1929, the legendary public-relations man EDWARD L. BERNAYS rounded up ten carefully chosen women, put cigarettes in their hands, and sent them down Fifth Avenue in what was billed as the Torches of Freedom march. . . Today, we're told, Bernays's touch is everywhere. The advertising critic RANDALL ROTHENBERG has suggested that there is something called a Media-Spindustrial Complex, which encompasses advertising, P.R., lobbying, polling, direct mail, investor relations, focus groups, jury consulting, speechwriting, radio and television stations, and newspapers--all in the business of twisting and turning and gyrating. Argument now masquerades as conversation. Spin, the political columnist E. J. DIONNE wrote recently, "obliterates the distinction between persuasion and deception."
- Forget George Wallace's axiom that there's not a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans. Thanks to the platforms each party adopted at their recent state conventions, it's easy to tell the parties apart this election season. . . Republicans see smoking as a "free will" issue, and as long as cigarettes remain legal, "government has no legitimate interest in their regulation." Democrats see it as a health issue and want "efforts to prevent and stop smoking and prevent tobacco-related disease."
- The death in the Senate of the tobacco bill by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., appears to have denied them the extra revenue to the federal government that might have financed an overhaul in the marriage tax schedule and other modest tax cuts this year. President Clinton was ready to go along with an adjustment in the tax rate on income to married spouses in exchange for a higher tax on cigarettes to discourage kids from smoking, but that deal seems dead.
- R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. asked a judge Thursday to keep its widely recognized Joe Camel out of the industry's first class-action suit brought by smokers, saying the character's only value would be to inflame jurors. . . Lead tobacco attorney Robert Heim also asked Kaye to exclude any mention of settlements and settlement talks involving tobacco companies, but Liggett attorney Marie Santacrocci said other companies might open the door based on questioning of Liggett owner Bennett LeBow.
- Tobacco industry lawyers asked a Florida judge Wednesday to drop Liggett Group as a defendant in a class-action lawsuit filed by ailing smokers on the grounds that the cigarette-maker is on the plaintiffs' side. tobacco . . attorneys argued that Liggett's settlements in other tobacco litigation and its admission that nicotine is addictive and smoking causes illness had in effect put the company on the other side. "It is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing...It looks like a defendant, but it's not really a defendant," said Robert Heim, an attorney representing Philip Morris Co Inc (MO - news)
- Jury selection got off to a slow start Monday for a landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry that seeks $200 billion in damages for up to 500,000 sick Florida smokers. The first man questioned said he thought the idea of smokers getting money in a lawsuit against tobacco companies was "ridiculous." Anticipating more trouble with jury selection, Circuit Judge Robert Kaye told the lawyers: "This is not one of those issues where people don't have an opinion."
- "We are going to make it very, very clear that cigarette smoking is a killer and it has ruined the lives of millions of Americans and millions of American families," Stanley Rosenblatt told Reuters.
- The trial will unfold in stages, with the first one determining whether producers are liable for tobacco-related health problems and should face punitive damages. . . The industry will try to knock out the case, he said, and if that fails, it will move to settle it, despite recent tough talk against settlements. . . If jurors hold producers liable, and there is no settlement, the jury will next hear the cases of six smokers representing the class. In the third stage, the claim of each class member will be reviewed to see whether their illness was smoking-related.
- Noting all these issues lying ahead, the judge who allowed the case to proceed as a class action in January did so reluctantly. "I believe the case may be unmanageable," said Dade County Circuit Judge Alan Postman, in denying a defense motion to decertify the class. "I do have substantial reservations regarding the class action ... ." The judge implored the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami to review his decision and provide guidance. But the appeals court declined, and Judge Postman withdrew from the case, citing health problems. It is now headed for trial before the same judge who presided over the flight attendants' class action last year -- Dade County Circuit Judge Robert Kaye.
- The trial's master of ceremonies is another veteran of the Broin case, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Robert Kaye, an ex-smoker and former prosecutor and radio newsman. Kaye's complicated three-phase trial plan favors the plaintiffs by focusing first on Big Tobacco's alleged misconduct. For about three months jurors will hear from a parade of scientists and anti-smoking activists
- "The class accuses the tobacco companies of telling many lies over the years," said Miami attorney Stanley Rosenblatt on the final day of pretrial arguments in Miami-Dade Circuit Court late this week. But Philadelphia attorney Robert Heim, who leads a battery of lawyers for Brown & Williamson, Liggett Group, Lorillard, Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds and two industry trade groups, said the main issue is the exercise of choice. Smokers can quit if they put their minds to it. "It's common knowledge that smoking is more risky than not smoking," Heim said. "The risk is outlined on the pack. It's a legal product."
- Wall Street is watching the case closely because the plaintiffs' lawyers, Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, in October won a landmark $349 million settlement for nonsmoking flight attendants. . . "This is big, this is bigger than big," said Nat Walker, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., a unit of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN) and the lead defendant in the case.
- "I think a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon . . . trying to cash in," said a woman who works at the motor speedway in Homestead. She said it is "ridiculous" for anyone who knows the hazards of smoking to turn around and sue the industry for damages. Despite those opinions, and the fact that cigarette ads at the speedway contribute to her salary, she insisted she would remain neutral until after all the evidence was presented. Stanley Rosenblatt found that hard to believe. "I quite frankly don't know why we go through this exercise when it's so obvious she's biased," he told the judge.
- But if the industry lets the case go to trial and loses, it could be looking at a long-running and very expensive precedent. With a hostile judge (the same one who presided over the stewardess trial) and two lawyers on a hot streak, the betting here is on a settlement.
- Sick smokers overflowed Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Robert Kaye's courtroom on Monday, the start of jury selection in their landmark class-action trial against the tobacco industry. Some had gaping holes in their throats from cancer operations; others sucked oxygen from tubes.
- Supreme Court Judge Edward D. "Chip" Robertson Jr. is resigning to take a job with a Kansas City law firm that will participate in Missouri's lawsuit against the tobacco industry.
- Faced with opposition from some restaurant owners and their patrons, the City Council will decide Monday whether to repeal Portland's ban on smoking in restaurants. The council, which adopted the ordinance in April by a 7-2 vote, is likely to put the issue on the November ballot rather than repeal the ban.
- A New Haven vending machine company is challenging the town's new ordinances banning cigarette machines and outdoor tobacco advertising. Modern Cigarette Vending filed a lawsuit Thursday in Derby Superior Court seeking an injunction against the ordinances and challenging the constitutionality of the advertising ban.
- The complete ban on smoking, announced late Wednesday by Mayor Michael R. White, prohibits smoking in all airport buildings, including all leased properties, restaurants, cocktail lounges and airline clubs. It affects Hopkins and the smaller Burke Lakefront Airport. . . "Airport facilities often determine the first impression a traveler makes when visiting a new city," said White. "We want the traveling public to have a great first impression of our city" by ensuring that the airpoirts "are clean, safe, healthy and customer-service friendly."
- What is believed to be the biggest seizure of illegal fireworks in Colorado history was taken from a cigarette butt-strewn warehouse near Downtown Denver early Friday, averting what could have been a massive explosion, authorities said. . . They said the warehouse had no sprinkler system, was not designed to store explosives and contained an unknown number of people - some of whom appeared to have been smoking. "It would have been a bomb" had it ignited, Montoya said.
- A FLORIDA LAW repealed June 17 was on the books for less than four years and was used in only one case. . . Now that comparable statutes have been passed in Maryland and Vermont, industry lawyers are renewing arguments that such laws unfairly allow states to change the rules in the middle of the game to make it easier to sue.
- SANTA MENDOZA freely admits she's not a household name. But the West Hartford lawyer may become one after she completes her election campaign against state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. . . Blumenthal also challenged Mendoza's statement that his high-profile lawsuit against tobacco companies was unnecessary because of private claims already filed by victims of smoking-related diseases. "My opponent either misunderstands our lawsuit . . . or she intends to serve as Big Tobacco's mouthpiece in this campaign," Blumenthal said, calling the suit vital to recover millions of dollars in state costs for smoking-related health problems.
- A majority of Maryland voters favor legislation that would nearly double the price of a pack of cigarettes, but most smokers predictably oppose the idea. . . Among smokers, who represented 16 percent of the survey participants, 77 percent said they opposed the tax increase. Only 14 percent said they strongly favor such a tax.
- The Maryland Children's Initiative released a poll in which 61 percent of state voters surveyed said they would support the $1.50 tax increase "to reduce teen smoking." Among other respondents, 28 percent strongly opposed the tax plan, and 9 percent somewhat opposed it, according to the survey of 1,500 voters. The state's current cigarette tax is 36 cents a pack. The coalition's plan calls for phasing in a $1.50-a-pack increase over three years, to bring the tax to $1.86.
- "We'll be launching a major campaign to make sure Maryland voters know how candidates stand on this issue," said Vincent DeMarco, executive director of the Maryland Children's Initiative, an anti-tobacco coalition of 286 health and children's organizations pushing for the tax.
- Joe Norton, who has waged a war of words with the Quebec government over tobacco taxes, was re-elected Saturday to his ninth two-year term as grand chief of the Kahnawake reserve south of Montreal. . . "As far as I'm concerned, Canada and Quebec have no authority and no right to impose any kind of taxation on us," Norton told the CBC's french-language news service on Saturday.
- However, six other state-owned companies _ Korea Telecom, Korea Tobacco & Ginseng Corp., Korea Gas Corp., Daehan Oil Pipeline Corp. and Korea District Heating Corp. _ will be privatized on a step-by-step basis until 2002, it said. . . In privatizing Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Corp., the 35.3-percent government share will be sold until the end of 2000, he said.
- Despite being the man who turned Formula One into a multi-million-pound business, Bernie Ecclestone managed to keep a low profile until his £1 million gift to the Labour Party threatened to turn him into a household name. In a rare interview, he tells Robert Chesshyre what happened over tea at Number 10
- The purchase of flue-cured Virginia tobacco in the plains of NWFP will start from July 6. A decision to this effect was taken by the committee constituted by the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) to monitor the development of 1998 tobacco crop and to recommend suitable dates for commencement of tobacco purchase by the companies and tobacco dealers in NWFP.
- The six to be gradually privatized are two big utilities -- Korea Telecom Corp and Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) -- and Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Corp, Korea Gas Corp, Daehan Oil Pipeline Corp and Korea District Heating Corp.
- * Now that the Brown & Williamson Tobacco unit of BAT Industries promotes redesigned packages of Kool cigarettes with ads carrying the headline "NU look," will Northwestern University become popular with smokers? * Are the Marlboro cigarette billboards in the Richmond, Va., area carrying the headline "You get a lot to like" -- a line from one of the brand's early jingles -- a precursor of a retro-chic national campaign from Philip Morris Cos. that would include a concert tour by Julie London, who sang the jingles? * When executives of the U.S. Tobacco unit of UST Corp. decided to promote Copenhagen Long Cut snuff with the slogan "It satisfies," wasn't there anyone there to remind them that Chesterfield cigarettes were once sold with the slogan "They satisfy"?
- Nothing else comes close to tobacco as a "cash crop" in Tennessee, according to the organizer of a tobacco farmers' rally, scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 18, at Rogersville City Park. Terry Whitson, chairman of the FREEDOM TO FARM RALLY, said organizers expect 5,000 to attend. State and federal lawmakers have been invited.
- Scientists are developing a statewide network of weather stations to help farmers predict when blue mold and target spot diseases might strike their tobacco crops.
- North Carolina Farmworkers Project members use the Fourth of July to urge migrant laborers to unite against inadequate working and living standards.
- Legalizing hemp - the controversial, non-potent cousin of marijuana - could give the state's agriculture a financial high, according to a University of Kentucky report released Friday. . . "It looks to us as though you can earn some returns on growing hemp that are below tobacco but above other crops." . . That could be good news for Kentucky farmers concerned by tobacco's uncertain future. Disease-resistant hemp is also viewed as a useful rotation crop among grains and vegetables.
- "I don't use tobacco, I don't necessarily believe in it, but I'm trying to deal with reality," said Donald A. Yacktman, whose Chicago-based mutual fund, the Yacktman Fund, has more than 14 percent of its $815 million in assets invested in Philip Morris, the consumer-products company whose brands include Marlboro, Kraft and Miller, among others. Indeed, Yacktman is among a growing core of value-oriented portfolio managers who see tobacco-company stocks as good deals now, despite the obvious future risks.
- FOR the first time in English cricket a major competition will become
extinct when the Benson and Hedges Cup final is concluded on Saturday.
And about time, too. . . Helping batsmen into their stride in early season has been another minor benefit of the B and H, outweighed by the bad habits it has promoted. . . Having two divisions, it might also accustom counties to the idea of promotion and persuade them that relegation need not be the end of their world. Stub out that cigarette, light up the future.
- Osbourne says he's working now to beat what he calls his last addiction, tobacco. He's been on the patch. "Toughest thing I've ever had to do kick in my life," he growls. "Worse than smack, cocaine, crack, anything. I'm not all clear yet. It's too easy for me to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes."
- Two hours or so into my Lower Cave tour at Carlsbad Caverns, the tour guide paused in the dark 840 feet beneath the border of Texas and New Mexico and beamed her headlamp on an artifact she wanted us to see. I had read about this in a brochure. I leaned toward the light, squinted once, then opened my eyes wide. There, in the colorless earth, I saw it: a crumpled pack of Chesterfield cigarettes. "It dates to the 1940s," Viv said importantly.
- The fires have blackened nearly 145 square miles of Tsavo East National Park's 425 square miles, said assistant director John Muhanga,. He said several fires set last weekend by nomadic herders and others have been put out, but another blaze - started by a lit cigarette apparently dropped by a tourist - has continued to burn.
- Melody Baker says tainted groundwater in west Phoenix caused her rare blood disorder. The companies she blames for the contamination point to other possible culprits: cigarettes, maybe even her hair dye. Carmen Phillips says trichloroethylene -- also called TCE -- in the water gave her grandson leukemia. . . To bolster their cases, Valley defendants, who include Motorola and the city of Phoenix, have researched many of the plaintiffs' lives. In stacks of documents filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, the lawyers point to everyday habits they say could be as much to blame for health problems as TCE, or more so: using breast implants, smoking cigarettes, pumping gas, being exposed to chemicals at work
- Feeling growing pressure from parents to make classrooms safer and more productive, schools are deciding to isolate more students like Lupolover who have serious behavior problems -- but not learning disabilities -- in entirely separate settings that have unconventional academic programs and rigorous counseling. . . Lupolover said he wants to come back because he likes the school's teachers and its rules; or, rather, the lack of them. Never at a loss for words, he presents an example: "Take smoking," he said. "It may not be a good thing, but it's just a fact many students smoke. They're addicted. But in a regular school, you have to sit there for six hours, going crazy because they won't let you smoke, ever. You're not concentrating, and you're getting mad."
- THE 4th Lord Swaythling, who has died aged 69, was chairman of his family bank, Samuel Montagu & Co, and later of Rothmans International. . . He went on to be a director of several well-known companies, including The Telegraph plc, and in 1988 became chairman of Rothmans. The Rothmans group had interests in brands of luxury goods as well as in cigarettes, but in 1993 Swaythling presided over a restructuring which concentrated the company's activities in tobacco.
- Joe Camel and "Big Tobacco" are the recipients of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists' first Tammany Hall Award. The prize goes to subjects providing "rewarding and inexhaustible" material for editorial cartoonists. "Because of the corrupting influences of the tobacco industry, we thought there was an unmistakable parallel to the New York City political machine for which this award is named," stated AAEC president Mike Ramirez of the Los Angeles Times and Copley News Service.
- Blue Light Inc. is looking for extras to appear in a film about the news media and "60 Minutes" news magazine producer Lowell Bergman's involvement in the tobacco controversy. Al Pacino will portray Bergman. "They'll be looking for people for scenes in the courtroom, downtown and at a party," said Michele Bishop, Pascagoula's planning coordinator. Bishop said about 2,000 extras will be needed, with some small speaking parts.
- Green said that two other problems have stymied bridge popularity and growth: smoking and rudeness. Both seemed to be staples because of the high-tension bridge environment. But both have been wrestled to earth. At ACBL tournaments, smoking is now forbidden. Brief smoke breaks are built into each event, at intervals of about 45 minutes.
- What is different this time, though, is that it is Mr. Wallace who is doing the letter-writing, attacking a new movie from Walt DISNEY Co.'s Touchstone Pictures unit that is dredging up some of "60 Minutes" dirtiest laundry. The film, which started shooting last month in Kentucky, tells the story of Jeffrey WIGAND
- But the real reason why Castro keeps bringing in people like Leonardo DiCaprio, John Kennedy, Matt Dillon and Arnold Schwarzenegger is to lobby for the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo. After Jack & Co. had a three-hour meeting with the tropical tyrant, Nicholson declared Castro's fiefdom "a paradise" and left for Miami, where he was brazenly handing out the contraband cigars Fidel had given him. It was left to Lincoln DiazBalart, an anti-Castro Cuban-American, to point out that Cuban citizens aren't allowed to visit the cigar factories and nightclubs the tourists are shown. And, DiazBalart said, "Nicholson has not been to any of the hundreds of prisons where thousands of political prisoners languish in dungeons."
- Yes, we're used to being treated as though we're barely human, but even so, the case of two Peterboro nurses pursued all the way to the courtroom by the smoke police is so bizarre it's hard to believe it's true. . . The nurses say they were more than the nine metres from the door that the law requires. The smoke cop who ticketed them, Ingrid Cathcart of the Peterboro health unit, says they weren't. The nurses said they were 9.4 metres away from the door and standing near a can placed there for cigarette butts.
- Sen. Trent LOTT is part of a group called the Singing Senators. They just came out with a CD, although the sound is a little muffled. "Turns out they recorded it in the back pocket of a tobacco executive." (Jay Leno)
- Gov. Pataki last year committed $2 million for local enforcement. The mayor also has finally put teen smoking in his cross hairs, vowing to crack down on violators. Early results are favorable. Last year, the city inspected 200 stores. Since April, it has inspected 2,000 and found that 45% sell to kids. All were fined. But the city can't relax. Since the tobacco companies started targeting kids, teen smoking has soared. Joe Camel did his dirty job too well. Now the city must do its job even better.
- Lorillard is constrained from commenting on documents that have been and will continue to be the subject of litigation. Your readers should not mistake our silence as acquiescence with the article's factual misstatements and wrongful implications. . . Nevertheless, I must point out that the allegations and "revelations" reported in the June 28 article are not news, but are a recapitulation of charges that anti-smoking advocates have been making for some time. The documents you present, or more to the point, misrepresent, are but a handful selected by lawyers for plaintiffs in lawsuits . . . It is disappointing that the News & Record failed to address these subjects fairly and accurately. The community deserves a higher level of professionalism from your publication
- The Victorian Drug Trends 1997 report, the most comprehensive assessment of illicit drug use in the state, reveals that heroin may no longer be regarded as a "hard drug" by the drug community. . . Dr Rumbold has called for more investigation of several trends, including the increase in heroin use, the increase in younger and female users and multiple drug use. Tobacco, cannabis and heroin were the most common combinations
- With little fanfare, the head of the world's largest tobacco company has been named a director of one of the planet's most powerful media and entertainment companies, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Geoffrey C. Bible, chairman of Philip Morris Cos. Inc., was voted onto News Corp.'s board June 23. The announcement got scant news coverage . . . "The tobacco industry has worked very hard to cement itself to the American and international corporate structure," said William Novelli, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington. "I believe this is a conscious strategy . . . to make that industry very hard to pull out of the corporate mainstream."
- Allen started collecting as a child growing up in rural Florida. But he didn't hit his stride until he reached adulthood, after he and his wife turned their bait-and-tackle shop into a roadside restaurant about 55 miles east of Tampa. . . There are 125 old cigarette packs, mostly brands no longer made, with the seals still intact, displayed in a glass case. "My husband was funny," Jewell Allen said. "Anything unusual or historical, he had to have it."
- "We can't send the gendarmes in," Keith Cooper, a Briton who is a spokesman for soccer's world governing body, said in frustration. . . In the victory over England, Argentina's coach, DANIEL PASSARELLA, even ran toward the field holding a cigarette. . . And what of FERNAND SASTRE, who led the drive to bring the World Cup to France? He recently died at 74 of lung cancer.
- "Don't root, they'll kill you," my wife whispered. Kill me? They're already trying to kill me, with all the cigarettes they smoke in public, including the press rooms of this World Cup. I will never understand how a people that cares so much about good food and tasteful clothing will stink up the air -- and the food, and the clothing.
- A blue cloud hangs over the World Cup, a nicotine haze that even invades the field during games. Its source is the bench . . . the coaches, led by Daniel Passarella of Argentina and Herbert Prohaska of Austria, have had no qualms about feeding their habit during games. And the worldwide TV pictures of these figureheads smoking have upset the leadership of a supposedly healthy sport.
- I see the effects to tobacco on people's health every single day as I practice medicine and attempt to minimize their discomfort and ills with medications and so forth. I shall never believe that smokers (and other users of tobacco) are second-class citizens in any way. . . While I personally will never grow the crop and will not have it grown on the property which my family bought at the Claiborne County auction in 1961, I shall maintain the intrinsic allotment or quota and seek no further poundage. . . I thank Mr. Breed of the Associated Press and Randy Kenner of this newspaper for their words, input and insightful reporting.
- Grady had violated the state's four-year statute of limitations - by six days. "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 opinion states. "Therefore, by the time he filed suit on Feb. 10, 1995, the four-year statute of limitations had run." Instead, Carter should have known on Feb. 4 that something was wrong, the court said. Despite being caught with the goods, the company walked and can still claim it never lost a case.
- Blowing smoke 1: The Blue Havana stores in Chicago tell us they have a deal to sell cigars rolled with legal Cuban tobacco imported before the 1958 embargo. We don't know enough to vouch for the quality of 40-year-old tobacco, but we're told it was found in an abandoned New Jersey building.
- In contrast, the ACLU supports many reforms that would protect and increase political speech, including instituting public financing, improving certain disclosure requirements, establishing vouchers for discount broadcast and print electoral ads, reinstating a tax credit for political contributions, extending the franking privilege to qualified candidates and requiring accountability of and providing resources to the Federal Elections Commission. Still, our former ACLU colleagues press proposals that inevitably would limit political speech.
- Just as our democracy embraces the secret ballot, Bulow and Ayres propose that donations, like votes, be kept confidential. Any contribution larger than $200 would be filtered through a blind trust, and distributed to candidates devoid of any information about its source. Let the tobacco industry divert its tar-stained profits to Republican candidates. Let the unions bosses triple members' dues and give it all to Democrats. Let 10,000 PACs bloom. Just don't tell the politicians where the money is coming from. The cleansing effects on today's political discourse would be extraordinary.
- Bigness is not automatically a vice. It is nevertheless true, and sad, that what used to be an extensive web of small farms has been reduced to a remnant. You've heard of businesses becoming less labor-intensive. Well, growing tobacco has become less farmer-intensive. . . For that, blame shifting fiscal realities, policy changes bad and good, and the man no one dares criticize anymore: RONALD REAGAN. Early on, our 40th president set out to impose his odd brand of free enterprise on all but a favored few. In regard to agriculture, he drew no distinction between small, self-sufficient farms and small, inefficient farms barely sputtering along with government help. If you didn't aspire to be big, you were one of those "marginal" operations whose numbers needed thinning. Neither government's solicitude for Big nor its indifference to Small has ever been successfully challenged. . . The decline of the family farm is regrettable. It will be not only regrettable but inexcusable if the end comes because America sat and watched, believing that death was inevitable and its cause natural.
- In a town where influence equals power, the lobbying industry can boast of some big numbers -- registered lobbyists outnumber the members of Congress by a 27-to-1 margin. . . The king of the lobbying crowd in 1997 was the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, which reported spending $17.1 million. High on its agenda: Giving patients and doctors more freedom under managed care health plans, and reducing teen smoking. Also lobbying on anti-smoking legislation was tobacco, beer and food giant PHILIP MORRIS, the second-biggest spender at $15.8 million. . . Overall, major tobacco industry players reported spending $31.65 million lobbying last year.
- "Cigarettes are so bad for you that even selling them can be hazardous."That's the warning an ad campaign by the Food and Drug Administration gives retailers. To keep stores from selling cigarettes to kids, a new law says store workers must I.D. everyone under 27. If stores are caught selling cigarettes to minors, they can face fines that start at $250 and go up to $15,000. Plus, the FDA wants your help: You can report stores that violate the new law by calling 1-888-FDA-4KIDS.
- Nader said the White House had "bollixed" the bill by making proposals that it did not expect Gorton to accept. And two Democratic senators -- Robert Torricelli of New Jersey and Dianne Feinstein of California -- worry that the bill would provide unnecessary protection to a dozen small gun makers. They expect to sponsor an amendment that would exempt the entire gun industry from the limits. The bill already exempts tobacco companies.
- Tobacco companies will pay the State of Mississippi an additional $550 million under their settlement of litigation, to reflect the companies' May settlement with Minnesota. . . . Under the amended agreement, Mississippi agreed to surrender any additional right to monetary adjustments in the event of future industry settlements with other states.
- "This agreement provides Mississippi with a settlement similar in many respects to the agreement reached between the industry and the State of Minnesota," said spokesperson Scott Williams.
- Various tobacco companies started buying Virginia tobacco here on Monday. With the commencement of the Virginia purchase the tobacco season has entered its peak phase which will continue for more than two months.
- The Department of Health pointed out the tobacco industry had lost on all its arguments apart from the narrow one of the committee's failure to consult. "It should be noted that the decision to grant leave [for the judicial review] does not impugn the accuracy of the committee's conclusions. It merely reflects the fact that, on one particular aspect, its procedures may have been open to criticism," it said in a statement. In his ruling, the judge said the report lacked scientific rigour because it had made potentially damaging remarks about the companies without any comment on the reliability or independence of the source of the comments.
- Bill O'Neill, science and research adviser to the British Medical Association, said: "We are very keen to see the industry in court on a wide range of matters related to tobacco. We are confident of the scientific evidence that breathing other people's smoke does cause disease. "Manufacturers have had every opportunity to publish any scientific information they possess that they feel was not submitted to the report. But they have consistently refused to disclose information."
- The judge, Sir Alan George Moses, said that parts of the anti-smoking report appeared to be an unbalanced attack on the "commercial morality" of the big tobacco companies. The judge said that the scientific committee that made the anti-smoking report should either have sought comment from the tobacco companies, or left some critical material out of the report. "After all, it was intended to be a scientifically rigorous report," the judge said. "Arguably there was not much scientific rigor about the passages I have quoted."
- Mr Procter said the report had been selective in its use of scientific studies and had chosen to ignore important evidence. "The report ignored two studies about the effects of passive smoking and heart disease because they were funded by the tobacco industry. "We would like a proper look at the science behind the call for a ban on smoking in public places and we hope that some of the outrageous statements in this report will be amended or removed. The judge has agreed with the UK tobacco companies that there is a case for SCOTH to answer. That is a very significant development."
- Four tobacco giants have won the right to bring a High Court challenge against a hard-hitting official report which calls for bans on tobacco advertising and smoking in public places. A judge said the report by the Scientific Committee On Tobacco and Health (SCOTH) contained passages which might do "commercial damage" to the companies. It was "arguable", he said, that they should have been consulted and given the chance to comment before it was published.
- The UK's big four tobacco companies have asked the high court to grant them a judicial review of a government advisory report that recommended a bar on smoking in public places and a complete advertising ban. A lawyer for the companies said they had not been properly consulted, and condemned the report by the scientific committee on tobacco and health as "one-sided and seriously flawed". British American Tobacco, Gallaher, Imperial, and Rothmans want the go-ahead to seek an order quashing the report, which was published on March 11, and an injunction restraining the government from taking it into account when considering any new smoking and health legislation. . . The judge said he would give his judgment today.
- SCOTH is the main advisory body on tobacco issues to the Government which is due to publish a White Paper later this year. The companies said they were not consulted on the research which went into the report and questioned the credibility of some of the experts. . . Relations between SCOTH and the companies had broken down in the last year after previous consultations had led to voluntary agreements, avoiding the need for legislation, according to BAT.
- The launching of Europe's single currency in January will increase those margins that Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) can charge for its products, a spokeswoman for the company confirmed Tuesday. That follows Monday's comments by Director General Fernando Labad who said the euro's implementation will give the company a 45% margin on its cigarette products.
- The difference between the price of Philip Morris Cos.'s MARLBORO cigarette and such discount brands as R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s DORAL is the widest in five years, raising fears that smokers may soon switch to the cheaper cigarettes.
- Facing a tough comparison with 1997 results, General Cigar Holdings Inc. (MPP) may post lower earnings this year. In a conference call with analysts and investors Tuesday morning, President and Chief Executive Edgar M. Cullman Jr. said it may "be difficult to equal the performance with 1997."
- General Cigar Holdings, Inc. today reported second quarter net income of $6,766,000 or $0.24 a diluted share on sales of $68,248,000 compared to net income of $6,390,000 or $0.22 a diluted share on sales of $58,908,000 in the 1997 second quarter. . . Edgar M. Cullman, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer, stated that, "Our sales growth both in the second quarter and six months validates the continuing demand for cigars
- General Cigar Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MPP - news) Please be advised that General Cigar Holdings, Inc. will have a conference call to discuss second quarter earnings on Tuesday, July 7, 1998 at 11:00 a.m. EST.
- PaineWebber Inc. reduced its second-quarter earnings estimate for RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN) to 55 cents a share from a previous estimate of 61 cents, citing a higher-than-anticipated tax rate. In a research note, the firm said the higher tax rate is the result of softness in the company's international tobacco business, which has a lower tax rate than the company as a whole.
- Goldman Sachs & Co. analyst Marc Cohen said he cut his second-quarter and full-year earnings estimates for RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN) to reflect greater-than-expected weakness in the company's international tobacco operations. The analyst also said the overseas unit should show a higher effective tax rate, further weakening earnings.
- Among the reasons for the upgrade, ADELMAN cites "the likelihood of a moderate recapitalization of the company" that could add 25 cents a share to yearly earnings and "improving" market-share trends for UST's moist smokeless tobacco products. The analyst also said, in a Tuesday morning research note to clients, that the long-term underperformance of UST's shares, along with the "significant distinction" between the company's health liability exposure and that of cigarette manufacturers, make UST a more attractive investment opportunity.
- TOBACCO companies are bracing for a sponsorship war as they anxiously await a decision on whether Zhuhai will be given the go-ahead to stage a Formula 1 race next year. Sponsorship rights would be worth millions of dollars for the city circuit near the Macau border. Only last year, the Zhuhai International race was sponsored by MARLBORO, who are expected to be the favourites to back a Formula 1 race.
- Puffing along: Formula One officials have insisted they would remove races from countries that introduce strict anti-tobacco legislation in favor of Asian countries with less severe regulations. Why? Because 10 of the 11 F1 teams carry tobacco logos on their cars. Only Stewart-Ford does not.
- U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is scheduled to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Friday at 6 p.m. as part of the ongoing Reagan Forum lecture series.
- McCain-Califano 2000. You saw it here first. But we saw it first in big black letters, attached to the bumper of an '87 Chevy Nova. It is the handiwork of Donald Larson, 72, retired science teacher, dedicated blood donor, staunch maverick. "I had it custom-made," said Larson, of Chevy Chase, of his bumper sticker. "Only one in the universe." He wants these guys in the White House because . . . ? "Well, basically, I think there is one real man on the Hill, and his name is John McCain," Larson said of the Arizona GOP senator who has fought for campaign finance and tobacco reform. "And Califano was secretary of HEW and foursquare against tobacco."
- Richard J. LeBrasseur, president of PRIMEDIA Supplemental Education (NYSE: PRM - news) announced that its Weekly Reader newspaper for kids Web site, The Weekly Reader Galaxy, has been chosen by The Association of Educational Publishers (EdPress) as the winner of the first Golden Lamp Award for technology Web site . . . Weekly Reader also received two 1998 distinguished achievement awards. Weekly Reader, Edition 5 won for news story in children editorial with "Smoking is Out" and Weekly Reader Pre-K won most improved for children whole publication.
- Tourism is a big thing in France this year, what with the World Cup, so Jean-Paul Gaultier jumped on the bandwagon with his weekend menswear show for next summer. . . Gaultier also paraded some striking striated suits in gold and browns with cigarette pants - models smoking cigarettes as they quaffed beer - jogging pants tucked into boots, and, lo and behold, some good suits.
- Investigators blamed careless smokingfor a house fire in Mankato, Minn., that killed three men. Fire officials said they believe last Thursday's blaze was started by a smoldering cigarette or pipe between the cushions of a sofa or easy chair. The homeowner, Richard Hogan, 71, and Lyle Hagemann, 49, were dead at the scene. Doug Anderson, 53, died Sunday. --
- THAT DONALD TRUMP, who owns the Miss Universe contest, joins MISS AMERICA KATE SHINDLE and former Miss Australia & MISS WORLD MELISSA HANNAN at Drew Nieporent's CITY WINE & CIGAR CO. in Tribeca tonight for an AIDS fundraiser thrown by DISHES (Determined Involved Supermodels Helping to End Suffering).
- A newly released Disney cartoon video described as "fully restored" has been cut by politically correct censors to remove a series of gags about smoking. Melody Time, seven animated segments which debuted at number four on the video charts, features Pecos Bill, originally a chain-smoking cowboy who turned tobacco into an art form. . . Original animator Ward Kimball is not too upset about the cuts. "I admire the fact that they're worrying about it," he said. "After all, Walt [Disney] died from chain-smoking."
- The Northern Kentucky Tobacco Team, a group of individuals and organizations led by the American Cancer Society, is promoting the "Don't be a butthead" patches. So far, coaches are reluctant to endorse the idea, saying children should not be billboards for social causes. "We want to stick to the soccer theme," said Cyriac Wegman, president of the Villa Hills Soccer Club. "We don't want to get caught up with other issues. Basically, there are parents who smoke, and you don't want to be getting into battles with people who smoke."
- NEW YORK, Jul 08 (Reuters) --Anti-smoking campaigns aimed at children should begin as early as elementary school, researchers say. "The prevailing smoking prevention strategy, which concentrates resources on middle school prevention programs for adolescents, overlooks the needs of children who are at risk for habitual cigarette smoking," conclude investigators at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Stanford University in Stanford, California.
- Researchers say certain children as young as 8 to 10 years old are at special risk of starting to smoke, and that for them, school anti-tobacco programs aimed at middle school students are too little, too late. A three-year study of 400 fourth, fifth and sixth graders finds the children at most risk are those whose parents smoke, and children who believe their parents don't care or know if they try cigarettes. Children who get lower grades at school, get into more fights, and have easier access to cigarettes at home also were found to be at special risk. The results are published in the August issue of Health Education and Behavior, a journal of the Society for Public Health Education.
- Once again it is summer and everyone needs one-liners when going to the inevitable cocktail party or cookout. . . "Would you like to see what tobacco did to my teeth?"
- The American Advertising Federation (AAF) will serve as a clearinghouse for public service advertisements (PSAs) in 100 local markets the White House has targeted for a $195 million anti-drug campaign. . . The AAF will work with the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) to determine the relevance, effectiveness and eligibility of the local market PSAs. Ads will be screened for creative and technical quality, eligibility and whether they meet the campaign objectives. Messages must address ways to prevent drug use, such as programs for underage alcohol and tobacco use
- President Clinton traveled (Thursday) to Atlanta to symbolically launch a $195 million federal effort to use television and other advertisements to turn children away from drugs. After listening as a room full of children were warned about the dangers of cigarettes and alcohol, Clinton was headed to . . . and a dinner at the Miami home of actor SYLVESTER STALLONE expected to raise about $800,000 for Democrats running for Congress.
- The National Institutes of Health needs to be more scientifically rigorous in how it chooses spending priorities for its rapidly growing research budget, according to an independent report critical of the recent politicization of the agency's appropriations process. The report, released yesterday by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, also recommends that NIH develop a formal mechanism for giving patient advocates and other nonscientists more direct influence over how much money gets spent on various diseases. An organized system of advocacy would serve the public better than the current one, in which various groups compete in a desperate effort to get Congress to earmark spending for "pet" diseases, the report said. . . Critics in Congress have estimated, for example, that NIH spends $110 a year on AIDS for every death from that disease, but only $10 in cancer research per death from cancer and $2 in stroke research per death. Concerns have mounted as advocacy groups have perfected their lobbying acumen.
- The Democratic nominee for Ohio attorney general yesterday asked state legislators to ban tobacco advertising targeting children and blistered GOP incumbent BETTY MONTGOMERY's actions in a tobacco lawsuit as "tantamount to legal malpractice." RICHARD CORDRAY told reporters that Montgomery's failure to file a timely lawsuit against tobacco companies "has jeopardized Ohio's ability to recover any significant damages at all."
- The Democratic challenger for state attorney general wants to reduce teen smoking by banning Joe Camel and other tobacco advertising aimed at children.
- Near a cigarette billboard depicting a swim-suited young couple frolicking in water, Democratic gubernatorial candidate MYRTH YORK unveiled measures to curb tobacco use by children. York on Wednesday called for a state ban on outdoor tobacco advertising and a ban on cigarette vending machines.
- The Bay St. Louis Police Department, along with the Mississippi Attorney General's Office, will sponsor a free class at 1 p.m. today on the new tobacco laws and how they affect area merchants. . . The class is open to anyone who sells tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and smokeless tobacco. Details: Sgt. Jim Martin at 467-9221.
- Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) has fired state Health Commissioner RANDOLPH L. GORDON, whose office embarrassed Gilmore during last year's campaign . . "It's clear to me that [Gordon's] priority is not a political agenda, but the health of the people of the commonwealth," Judith S. Castleman, a Richmond consultant who represents health organizations, including the American Cancer Society and American Lung Association, said today about his ouster.
- Gordon was caught in a major political flap in February 1997 when a subordinate indicated the administration of then-Gov. Allen, upon advice from the office of then-Attorney General Gilmore, would not enforce certain federal tobacco regulations. Allen and Gilmore moved quickly to say Virginia would enforce the rules, but fallout from the incident was among factors that helped lead to Gilmore's resignation as attorney general because he was running for governor.
- The City Council has effectively banned billboards advertising tobacco and alcohol products at the prompting of a group of middle-school students . . . Councilman Thomas O'Leary said the action was prompted by a group of Sierra Vista Middle School students who suggested the city enact a law similar to one Compton adopted earlier this year.
- Voters in Maine's largest city will decide in November whether to ban smoking in restaurants. The Portland City Council voted 7-0 Monday night to let residents have the final say on an ordinance that prohibits smoking in Portland's more than 200 restaurants except those that have separate, ventilated rooms for smokers.
- Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, and the American Cancer Society are asking state officials to ban smoking in the State House. The building is to reopen next month after a three-year, $48 million renovation. Critics argue that allowing folks to light up will ruin the elaborate renovations with yellow stains and a lingering stench. And the clouds that once hung over the crowd in the main lobby "like a smokestack" pose a health risk for workers and visitors, said Patrick Cobb, of the South Carolina division of the American Cancer Society.
- The protection of tobacco as a legal and profitable crop took center stage as the two major party candidates for Kentucky's open seat in the U.S. Senate addressed the Kentucky Farm Bureau on Tuesday.
- BAESLER said he has been the more vocal supporter of tobacco. He publically stood up to President Clinton on the issue, even though it wasn't politically viable, he said. He criticized Bunning for not being more outspoken against his fellow Republicans, Sens. MITCH MCCONNELL of Louisville and Richard Lugar of Indiana, this year when Lugar proposed ending the price-support program. McConnell endorsed that proposal. BUNNING said if elected he would have more clout to fight for tobacco because he would be in the majority party. "Scotty would be in the minority of the minority," he said.
- Employees at City Hall in Rhinelander who smoke will join their counterparts from other governments buildings outside. It's the last government facility in the county to go smoke free.
- Bleachers at city parks are expected to be off-limits for anyone holding a lighted cigarette. The City Council voted unanimously last night to approve the smoking ban. But people would still be able to puff away in other park areas, according to the proposal scheduled for a final council vote in two weeks.
- The symbol, common on all poisonous household products such as bleach and Draino, is one of a series of new warnings being considered by federal health officials as part of an overhaul of cigarette packaging. Officials feel the warnings Canadian smokers have been reading for several years may have outlived their effectiveness. Although current health warnings are worded by Health Canada, they are placed on packages voluntarily by the tobacco industry. Under last year's Tobacco Act, however, the federal government gave itself power to order tobacco companies to change packaging, which they consider to be the prime method of communicating to smokers.
- "We're gathering the evidence to find what would make effective health warning messages and the skull and crossbones is one of the options we're looking at," Dr. Murray Kaiserman, coordinator of research at the health department's office of tobacco control, said on Wednesday.
- Jose Luis Rodriguez said a jump in the tourism, fishing, and tobacco sectors allowed the Cuban economy to grow at a 4 percent annual rate during the first three months of 1998, despite the sugar industry's woes.
- The Church of England has entered the smoking debate, calling on the Government to ban all tobacco advertising. Members of the General Synod have overwhelmingly backed a private members' motion "deploring the continued advertising of cigarettes in Britain and the aggressive marketing of tobacco in the Third World despite overwhelming evidence that smoking kills". The motion was carried by 375 to 5, with only one member speaking against it.
- The Rev CHRISTOPHER HALL, of Oxford, who tabled the motion, said: . . . "The peer pressure is deliberately created by commercial interests. Advertising creates a climate in which smoking is seen as acceptable, macho, aggressive and modern."
- Madrid's top health official says it's not his responsibility to restrict cigarette smoking at a government-sponsored World Congress on Health and Urban Environment. At a press briefing today, Councilor Simon Vinals ("vin YALLS") says smoking _ while very much a health hazard _ is an individual right. He has declined to forbid smoking in the hallways of the municipal conference center where 800 delegates debate ways of making the world's burgeoning cities a healthier place to live. . . He says, "We have the world's best ventilation system, so secondhand smoke is not a problem."
- "The World Cup in France led to an unexpected increase in cigarette consumption," says Mohamad Sadek Ragab, chairman of the Eastern Tobacco company in Egypt. "We had to put on the market 200 million cigarettes each day, representing a daily increase of 55 million cigarettes daily to meet the demand."
- Lucio Tan, one of the Philippines' wealthiest men, is negotiating a settlement of his alleged 25.6 billion peso (PHP) ($1=PHP41) tax-evasion case, a high government official has said. The official, who requested not to be named, said talks have begun between the government and Tan on how to settle his alleged delinquency "amicably." . . Tan, his Fortune Tobacco Corp. and 11 conduit marketing firms and 65 of his business executives are facing multiple tax evasion cases before the Department of Justice.
- Richard Tate, president of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association, which represents 1 400 mainly white growers, said projected Z$970m state revenues from the 10% levy on every bale sold were likely to be cut to Z$300m below last season's Z$561m takeoff because of the recent collapse in prices. Simultaneously, Nokwazi Moyo, director of the 700-member Indigenous Commercial Farmers' Union, said the collapse of Boka's United Merchant Bank with reported Z$2bn debts meant black growers had lost their source of crop finance.
- Davenport & Co. analyst Jack Maxwell Tuesday downgraded Schweitzer-Mauduit International Inc. (SWM), a maker of specialty paper for tobacco companies, to underperform from hold. . . The expected earnings shortfall is caused mostly by weakening cigar consumption in the U.S.
- THE SMOKER'S SIDEKICK(TM) is a portable ashtray that fits conveniently into a standard car beverage holder and can clip easily to a belt or bag. "Smokers can take the unit along in the car, on the boat, to the beach, or golf course; it goes anywhere they go," says Luedecke, the company's president. (Suggested retail $19.95. Call 800-622-6069 or see www.cslincenviro.com ).
- RJR Nabisco Holdings was smoked for a $1 3/16 loss to $22 3/4 on concern that second quarter earnings from its international tobacco business will drop about 20% due to the difficulty in selling cigarettes in economically depressed Russia. . . Philip Morris, the nation's largest tobacco company and subject of this week's Dueling Fools, fell $1 5/16 to $38 1/4, even though it supposedly has been immune to Russia's economic problems.
- Are you a Marlboro Man or a Kraft Mom? Tobacco and food conglomerate Philip Morris is everywhere -- and lately it has been the subject of smoking lawsuits and a hot topic in many investor-related Internet forums. But is there any jiggle left to the maker of Jell-o? This week, Dale Wettlaufer (TMF Ralegh) and Paul Larson (TMF Parlay) are Dueling Fools. Dale thinks the shares will light up soon. Pauly thinks it's all smoke.
- As if Triad tobacco farmers didn't have enough to worry about, a hot-and-dry spell is threatening to stem the growth of this year's already lean crop. . . Rainfall in Guilford County was just slightly below normal during June -- at 3.53 inches compared with a typical 3.8 -- but the bulk of it landed during the first half of the month. Now tobacco farmers, one month away from the opening of auctions, are scrambling to irrigate their parched golden leaf.
- The state's tobacco crop that goes to auction beginning July 28 is withstanding the heat so far, with half rated good, the statistics service said. Tobacco is South Carolina's most valuable crop.
- The City Council of Benicia has passed a resolution welcoming Dixie, a 50-foot-tall Brachiosaurus that later this month is to be carried from Dixon by helicopter to Benicia, to a resting place in front of the headquarters of the discount chain CIGARETTES CHEAPER! . . . Roscoe says he's shelling out that much to please his 4 1/2-year-old son, who drives by Dixie with his mother every day.
- The Vienna Stock Exchange is aiming to introduce options on the stocks of tobacco products group Austria Tabakwerke AG (R.ATW) and packaging group Mayr Melnhof Karton AG (R.MMK), a spokesman confirmed Wednesday.
- Austria Tabakwerke AG (R.ATW), Austria's dominant tobacco wholesaler and producer, said Tuesday that its unit sales in the first half of 1998 rose just under 16% to 11.5 billion cigarettes. Domestic unit sales rose 19% to 7.3 billion, while foreign sales rose 11% to 4.2 billion.
- Big tobacco companies, drained by weak foreign currency exchanges and declining U.S. cigarette consumption, are expected to log ho-hum earnings for the second quarter. Even the extra cash from recent cigarette price increases didn't put enough oomph into the bottom line. . . In fact, the rate of declining cigarette consumption actually doubled in the quarter, to 3%, from a year ago, said Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst David Adelman. The main culprit: higher prices.
- When he started with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Michael Lamphier pondered the potential quandaries of working for Big Tobacco. "You wonder, in the back of your mind: What if some day I find out something bad? What if I got in a meeting, and somebody said `What if we do this?' or `Maybe we can sneak this through' ?" Four years with Reynolds' marketing erased Lamphier's fears of moral quicksand. "I've never been asked to do anything bad."
- ITC Ltd today launched the fourth-largest international brand, State Express 555, in India. . . 555 is the largest selling brand in the Rs 300 crore Indian grey market with a share of almost 60 per cent. . . The brand is under licence to ITC from Ardath Tobacco Ltd, a 100 per cent subsidiary of British American Tobacco.
- During a recent meeting of House GOP leaders, Speaker Newt Gingrich complained that there was so much smoking in films these days that even a Muppet has been seen puffing a cigar. Asked a perplexed Armey: "What's a Muppet?" How to explain this knowledge gap?
- Doctors at the annual AMA House of Delegates meeting in Chicago -- emphasizing that cigars can have serious health consequences -- took note of the Chicago Bulls' celebratory cigar-smoking on national TV after their recent victory over the Utah Jazz and passed an emergency resolution asking sports stars not to use tobacco at sporting events and post-game celebrations.
- JAMES ROSEN, Washington correspondent for the NEWS & OBSERVER, won the ROBIN GOLDSTEIN AWARD FOR REGIONAL REPORTING. Contest judges said his "diverse, beautifully written body of work . . . showed a keen insight into how Washington-based stories affect the readers back home." Rosen's coverage of tobacco legislation and the plight of black family farmers in North Carolina, as well as a personal column about his father, drew special mention.
- LARRY GILBERT is gone, yet his memory is very much in evidence this week at the SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP. The cigar-chomping Gilbert, who died of lung cancer in January, won the championship at the TPC of Michigan last summer. "It hit our tour hard," said Dave Stockton, a two-time winner of this tournament. "It was a senseless death."
- A pioneering no-smoking policy for CARNIVAL Corp.'s new $325 million PARADISE cruise ship is hurting bookings for groups, according to travel agents and the company. "It's no surprise but group sales for the Paradise are about 20 percent (of bookings). Usually they run about 35 percent," said Tim Gallagher, spokesman for Carnival, the biggest cruise-ship operator in the world. The no-smoking policy appeals to many individuals and families and overall sales for the 2,040-passenger Paradise . . . "The problem is any group of 100 people will, on average, have 25 smokers," Cruise Weekly said.
- Tennessee Sen. BILL FRIST said he would divest himself of federal tobacco growing rights if he owned any but said other physicians in the state should make their own decisions.
- The first breakdown of drug and alcohol use by specific ethnic groups has produced some interesting findings, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) said. . . Overall, 30 percent of Americans smoke, the study found. Among Native Americans that number jumps to 52.7 percent, while 32.7 percent of Puerto Ricans, 31.5 percent of Caucasians, 31.3 percent of South Americans and 29.9 percent of black Americans smoke.
- But the most recent study, commissioned by a pro-hemp group and released last week, concludes that hemp could be the best thing for Kentucky farms since tobacco. . . That's considerably less than the profit from an acre of tobacco but better than corn, hay, soybeans and wheat. It's time to quell the reefer madness and figure out how to let farmers experiment with a crop that could help them stay in business.
- What would really simplify the debate would be to let FDA fully regulate tobacco advertising and the content of cigarettes and other tobacco products and the marketing issue will take care of itself without the immunity and big dollar distractions. It makes sense and it's simple on paper, but get those "mute" buttons ready and brace yourself for another "Big Government" ad campaign brought to you by "Big Tobacco." Unfortunately, they haven't stopped running the other one.
- Burying this unjust denial of benefits under the covers of a popular tax-reform package is cowardly. "I believe that if the American people knew about these unseen and unspoken provisions," Smith said, "they would be outraged and require cleaner bills from their elected officials." She's right. Why single out veterans? Why just smokers? . . . Retracting a promise to take care of vets in their twilight years - many of whom now have emphysema and lung cancer as a result of cigarette-promoting war policies - is cruel and hypocritical. If Congress and the White House don't want to bear the burden of tobacco-related illnesses, they should get out of the business of encouraging soldiers to light up in the first place.
- Sen. KIT BOND's vote against the national anti-tobacco legislation may be the smoking cigarette of the 1998 U.S. Senate campaign. Bond has not offered a credible reason for being against this bill, particularly when he claimed that the issues bothering him were high taxes and making lawyers rich.
- Tony Moschetti's letter mentioned that only 2 percent of cigarettes are consumed by teenagers (June 30). While this may be true, teenage smoking is much more important to the health of our citizens and to the tobacco industry than that percentage would imply. . . By preventing the 90 percent of smokers from becoming addicted to nicotine, one can eventually prevent 90 percent of the 400,000 deaths a year attributable to tobacco. I agree that alcohol and drugs are problems that should not be ignored, and they cause the deaths of innocent people, but the total damage from tobacco is greater.
- And the Northern Kentucky Tobacco Team, a group of individuals and organizations led by the American Cancer Society, has another patch it wants to give young soccer players - one they can earn and be proud of as well. . . "We want to stick to the soccer theme," Cyriac Wegman, president of the Villa Hills Soccer Club, told Post reporter Julie Ralston. "We don't want to get caught up with other issues." . . In the meanwhile, individual teams can. We encourage coaches to contact the Northern Kentucky's Tobacco Team . . . We would rather see kids wearing "Don't be a butthead" patches than Joe Camel T-shirts.
- But the issue is not one of stupidity or intelligence; it is one of integrity. Vice President Al Gore's integrity was brought into question when, after he plied the public for sympathy over the smoking-related death of his sister, it was pointed out that he and his family continue to reap benefits from owning tobacco-producing land. The rationalizations of physicians who are doing the same are even harder to accept. They indeed are living in a no-man's land.
- A complaint seeking class action status was filed July 9, 1998, in the action David Cummis et. al. v. Philip Morris Companies, Inc., et. al., in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Morris County, 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.
- DAVID WARD, director- general of the European Bureau of the FIA, the governing body of motor racing, lobbied the Liberal Democrat leader PADDY ASHDOWN's office and the Department of Health to oppose the campaign organised by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) for the Government to accelerate the ban on tobacco sponsorship of the industry.
- A Formula One lobbyist tried to persuade Government ministers to intervene in the launch of a report linking sport tobacco sponsorship with teenage smoking, it was claimed today. David Ward, the European Director of FIA, motor racing's international governing body, was also said to have made "abusive and aggressive" calls to Paddy Ashdown's office and other Liberal Democrats. . . The report - entitled Formula One and Tobacco: The World's Most Dangerous Sport? - contains previously unpublished evidence which Ash claims proves the tobacco industry uses Formula One specifically to target teenagers.
- The initiative is being organised by the Liberal Democrats in conjunction with the campaigning group ASH, Action on Smoking and Health. It aims for a prohibition on all advertising and sponsorship by December 31, 1999, but is specifically timed to coincide with this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone. . . ASH will seek to step up pressure on the industry by producing a dossier of documentation released during US litigation demonstrating that the tobacco industry deliberately recruited teenagers as users of its products, and that motorsport sponsorship was an important device for achieving that end.
- Nearly 17 months after throwing in the towel in his battle against the management of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN), financier CARL ICAHN has apparently gotten back in the game.
- Tobacco giant ITC has won a protracted legal battle in the United States against its opponents, the Chitalias. A New Jersey district court has endorsed a lower court's order of awarding $ 12 million claim to ITC while dismissing the Chitalias' counter-claim for $ 55 million. The case pertains to the alleged murky dealings between the Indian corporate major and the US-based brothers during early '90s. ITC was involved in rice exports and setting up of restaurants in the US in association with the Chitalias.
- Tobacco major ITC has won a claim it filed in 1996 for damages worth $12 million from estranged trading partners CHITALIAS in what marks a sweeping double-whammy legal triumph. At the same time, it has had the counter-claim of $55 million filed against it by the Chitalias thrown out by a US court.
- Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, his hair tinted purple instead of peroxide blond, might join the new British American Racing team if he thinks they can win. . . BAR has the clout, with financing reported at $330 million over the next five years from British American Tobacco.
- For the first time in 25 years the United States will host the World Conference on Tobacco OR Health. The 11th World Conference, aimed at strengthening global leadership dedicated to the prevention and control of tobacco use, has been set for August 6-10, 2000 in Chicago, Illinois. The last conference took place in Beijing, China in 1997.
- " I've got a lot more thinking to do about it yet," Moore told The Clarion-Ledger editorial board Tuesday. "I'm starting thinking for the first time in my life what could Mike Moore do as governor, and what could I attempt to do," the 46-year-old Democrat said.
- Federal prosecutors have also been pursuing a lengthy investigation of the industry, and it may be about to rev up. Attorney General Janet Reno last week tapped the Justice Department's most senior troubleshooter, John C. Keeney, 76, to help steer the sprawling criminal investigation of the nation's biggest cigarette makers. . . He oversees an elite squad of prosecutors that has been toiling in virtual anonymity for close to four years, investigating potential crimes ranging from making false statements to the government to conspiring to conceal the health risks of smoking.
- Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, a former "disease detective" who became one of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's most outspoken smoking opponents, was named director of the federal agency Friday. . . Health risks associated with tobacco were a priority of Koplan's, and he publicly advocated making Atlanta's 1996 Olympics smoke-free. . . On Friday, Koplan praised President Clinton for his "strong stand on smoking." Smoking was the only specific health issue Koplan mentioned in his speech.
- Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, a former "disease detective" for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was named director of the federal agency Friday. Koplan, 53, succeeds Dr. David Satcher, who was sworn in as surgeon general in February. He will lead a $2 billion-a-year agency with 7,000 employees worldwide. . . The dangers of smoking were one of his priorities. "It is blasphemy to combine a tobacco company's product and anything related to sports in the same sentence or the same location," Koplan said in 1994. Koplan, a native of Boston, takes over as CDC chief Oct. 5.
- A rule that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been considering for four years may go up in smoke if Congress decides to stop research into whether flame-retardant chemicals might be used in furniture upholstery to contain fires started with matches, lighters and candles. . . For the past several years, the CPSC has been considering a request from the National Association of State Fire Marshals to come up with a standard that would contain fires from small open flames. Since 1994, the agency has been doing laboratory tests, working with the Environmental Protection Agency on determining the safety of chemicals that might be used, holding hearings and soliciting comments. It calculates the rule would have a net benefit of $300 million annually because it would also cut down further on cigarette fires.
- The Senate voted 96-2 Thursday to impose the most sweeping shakeup in decades at the Internal Revenue Service . . . Voting against the measure were Sens. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.V. . . Wellstone said . . . it included "a wholly unrelated" provision stripping military veterans of health care benefits for tobacco-related illnesses. "I wanted to make a strong statement in support of this country's veterans," he said. ". . . We will keep coming at this until we get an up or down vote on whether $17 billion should be taken away from veterans to pay for extra highway projects."
- In a historic shakeup Friday, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors elected tobacco executive BEN RUFFIN as chairman, turning out sitting chairman Cliff Cameron by one vote. Ruffin, 56, vice president of R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO in Winston-Salem, is the first African-American to lead the 32-member board, a group of political appointees who are predominantly white and male.
- Career and community involvement: Vice president for corporate affairs at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
- Kids across Minnesota are being asked to try their talents at public service advertising. Tobacco billboards across the state must come down within six months of the legal settlement reached in May. . . Kids now are being asked to identify which billboards they think should come down first and to suggest a nonsmoking message in their places. Ideas should be mailed by Friday to TOBACCO BILLBOARD BLOWOUT, Attorney General's Office, 102 State Capitol, St. Paul, MN 55155, or e-mailed to attorney.general@state.mn.us.
- SCHERERVILLE - Police, intent on sending a strong message, used a teenage girl on Thursday to catch stores selling cigarettes to underage customers. "We have received a dozen complaints about businesses in town selling tobacco to minors," Police Lt. Michael A. Kessie said. "We're taking a more proactive stance in protecting our most precious asset, minors." Police issued citations at six of the 22 businesses visited.
- JUSTICE JANICE ROGERS BROWN, the newest member of the California Supreme Court, rarely speaks during oral arguments. She is generally quiet during the justices' private deliberations too. She has said she agonizes over her rulings and sometimes doubts herself. . . A recent Court Watch bulletin from the staunchly conservative California Political Review quoted Brown's dissent against a court ruling that permitted private parties to sue stores for selling cigarettes to minors. Brown had argued that "the creation of a standardless, limitless attorney fees machine" is not the way to punish stores for selling tobacco to young teenagers.
- The highly charged race between SEN. LAUCH FAIRCLOTH (R-N.C.) and Democratic trial lawyer JOHN EDWARDS has something for everyone: a clash of ideologies, generations, powerful economic interests and personal styles. . . The Faircloth-Edwards race is also shaping up as one of the closest Senate contests this year in a state that often seems to split down the middle between its tobacco fields and high-tech Research Triangle, between the progressive politics of Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt and the conservative causes of Republican Sen. Jesse Helms. . . On the day the Senate voted to kill the big tobacco bill, Edwards refused to say how he would have voted, saying he was not sure of the bill's final contents, and waited a week to say that he, like Faircloth, would have voted to shelve the legislation.
- Kentucky's largest pension fund, the Kentucky Teachers Retirement System, sold more than half its tobacco stock holdings in 1996. It's the first retirement fund in a major tobacco-producing state to do so. The fund sold $51.9 million of its tobacco stocks, or about 60 percent, in August 1996 after its investment committee decided the industry faced increased tax and lawsuit problems. The sale was made public in a report released Thursday by the Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts. Stuart Reagan, the fund's chief investment officer, said it made $3.6 million on the sale. . . "They (investment committee members) weren't making a social statement or a moralistic statement, it was an investment decision in what they saw in the months ahead for the product," Reagan said.
- While candidates for governor are unveiling plans to cut taxes and spend future state budget surpluses, Gov. Arne Carlson is warning his would-be successors to go slow on promises to use state revenue windfalls or money from a massive tobacco industry settlement with the state. . . "There are certain risks which may adversely affect the tobacco payments, including potential attempts by the federal government to claim Medicaid recoveries, the tobacco companies' financial capacity to continue making payments, and lower tobacco sales which may affect the industry's payment obligations," Carlson said in a prepared statement. "We must be mindful of this before we start making too many plans for these dollars."
- The audit also noted that trustees of the teachers' system sold half of its stock in tobacco companies in September 1996. Pat N. Miller, executive secretary of the teacher's system, said that sale was strictly a business decision, without social considerations. President Clinton was pushing for huge tax increases on tobacco products, and cigarette companies were being sued by states trying to recover health-care costs, Miller said. The teachers' system still has over 1 million shares of tobacco stocks worth over $40 million, he said.
- The ASH evidence: "Formula One and Tobacco: the World's most dangerous sport" shows how tobacco companies are inevitably drawn to teenagers and that Formula One is an ideal vehicle to reach them. The evidence is drawn from about 60 tobacco industry confidential documents released in litigation the United States. Clive Bates, Director of ASH, said:
- Don't look for big numbers from Big Tobacco this quarter. The effects of foreign currency translations and falling domestic demand for cigarettes will lead to weak second-quarter results for the nation's major tobacco companies, industry analysts said. "It's going to be a very difficult quarter," Brown Brothers Harriman analyst Roy Burry said, echoing the sentiments of his Wall Street colleagues. The weakness of many foreign currencies has been particularly hard on American tobacco firms.
- Cigarette maker Rothmans Ltd signalled on Friday that its profits will be hit this financial year unless it can increase cigarette prices to offset higher import costs caused by the depreciation of currencies in its key markets.
- Rothmans Holdings will move into debt for the first time in at least 10 years in a bid to expand existing operations and offset the effects of a weaker dollar and increasing taxes.
- RED WINGS coach SCOTTY BOWMAN is bringing his legendary motivational skills to another arena: the campaign to help people win the battle against smoking. Bowman is a part of the COACHES CORNER stop-smoking campaign, an educational effort designed to encourage and support smokers who are ready to quit. The program includes local radio public service announcements recorded by Bowman, as well as a toll-free "Gear Up to Quit" hotline with motivational messages from Bowman and other coaches. . . Participants: Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, Atlanta Hawks basketball coach Lenny Wilkens, Detroit's own Scotty Bowman and others. Hotline: For free advice from coaches and to receive brochure, call the Gearing Up to Quit hotline at (800) 428-6100.
- On the restaurant's back-wall mural, the Marlboro Man is waving his coiled lariat. The shelves beside him are stocked with rows of cigarette packs. Everyone at the bar is puffing away. It's chow time at the Hitching Post, a two-week-old restaurant tucked between a newsstand and an espresso counter at Richmond International Airport, and built, not incidentally, in a city where tobacco is king and Philip Morris USA is the major private employer.
- My hope, walking into "Saturation," the Mills Gallery's examination of over-the-top color and materiality, was to be a viewer ravished by excess. . . Take CHAD JOINER'S series of photographs, "ABJECT AND ADOLESCENCE." These close-up images of bed linens are saturated in more ways than one. The pale shades of the sheets fill the frames of these photographs, becoming a world unto themselves. They are also stained with urine, blood, and semen, and burned with cigarettes. They chart the life of the body, in bed and often unconscious, secreting and expelling and leaving its mark. It's both compelling and discomforting - someone else's dirty laundry made into art.
- Three years later he gave us the first of many variants on "le smoking" (a black trouser suit for evening inspired by men's formal black tie) - a recurrent theme with Saint Laurent who toyed and tinkered with his favourite looks for decades
- A 79-year-old East Oakland woman died yesterday in a two-alarm house fire that apparently was caused by her cigarette, authorities said. The body of Patricia Matilda Booker was found inside her bedroom on the 3100 block of 73rd Avenue shortly after the fire broke out at 11:50 a.m. Authorities said they found evidence that a cigarette may have started the fire. A heavy smoker, the woman was bedridden and used oxygen, which probably caused the fire to spread throughout the house, said Oakland fire Investigator Marlon Brandle.
- Italian Alex Zanardi from the United States' CART series and NASCAR's Jeff Gordon are on a short list to join Formula One's newest team -- British American Racing -- when it hits the track next season. BAR's managing director Craig Pollock added those two Wednesday to a list that already includes defending series champion Jacques Villeneuve and 1996 world champion Damon Hill.
- BIG TOBACCO MAY HAVE WON THE LATEST ROUND ON CAPITOL HILL, but it's losing support--even in its traditional stronghold of the South. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, cigarette makers can't muster majority support in any region of the country. And among Southerners, where support is strongest, only 36% side with tobacco in the industry's current battle with Washington, while 56% side with the government. . . . "Even in the South, people see the personal implications of tobacco [usage], and they want government involvement," says Molly Sonner, an analyst at Pew.
- Dressed all in black, Stallone compared the President with his character in Rocky. Holding up his battered boxing gloves from the first Rocky movie, he presented them to Clinton, saying they "exemplify the character in an uphill battle that doggedly asks for one more round and keeps punching and punching and finally gets his victory." Clinton responded: "I think I have established that I can take a punch. Now the time has come to show I can deliver one," he said to cheers.
- Arizona's in-your-face approach in anti-smoking commercials uses dark humor and such images as maggots and decaying flesh. . . "Arizona in many ways is the pioneer in influencing youth behavior, and so one of the first things our people did when we geared up for this last year was talk to the people in Arizona," said Chuck Blanchard, a former Arizona legislator and now a lawyer for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The first batch of national advertisements made their prime-time debut Thursday.
- CLINTON clings to safe issues: the struggle against drugs, the effort to keep guns out of schools, the fight to preserve Social Security. He shies away from confrontation with Congress - a quality more dramatic than ever since he was stung by his failure to win approval of his tobacco bill.
- Responding to Lott's comments yesterday, the White House fired back by noting legislation he has opposed. "While the president has been working in a bipartisan way to pass tobacco legislation, campaign finance reform and a patient's bill of rights, Senator Lott has played to his right wing by trying to kill all three," said spokesman Barry J. Toiv.
- Early this year it was Democrats crying foul, with accusations that Republicans were dragging their heels on tobacco legislation and campaign finance measures. Both bills ended up in the congressional waste bin. But Lott said under Republican leadership, the Congress has been able to cut taxes and balance the budget, as well as overhaul the Internal Revenue Service. "If you keep a sharp eye on the legislative action -- or inaction -- behind the headlines, you'll be able to figure out who's trying to score one for the American people -- and who's just trying to run out the clock," he said.
- David Mullon, attorney general for the Creeks . . sees no conflict between the suit and the Indian nation's smoke shops. "The Muscogee Nation, like the state of Oklahoma, taxes cigarettes and collects taxes on all the cigarettes that are sold within the licensed smoke shops," Mullon said. "There's a lot of misunderstanding in what is going on in these tobacco cases. This is not a case that is going to affect the smoke shop's ability to sell cigarettes. This is not a case that is going to affect a tribe's ability to use tobacco in ceremonial purposes," Hutton said. Mullon said, "One common misunderstanding is that all of the smoke shops are licenced and taxed by the tribe under our tobacco sales system. The tribe does indeed tax tobacco, and it is a significant source of revenues to the tribe. It is also a significant source of revenue to nearly every state in the union, if not every state in the union."
- As 37 other states negotiate with the tobacco industry to settle lawsuits over the cost of treating sick smokers, North Carolina's attorney general is pushing the General Assembly let him sue the tobacco companies as well. But legislators say that isn't likely. Attorney General Mike Easley was involved in talks in New York this week between tobacco companies and attorneys general from at least five states, according to several national newspapers.
- A 61-year-old North Providence woman who smoked cigarettes for 40 years is seeking damages from the tobacco industry for her medical care, pain and suffering. BARBARA NICOLO, who has lung cancer and chronic lung disease, is seeking a jury trial in federal court
- Federal judges around the country, frustrated by cases in which patients denied medical benefits have no right to sue, are urging Congress to consider changes in a 1974 law that protects insurance companies and health maintenance organizations against legal attacks. . . they say their hands are tied by the 1974 law, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. And they often lament the results, saying the law has not kept pace with changes in health care and the workplace.
- The state's attorney general may be a national leader in suing Big Tobacco companies, but the governor has taken thousands of dollars in campaign donations from a major tobacco firm, according to records filed this week. Congresswoman Barbara B. Kennelly's campaign charged Friday that money from tobacco company executives to Gov. John G. Rowland's re-election bid is nothing more than payment for services in derailing anti-tobacco legislation.
- Still trailing Gov. John G. Rowland by a wide margin in the latest opinion polls, U.S. Rep. Barbara Kennelly, the likely Democratic gubernatorial candidate, also has to play catch-up with her fund-raising. . . The governor's financial report includes dozens of contributions from high-powered lawyers, lobbyists and business executives . . three executives with UNITED STATES TOBACCO added $1,000 each this past quarter to the governor's coffers for total donations of $6,000.
- ONE of the State's leading supermarket chains has outraged chemists with plans to open in-store pharmacies. Woolworths, already offering cut-price petrol and banking services, wants to expand its "one-stop shop" concept to include chemist shops. . . Under strict Australian regulations only pharmacists can own pharmacies. . . The industry had an official policy that prohibited the sale of alcohol and tobacco products in chemist shops, while supermarkets were under no such restrictions. "It is wrong to have a pharmacy in a supermarket where you can also buy tobacco, it produces a bad image for public health," Mr George said. "Selling tobacco in the same building as a chemist store is not a great message to be giving consumers, it goes right against the whole philosophy of government and the public in general."
- TOBACCO retailers were jeopardising their licences by selling cigarettes to minors, the South Australian Human Services Minister, Mr Brown, said yesterday. He issued the warning after an Advertiser investigation revealed many shops are selling cigarettes to under-age smokers.
- In a notable shift of marketing strategy, the No. 2 U.S. tobacco company has launched new advertisements for their much-vilified cigarettes that challenge anti-smoking activists as killjoys and prudes who deserve defiance and ridicule. The new approach to selling cigarettes could complicate the task of public health officials in trying to persuade young people not to smoke. The latest ads seek to enhance smoking's image as a forbidden fruit, and could make heavy-handed anti-smoking propaganda rebound to the tobacco industry's advantage, some public health experts say.
- I was surprised to read Attorney General JAN GRAHAM's comments about the recent failure of the U.S. Senate to pass the McCain tobacco legislation . . . If Graham was serious when she said, "This fight is not about money," then I invite her to remember the House of the people and to work with Jim Hansen, Merrill Cook and Chris Cannon to pass HR3868 in the U.S. House of Representatives.
- In the June 26 edition of the Weekend section, you published a favorable article about a cigar bar called Shelly's Back Room and a large photograph showing three very happy, attractive young women, one of them smoking a cigar and the other identified as sharing the cigar. I wish to express my concern over your publishing a favorable article about the use of a tobacco product, when it has been scientifically proven and reported in your paper that the use of tobacco causes cancer. . . This photo sends a clear message to guys: Go to Shelly's, smoke cigars and meet cute girls like these. The message should have been: Go to Shelly's and get cancer.
- I have read The Sun's recent articles on the importance of safe bedding in reducing the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome with great interest and, as a parent, with personal concern. . . I am saddened by how much you have left out of these articles regarding the many other critical factors that can dramatically reduce the incidence of the syndrome. . . Dr. Sears writes that in addition to a safe sleeping environment, other important factors are a healthy womb environment, a smoke-free environment, back or sidesleeping, breast feeding, proper bedroom temperatures and having parents "attached" to children. . . Parents need to know all the facts, no matter how uncomfortable, so that they can make wise choices to save their children's lives.
- The common ground: secondhand smoke wafting through walls. It is a flourishing new wave of tobacco litigation, and far more simple than the epic battles over cigarette makers' liability. "All you have to do is prove it's a nuisance and it's an irritation," says John Banzhaf . . . An added benefit is that plaintiffs avoid battling Big Tobacco, which typically spends more on legal defense than landlords or neighbors do.
- The farmers, however, weren't celebrating. They told their congressman, freshman Rep. VIRGIL H. GOODE JR., D-Va., of the peril they feared if farmers were forgotten in the landmark tobacco settlement gaining momentum in Washington. Six turbulent months later, the growers' worst worries haven't come to pass. And the rookie from Rocky Mount has dodged -- at least for now -- the kind of bullet that can halt a promising political career. Rarely is a first-term congressman hurled into such a high-stakes national conflict that so affects his district.
- Since he arrived in Congress in 1996, Mike McIntyre has confounded efforts to fit him into a neat political box. McIntyre McIntyre, a lawyer from Lumberton representing North Carolina's 7th District, has one of the most conservative voting records of any Democrat in the House of Representatives. . . On issues of agriculture, tobacco and military funding, McIntyre has joined with Republicans and Democrats to protect state interests. McIntyre has fought against what he calls misguided attempts by tobacco opponents to repeal crop insurance for tobacco farmers.
- Over the last 19 summers, the AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURE FESTIVAL has evolved from an outdoor party that drew mostly teen-agers to a cultural expo that focuses on community education, music, art and family events. . . To further the festival's family focus, organizers banned liquor and tobacco vendors and sponsors. "We deliberately have not gone to the alcohol and tobacco companies because we recognize the problems of young people using drugs and alcohol and to avoid giving them access to these people as a market," Calhoun said. "We would much rather have them exposed to art and crafts of their heritage."
- EDGERTON, Wis. (AP) -- Serious talk of tobacco-related lawsuits and health risks may give way this week to celebration of the crop at the 27th annual Tobacco Heritage Days. Participants in the annual festival beginning Wednesday include southern Wisconsin farmers whose crops provide leaves for cigar wrappers and chewing.
- Nationwide, annual cigar consumption has increased 45 percent in seven years to 5,162,812,000 in 1997 from 3,553,659,000 in 1990, according to the Cigar Association of America in Washington. . . Stogies even have a presence on the professional tours. Golfer Walter Morgan was smoking a cigar when he won the 1996 AMERITECH SENIOR OPEN. Larry Laoretti, who won the U.S. SENIOR OPEN, is also a big cigar smoker.
- LARRY GILBERT is gone, yet his memory is very much in evidence this week at the SENIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP. The cigar-chomping Gilbert, who died of lung cancer in January, won the championship at the TPC of Michigan last summer. "It hit our tour hard," said Dave Stockton, a two-time winner of this tournament. "It was a senseless death."
- Cigar smoking in the US rose by 133% between 1989 and 1993, according to a report. "Regular cigar use increased in every gender, age, race, income, education, and smoking status category" during this period, write researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Rockville, Maryland. But the rise in cigar use was particularly steep in young adults according to their study, published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
- More than 77 percent of 1,000 people surveyed say they work with someone whose clothing or hair often smells of tobacco smoke, according to a survey by CNS Inc., a Minneapolis concern whose products include items aimed at removing smoke odors. Nearly 72 percent say if people regularly smell of smoke, it could hurt their careers.
- The convention begins in earnest tonight . . . During the six-day convention, members of the 63-person national board will debate many topics - from the disproportionate effect of tobacco and environmental hazards on blacks to increased violence in post offices - that have surfaced in local chapters.
- Tuesday, July 28 NPC Luncheon, 12:30 p.m. NICK BROOKES, CEO, Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co., will discuss "Tobacco Legislation."
- "We know that celebrities influence teenage behavior," says Tricia Gibson of the American Lung Association (ALA). "What teenagers are seeing these days is smoking portrayed as appropriate and appealing behavior. It's cool. It's rebellious. It's part of being independent." While one of the producers defended "Titanic," saying: "Women wore corsets then, and people smoked," critics insisted that smoking was not a common activity for women in 1912 and, in fact, the most serious arguments in the lifeboats were not about returning for survivors but whether the upper-class female survivors would allow the crew to light up.
- A new edition of an excellent book called "A COMPLETE GUIDE TO COLLECTING ANTIQUE PIPES" by Benjamin Rapaport (A Schiffer Book for Collectors) opens the door to a world of elaborately carved and decorated vintage pipes that move far beyond the simple and familiar briar pipe featured on Father's Day cards. According to Rapaport, a long-time collector and scholar in the field, the first apparatus resembling what we now call a smoker's pipe was a clay example made in England around 1600.
- *** "Dear Jesse" Tim Kirkman's autobiographical memoir doesn't bash SEN. JESSE HELMS (R-N.C.) because it doesn't have to. Given Helms's pro-tobacco, anti-arts, and anti-gay-rights stance, Helms indicts himself in this documentary, which chronicles his thus far successful appeals to ignorance. (Unrated)
- Yu's subjects are not preening SoHo art stars. They are patients at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens. Their 20,000-square-foot studio, called the Living Museum, is a former kitchen/dining room on the institution's dreary, high-security grounds. . . In another corner is "The Hospital," featuring an enormous waste basket full of crumpled, bureaucratic Creedmoor memos and several crates of matchbooks--an allusion to another time killer on the wards, cigarette smoking.
- Officially, Arnold is senior vice president of merchandising at Best Buy, which means he oversees the entertainment departments -- music, computer software, videos, books and video games (which account for about 20 percent of Best Buy's business). Enter his office or chat with him, and it's clear which aspect of his job he relishes the most: He's Best Buy's point man in the music business. . . "Gary's become like a family friend," said veteran rocker Osbourne, who has done two Best Buy-sponsored tours. "Me and him are trying to quit smoking.
- A FRIEND of mine who spent some time this year in California said that one of the rarest sights she saw on her visit was a man in San Diego smoking a pipe. California is a state run by health fanatics and has some of the most draconian anti- smoking laws imaginable. The image of this poor middle-aged rebel looking furtively over his shoulder before lighting up, is a sad commentary on the land of the free.
- A collection of public health and anti-tobacco organizations . . . will sponsor a meeting on this subject on Capitol Hill on Thursday. They are calling for the U.S. government to make clear that it will no longer support tobacco marketing overseas, as its trade officials have for too long. They also support legislation, such as that introduced by Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, that would provide some funding for public health education overseas . . These are modest proposals that . . would at least go a short way to undoing the terrible damage U.S. tobacco companies will be inflicting on foreign countries in coming years.
- Republican budgeteers are back on Capitol Hill, where they are about to balance the federal budget and hand out billions of dollars in additional tax relief, most of it to their wealthy supporters. This they will do without cutting the defense budget, without any new money from a tobacco industry settlement (which they killed last month in the Senate) and without cutting funds for politically popular highway construction projects . . . They're going to take it from the poor. . . Also on the Kasich hit list are spending for . . . "veterans disability compensation for smoking-related disabilities," . .
- So contrary to the criticisms by the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, we are finding that retailers like the materials, are using the materials and want to continue to receive them. And we believe the retailers who care about curbing youth smoking recognize that one sure way to stop underage smoking is for retailers to work with us to stop sales of tobacco to kids.
- They fooled you once on the tobacco bill with a $40 million public relations campaign -- all those TV ads claiming the tobacco bill was about "new taxes" and would create "40 new government bureaucracies." Shame on them. Now they're fixing to fool you again with another TV ad campaign calling the Patients Bill of Rights "the politicians' new game . . . " . . . The health insurance industry has taken a page straight out of the tobacco playbook; the ads are almost carbon copies of Big Tobacco's strategy to shift the discussion from the real subject to big government, to bureaucracy, to politicians
- House Appropriations Committee . . . voted by voice for an amendment by Rep. CARRIE MEEK, D-Fla., requiring a new cigarette warning label aimed at blacks. Recent studies indicate that blacks absorb more nicotine than whites and run a higher risk of getting fatal lung cancer from smoking. The warning would alternate with the other four warnings already printed on cigarette packs. It would read: "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: African Americans suffer the highest death rates from several diseases caused by smoking."
- But two issues that have consumed considerable time and energy in Washington -- campaign finance reform and tobacco legislation -- rank relatively low in voter preference. . . LESS IMPORTANT . . . Reducing cigarette smoking by teenagers 39%
- Metropolitan King County Council Member Greg Nickels and the leadership of the American Cancer Society and Washington DOC (Doctors Ought to Care) are pressing for a "yes" vote on July 17, by the King County Board of Health on more extensive tobacco advertising restrictions aimed at protecting children and teens. Council Member Nickels and representatives of the two organizations will speak publicly at T.T. Minor Elementary School on July 15 at 3:00 p.m.
- Sen. John McCain on Wednesday won his Republican primary without one vote being cast, knocking his only GOP opponent off the ballot with a campaign records challenge. Phoenix businessman Bert Tollefson agreed to the political equivalent of the death penalty to settle allegations that more than 1,000 of the signatures he presented to qualify for the ballot were invalid.
- State Sen. CLESSON J. BLAISDELL says he's been getting a dozen phone calls a day from smokers who oppose an increase hike in the state tobacco tax to pay for education finance reform. The smokers tell Blaisdell that tobacco giant Philip Morris USA urged them to call. . . "I asked most of the callers about the governor's ABC plan ‹ 90 percent didn't know about it," Blaisdell said. "I had to explain the Supreme Court's decision to them." The court has given the Legislature until next April to find a fair way to pay for schools. Blaisdell said he asks his callers what the Legislature should do. "Not many knew," he said. .
- In his prepared remarks, Blumenthal said he wants to continue to fight against tobacco companies . . . That charge also has been made by others, most recently by a spokesman for Philip Morris, who said, in response to a new filing in the tobacco case, that "the most dangerous place in Connecticut is between Dick Blumenthal and a camera."
- The measure bans all outdoor advertising of tobacco products. This not only includes roadside billboards, but any store sign, poster or neon sign visible from public streets and walkways. Only businesses outside 1,000 feet of the perimeter of any school, child-care center, playground, public park or bus stop regularly used by minors will be allowed to post the name and price of tobacco products. But these signs must be black and white only, dubbed "tombstone" advertising.
- Most outdoor tobacco advertisements will be banned in Snohomish County starting Jan. 1. The Snohomish Health District board voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of the ban, reversing its November rejection of the ban. But there was little debate among board members, some of whom are new since last year's vote, after 16 speakers recommended following the example set by a Pierce County ban last year.
- Should the Snohomish Health District board approve a sweeping proposal that would ban many types of tobacco advertising in the county? Members of the public will get their chance to tell officials what they think during a hearing in Everett today.
- A coalition of religious leaders representing Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and others lent their support yesterday to an initiative that aims to curb teen smoking by raising the Maryland state tax on cigarettes $1.50 a pack. The broad-based support of the members of the Central Maryland Ecumenical Council for the Maryland Children's Initiative is considered significant because, while individual religious denominations may have discouraged smoking among their members, they have not been in the forefront of the legal and political anti-smoking movement.
- When smokers were told last winter that Gov. Christie Whitman was doubling their taxes, two good causes were cited: school buildings and poor kids who need doctors. But in the first six months of 1998, and in the budget for the 1998-1999 fiscal year that began July 1, half the money raised for these two new programs is not being spent.
- Tobacco control efforts in Wisconsin have been characterized by a series of isolated initiatives with little structure or institutional support. This failure of the public health community to develop an institutional base capable of following through on victories or retooling from defeats may explain the lack of progress in tobacco control in Wisconsin.
- Minnesota's ethics board has agreed to investigate whether WES LANE, a retired Teamsters Union lobbyist who was secretly paid by the Tobacco Institute, violated a state disclosure law by failing to register as a tobacco lobbyist. The inquiry was prompted by a complaint filed by state REP. PHYLLIS KAHN, DFL-Minneapolis . . . The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board notified Kahn in a July 7 letter that it "will conduct an investigation of this matter" and will consider the complaint in executive session at its July 24 meeting.
- A chain-smoking chimpanzee . . . attacked a teen-ager who was cleaning his cage, seriously injuring the boy. Simon Escobar Polanco, 16, suffered deep bites to his ears, hands, feet and genitals, said Horacio Parra, director of the hospital . . . The chimpanzee, whose name is Coco, was shown on the Televisa television network chained by the neck to a tree and smoking cigarettes, a habit that made him famous in the Lion King Water Park in the town of Coyuca de Benitez, near Acapulco.
- Buying a pack of smokes is getting a lot tougher for teenagers in Southwestern Ontario. Surveys carried out by local health units are finding more and more retailers are enforcing the Ontario Tobacco Control Act. That means no cigarettes if you are under the age of 19. The Elgin-St. Thomas health unit, which carried out its survey in early June, found only 33 per cent of tobacco retailers in the county were willing to sell to minors.
- Rothmans Inc. consolidated earnings, for the first quarter totalled $16.4 million or $2.98 per common share, compared with $16.0 million or $2.90 per common share last year.
- Tobacco production is forecast at 96.8 million pounds, down 23 percent from last year. The average yield forecast for tobacco is 2,150 pounds, down from 2,340 pounds in 1997.
- The terror of tobacco has spread to almost three-quarters of Kentucky counties. Blue mold, a fungus lethal to tobacco, has been found in 87 counties, including Bourbon, Fayette, Jessamine, Scott, Mercer and Clark, state Agriculture Commissioner Billy Ray Smith said yesterday. The mold is now threatening the eastern part of the state, too, he said.
- The amended strategic supply agreement continues SWM's ongoing supply of tobacco-related papers to Philip Morris' U.S. operations. A supplement to the agreement creates the potential for a seven-year exclusive supply arrangement with Philip Morris U.S.A. for an experimental new product currently being jointly developed. Philip Morris and SWM also have entered into a licensing and royalty agreement covering future commercialization of this potential new paper product.
- Gallaher Group, the UK's largest manufacturer of cigarettes, is expected to launch a DM500m eurobond tomorrow, the fourth tobacco company to tap the capital markets in as many weeks. . . Gallaher's foray into the capital markets underscores how investors are warming to tobacco companies as they grow more confident about anti-litigation battles in the US, bankers say.
- RJR Nabisco Holdings is walking a precarious line in trying to win over more young-adult smokers to its lagging Salem menthol brand. . . . So now, rather than shouting at potential Salem smokers with overt, in-your-face advertising, Reynolds has opted for stealth. It is reaching out to young adults with abstract imagery and a quirky direct-mail campaign that seems intended to sail right over the heads of older smokers, critics and regulators alike.
- On Wednesday Judge James S. Halpern rejected the Internal Revenue Service's claim that money the company spent on developing advertising campaigns should be treated differently, for tax purposes, than its outlays for carrying out the campaigns. . . One of the advertising campaigns cited was developed by RJR Nabisco's R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. subsidiary. It involved the planning of strategies to enhance the SALEM cigarette brand's appeal to young people, in the face of a threat from its rival, Newport cigarettes.
ADVERTISEMENT: When's the last time you got lucky? Is this about a Salem Rave? New York Press, June 17-23, 1998/Village Voice, June 23, 1998.- If it's been a while you have our sympathies. Too bad you weren't at Salem's Five Below Zero. On May 27 thousands of people were lucky enough to get in to the hottest party of the year featuring some of the biggest hip hop, R & B and salsa acts in the city, with performances by three of your fav DJs. For those of you who missed out, we've got pictures. Yeah, we know it's not the same. So, next time, be there.
- Three rookie Baltimore policemen rescued a number of people from a burning 3-story rowhouse at North Fulton and West North avenues late Tuesday morning. . . No injuries were reported in the 10: 20 a.m. blaze. A cigarette left unattended is believed to be the cause of the fire.
- Three teen-agers on their way to church rescued an elderly La Crescenta woman who was on fire. The 83-year-old woman is presumed to have accidentally set herself ablaze with a cigarette. Florence Burrisia remained in critical condition Tuesday, an official at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center said.
- Responding to the trendy renaissance of cigar smoking among young people, the American Cancer Society has begun an anti-cigar ad campaign using a series of "Generation Gullible" images, each incorporating the tag line, "Is This Fad Worth Dying For?"
- U.S. Tobacco has operated the museum since 1982 on the second floor of its complex, located two blocks from the state Capitol. Snuff, powdered tobacco that is sniffed, chewed or rubbed on the gums, still is manufactured there. The closing is not the result of any public backlash against the tobacco industry, said Jon Atwood, a company spokesman. "It came down to a decision within the company," Atwood said. "That (backlash) was not a factor at all."
- UH-oh! Nina Burleigh-itis is contagious. The disease - marked by a compulsion to confess a willingness to be ravished by a member of the First Family - has spread to MARK STEYN, a writer for The Spectator in London. Steyn accuses the media of liberal bias because most news organizations declined to print a hurtful joke told by SEN. JOHN MCCAIN last month about Chelsea Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno which demeaned all three women. Steyn suggests McCain was let off lightly because of his "willingness to cook up an anti-tobacco bill even crazier than the ones the Democrats were proposing."
- "For F.D.R., 'Fatigue' Was Lethal" (Science Times, July 14) ignores a major risk factor that contributed to the cerebral hemorrhage that cost him his life. The answer lies in the picture accompanying your article. Dangling from the President's left hand is a cigarette. Tobacco and high blood pressure act together to increase the risk of heart attack, stroke and vascular disease. You point out that the hypertension President Roosevelt suffered from never disappeared. Neither, it seems, did his ever-present cigarette. DONALD H. GEMSON, M.D.
- Because we have learned over the years that the reasons behind tobacco addiction are so multifaceted, our organization has embarked on a multifaceted strategy. Among other things, we are paying for nicotine replacement therapy under our health plan, conducting research on effective tobacco control strategies, providing smoking cessation and prevention programs at worksites and schools, and bringing theater-based prevention messages to elementary school children. We are supporting local compliance checks to ensure that young people cannot illegally buy tobacco, holding the tobacco industry accountable in court for its illegal actions and working with health care providers in our clinics and hospitals to aggressively warn their patients about the dangers of using tobacco. . . A problem as complex and comprehensive as tobacco addiction requires a complex and comprehensive solution.
- "We would prefer comprehensive national legislation, but this is a serious option," said Rahm Emanuel, a senior adviser to the president.
- The Clinton administration is considering suing U.S. tobacco companies to recover some of the federal money spent on treating smoking-related illnesses, White House spokesman Mike McCurry said yesterday. "The issue of litigation and how the government recoups Medicare money is clearly a concern," McCurry told reporters. He said that aides to President Clinton were "examining in a preliminary way" how the government might sue cigarette makers to get that money back.
- Sens. TED KENNEDY and JOHN KERRY, D-Mass., are encouraging administration officials to pressure the industry with a lawsuit patterned after the 37 pending state lawsuits.
- "Our primary goal is still on legislation," said White House spokesman Barry Toiv. "But if the Republicans really succeed in killing comprehensive tobacco legislation, we've got to look at other alternatives," including a federal lawsuit.
- The Clinton administration is considering suing cigarette makers to recoup the cost of caring for sick smokers. "In a very preliminary way, it's being examined," said White House spokesman Mike McCurry. "But first and foremost, our interest is in comprehensive legislation." Any such lawsuit would be designed largely by the Department of Health and Human Services and filed by the Justice Department.
- Q Mike, do you hope that by discussing a suit now that it might force the tobacco industry to think twice about its opposition to legislation? MR. MCCURRY: Well, if it had that effect I'm not sure that would be an undesirable effect; but I don't think that's the intent.
- An analysis released today by the Senate Office of Research says that's because poorer people and adults with less education tend to smoke more than wealthier, more educated people. The report says California households with incomes at or below $15, 000 a year with at least one smoker pay $600 on tobacco products, and another $270 in cigarette taxes. That tax would be increased by $170 a year if voters approve the "California Children and Families First Initiative."
- Senate candidate and city Public Advocate MARK GREEN yesterday slammed the city for demanding more background information from someone who wants a dog license than someone who wants to sell cigarettes. Holding aloft a "flimsy" one-page form that asks tobacco dealers only for their business name and address, store location and whether they plan to sell over the counter, Green compared the document to a three-page application for a dog license.
- We've written here about Henrico County's requirement that new police officers not only forswear the use of tobacco on the job but off it, too . . . "Take a look at the Henrico Police patch. It has a picture of Pocahontas, Corn, and that illegal substance (for police only), TOBACCO. . . . That seems a little hypocritical to me. Officers cannot use the 'T' word but wear it on their patch every day." It's true -- Pocahontas, corn and tobacco are all on the county seal, shown on the police patch.
- KOTA BARU: The Government will not pressure tobacco farmers to switch to other crops, said Deputy Primary Industry Minister Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein. He said tobacco was a lucrative crop and had contributed much to the country's economy despite some misgivings among certain people.
- By reversing the equation - where mainland companies enter false agreements to export a product overseas - foreign funds can circumvent exchange controls and enter the country, the SAFE official says. Under those deals, export contracts are falsified, and then used to secure letters of credit, or LCs, from banks to pay for the transaction. The LCs are then resold, converted into dollars, and then used to purchase smuggled goods like foreign cigarettes, of which over 90% are smuggled into China.
- A TEACHER'S court victory over a council that failed to enforce its no-smoking policy at a Bob Dylan concert was described as "a significant legal breakthrough" last night. . . Lynne Newton, who suffers from asthma, had to leave the concert after only one song because she was struggling for breath. There were large no-smoking signs at the Bournemouth International Centre but they were being ignored. Rob Zuradzki, head of entertainment at the centre, said: "Although we have a non-smoking policy at standing or partially standing concerts, audiences tend to light up and there isn't much we can do about it.'
- The disease gets its name from the gray or bluish downy mold that forms on infected tobacco leaves. Also known as "mildiou du tabac" in Europe, the fungus is highly weather sensitive, according to a Web site dedicated to the topic at North Carolina State University (the address is http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/subjects.html ).
- BY NOW it should come as no surprise to anyone that money is the backbone of politics. But a new study that examined the staggering amount of money spent last year to lobby Washington politicians is eye-opening and more distressing than even imagined. . . Americans feel increasingly disconnected from their government because they are increasingly crowded out by powerful special interests with huge bank accounts who buy the access and influence denied ordinary constituents. Little wonder those constituents stay home in droves on election day.
- As medical evidence mounts that ETS kills, it seems inevitable that smoking in public places will soon be a faint and distant memory. Most owners/operators of public places have voluntarily chosen to protect the health and welfare of the vast majority of the public by temporarily inconveniencing the smoking minority. For those who have not yet exercised this intuitively wise option, legal mandate and the concomitant economic sanctions for failure to comply may well settle your ethical conundrum whether to prohibit smoking in your facility.
- The only conceivable consequence of equating hard drugs, which can destroy the mind and soul, with tobacco, which can actually have positive effects on the mind and has no deleterious effect on the soul, is to lessen the fear of real drugs among young people. . . The truth is that tobacco doesn't interfere with the soul, mind, conscience, or emotional growth of a smoker. As for the one trait cigarettes and drugs share--addictiveness--this tells us little. Human beings are addicted to a plethora of substances and activities. These include coffee, sugar, alcohol, gambling, sex, food, spending, and virtually every other human endeavor that brings immediate gratification and that people cannot, or choose not to, control. . . Since the Environmental Protection Agency listed secondhand smoke as a first-class human carcinogen in 1993, numerous eminent scientists have expressed skepticism. They include epidemiologists Dimitrios Trichopoulos of the Harvard School of Public Health and Alvan Feinstein of Yale Medical School. Dr. Philippe Shubik, editor in chief of Teratogenesis, Carcinogenesis and Mutagenesis
- Finkelstein, Thompson & Loughran recently participated in the filing of two law suits against PHILIP MORRIS Companies, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary Philip Morris Inc., which allege that Philip Morris engaged in deceptive and unlawful conduct in connection with the manufacture, distribution, advertising, promotion and sale of its Marlboro Lights brand cigarettes.
- City Atty. Jim Hahn said civil penalties that could exceed $2.5 billion are being sought in the lawsuit--which also seeks to force cigarette and cigar makers to comply with Proposition 65 by giving a "clear warning" of the dangers of breathing secondhand smoke. The warnings would probably appear on TV, if the city prevails. The Superior Court lawsuit alleges that the companies are violating the 11-year-old initiative statute, which requires businesses to give warnings if they expose individuals to chemicals that can cause cancer or birth defects. Named as defendants are Philip Morris Inc., Consolidated Cigar Corp., Liggett Group Inc., Pinkerton Tobacco Co., Swisher International Group Inc., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., Lorillard Tobacco Co., American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 800-JR Cigar Inc., General Cigar Co., Havatampa Inc., John Middleton Inc., Lane Ltd., U.S. Tobacco Co. and Cuban Cigar Factory Inc.
- "I am concerned about all nonsmokers who are exposed to tobacco smoke," Hahn said Wednesday. "But I am particularly concerned about children who are around smokers and, unlike adults, frequently do not have the freedom of movement to get away from it." Seth Moskowitz, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds, had not seen a copy of the lawsuit Wednesday, but he said it appeared federal law, which does not require warnings on the health risks associated with secondhand smoke, would take precedence over the state law. "Federal law is clear about warnings on cigarette packaging and advertising," Moskowitz said. "And we're in total compliance with federal law."
- Los Angeles city prosecutors have filed the first-ever lawsuit by a U.S. governmental entity targeting tobacco companies in connection with health risks posed by secondhand smoke. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that 16 tobacco companies have violated California's SAFE DRINKING WATER AND TOXIC ENFORCEMENT ACT by selling their products without warning the public about the health risks of exposure to secondhand smoke. City Attorney JAMES HAHN said today that the state law clearly requires that anyone doing business in California warn the public before exposing them to any chemical that causes cancer or reproductive toxicity.
- A couple of local Republican candidates are talking openly about the possibility of supporting a big tax increase, and a new poll suggests that's not necessarily a bad idea. That's because the Republicans in question are running against incumbent Democrats who support such a tax increase -- on cigarettes.
- Q: Do you have in mind any more moves against tobacco? Taxes? A: What I would really be focusing on is trying to stop children from having access to tobacco. I think we need to have much more severe penalties for people who break current law in terms of selling cigarettes to minors, in terms of having vending machines in places that children can't have access to them. . . .
- A labor group of more than 20,000 workers in Richmond, Petersburg and Hopewell has endorsed a boycott of Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield because of the health insurer's entry into a national lawsuit against the tobacco industry. The Richmond Regional Labor Council adopted a resolution late last week accusing Trigon of "attempting to undermine the job security of our brothers and sisters in the tobacco industry and those who work in jobs that support the tobacco industry," union officials said yesterday.
- BUTTERWORTH promised the crowd that he would continue to hound those tobacco companies until teens stopped smoking. And he blasted the Republican-led Legislature, which fought the tobacco settlement, for later proposing to spend the money on "bumper sticker" programs rather than health care for children. "I will not have three years of my life's work on the tobacco settlement be thrown overboard by a bunch of politicians looking for personal gain," he said of the GOP proposals to use the money for tax cuts. . . In an interview after his speech, Butterworth said he was "quite comfortable" putting the tobacco fight at the center of his reelection, in part because Dudley -- considered his most likely opponent -- was among those who sided with the tobacco companies in trying to block the $11.3 billion agreement.
- No more smoking for Welwyn and Hatfield Council workers A council has announced plans to enforce a strict no-smoking policy while its employees are at work. From April 2000, WELWYN HATFIELD DISTRICT COUNCIL in HERTFORDSHIRE will enforce a complete smoking ban on all of its workers including park keepers and refuse collectors.
- The Philippine government, wrestling with a ballooning budget deficit, said it would drop tax-evasion charges against tycoon LUCIO TAN if he pays at least 15 billion pesos ($358.9 million) in unpaid taxes. . . The government in 1993 said it has evidence that FORTUNE TOBACCO Corp., Mr. Tan's flagship company, defrauded the government of huge tax revenue by underpricing its products from the factory and then reaping huge profits by reselling the cigarettes through marketing companies and bulk buyers between 1990 and 1992. Fortune Tobacco has repeatedly denied any such activity, saying its low production price is because of high productivity. The controversial case has languished in the courts as state tax lawyers were told by the courts to come up with stronger evidence.
- China's leaders Thursday announced a war on smuggling. In a sharp indictment of how corrupt and ineffectual Chinese Customs officials have become, the leaders announced that a new anti-smuggling police force would be formed. . . Cigarettes, gold and automobiles were among the heavily smuggled items cited at the meeting. . . Even cigarettes produced in China are a major item. To avoid domestic taxes, many cigarette makers export more than half their output, only to smuggle the cigarettes back into China, thus avoiding both domestic and import duties.
- Premier ZHU RONGJI ordered all Communist Party and government offices, law enforcement agencies and judiciary departments to sever relations with affiliated companies and investigate possible smuggling activities, according to the China Daily. Smuggling of oil products, automobiles and cigarettes through China's coastal cities has become rife and often involves tacit cooperation from Chinese officials.
- On the other hand, the country is still struggling with the problem of drugs. Tobacco smoking, drinking and drug use among 8th, 10th and 12th graders have been going up since 1991. What may be contributing to that statistic is the high number of kids growing up in single-parent homes. In 1997, 32 percent of America's families only had one parent in the household and many of those children have a high rate of poverty and poor medical care.
- The same report found that while the nation's children are generally healthier and better educated than before, more teens of all races used tobacco, alcohol and drugs during the 1990s. In 1997, 18% of 10th-graders had smoked cigarettes daily during the previous month, up from 12.6% in 1991.
- The findings, released on Tuesday, are part of the government's annual report on the well-being of the nation's children -- 69.5 million of them in 1997. . . Noting an upsurge in teen smoking, drinking and drug use, Alexander said the problem went beyond "an occasional drink. We're talking five drinks in a row in the last two weeks. The same goes for smoking. These kids are hooked."
- The U.S. Customs Service will incinerate hundreds of confiscated Cuban cigars if the owner of the contraband doesn't step forward to claim them -- unlikely, since the owner would face a $300,000 fine and as much as 15 years in prison if convicted of smuggling
- Tour Georgetown and the C&O Canal while learning the history of the 18th-century tobacco port. . . Discussion topics will include Civil War stories, African American history and current celebrity gossip. 3051 M St. NW. Fee: $12, reservations required. 301-588-8999.
- A U.S. District Court jury in Lafayette, Ind., yesterday found the University of Notre Dame discriminated against Joe Moore because of his age when the school fired the offensive line coach in late 1996. . . In addition, the trial's inside look at the nation's most famous college football program . . revealed that assistant coaches were present when under-age players drank alcohol. One assistant coach was said to be drinking and smoking cigars with players at a party. According to testimony, assistant coaches fought about everything from smoking in meetings to the length of colleagues' lunch hours.
- Krystle Newquist, who said her grandfather died from liver damage caused by alcoholism, used duct tape to cover the name of The Carousel from her jersey when she attended the first game of the season May 20. . . . Lance Van Auken, a spokesman for Little League International, said the league forbids ads that directly advertise alcohol -- such as a brand of beer -- or tobacco products. Places that sell such items, however, are not excluded.
- It's for teenagers . . . Even though Minnesota is the land of 1,000 rehab centers and music venues, there are very few chances to see club concerts in a nonalcoholic environment. . . Sean Lipinski, 17, of Stillwater was thrilled to have a new hangout to catch hardcore bands. . . . Foxfire does permit one vice: Smoking. "You can't have a rock show and take away booze and cigarettes," Larson said. "That would be mean and cruel."
- "Eskimo Pies, Jack Daniel's and the occasional two puffs of a cigarette." Those were Frank Sinatra's little vices in his final years, daughter Nancy said on "Entertainment Tonight."
- The still untitled movie that Disney Touchstone is making about JEFFREY WIGAND and the whistle-blowing he did on the Brown & Williamson tobacco giant, along with the ensuing "60 Minutes" coverage, has been shooting in Long Beach. In August, the film company moves to Mississippi. This is a movie that is really "about something" and it has been hounded by controversy. MIKE WALLACE in particular does not care for the way he is portrayed and has raised all kinds of hell with the producers. . . . The movie won't be seen until next year. But already the performances are being praised
- Representative VITO FOSSELLA of Staten Island got elected to Congress last year with the help of nearly $1 million in "soft money" from the Republican National Committee. Soft money flows through a loophole in campaign finance laws that lets political parties collect unregulated contributions from special interests. The grateful Mr. Fossella is now eagerly assisting the Republican House leadership in its effort to scuttle any serious campaign finance reform. The parties want to continue raking in money from tobacco, casinos and other industries in need of political favors, and recycling the money into issue ads for their candidates this fall. But principled Republicans have united with Democrats to press for a fair vote on a campaign finance reform bill now pending before the House.
- First, when should Americans have realized cigarettes' risk? . . . Two factors kept people smoking: Cigs are addictive; you get "hooked." Secondly, while the cigarette industry promised to fearlessly research and publish any and all evidence that might show smoking's hazards, they in fact used their front organizations, particularly the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), in New York, to cast doubt on what had become an overwhelming, scientific conclusion. "It hasn't been proven!" the industry insisted, and it used CTR to discredit and defame researchers and others who said, yes it had.
- The American Stop Smoking Intervention Study's (ASSIST) eight-year trial period is scheduled to end in the fall of 1999, and the project's future thereafter remains uncertain. . . ASSIST, the largest federally-funded program designed to reduce smoking, has succeeded in reducing smoking by seven to ten percent in 17 trial states. . . Source: Elizabeth Greenspan, "Philip Morris's Antismoking Nemesis," NATIONAL JOURNAL, July 18, 1998, p. 1694.
- Richard A. Daynard, chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Boston's Northeastern University School of Law, says a federal suit would be "quite wonderful," but such a threat "might have been more effective a couple of months ago, before the tobacco industry had nothing to lose by killing the bill."
- In other action on the spending measure, the Senate: . . . - Rejected 50-49 an amendment increasing funding from $34 million to $100 million for the Food and Drug Administration's campaign to reduce teen-age smoking.
- Senators approved an additional $63 million for food safety on Thursday . . . Democrats pursued the additional funding and offset it by cutting the funds in Agriculture Department computer and building accounts, as well as making tobacco companies pay the cost of administering the tobacco program. "We are going to stop subsidizing the growing of tobacco in America. Take the money, put it into food safety," said Senator Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat.
- Moving closer to President Clinton's goal, the Senate voted Thursday to increase spending on the White House food safety initiative from $2.6 million to $68 million. . . By a 66-33 vote, the Senate attached Harkin's amendment to the annual agriculture spending bill . . Harkin had hoped to find enough money for the president's full request, but was able to identify budget offsets only for $68 million. Of that, $40 million would be shifted from the Agriculture Department's tobacco program, imposing the cost to tobacco companies who already pay assessments to cover much of the expense.
- A court battle over a new tobacco ordinance in Burlington has begun. A group of store owners are objecting to a ban on tobacco in store displays... saying their right to make a living has been restricted. The store owners have filed a lawsuit against the tobacco ordinance. However, groups ranging from the police department to the American Lung Association support the ban. The case is being heard in federal court in Burlington.
- Those are some of the major issues on the agenda during the four-day National Conference of State Legislatures, beginning here Monday. The annual session is expected to draw some 1,200 legislators and 1,000 legislative staff members from across the country. The delegates will vote on issues that will determine the NCSL'S lobbying position with Congress for the coming year. . . Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore will be on hand Wednesday to discuss his state's multibillion-dollar settlement with the tobacco industry.
- U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Garbis, citing rulings in similar cases in Pennsylvania and Florida, said the funds did not spend their own money on sick smokers and therefore had no legal right to recover damages. A lawyer for the Maryland funds said Garbis' decision will be appealed. . . . "In this court's view, plaintiffs' entire complaint suffers from the fundamental flaw that the funds themselves, as opposed to their participants or the pertinent employers, have not suffered any cognizable damages," Garbis wrote in his 33-page decision Monday. Garbis said the funds did not suffer damages because they were supported by contributions negotiated between employers and workers. Garbis also ruled that funds were too "remote" from any harm to collect damages. "Rather, in the instant case, 'plaintiffs are merely handling the payments with money provided by others, and have no genuine stake in the matter,"' Garbis wrote, quoting the Pennsylvania decision.
- Perpetuating an increasing trend in state and federal courts, a Maryland federal court yesterday dismissed with prejudice all claims in a union health care fund lawsuit against the tobacco industry. The Seafarers Welfare Plan had sought reimbursement for costs to its health care fund attributable to the alleged smoking-related illnesses of its members.
- A New York state appeals court has dismissed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of more than a million smokers who accused tobacco companies of concealing the addictive quality of cigarettes. The court ruled Thursday that the smokers failed to offer evidence that any company advertisements or statements convinced them that cigarettes were not addictive, especially in light of news accounts about nicotine addiction. Smokers should have understood the habit is addictive, because they had a "reasonable opportunity to discover the true facts ... by using ordinary intelligence," the court ruled.
- The cigarette companies "have a due process right to cross-examine each (class) member, a task that would take hundreds of years," the court said. "Even if the trial were bifurcated (divided into separate phases) as plaintiffs propose, at some point it would be split into millions of trials."
- The court pointed out that "...various courts around the nation have denied class-action certification in tobacco lawsuits similar to this case because individual issues of fact as to addiction and personal injury predominated (over class-action issues)."
- In his effort to overturn a state law that prevents North Carolina from suing the tobacco industry, Attorney General Mike Easley can count on the backing of some unlikely allies: cigarette company workers and tobacco growers. The state's 30,000 tobacco workers and farmers want to make sure that North Carolina is included in settlements now being discussed by the industry and state attorneys general
- WALTER BYARS, a Montgomery attorney hired by the James administration, prepared a lawsuit on [Gov. Fob] JAMES' instructions. If filed, Alabama would become the 42nd state to sue tobacco companies to recover health-care costs related to tobacco use.
- Twenty-six of a targeted 90 potential jurors have been chosen for a pioneering class-action suit against tobacco companies on behalf of sick smokers in Florida, a court official said Thursday.
- It takes a nice man to represent an evil industry. Which may be why Big Tobacco has hired Bob Heim as lead defense attorney in the trial of a $200 billion class-action lawsuit brought by smokers in Florida. Jury selection in the case got under way last week. . . So how did a lanky, soft-spoken kid from Juniata Park wind up in a $200 billion case?
- A complaint seeking class action status was filed July 16, 1998, in the action Karen McNamara et. al. v. Philip Morris Companies, Inc., et. al., in the Court of Common Pleas, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, against Philip Morris Companies, Inc. The class consists of Pennsylvania residents who purchased Marlboro Lights cigarettes, manufactured by Philip Morris, since the company placed the product on the market. . . If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, please contact Ira Richards with Trujillo Rodriguez & Richards at 215-731-9004, or William P. Butterfield with Finkelstein, Thompson & Loughran, toll-free at 888-333-4409 or www.ftllaw.com.
- More than 18,000 growers have been allocated shares in the farmer-owned company Burley Marketing Zimbabwe Limited which runs the BMZ tobacco floors in Willowvale, lands and agriculture minister Kumbirai Kangai said Friday. Speaking at the opening of the Air-Cured Tobacco Association's 28th annual congress, he said this would boost grower confidence in the industry. It was unfortunate, he said, that due to cash constraints a number of growers, mostly small-scale, had opted to cash in their shares.
- So why has tobacco litigation in Australia all but died a mysterious death? . . Barrister Mr Neil Francey, counsel for the Australian Federation of Consumer Organisations in its case against the former Tobacco Institute of Australia, says that without Legal Aid, actions for false and misleading advertising against the manufacturers are not feasible. "In the US, lawyers can get contingency fees out of damages and there is no liability for a plaintiff if he or she is unsuccessful. In Australia, there is no entitlement to a percentage of damages ... and a plaintiff is still liable if they lose," Mr Francey said.
- ROGER BOKA, whose merchant bank and business empire collapsed in May with Z$3bn in liabilities, "has started haunting his debtors, including government ministers, demanding they back pay his money or risk being exposed", the Financial Gazette reported here yesterday. The paper, owned by a consortium of black businessmen with links to President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu (PF) party, quoted close associates of Boka saying that he had received no response to appeals sent to Mugabe and "was now writing threatening letters to all those who took out loans from his collapsed United Merchant Bank".
- When Kansas first lady LINDA GRAVES campaigns against poverty and hunger, she sounds a lot like a battlefield general marshaling troops. . . Graves spoke at a KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY ceremony honoring representatives of 53 Kansas food banks and soup kitchens that will share in a $10,000 grant provided by cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris Cos. Inc. "I'm delighted that Philip Morris is stepping up to this," Graves said. "It doesn't mean the war is done, but I do think we can mark what we do today as a victory in our battle to make Kansans eat better and eat more nutritionally." Community food pantry officials attending the event at KSU'S BEACH MUSEUM OF ART said they welcomed the Philip Morris grant, even though the state has yet to settle a 1996 product liability lawsuit against the tobacco giant and other cigarette makers. . . A representative from Philip Morris said the company had earmarked more than $180 million in the past 18 months to help fund hunger-reduction programs nationwide.
- Mathis says over the years he's seen a lot of performers fritter away good will with their excesses. ''. . . Some people want to be famous. Others want to be good. You can do both. Look at Sinatra. I never met him, never even shook hands with him, which is unusual in this business. But I've read a lot of books on him and the only thing I've read about how he cared for his voice is [chuckle] that five days before a concert he'd stop drinking and smoking.'' As for Mathis, ''I smoked until I was 25 or 26."
- A woman believed to have ignited her clothes on fire while walking with a cigarette has died. Florence Barresi, 83, died at about 11:05 p.m. Tuesday at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center from injuries sustained in the accident, her daughter said Thursday. Barresi caught fire Sunday as she walked along Rosemont Avenue. Cigarettes and a lighter were found at the scene.
- Ads from a Seattle religious group are drawing attention nationwide. The ads from Exodus International-North America urge homosexuals to give up their lifestyle. . . The creators of the ads say they have no political agenda and are only trying to point out that giving up homosexuality is like giving up cigarettes or alcohol.
- New polling data released today by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids show the combination of accepting tobacco campaign contributions and opposition to a national tobacco control policy may be lethal for candidates in the fall elections. By nearly a 7-to-1 margin, voters are much more likely to vote for a candidate who refuses tobacco money and supports a national tobacco control policy than one who takes tobacco contributions and opposes such a policy. . . The national survey of 835 registered voters was conducted July 6-8, 1998 by Market Facts' TeleNation.
- Leading U.S. and international tobacco control experts and members of Congress active in tobacco control issues released an urgent appeal to elected U.S. officials at a news briefing on Capitol Hill today, calling on them to help protect the world's women and girls from American tobacco companies' aggressive international marketing tactics.
- 35,000 high school students recently gave their opinions on 80 questions ranging from anti-tobacco ads to their personal "cool list." When asked about tobacco industry responsibility for teen smoking the majority of young people said the cigarette companies are not to blame. When asked for opinions about how to curb student smoking, the majority of teens said that neither anti-tobacco advertising, nor education about smoking's health risks, nor peer pressure or higher cigarette prices will help reduce teen smoking. Teens believe age limit law enforcement is the best way to lower the number of smokers in their age group. "I was surprised that more teens didn't blame the cigarette companies," said Jeff Lederman, President of Planet Report. "In light of all the media reports about big tobacco's targeting teens as 'replacement smokers' I would have expected more young people to blame the industry for teen smoking." "When it comes to predicting the effectiveness of the anti-tobacco ad plans, it makes sense that teens would predict failure. How many of us admit that ads work on us?" questioned Mr. Lederman.
- These aspirations, however, are combated by a rebellious nature that finds her suspended from school for smoking in the bathroom . . . . And what's with all the smoking? I felt like I was going to get cancer just watching this movie. But these annoying details tend to be outweighed by the film's powerfully stark moments, moments that won't soon leave your mind.
- Sober for a decade now, Osbourne has battled his demons, including alcohol, drugs and tobacco, which he's trying to kick with nicotine patches. One addiction he won't give up is performing.
- The Hyphen Coffeehouse brings a bohemian touch to Fuquay-Varina . . . The coffeehouse might be in the middle of tobacco country, but there is no cigarette smoke permeating the air. A sign in the front window proclaims "no smoking, no guns and definitely no smoking guns."
- The 60 tribes that reported lobbying expenses had significant financial stakes on several major issues before Congress: the casino fee; a proposed tax on tribal business earnings; and legislation that would allow tribes to be sued, require them to account for business income and force them to collect state taxes on cigarettes and gasoline. Except for the casino fee, tribes stopped each of the proposals.
- The Senate has voted to shift the cost of administering federal tobacco programs from taxpayers to cigarette companies. . . But even though they badly want to preserve the program that has propped up leaf prices since the 1930s, some Kentucky farm leaders yesterday did not embrace the Senate action. They worry that the change would give tobacco companies too much power over small farmers, and say growers would do better to pay those costs themselves. . . Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, proposed the switch as a way to steer more money toward food safety inspections. He estimated that roughly $60 million is spent annually on administration of the price-support program and crop insurance for tobacco
- Earlier this year, legislation to ban vending machine sales, license sellers of tobacco products and prohibit smoking in nursing homes, public schools, hospitals and child-care facilities foundered under intense pressure from the tobacco lobby. In the 1997 session, the legislature wiped out the ability of cities and towns to regulate the sale and promotion of tobacco products -- the so-called pre-emption law. . . the new legislation made the possession of tobacco by a minor a crime. That was touted as an important weapon in fighting teen smoking. The 1997 law has turned out to be a dud. . . there's little evidence the law is being widely enforced or that police consider it a high priority.
- Two men were arrested Thursday morning after they allegedly used a power saw to cut through the roof of a cigar shop, filled two gunny sacks with expensive tobacco products and hauled them out of the store. . . Karan Takvoryan, 24, and Oganes Atkozyan, 44--both of Van Nuys--are also suspects in two other recent smoke shop burglaries, police said. On May 30, thieves stole $5,000 worth of cigars from the Cigar Club & Lounge at 19231 Ventura Blvd., and two days later, The Humidor at 22323 Sherman Way was burglarized.
- The first tentative engagement is under way in what was, up until now, a very quiet race for Alabama attorney general. Democratic challenger TERRY BUTTS claims incumbent Republican BILL PRYOR "made a four-BILLION dollar mistake" by not joining in lawsuits against the nation's tobacco cartel. Pryor's alternative is a law "assessing" big tobacco rather than a lawsuit with its attendant legal fees for lawyers.
- Three of the Republican candidates said they had doubts about Baker's decision to file the tobacco suit, particularly because of the impact it could have on tobacco farmers in Georgia. "Before I sued a legal business, I would have wanted to know more about a cost-benefit analysis - if we know what the damages are and do those damages outweigh the revenue [from tobacco farming]," Ralston said.
- The rules were unanimously approved yesterday by a panel of the METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON AIRPORTS AUTHORITY, as part of a campaign to address complaints about the taxi fleet serving National. . . The dress code would prohibit sandals, shirts without collars and shorts other than Bermudas. And under the new smoking regulation, a passenger could demand that a driver stop smoking, and vice versa.
- Brooklyn Rep. EDOLPHUS TOWNS is building his status as New York's Marlboro Man at a time when many politicians are treating contributions from tobacco companies as hazardous to their political health. As the debate over tobacco raged in Washington over the last three months, the eight-term Democrat accepted another $4,000 from the industry ‹ giving him a total of nearly $60,000 from tobacco interests in the last decade, records show.
- (GOODLETTSVILLE) Police are searching for two suspects in a rash of burglaries in Sumner and Davidson counties. The thieves steal cartons of cigarettes which are then resold on the streets. A store security camera has caught one of the bandits on tape stuffing the cartons in his pants.
- Gratiot heading downtown is lined with marquees giving the soft sell -- signs bearing pictures of cigarettes and scantily clad women, politicians and produce, and alcohol and autos. The Detroit City Council may take action today to cap the billboard boom. "The sentiment of the majority of the citizens over the past 10 years is we have to do more" to address the number of signs, said Councilwoman Alberta Tinsley-Williams, who has, for more than a decade, championed legislation that would prohibit billboards advertising tobacco and alcohol.
- The annual tobacco market opens on Tuesday in Georgia and Florida; on July 28 in towns along the North Carolina and South Carolina line, including Robeson, Columbus and Bladen counties; on July 29 in eastern North Carolina, including Moore and Sampson counties; and on Aug. 4 in northern North Carolina and Virginia. "We don't really know what to expect yet," said Lawrence McDougald, a tobacco farmer . . . They (the cigarette companies) haven't given us a real indication that they're going to buy what they intended to buy."
- "I think it's unfair," said Whitson, chairman of the Allies for Tobacco rally held Saturday in this Hawkins County town to promote awareness of the economic impact of tobacco on its producers. . . . Hundreds of tobacco farmers from Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky were among the 2,500 people in attendance. Included in that figure was Dan Wheeler, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. "We support the tobacco industry and what it represents to our economy," Wheeler said, riding on one of the 322 tractors in the rally parade down Main Street all the way to U.S. Highway 11W.
- And as of January in Kansas City, mobile billboards owned by a local company, HIGHTECH SIGNS, have been tooling through neighborhoods hauling ads for cigarettes, radio stations and musical events. Similar rolling signs were banished from the streets of Baltimore recently for opposing the citywide ban on alcohol and tobacco billboards. But in Kansas City, Hightech's president, Bill Arnold of Roeland Park, said business is great.
- Christie's has a limited-edition, 1492 humidor on offer tomorrow. The box of 50 is expected to fetch as much as £10,000. Three years ago the same set of hand-rolled Havana beauties was selling for about £5,000. When 501 boxes were introduced in 1992 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus discovering the New World, they sold for £20.
- As for the area's major crop, tobacco farmers are still dealing with the double whammy this year's wet spring dealt them. So much rain fell earlier this year that tobacco plants failed to establish a strong root system. . . . In addition to weakening root systems, the spring rains packed the ground, which hinders the soil's ability to absorb water.
- Recent rains might have helped the tobacco, cotton and soybean crops. But for the majority of corn, it's come too late. . . For tobacco farmers, good weather might be more crucial this year. Tobacco companies are expected to be pickier about the type of leaf bought at market, said Gerald Peedin, a tobacco specialist with North Carolina State University.
- Among companies that reported 1998 giving figures, the top donor was the PHILIP MORRIS Companies, which says it will give $60-million to charity this year. KAREN BROSIUS (left), head of corporate contributions, says that Philip Morris's giving has remained unaffected by anti-tobacco efforts that have threatened the company's fiscal health. Ms. Brosius says the biggest chunk of Philip Morris's contributions will continue to go to homelessness and anti-hunger groups, including New York's CITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS, where she often volunteers to deliver meals to the needy
- Among the companies reporting 1998 giving, PHILIP MORRIS Companies Inc., the beleaguered tobacco company, is the biggest giver with planned donations of $60 million. After a rough year that saw a slew of suits implicating tobacco in disease, and possible increased government regulation of the tobacco industry, Philip Morris continued to stress the food side of its holdings by giving $20 million to charities that help the homeless and hungry. SECOND HARVEST, the nation's largest charitable hunger-relief organization, for example, will receive $13 million in Philip Morris food products this year - including tons of KRAFT macaroni and cheese, and thousands of TACO BELL dinners.
- As foreign markets become bigger, more reliable profit centers for the tobacco industry, RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN) finds itself in need of a tour guide - just like any hapless American traveling abroad. Investors and analysts see the company finding an international partner in the next 12 to 18 months, and the likeliest candidate, they say, is B.A.T Industries Ltd. (BTI). . . An RJR International-B.A.T deal would make sense for a number of reasons, market players say. It would combine B.A.T's successful Kool, Carlton and private-label GPC brands with RJR's Winston, Salem and Camel, some of the most-recognized consumer brands in the world. In addition, B.A.T has a vast international distribution network, which RJR doesn't have, while RJR's significant presence in growing Russia is something B.A.T lacks.
- Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. analyst Roy Burry said he started coverage of four tobacco companies last week.
- Another is World Candies Inc., a 46-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., company owned by two brothers, Leon and Samuel Cohen. It isn't clear exactly how big the candy-cigarette business is. Neither closely held company discloses sales, and third-party sales estimates are hard to find. The National Confectioners Association, the main trade group of the candy industry, says candy cigarettes don't even appear on its radar screen. "It's not even a big enough issue for us to have a position on," says spokeswoman Susan Smith. 'Sell Like Crazy' Still, despite all the focus on youth smoking, distributors say demand for candy cigarettes has been steady through the years. "They sell like crazy," says Steve Corri, owner of Garvey Nut & Candy Inc., a City of Commerce, Calif., distributor. He estimates candy cigarettes contribute about 2% of his company's annual $35 million in sales. "Other items come and go, but candy cigarettes stay very constant," Mr. Corri says, noting that about half of his 5,000 accounts, including stores in Japan, Indonesia and Guam, order them regularly.
- A Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company advertisement in today's ROLL CALL laments the dissolution of the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR). The advertisement is displayed in a letter-to-the-editor format alongside a ROLL CALL opinion piece.
- An advertisement [in Roll Call] by US Tobacco (UST) insists the company does not market its products to youth. The ad displays an icon that reads: "US Tobacco Reminds You: Smokeless Tobacco Not For Sale To Minors."
- We were pleased with our second quarter financial results considering the current difficult paper market conditions. Demand for book publishing, envelope and tobacco papers continued to be weak during this period. This weak demand, caused in part by higher than normal producer inventory levels and imports of competitive papers, has led to decreased selling prices for many uncoated papers, including envelope and book publishing papers.
- THE GOOD ship Jiang Geehai has arrived at MADRAS PORT on the evening of Monday, July 13, with some 10,000 tonnes of the much-needed Sulphate of Potash (SoP). Some 3,900 tonnes of SoP have to be applied on the tobacco fields in Karnataka before the end of the third week of July so as to prevent any drop in quality.
- Minister of state for finance Fouad Siniora yesterday opened a new tobacco processing plant in Ghazieh, near Sidon, which is expected to boost the fast-growing industry. "The plant is one of the most modern factories in the world and its output is 15 times more than that of the old facility," Siniora said. The 46 machines in the plant were donated by the British-American Tobacco (BAT) company while the tobacco regie provided the infrastructure. "The number of tobacco farmers increased from 4,100 in 1992 to 28,000 in 1997. The total production increased in the same period from 1.7m tonnes to 9.1m tonnes," the minister said.
- But in "MANY THOUSANDS GONE: THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES OF SLAVERY IN NORTH AMERICA," to be published by Harvard University Press in September, professor Ira Berlin of the University of Maryland says the actual picture is much more varied and complex. . . Berlin explains how the development of plantation farming -- tobacco around the Chesapeake Bay, rice and indigo in South Carolina and cotton and sugar in Florida and the lower Mississippi -- produced a vastly enlarged slave trade, direct from West Africa. This ultimately transformed these regions from what Berlin terms "societies with slaves" into even more brutal "slave societies."
- For most of his 97 years, Reyes Serrano rode wild horses, rounded up cattle, hunted bobcats, chewed tobacco, smoked cigars and downed a shot of whiskey with breakfast every morning. . . Serrano, born on a Juaneno Indian reservation in San Juan Capistrano on Jan. 6, 1901, died Tuesday of pneumonia and cardiac arrest. . . In May, he moved into the nursing home, reluctantly giving up his tobacco and whiskey and just staying in bed, his daughters said.
- One organization sponsoring the conferences -- LIBERTAD, Inc., a charitable foundation -- is entirely funded by Philip Morris Cos., the nation's largest tobacco company, a company spokeswoman said. Philip Morris provides most of the funding for the other nonprofit organization, the NEW YORK SOCIETY FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, said Darienne Dennis, spokeswoman for Philip Morris Management Cos., the corporations' administrative arm. . . After attending one conference in 1995, one of the judges, DOUGLAS GINSBURG of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, ruled on two tobacco cases, each time in the industry's favor. . . Another judge, PASCO BOWMAN of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled against smokers in a case brought by a prisoner who claimed his rights were violated by a smoking ban. . . A frequent judicial traveler, CHIEF JUDGE LOREN SMITH of the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., could face a decision soon on whether to participate in tobacco-related cases.
- Councilwoman ODELIA ROBINSON drives along Union Ave. in her Mount Pleasant neighborhood, surveying the billboards. At E. 119th St., there is a billboard advertising a car. At E. 123rd there's one for ice cream and at E. 131st St. one for a bank. "You wouldn't have found any of these a few months ago," she said. "The only thing you saw before were ads for cigarettes or liquor." ROBINSON was the lead sponsor of an ordinance passed six months ago prohibiting cigarette and alcohol advertising on billboards in city neighborhoods, aimed at discouraging residents - especially young people - from engaging in these vices. The law will not go into full effect until March, because billboard companies are allowed to honor alcohol and tobacco contracts until then. But the law has already had an impact.
- Vance Opperman was in his element. . . Jeanice Opperman was a lifelong smoker. Her son is convinced that cigarettes are what made her suffer too long and die too young. When Skip Humphrey took the tobacco industry to court, he became the enemy of Opperman's enemy. That helped move Opperman into Humphrey's camp this year. The two weren't natural allies.
- As Granite Staters live longer and continue to smoke cigarettes, the number of people who suffer from cancer will climb, experts say. According to preliminary data from the New Hampshire Cancer Registry, 4,998 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 1995 ‹ holding firm at levels reported in previous years. . . But health officials say the primary cause of most cancer ‹ cigarette smoking ‹ is also the most preventable. About 22 percent of New Hampshire residents smoke ‹ rating about average with the rest of the United States, said Barry Gordon of the New Hampshire Tobacco Prevention Program. Tobacco is blamed for causing 30 percent of cancer deaths in the state, including cancer of the lung, bladder, kidney, esophagus, larynx, pancreas and stomach.
- More than a year ago, Linda Rodden and her sister, Valerie McShane, decided to ban smoking at their downtown Dover restaurant. . . Business dropped off almost immediately. . . The women's relatives told them they were making a huge mistake. They were wrong. While some smokers have made good on their promise not to return, Rodden said, other people are coming in. . . Now she regrets not banning smoking five years ago. However, the sisters won't go as far as banning smoking in the lounge ‹ yet.
- The Health Minister, Mr. Dalit Ezhilmalai, today declared the intention of the Government to launch awareness campaigns under its National Cancer Control Programme on the harmful effects of pan masala that contained chewing tobacco (gutkha).
- FROM September, tobacco retailers will require a licence to sell cigarettes. And retailers who continue to sell cigarettes to youths under 18 years will risk losing their licence, which will cost $180 a year. Licensed tobacco retailers also cannot sell cigarettes in loose sticks and cannot have youths under 18 years selling tobacco products.
- Organised business and industry has joined opposition politicians on Friday in condemning government's proposed tobacco law, saying it was unconstitutional. The new Tobacco Control Bill, which is due to be presented to Parliament during the next session, will ban advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products. In a statement, executive director of the Freedom of Commercial Speech Trust Piet Delport said the law is a direct infringement of constitutional rights of expression.
- Draft legislation on the control of tobacco products promised to be one of the most controversial and emotionally-laden issues in a long time and should be approached in a multi-disciplinary way, the National Party said on Thursday. The Bill approved by Cabinet this week raised more questions than answers, NP health spokesman Kobus Gous said in a statement. The Bill sought to declare smoking in public places a criminal offence and would ban tobacco advertising in all forms, including sports sponsorships. This development threatened the loss of thousands of jobs in tobacco-related industries, as well as the marketing and advertising industries, Gous said.
- The Tobacco Control Bill to outlaw general tobacco advertisements had been released for public comment, the Health Department said in a statement in Pretoria on Wednesday. It said the Bill proposed tobacco advertising should only appear on tobacco products, and that the use of such products as gifts or cash prizes be banned.
- U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman will tour several South Carolina farms today to assess the damage caused by scorching drought-like conditions the past month. Glickman is the guest of U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., who is in a tightly contested re-election race this year with U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C. The daylong tour will take Glickman and Hollings to cotton, tobacco, soybean and corn farms in Eastover, Florence and Sumter County. . . Tobacco production is forecast at 96.8 million pounds, down 23 percent from last year.
- But LASN and other advocates of less commercialism may have discovered a counterattack. "Since we're finding it increasingly hard to 'outcool' them because of this trend," he said, "we're moving more into straight information ads instead of parodies." For instance, a recent foray against PHILIP MORRIS for selling cigarettes avoided ad spoofs assaulting the Marlboro cowboy or the Virginia Slims woman. Rather, an ad in Adbusters "simply asked people why they're buying food from a tobacco company," Lasn said, referring to brands like KRAFT and MINUTE RICE that are sold by Philip Morris. "And it worked," he added. "People talked about it. I did a lot of radio talk shows."
- Austria Tabakwerke AG (R.ATW), Austria's dominant tobacco wholesaler and producer, may raise its regular annual dividend to 30 schillings (ATS) a share in 1998 from ATS28 in 1997, reported the newspaper Der Standard Monday.
- So we're approaching yet another August, with the tobacco industry's fortunes still floating in a cloud of Marlboro-tinged uncertainty. With the latest round of settlement talks, speculation has been mounting from New York to Hawaii that a dividend boost is imminent.
- Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," the former chancellor of the University of Wisconsin was asked: "Did you ever smoke when you were young?" "I did," she replied. "And did you smoke because of advertisements that you saw? Or did you smoke because everybody else that was doing it was cool?" "Well, I think I smoked because I wanted to be a journalist and I thought all journalists smoked,' she said. The health secretary was assured by the moderator that "you can be a journalist now because we're smoke free."
- Mel Gibson says he's "not exactly a geriatric." But the 42-year-old matinee idol tells People "I'm not 23 anymore" either. The magazine says in the 20 years that Gibson has been a celebrity, he's fought to restrict his drinking successfully, still tries to curb his smoking and has had uneven success in curbing his temper.
- The gang on HANG TIME (NBC, Saturday at 9:30 a.m.) delivers an anti-smoking message.
- Some of the 6,000 delegates to this week's 89th annual NAACP convention departed with questions about the group accepting a $12,000 donation from cigarette manufacturer RJR Nabisco, although the organization later passed a resolution condemning tobacco advertising in black communities. . . . NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said this week the donation "will clearly be used in our fight on Capitol Hill against tobacco. We are not up for sale."
- FURTHER evidence the odious cigar trend has bottomed out: AMBASSADOR VIDEO (headquartered in New Jersey, of course) has just put out "NUDE CIGAR SMOKING," a cassette full of naked chicks enjoying their stogies a little too much. When not actually puffing away, the tobacco tomatoes massage their breasts with the smelly brown stogies and give clueless stogie-smoking instructions. But sharp-eyed editors at POPsmear magazine noticed that at least one of the gals is a real pro, with teeth well-darkened from years of puffing away. Let's hope this finally puts the nail in the coffin.
- Corporations, trade groups and other outside interests spent $6.4 million last year on trips for members of Congress and their staffs, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The group, which studies the influence of money in politics, built a searchable, computerized database of the congressional travel disclosure forms (at www.crp.org on the World Wide Web). . . TOP 10 SPONSORS OF PRIVATELY FUNDED TRAVEL:
- 10) Tobacco Institute
- Sponsor Total: $63,705
- To Democrats: $27,240
- To Republicans: $36,465
- Number of Trips: 23
- GOP pollster Bill McInturff said that instead of focusing on the conservative base vote, Republicans need to make sure Democrats do not have effective issues to use against them, which might attract moderate GOP voters. . . With the conservative base relatively secure, McInturff said the top priority of Republican leaders should be to propose credible tobacco and health maintenance organization revisions that would mute Democratic efforts to make these issues the focus of the November elections. "We can do it by stopping them on tobacco and HMO stuff. If Social Security is handled correctly, they have nothing, and we can grind them down by weight of resources," he said.
- A recurring, widely held opinion among the people questioned was that smokers were largely or fully to blame for their lung cancer, emphysema and other ailments because they chose to smoke cigarettes, ROSENBLATT said. "That's what the tobacco companies say," he said "That's their classic defense." . . Philip Morris attorney Robert HEIM said the defendants saw little advantage in the prospective jurors chosen so far because many simultaneously believed arguments that nicotine in cigarettes was addictive. "Stanley worries about one thing," Heim said in an interview. "And, I worry about the other thing."
- It appears residents of Corvallis will vote on the future of a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. A second batch of signatures were turned in last week and appear to be enough to bring the controversial ban to a vote. The Corvallis City Council instituted the ban which prohibits smoking in enclosed public places, including bars and taverns. If the measure qualifies, it would be on the ballot sometime next year.
- In an unprecedented move, the Costa Mesa City Council may vote this week to ban freestanding cigarette sales in the city. The ban, if approved, would prohibit tobacco vending machines and counter cigarette package sales. According to NBC4, a handful of teens from Estancia High School are lobbying council members to pass the measure and swiftly put it into action.
- THE government will expand its investigation on the alleged multi-billion-peso tax credit scam by including the firms that availed themselves of the perks from the one-stop-shop of the Department of Finance (DOF), a high-ranking finance official said. The official, who requested anonymity, said the probe would be conducted by an interagency body composed of the Commission on Audit, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Ombudsman, and the Economic Intelligence and Investigation Bureau. A list prepared by the Bureau of Customs showed that a wide range of companies--including the three oil firms, the state-owned National Power Corp., electric coops and Lucio Tan's Fortune Tobacco Corp.--were among "the usual and regular applicants" that availed themselves of tax credit.
- Philip Morris Co (NYSE:MO - news)s. Inc.'s earnings fell 2 percent in the second quarter due to expenses related to settling tobacco lawsuits and the cost of an early-retirement program.
- Philip Morris Cos. Inc. on Tuesday reported a 7 percent operating income increase for the second quarter, as strong results from its international tobacco and North American food operations offset weaker overseas food earnings and flat beer profits. The results, which were as analysts expected, showed that the world's largest consumer packaged goods company earned $3.9 billion, or 82 cents per diluted share, excluding certain charges. . . Net income fell 2 percent to $1.8 billion, including charges totaling $328 million . . Net earnings per share on a diluted basis slipped 1.3 percent to 74 cents per share.
- Tobacco growers anxiously awaiting flue-cured tobacco market openings will be greeted with a campaign to assist them in helping the public understand that if tobacco regulation moves forward, it must do so in a fair and equitable manner. The "Let's Get It Right" campaign, sponsored by the NATIONAL TOBACCO COUNCIL (NTC), gives growers wearable stickers, flyers and bumperstickers explaining that Members of Congress still need to hear from growers and other tobacco supporters as efforts to develop tobacco regulations continue. The campaign's focal point is "No New Tobacco Taxes." Tobacco growers and supporters are encouraged to use the toll-free number (1-800-343-3222) to call their Members of Congress and express their opinion.
- About 21 percent of the state's $1 billion-a-year tobacco crop is in poor or very poor condition, but state agricultural officials say they aren't too worried yet. "A lot of corn and soybeans are burned up, but tobacco is a lot tougher crop," said Jim Knight, an NCDA spokesman. "A good rain or two and the tobacco will be OK."
- "This is what the future will be," said warehouse owner Julian Rigby. After a three-year experiment from Virginia through Florida, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has said tobacco farmers may sell as much baled tobacco as they want. The process saves on both manual labor and storage space. J. Michael Moore, a tobacco specialist for the University of Georgia Agriculture Extension Service, said the experiment was necessary to make sure tobacco retained its quality after being baled.
- Tobacco markets were set to open Tuesday in Georgia and Florida, kicking off a three-month season that is critical to growers who depend on the golden leaf to fund their farming operations. Georgia's 1,500 growers produced $153 million worth of tobacco last year.
- The garden still blossoms with the lavender Paul liked to bring indoors to counter the smell of his father's smoking.
- Careless smoking is being blamed for a fire that killed a man and injured a firefighter on Chicago's South Side. The unnamed man died in his bedroom yesterday, although his wife was unharmed. Firefighter Pat Murphy was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park with second-degree burns.
- * In Arlington, Wash., eight senior citizens died in a fire at a residential care facility April 27. Officials blamed a careless smoker for the tragedy.
- From commentary on the election of Ben Ruffin, a vice president for corporate affairs for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., as the first black chairman of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors in the Left Legislative Update, an electronic newsletter published by the Common Sense Foundation: Ruffin is now vice president for corporate affairs at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, a corporation that has hardly been a friend to the state's poor, both by promoting its deadly product and by lobbying for and receiving huge tax breaks from state policy-makers. . . Can we be sure that it is the old Ben Ruffin that is now the head of the policy-making body of our university system? Will he speak for us or RJR? Ruffin's election could be a watershed moment for the UNC system. Or it could be more business as usual, where business interests seem to dominate every important policy-making board in state government.
- Are people responsible for their own conduct, or can their behavior be excused and explained away by the power and reach of forces beyond their control - like advertising and the corporations that use advertising? . . . People smoke because they want to. It's not easy to get addicted to smoking; indeed, it takes a certain amount of effort. So, of course, does quitting. Yet most smokers quit eventually. Most smokers do not die of cancer. And those who do, bear the responsibility.
- LIGGETT GROUP is seeking to revive a massive class-action settlement that would eliminate all current and future suits against the company by smokers. . . In court papers, Liggett describes the settlement as much-improved, although some plaintiffs' groups are already opposing the deal, claiming that it inadequately compensates people. Monday, the Alabama judge handling the case delayed a key hearing set for Tuesday, after some other plaintiffs' lawyers with tobacco suits complained that they hadn't been given enough time to review the agreement.
- Five major California lawsuits seeking billions in damages against the tobacco industry will be consolidated for trial -- perhaps beginning in February, a Superior Court judge here ruled Monday. Judge RONALD S. PRAGER issued the order after a brief hearing, saying that all the cases -- including one filed by California Attorney General DAN LUNGREN, another by his gubernatorial rival Lt. Governor GRAY DAVIS, and yet another by LOS ANGELES COUNTY -- involve numerous common allegations and legal issues. In a rare point of agreement, both the plaintiffs and the cigarette companies had previously said that consolidation made sense.
- Now cigarette companies have until 2000, and even then the signs can stay for three more years if businesses comply with tighter restrictions that will kick in. Critics have charged that this is a cave-in to Big Tobacco. Tobacco lobbyists called Rock's move "a cave-in to common sense." I think both views have some justification, because the marketing situation here is really complicated. . . Ads by association work, so much so that one of the newest trends in advertising is to show a particular image and not even name the product. You're just supposed to know. The tobacco companies know that. Which is why I'm glad that they're being pushed out of the racing game, even if it has to be done through a compromise.
- Democrats are asking the Federal Communications Commission to change rules on access to the airwaves, saying that political candidates can't be heard above the "din" of interest group advertising. . . . More recently, the major tobacco companies ran a $40 million national advertising campaign to help defeat tobacco legislation in Congress. With off-year elections just four months away, the Democrats said, there is concern that the flood of issues ads would drown out candidates.
- A late-night whiff of cigar smoke wafted into the House chamber as Representative CHRISTOPHER SHAYS of Connecticut endured the wrath of his Republican leaders for defying their back-room strategy to block a new campaign finance system. Angry voices echoed in the nearly empty chamber as Shays fought one Republican amendment after another aimed at scuttling an overhaul plan he is sponsoring with Representative MARTIN T. MEEHAN, a Lowell Democrat. In a midsummer drama that is lurching toward a final scene, Shays has emerged as a pariah among many Republicans who see his push for new campaign-finance laws as an unwarranted attack on House Speaker NEWT GINGRICH's authority and their incumbency.
- Kelley noted that while the tobacco companies had the right to establish a separate propaganda organization like the Tobacco Institute, JUDGE GLAZER held that the separate status did not shield the Tobacco Institute from responsibilities for its actions. Kelley stated: "The tobacco defendants are squirming to get out of this case because they know they lied to the public, and now they must pay."
- State Attorney General BILL PRYOR and Finance Director JIMMY BAKER chose Wednesday to keep Alabama taxpayers in the dark about their tobacco discussions in Chicago with officials from other states. While declining comment on any specifics of what was discussed in the private session Tuesday, Pryor said he remains opposed to Alabama suing tobacco companies for the state to recover smoker-related medical costs.
- As Washington prepares to haul the tobacco industry to court in two months, a judge has appointed a special master to study the industry's request to keep some documents off limits to the trial. King County Superior Court Judge George A. Finkle, who is overseeing the trial, on Wednesday appointed Seattle lawyer Arthur W. Harrigan Jr., to sift through industry motions to keep numerous documents from disclosure. The industry primarily cites privilege and confidentiality reasons.
- With the anti-smoking bill dead in Congress, California and other states are stepping in with lawsuits targeting Big Tobacco for billions of dollars in health costs.
- PATTON said that while he supported President Clinton's goal of reducing teen smoking, he thinks Clinton's proposal went too far. Patton said he has been able to convince the president that the tobacco price-support program should be protected to preserve small farms and the rural way of life. The challenge now, he said, will be to get that message across to Congress. "It's a tough fight, but I am prepared to do what I can to preserve that program," he said.
- Ashcroft's FEC report shows no money coming in from tobacco interests. He has said that he will accept no help from the industry, notwithstanding the leading role he played in killing this spring's attempt at comprehensive tobacco legislation. The report shows a $500 contribution from C. BOYDEN GRAY of Washington, son of a former chairman of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Gray is better known as the Washington attorney who served as counsel to former President George Bush.
- The 28th annual Latino Festival will be this weekend in downtown Washington, featuring a parade of folklore groups and pageant queen contestants and music on three outdoor stages. For the second year in a row, no alcohol will be sold or permitted at the festival, which will be held on Pennsylvania Avenue NW between Ninth and 13th streets. Organizers said they will feature health information about drinking and smoking and hope to turn the festival into a family event.
- With Gov. Fob James suddenly talking about a possible lawsuit against tobacco companies, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor is looking to cut the state in on a deal with the cigarette makers, The Huntsville Times reported. Pryor and James' state Finance Director, Jimmy Baker, were in Chicago meeting Tuesday with attorneys general from states that have not settled with the tobacco industry, said Claire Austin, a spokeswoman for Pryor's re-election campaign.
- ROCKFORD - July 21 - 54 year-old Lynn Murray was an employee of the Freeport post office when he opened a first class parcel tat contained tobacco products. Murray has since been fired and faces a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a fine of $100,000.
- If the antitobacco issue works for any Democrat this year, it ought to work for Senate candidate Jay Nixon. The issue could scarcely be more sharply drawn than here in Missouri. Jeremiah (Jay) Nixon, Missouri's attorney general, joined with other attorneys general to forge last year's historic $368.5 billion settlement between tobacco companies and the states. GOP Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, whom Mr. Nixon is challenging, joined with other Republican senators last month to kill that deal in the Senate.
- But the one thing that voters in this fast-growing district north of Seattle are sure to hear about Ms. [Margarethe] Cammermeyer in her run for Congress is that she also is a homosexual. Or, as Rep. Jack Metcalf, the Republican incumbent, called her in a recent mailing, "a controversial lesbian." . . Celebrities have been drawn to Ms. Cammermeyer's campaign, and that has been a source of criticism. . . Metcalf has made an issue of it. . . "How about all the insurance companies, the developers and tobacco money pouring into his campaign?" Ms. Cammermeyer asked
- "How can we say that tobacco is not okay for our children and then say it is okay for children in other countries," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the need for global standards. No such standards or laws are in place. So, for the time being, the ads and marketing practices pictured below are not likely to cease.
- BRUNDTLAND, 59, pledged to adopt better ties with the pharmaceuticals industry and a business-friendly approach at the WHO, which critics say has been hobbled by the philosophy that profit is evil and state action automatically good. But she made an exception for the tobacco business. At a news conference after taking office, Brundtland repeated her call for a global ban on cigarette advertising. "The kind of laws being put in place in many countries will be a global model for tobacco advertising. This has to be done in a systematic way. We will have to convince the governments," she said. "The idea is to hamper and reduce the spread of tobacco into new population groups. ... We have to work on this very seriously in order to get results," said Brundtland.
- Jean Coutu, founder and CEO of Quebec's biggest drugstore chain, . . . had summoned reporters to vaunt Jean Coutu Group's profitable performance for fiscal 1997. The company reported a 16 per cent increase in sales to $1.9 billion and an 11 per cent rise in profits to $63 million. But reporters zoomed in on the chain's court battle for the right to continue selling tobacco products. Coutu immediately cut off the meeting, saying the issue had been covered a day earlier by another company executive.
- A very nasty catfight is raging between the patriarch of Quebec pharmacists and the organization that governs his profession. JEAN COUTU, founder of Le Groupe Jean Coutu, with 250 franchises across Eastern Canada, is at the front line. He will not heed the orders of the QUEBEC ORDER OF PHARMACISTS that he butt out of the lucrative tobacco trade.
- Jean Coutu Group vice-president Richard Mayrand wouldn't say how many jobs would be threatened but he did say revenue losses could reach $28 million for the industry. Last month the Quebec Order of Pharmacists ordered an immediate halt to the sale of tobacco products by the province's 1,460 pharmacies. So far, 80 per cent of Quebec's pharmacies have complied with the order but many Jean Coutu stores have refused. "We say this is not a public-health debate," Mayrand said.
- The order banning the sale of tobacco products was issued by the Quebec Order of Pharmacists (the Order) on June 22, even though other less radical and less immediate courses of action were available. . . . The management of The Jean Coutu Group deplores the Order's intransigence . . The Group wishes to underline again that the purpose of this intervention is not to call into question the two-year grace period provided for under the Tobacco Bill but rather to contest the immediate removal of these products as imposed by the Order. It is for that reason that an appeal under judicial review of the decision of the Tribunal des professions has been instituted. . . .According to M. Mayrand, "it is clear that dropping from 30 000 points of sale to 29 300 will have no impact on tobacco use. This debate is therefore not about public health."
- South African business and sport are smouldering over draft legislation that aims to stub out tobacco advertising and smoking in public places. The draft Tobacco Product Control Amendment Bill, released for public comment last week, is aimed at amending existing legislation to outlaw smoking in the workplace and all advertising or promotion of tobacco products.
- Prices for Georgia-Florida flue-cured tobacco improved Wednesday, especially for primings. Most heavy volume primings were up $3 to $9, and averaged between $138 and $155 per hundred, the Federal-State Market News Service reported. But lighter volume lugs were off $2 to $6, and ranged from $148 to $154 per hundred.
- Swisher International Group Inc. (NYSE: SWR - news), the world's largest cigar company as measured by units sold, today announced its results for both the second quarter and first half of 1998. Net income for the second quarter ended June 30, 1998 was $8.8 million, or $0.26 per share on both a basic and diluted basis, on net sales of $70.2 million versus last year's comparable period in which net income was $10.5 million, or $0.31 per share, on net sales of $70.7 million.
- UST Inc. on Wednesday said it expects its cigar operations to post an operating loss for the year due to high wholesale and retail inventories. But the company said it anticipates improved operating results from its wine unit during the second half of 1998 after operating profits dipped in the second quarter.
- UST Inc. (NYSE: UST - news) today announced that second quarter 1998 net earnings increased 2% to $119.1 million and diluted earnings per share increased 2% to 64 cents as compared to the corresponding 1997 period.
- Manufactured by QuitLabs, a Winston-Salem, NC, pharmaceutical company, Nicarest is made of processed tobacco by-products and medicated with carefully calculated doses of nicotine and antibiotic "tar." Nicarest has won the endorsement of the Surgeon General, American Cancer Society and American Medical Association, and has quickly become the most popular stop-smoking aid on the market. "Whenever I get the urge for a cigarette, I just head for Nicarest Country instead," said Doug Luedtke
- All of which convinced cigarette makers that the time was ripe to open a second front, this time targeting females. In 1928, just as they were beginning that push, Edward L. Bernays started working for GEORGE WASHINGTON HILL, the president of the AMERICAN TOBACCO CO., which made America's fastest-growing cigarette brand, LUCKY STRIKE. Hill, Bernays later recalled, "became obsessed by the prospect of winning over the large potential female market for Luckies. 'If I can crack that market, I'll get more than my share of it,' he said to me one day. 'It will be like opening a new gold mine right in our front yard."'
- After months of federal efforts to curb teen smoking, lawmakers found themselves red-faced Thursday over a report about a pair of 15-year-olds who easily purchased cigarettes at snack bars throughout the Capitol.
- Jennifer Tahan, a 15-year-old high school student from Silver Spring, Md., said she was nervous when she walked into the Pizza Plus located in the basement of the Rayburn Building and asked for a pack of Kool cigarettes -- but neither her age, nor her nervousness, prevented the sale. Tahan, in fact, was able to purchase cigarettes at five out of seven locations she visited in the Capitol complex last week in a sting operation conducted by the America Lung Association with the help of Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-Calif) staff. "The US Capitol should be an example, not an embarrassment," said Waxman, the House's most ardent anti-tobacco activist. "Most Americans would be shocked that in the House of Representatives, a 15-year-old girl could go to different locations and buy cigarettes."
- The tobacco industry and a group of state attorneys general will resume negotiations Monday to resolve suits seeking to recoup public money spent treating sick smokers, sources close to the talks said. The discussions will be held in New York.
- More than 5,000 legislators from across the country are in Las Vegas for the annual meeting, which ends today. . . "This is an industry that has lied to the American people," Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore said, explaining his state's settlement. "They lied to us and they messed with our kids. Those are two things you don't mess with down South." Despite the huge sum of money involved, Moore said the cases aren't about money, but about protecting children and public health.
- The tobacco companies had asked the judge to dismiss several key claims made by the state. However, Finkle tossed out only one -- that the companies had violated a consumer-protection law through deceptive advertising. The balance of the claims may proceed toward trial, a decision Gregoire characterized as a triumph.
- "Judge Finkle gave a clear ruling the state can proceed with its anti-trust case and that we can claim Medicaid costs," Gregoire said. "The state's allegations of a conspiracy to target minors, misrepresent material facts, restrain trade, and/or use fraud, misrepresentation and deception to increase sales are not deficient as a matter of law," Finkle said. Also rejected by the court was a motion by the tobacco industry that the state claims should be thrown out based on the statute of limitations. The judge ruled that the evidence supports the proposition that tobacco companies "fraudulently concealed the key facts underlying each of the state's surviving claims." Tobacco attorneys also tried unsuccessfully to have the state case thrown out based on a preemption in the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act.
- About a dozen Boston law firms are ready to challenge the tobacco companies in court. Attorney Hal Levitt is leading the charge... by taking out an ad in the "Boston Globe" in hopes of attracting possible plaintiffs for a class-action lawsuit. . . He expects to file some sort of court action in Massachusetts before the end of the year.
- Without addressing the merits, a state appeals court kept alive appeals by flight attendants challenging a $349 million settlement with the tobacco industry over illnesses blamed on secondhand smoke. "That is an entirely appropriate result and means that this case will now go forward," Alan Morrison, representing the Public Citizen law group founded by Ralph Nader, said Thursday.
- The state attorney general has warned tobacco companies he will file suit to recover billions of Medicaid dollars the state has spent to treat sick smokers unless the companies agree to settle on his terms. MIKE EASLEY sent a letter outlining his terms for a settlement to former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Phil Carlton, a Pinetops attorney who has acted as the tobacco industry's lead negotiator in Medicaid lawsuits brought by 40 other states.
- The state's 13-count petition is alleging everything from costing the state untold dollars in Medicaid payments to violation of consumer protection laws. "The crux of the case is Medicaid," said REUBEN SHELTON, Attorney General JAY NIXON's special chief for litigation, who is coordinating the state's case. "We claim that the state had to pay Medicare expenses over and above what it normally would have without the diseases brought on by tobacco."
- A potentially offensive billboard advertising Winston cigarettes is down. The Winston cigarettes billboard, on NJ Transit property in Somerville, read: "Finally, a butt worth kissing." A local councilwoman found the ad offensive and wrote a letter to RJ Reynolds and NJ Transit. NJ Transit has a policy banning tobacco ads on the agency's equipment or property. A spokesperson said this billboard fell through the cracks.
- In a July 10 fund-raising appeal, the Arizona Republican warns he is facing "two major opponents" this fall. . . McCain's letter also says the tobacco industry has set out to "destroy my political future," . . McCain is planning to launch "as many as a dozen TV ads . . . even more targeted radio ads" for "eight solid weeks" in every major Arizona media market after Labor Day, according to his letter.
- Democratic congressional candidate BARRY GORDON has surpassed Republican incumbent JAMES ROGAN in campaign contributions for the most recent filing period. . . Gordon then lashed out at the freshman congressman for taking money from some of the country's most controversial organizations: the National Rifle Association, tobacco giant PHILIP MORRIS, and a number of oil companies, including Exxon and Phillips Petroleum. "It's very clear that his agenda on Capitol Hill is not the same one his constituents in the district have," Gordon said. "He's taking money from cigarette manufacturers when we are pushing for tougher teen smoking guidelines.
- Those who have closely followed the [Commission on Judicial Performance, the state's judicial watchdog agency] say the agency is overstepping its authority by second-guessing judges' decisions. . . But legal scholars say the agency is targeting judges not only for legal rulings, but also for seemingly trivial acts, including smoking in chambers and bringing a dog to work
- The California Coastal Commission claims cigarette butts are the most common kind of trash found on the state's beaches. During a 1997 coastal clean-up, more than 49-thousand volunteers canvassed California's beaches and removed a record 7 06-thousand pounds of trash. That included 237-thousand cigarette butts . .
- Santa Fe Tobacco Free Coalition is reviving the city's smoke-ban debate by meeti ng with city councilors and proposing a "model ordinance" based on a 1995 Las Cruces law that prohibits smoking in most indoor workplaces within the city. City Councilor Cris Moore said yesterday he's interested in sponsoring such an ordinance if it stands a chance of passing.
- The California Coastal Commission claims cigarette butts are the most common kind of trash found on the state's beaches. During a 1997 coastal clean-up, more than 49-thousand volunteers canvassed California's beaches and removed a record 7 06-thousand pounds of trash. That included 237-thousand cigarette butts, 59-thousand food wrappers and 64-thousand pieces of plastic.
- A Winston cigarette billboard in Somerville, New Jersey, has some residents smoking mad. The text reads _ "Finally, a butt worth kissing. " SOMERVILLE councilwoman ROBERTA KARPINECZ says she was shocked when she first saw the sign...calling it extremely inappropriate and offensive. Senator FRANK LAUTENBERG _ a tobacco foe _ has joined the battle against the sign...which is part of WINSTON's "No Bull" ad campaign.
- U.S. unmanufactured tobacco imports for consumption (duty paid) for January-February 1997 totaled 63,862 tons, valued at $251.0 million. . . . So far in 1997, the leading suppliers to the U.S. of unmanufactured tobacco imports for consumption are: Turkey, 23,915 tons; BRAZIL, 8,366 tons; the European Union, 8,286 tons; Malawi, 3,794 tons; Zimbabwe, 2,732 tons; Canada, 2,413 tons; Macedonia, 1,918 tons; Thailand, 1,842; and Argentina, 1,839 tons.
- About 1.3 million cigarettes with a retail value of £200,000 were seized at Dublin Port on Tuesday in a joint operation between the Customs National Drugs Team and the Revenue Mobile Service. It is believed the cigarettes were destined for the street market. The Rothmans and L and M cigarettes were discovered on board the vessel MV Rotans, which had arrived from Riga in Latvia with a cargo of timber.
- Public affairs manager ABRIE DU PLESSIS said the company was studying the contents of the bill with its legal adviser and hoped to begin a process of consultation with the department. "I am not going to commit myself to a legal challenge, but there is a possibility, depending on legal advice. The bill seems to breach the protection of freedom of speech in the bill of rights, and the procedure in (its) drafting - we were in fact excluded - also seems to be unconstitutional in terms of openness, transparency and public participation," Du Plessis said.
- RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., the parent company of the No. 2 U.S. tobacco company, said that second-quarter earnings fell 24 percent on lower profits from its international cigarette and Nabisco cookie and cracker businesses.
- As expected, RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN) reported a steep drop in second-quarter earnings, citing poor overseas tobacco results and a weak food business. But perhaps not as expected was that RJR still fell short of analysts' consensus expectations, despite its warning Wall Street just two weeks ago that greater-than-anticipated weakness in its international tobacco operations would lead to sharply lower quarterly earnings.
- RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., owner of the nation's second-biggest tobacco company, lost $130 million in the second quarter due to the settlement costs of smoking-related lawsuits and the expense of restructuring its food business. Without the charges, RJR's earnings reported Thursday were down 24 percent from a year ago but were close to Wall Street expectations.
- RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., citing softness in its international tobacco business, says it posted a second quarter net loss of $130 million compared with a profit of $438 million, or 71 cents a share, during the same period last year. Revenues improved to $4.29 billion from $4.28 billion a year ago. The latest results included the impact of a restructuring charge and related expenses at Nabisco
- Tabacalera Cigars International S.A.'s Max Rohr Importer Inc. unit entered an agreement with a subsidiary of 800-JR Cigar Inc. (JRJR) in which the companies will jointly distribute Tabacalera's ROMEO Y JULIETA brand of cigars in the U.S.
- The Spanish government has given privatized tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) a free hand to shed around 900 jobs, or 14% of its total workforce, the company said Thursday.
- Second-quarter profit at conglomerate Imasco Ltd. rose 20 per cent because of improved results from its tobacco, drug store and real estate development units, the company said Thursday.
- Imasco Limited today announced its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 1998. Net common share earnings from continuing operations rose 20% to $190 million ($0.42 per common share), compared with $158 million ($0.35 per common share) in the second quarter last year. Net common share earnings from continuing operations for the six months ended June 30 amounted to $335 million ($0.74 per common share), compared with $538 million ($1.17 per common share) for the same period in 1997.
- UST Inc. on Wednesday said it expects its cigar operations to post an operating loss for the year due to high wholesale and retail inventories. But the company said it anticipates improved operating results from its wine unit during the second half of 1998 after operating profits dipped in the second quarter.
- The Board of Directors of UST Inc. (NYSE: UST - news) today declared a regular quarterly dividend of 40-1/2 cents per common share, payable September 15, 1998 to stockholders of record at the close of business September 3, 1998. The Company has paid cash dividends without interruption since 1912.
- Migrant workers harvest 85-percent of the state's crop. Immigration is always on the lookout for illegals. Tobacco farmer Rod Kuegel depends on the migrant workers to help maintain and harvest his crops. "If you shut down the border tomorrow, where no migrants could come into the US... uh, probably, US tobacco production wouldn't be a big concern, because a lot of it would be shut down."
- Tobacco farmers are trying NOT to let the summer heat beat them down as they harvest their crops for market. But many North Carolina farmers are finding their golden leaves are turning brown. Farmer Wiley Boyette says extreme heat and lack of rain are behind most of his problems. He says his crops also have an unusual amount of disease. The dry weather and disease are threatening to burn up a good portion of the state's BILLION-dollar crop.
- HAIRSTYLING FOR A SERIES: . . . "Tracey Takes On ...: Smoking," HBO.
- World champion Jacques Villeneuve can rarely have taken a bigger gamble than leaving Williams for new boys British American Racing (BAR). For Villeneuve the widely rumored move, confirmed by both teams Thursday, appeals to his maverick nature. He has calculated all the pros and cons and believes the risk is worth it both on and off the track.
- Anti-smoking advertising campaigns are extremely effective when they are long-term, and consistently portray smoking as hazardous for adults and children alike, according to an article in the current ANNALS OF INTERNAL MEDICINE. "The most aggressive media campaigns generate the most controversy, but they are also likely to be the most effective," writes the author, DR. MICHAEL SIEGEL, of Boston University School of Public Health in Massachusetts.
- If the Latino community is engaged in a war with tobacco, the battle lines are blurred. At the NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA's conference in Philadelphia, three workshops over four days focused on ways to combat smoking among Latinos. Yet the conference program contains full-page ads for the nation's two largest tobacco companies.
- The blue-and-white pins distributed at the 1939 NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR read, "I have seen the future." . . . Perhaps the most ambitious site is one that is part of the American Studies program at the University of Virginia and was developed by John C. Barans, a graduate student. . . The good old days are jarring when memory does not have a chance to filter them. The AMERICAN TOBACCO COMPANY building, designed like a giant pack of LUCKY STRIKES, is in the Food Court
- Not far from the Schaefer Center was located the American Tobacco Company Building (tobacco is, after all, an essentially American "food," is it not?) in the form of a giant pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes
- And tonight, boxing legend LARRY HOLMES will be watching out for falling debris when he and veteran fight manager ANGELO DUNDEE converge on Broadway's CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL to hand out PUNCH CIGARS at a "NIGHT WITH CHAMPIONS" promotion. Holmes is prepping for a bout with George Foreman
- Young's original title for the series included a question mark. It was to be "Father Knows Best?" because Young thought that amusingly ironic and said everyone knew mothers were the real heads of households anyway. But the sponsor, KENT cigarettes, refused -- apparently finding the suggestion of doubt in the title to be potentially subversive -- and the deal would have fallen through if Young hadn't capitulated and agreed to drop the offending punctuation. Thus was Jim Anderson granted omniscience.
- A chart on privately funded travel for senators, which appeared on the Federal Page Tuesday, was incorrect because of filing mistakes by some congressional offices, which were then included in a report by the Center for Responsive Politics. . . The center made a number of other errors: . . Tobacco Institute sponsored $60,921 worth of travel, with $24,457 for Democrats and $36,464 for Republicans.
- The White House quietly discusses with outside legal experts a possible federal lawsuit seeking tobacco-industry payments to cover Medicare costs. One contact is plaintiffs' lawyer RICHARD SCRUGGS, who helped craft the states' settlement with the tobacco industry to pay for Medicaid costs.
- S. KRISHNASWAMY'S latest documentary, "India 5555", has one endearing quality about it. It does not pretend to be either exhaustive or analytical. . . Divided into four parts of roughly 30 minutes each, "India 5555" traces the country's rich history and the state of its current affairs in a neat capsule that is bound to be immensely useful for anyone keen on taking the first lessons in understanding this nation of nearly a billion people.
- Sport's Faustian deal with the tobacco industry is gasping its last. . . Wednesday's decision by the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust to ban smoking from the SCG and Sydney Football Stadium follows the lead of the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the WACA Ground in Perth, both of which have enforced smoking restrictions since 1996. The movement is growing.
- Anti-smoking lobbyists have criticised a programme backed by the tobacco industry offering ventilation advice to Irish hoteliers and restaurant owners. ASH, the anti-smoking group, says the scheme sponsored by PHILIP MORRIS, is the industry's attempt to avoid further legislation, and the measures proposed would not protect people effectively from the harmful effects of cigarette smoke. THE COURTESY OF CHOICE programme, run by the INTERNATIONAL HOTEL AND RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION based in Paris, involves experts visiting restaurants and offering practical advice on air quality. According to brochures it "helps hoteliers and restaurateurs to accommodate smokers and nonsmokers in harmony".
- The Health Education Authority campaign, which carries the slogan Every Cigarette is Doing You Damage, was begun following the American research showing that young smokers are damaging their bodies from the moment they take up smoking. The research involved more than 1,400 people aged 15 to 34. Dr Luke Clancy, chairman of ASH, the Irish anti-smoking group, yesterday called for a similar campaign in Ireland.
- A graphic campaign to shock young smokers into thinking about the health risks of their habit has been launched. The hi-tech publicity drive, which seeks to tackle the "it couldn't happen to me" attitude among younger tobacco users, features photographs of diseased organs taken from dead smokers on posters and via an interactive Internet site. . . The web site - www.lifesaver.co.uk - features a wealth of information about smoking and the often immediate benefits of giving up.
- AN appeals court decision to allow a Perth doctor to proceed with her claim against tobacco giant WD and HO Wills proved cigarette manufacturers were fighting a losing battle, the Australian Council on Smoking and Health (ACOSH) said yesterday. Dr Sarah Rosemary Hodson, 38, is seeking $1000 damages from WD and HO Wills (Australia) Ltd and The Benson and Hedges Company Pty Ltd, in the New South Wales Consumer Claims Tribunal. The NSW Court of Appeal decision yesterday cleared the way for her to pursue the claim for money spent battling her 20-year smoking addiction.
- High levels of pesticides are often used to grow tobacco in developing countries. While pesticide residues in tobacco may increase the hazards for smokers, this is only a small part of the problem. In developing countries like Brazil, tobacco growers and their families pay for the tobacco industry's profits with their labor and their health. This article describes the difficult conditions faced by tobacco growing communities in the south of Brazil -- a region of intensive tobacco production and high pesticide use.
- "We're an out-of-favor industry on Wall Street," said Levin. Despite the lack of confidence in Holt's stock, revenues rose 15 percent in the first quarter ending June 30, compared with the same period last year. But the industry had been experiencing increases of 50 percent or more in previous quarters.
- "DISTURBING BEHAVIOR" is a high school thriller with a weird moral center. It equates studying hard, dressing neatly and abstaining from sex with spiritual deadness. And it presents drinking, cutting school, smoking, drug-taking and incessant masturbation as evidence of healthy individuality. The most cynical corporate minds could not devise a movie better calculated to appeal to the teenage mentality.
- There's no need for cigarette breaks, because the bingo hall is one of the few public places left that allows unfettered smoking -- creating a general haze in the room at all times. "This week is nothing," said Carol Lear, a volunteer for Vietnam Veterans of America. "Last week (the smoke) was so bad, I was crying." But for bingo lovers, smoke is par for the course. "I think if they didn't let you smoke, they wouldn't have anyone coming," said Mitchem, a smoker.
- Henry arrives in Simon's life by striding authoritatively down the center of the road like an agent of the devil, though he turns out to be responsible for Simon's redemption. Consuming copious amounts of tobacco and beer and dressing and speaking like a bitter literature professor, Henry boasts of his prodigious literary talents while encouraging a stunned Simon to record his own thoughts.
- In the meticulously re-created temple that is the culmination of "Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou" at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the walls are neatly lined with dozens of small chairs. . . One of the more popular iwa is Ezili Freda, the deity of love and luxury, who "adores fine clothes, jewels, perfumes and lace," according to the exhibition catalogue. Ezili Freda likes sweet drinks made with orange syrup or grenadine, prefers Virginia Slims cigarettes and is represented visually by an image taken from Catholicism, the Mater Dolorosa.
- TOWSON TOWSON -- Smoking materials dropped into a plastic trash container Tuesday night at American Legion Post No. 22 in the 100 block of York Road was blamed for a two-alarm fire that caused at least $500,000 damage to the nearly 50-year-old building, police said yesterday.
- But the strength of the antismoking movement rests on more than one government study. While municipal lawmakers who passed statutes banning smoking in restaurants and public buildings may have cited the 1993 government data, the prime catalyst for the bans was people who were simply fed up with breathing other people's smoke.
- FORGET THAT LIST of the 100 best books. . . Let's just do the list of the 100 best things. . . pipes (smoking) . . . IN OTHER NEWS: Several e-mailers have asked for specific recommendations from among the dozens of unhelpfully named "News From Lake Wobegon" tapes. My favorites include . . . "Smokes," a dark and hilarious tale of the perils of tobacco addiction
- In the 1990s, tobacco has given the GOP some $13 million in soft money, with Philip Morris and R. J. Reynolds doling out $3.7 million in the last election alone. It has been a good investment. . . In a culture of cheating, no loopholes can be left unfilled. This is not an academic arena. The largest soft money donor in 1992--we discovered years later--was the infamous Clinton pal, James Riady, who gave $410,000 to state parties in such battleground states as Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Louisiana. And in the last election cycle, Rupert Murdoch and his Newscorp doled out some $1.7 million to Republican national and state parties. . . From 1984 to 1996 the amount of soft money raised by the two parties from corporations, unions and other vested interests rose more than 20-fold, from $12 million to $262 million. It is only going to get sleazier.
- A Marion Superior Court judge has dismissed without explanation an Indiana lawsuit seeking millions of dollars from tobacco companies to pay for public health costs associated with smoking. Saying Judge Gerald S. Zore "rubber-stamped" an order written by the tobacco industry, Attorney General Jeffrey A. Modisett on Friday angrily denounced the ruling and said he will appeal the decision. . . "This is outrageous," Modisett said, crumpling a copy of the decision and tossing it aside. "Indiana is the first state in the country to have all of its clams dismissed by a judge. It is absolutely unacceptable."
- Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation issued the following statement in response to the decision by Judge Gerald Zore of the Marion Supreme Court to strike down in its entirety the state of Indiana's attorney general lawsuit against the tobacco industry for Medicaid recoupment: Judge Gerald Zore's decision is a clear signal for other states to re-examine the basis for similar suits against the industry.
- "Judge Zore's sweeping ruling is clear and concise and strikes at the heart of similar suits around the nation. It confirms our position that the suits brought by attorneys general to recoup their states' Medicaid costs are simply without legal or factual merit and should never have been filed."
- In a sweeping decision that should have a profound impact across the country, an Indiana court today dismissed in its entirety the state attorney general's case seeking Medicaid reimbursement from cigarette manufacturers. "Today's decision extends a string of victories in which state and federal courts recognized that the so-called 'health care reimbursement cases' are based on flawed legal theories," said Gregory G. Little, associate general counsel for Philip Morris
- No one knows why Ohio has the highest percentage of male smokers in the nation - nearly 34 per cent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 1996 figures, the most recent available. And no one knows for sure why young Ohio men and young Michigan women lead the country in terms of smoking rates, according to another CDC study.
- Former state Attorney General G. OLIVER KOPPELL, seeking the Democratic nomination to run for his old job, blasted two Democratic rivals Monday for taking campaign contributions from a family with tobacco industry ties. The Koppell opponents each argued that the donations from the Tisch family in no way compromised their anti-smoking credentials. Then New York City lawyer ELIOT SPITZER said he would return $2,750 in Tisch money, and state Sen. CATHERINE ABATE announced she would give back the $10,500 she received from the family's members.
- The difference between DOTTIE LAMM and GIL ROMERO lies more in background and strategy than in issues or beliefs. Colorado's two Democratic hopefuls for the U.S. Senate both support new tobacco taxes, want to preserve Social Security for future generations and voice concern about resort workers who can't live in the fancy cities where they work. . . Both candidates took some hits from the audience. One woman criticized Romero for including in his campaign a lobbyist with tobacco industry clients.
- More and more small towns and cities are beginning to ban smoking in public places ‹ primarily in enclosed city buildings, and frequently in restaurants ‹ as part of a national trend. . . It's a trend that Evansville is picking up on, too, with an ordinance before the City Council to ban smoking in city buildings.
- Months away from their final shootout, Sen. CHRISTOPHER "KIT" BOND and Missouri Attorney General JAY NIXON each already think he's found the magic bullets: * Tobacco. . . Bond, a longtime smoker, is never seen with a cigarette in public. . . Bond talked favorably about the proposed federal settlement for weeks before voting against it. . . Nixon calls Bond "one of the pet senators of Big Tobacco," who caved under pressure from pro-tobacco forces. "Kit Bond is the one who walked away from a fight," Nixon said. Bond claims that Nixon is turning Missouri's own tobacco suit into a replay of the 1992 Second Injury Fund controversy that helped put former Attorney General William L. Webster in prison.
- Major legislation filed by CELLUCCI but not passed by Legislature: . . * H 5331 - Limiting fees lawyers may receive from a national tobacco settlement to 1 percent of the settlement. Major legislation signed by Cellucci: * Prohibiting smoking in certain state buildings. Signed Aug. 28, 1997. * Requiring divestment of tobacco stocks, securities or other obligations from public pension funds. Signed Oct. 15, 1997.
- This year, Kennedy announced he was leaving, and 10 Democrats are competing for the primary vote on Sept. 15 to represent Cambridge, Somerville, Belmont, Watertown, Chelsea, and half of Boston. [Boston City Councilor Charles] Yancey is one of them . . Yancey asserts that beyond constituent services, he has been ahead of his time on such issues as disinvestment in South Africa and fighting the tobacco companies. He said he sponsored an ordinance banning Boston assets from companies doing business with South Africa and cosponsored another that prevented tobacco representatives from passing out free cigarettes.
- The Minnesota Senate Election Laws Committee will hold a hearing in August to examine recent newspaper disclosures about tobacco industry lobbying practices, the committee's chairman said Friday. Sen. JOHN MARTY, DFL-Roseville, said the state needs to strengthen the ethics-in-government law so citizens know who is trying to influence the political process. "The public has a right to know what slimy things are going on at the Capitol," said Marty, who has pressed unsuccessfully for greater lobbying disclosure for several years. Marty said the hearing, at 10 a.m. Aug. 12 in Room 325 of the state Capitol, was prompted by recent newspaper reports.
- Marion Fass, who chairs both the Beloit Board of Health and the Beloit Smoking Compromise Committee, said the committee is sticking to the mission and plan of action it recently submitted to the Beloit City Council which will call for voluntary compliance in all Beloit restaurants.
- Perhaps no company was as persistent as PHILIP MORRIS Management Co. and its lobbyists, led by Charles J. and Christine Davis III. Ten times in six weeks in last winter's legislative session, the company took legislators to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, picking up a tab that ranged from $2,040 a night to $3,939 in groups of a dozen or so. The tobacco company also treated about 55 legislators to $75 holiday gift boxes while sending key lawmakers to the Kentucky Derby, Charlotte NASCAR races and other events.
- St. Louis aldermen voted unanimously Friday to ban tobacco ad signs within 2,000 feet of schools and parks in the city. "When more children recognize Joe Camel than they do Martin Luther King, there's something wrong with that," said one of the aldermen in favor, FREEMAN BOSLEY Sr., D-3rd Ward. The measure, promoted by a black ministers' group and anti-smoking organizations, also bars such signs within 2,000 feet of day-care and recreation centers.
- Democrat DAN DANA may be the first cybercandidate to run for Congress. . . It's Dana's web site at www.mediationworks.com/dana98/ vs. former Johnson County District Attorney DENNIS MOORE's war chest of more than $400,000. . . . Both candidates support an increase in the price of cigarettes as a way to curb teen smoking. Dana backed a significant increase, while Moore said the increase should be reasonable. "I can't imagine anyone being to the left of me on tobacco," Dana said.
- Over two thirds of South African adults support a ban on tobacco advertising and restrictions on smoking in public places, according to the Medical Research Council.
- As the tobacco purchase had already commenced in Punjab and in the plains of NWFP, Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) in collaboration with the provincial governments of Punjab and NWFP, made the following arrangements for the smooth conduction of tobacco marketing operation.
- [Mark] Goldman's son Alex is his partner in the business Goldman's father started at 172 Fifth Ave. almost 50 years ago. Goldman's mother, who used to work behind the counter, still shows up at the store Goldman renamed Mom's Cigars. . . Goldman will go anywhere to find and buy cigar store Indians . . . "At that time, a 50-cent cigar was expensive. Nobody could have predicted cigars would become so popular. . . ." Or that nobody would choke on a $30 cigar. "Is it worth it? Of course not," he says. "There's only so much you can put into a cigar. It's almost out of control, almost too much." . . . When his father died, he said, "We had a decision to make: Do you close the store or do you keep it? We kept it. The other stores seemed to disappear, but we stayed. Maybe I was more aggressive."
- Halberstam and Talese both agree that the best way to assure institutional protection these days is to avoid persistent anti-corporate reportage, particularly if the subject is scientific or environmental. . . And more recently, science writer PHILIP HILTS, who has written about eighty stories on tobacco, twenty-five on the front page, was summarily removed from that beat three years ago after one particularly uncomplimentary story about Philip Morris. Hilts, who offered a voice of restraint on topics that Gina Kolata has not, is now at the Boston bureau of the Times. . . When topics addressed by Times science reporters are literally matters of life and death, readers expect that journalistic practices will be held to the highest standards.
- A story of two families with old baseball cards: one of which had its carefully mounted in protective glass, and another that chose the fabled shoebox-in-the-basement method of storage. . . Some of the contents of that shoe box -- Baltimore native Richard W. Davis' collection of 90-year-old T-206 tobacco cards -- went on display at the Babe Ruth Museum yesterday. . . Not on display is a card from the T-206 series that an anonymous New York couple had offered to lend the museum, a card they believed was the Hope Diamond of baseball memorabilia: a 1909 Honus Wagner. . . Until the museum's appraiser determined the card was a fake. . . "They were devastated. . . ."
- The no-smoke ship is CARNIVAL's PARADISE, and, so far, group bookings
are lower than usual. . . . A spokesman for Carnival says the company expected a drop in group business, and is mainly targeting individuals "who don't smoke and want a completely smoke-free vacation." Other cruise lines aren't getting on board. Officials at CUNARD, RADISSON Seven Seas Cruises and SEABOURN Cruise Lines say they have no plans for smoke-free ships in the near future. "We already have areas on the ship that are non-smoking," says a Seabourn spokesman.
- According to AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHICS, Americans are more obsessed than ever about their health. Numbers show that as a country we are still smoking less, drinking less booze and eating less red meat. The magazine quotes one expert . . . "People are taking better care of themselves overall, but making exceptions to go all out on a special occasion or to reward themselves."
- Viviana Durante, star of the Royal Ballet, is passionate about everything--including her feet. . . . "Let's have a cigarette," she suggests, with admirable resourcefulness. So we both fire up, producing a satisfying nicotine fug which annihilates the lily pong. . . . "I do as I please," she says. "If I want to have 10 pizzas a night, I do. If I want to eat chocolates, I do. I smoke. I have sex. I think it's important to live your life - if you have got one."
- Major League Baseball has sent a message to minor league players about childbirth. The message, unfortunately, was not completely clear, so players might take it to mean they should not have babies, or if they do have babies, they should not celebrate their birth, or maybe it was just that if they have babies and celebrate, they should not do it in the clubhouse. . . Despite a request from the Players Association, the commissioner's office has not told the players that it erred in issuing the fines initially and that it is permissible to accept cigars from happy fathers.
- The Clinton Administration has allocated $38 million to fund new research into prevention and cessation programs aimed at reducing tobacco use, Vice President Al Gore announced Monday at a conference on nicotine addiction.
- Vice President Gore announced today that the NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE plans to allocate $38 million for additional research into prevention and cessation programs to reduce tobacco use, and he posed five questions for researchers to help Americans better understand tobacco addiction and how to prevent it.
- A proposal now pending in the U.S. House of Representatives suggests that these tobacco companies' efforts are influencing Members' decisions. The House Republican leadership has proposed legislation that would reverse much of the progress that has been made in recent years to curb youth tobacco use. . . Two weeks ago, the CAMPAIGN released a poll which showed the public is more likely to vote for a candidate who refuses tobacco money and votes for tobacco control.
- But opponents of government investment said politicians would find some way around any safeguards. Consider, for example, the potential for political pressure to exclude tobacco companies from acceptable investments, or nonunion companies, or companies involved in some kind of wrongdoing. "The concept of the government as owner is anathema to the way business is run and in fact the way the country is run," said Donald Marron, the chairman of Paine Webber, the brokerage firm.
- Congress is moving on two different tracks to kill federal spending for the tobacco price-support program and crop insurance for tobacco, the two most expensive and controversial federal tobacco programs. The House Republican tobacco bill, which is scheduled to be presented next week, includes a provision that would charge tobacco farmers and companies for the $16.2 million that it costs to run the tobacco price-support program. . . The Senate, meanwhile, amended the annual agriculture-spending bill earlier this month to strip federal spending to run the price-support program and to cover losses in the crop-insurance program for tobacco. Under the amendment, companies that buy domestic tobacco or import tobacco would be assessed the cost of both programs.
- Major tobacco lawsuits in California, seeking billions of dollars in damages for smoking-related illnesses, should be coordinated in San Diego, a judge ruled yesterday. The litigation represents potential claims by millions of people in the state and "cries out for coordination," Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager told dozens of lawyers crowded into his courtroom in downtown San Diego.
- A lawsuit has been filed in Kanawha Circuit Court against cigarette companies and the tobacco industry... alleging the companies are responsible for the addiction and death of a smoker. This most recent complaint was filed by Sinette Newkirk of Kanawha County... who represents the estate of the late DELBERT NEWKIRK.
- "Money is not the issue . . . the sticky issue is marketing restrictions," said Gary Black of the investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
- North Carolina Attorney General MICHAEL EASLEY, one of nine states at the table, said Monday that money would be the last item to be negotiated. "Everything at this point is non-economic.... I think economic issues will be the last thing on the agenda," he said during a break in talks, which are being held in New York. "We have come to no finality on any issues."
- A part of the dilemma reflects the fact that state officials were bargaining last year with an eye toward Congress. But their ability to achieve broad changes now may be more limited because the earlier concessions by the cigarette industry were made in the belief that federal legislation would protect them from some tobacco lawsuits. There is little prospect of such legislation now. . . While some attorneys general who face elections this fall are eager to settle their cases so they can reap the political benefits, others believe that they could face attack if they settle for too little. And while most states with pending lawsuits appear ready to strike a deal, some states . . . have taken a harder line, and a few states, including Wisconsin, have refused to participate in the talks
- Officials from nine states scheduled a meeting with cigarette makers Monday to see if there is any chance of salvaging a national settlement with the industry. . . J. Phil Carlton, a North Carolina attorney who has represented the cigarette companies through more than a year of negotiations, declined to confirm that talks will resume. "What you're talking about is settling potential lawsuits and not legislation
- In a move already being closely watched nationwide, Connecticut's attorney general has come up with a new way to try to bring the state's case against tobacco companies to trial quickly. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is asking a Superior Court judge to split the case in half: issues to go to trial first, then the long, drawn-out questions of compensation for damages later. Confident he will win the second part, he wants to lay claim to the money by freezing $10 billion in industry assets ahead of time.
- The bottom line, according to analysts: Despite all the public awareness of the dangers of smoking and the mountains of incriminating internal industry documents that anti-industry forces contend show fraud and deceit on the part of the companies, lawsuits against the cigarette makers remain nearly impossible to win. As a result, lawyers say they are reluctant to challenge such industry giants as Philip Morris Inc. and RJR Nabisco. And hundreds of thousands of smokers like Ms. Beasley are unable to find an attorney to sue on their behalf.
- A growing number of Canadians are finding that a clear conscience is not the only benefit from investing in socially responsible companies as "green" funds are producing returns either equal or higher to companies in the broader market. . . While the C$3.5 billion in socially responsible funds are only a fraction of the C$280 billion in assets in Canadian mutual funds, Yee says their growth is outpacing the market.
- The Chartered Institute of Marketing trends survey confidence index has fallen to 91.2, having stood at 96.1 in April. . . The sales record was even worse in five sectors - food, drink and tobacco; chemicals; property; wholesale and distribution and manufacturing
- The "Let's Get It Right" campaign, sponsored by the NATIONAL TOBACCO COUNCIL (NTC), gives growers wearable stickers, flyers and bumperstickers explaining that Members of Congress still need to hear from growers and other tobacco supporters as efforts to develop tobacco regulations continue. The campaign's focal point is "No New Tobacco Taxes." Tobacco growers and supporters are encouraged to use the toll-free number (1-800-343-3222) to call their Members of Congress and express their opinion.
- Eastern markets open Wednesday. Auction markets in the Piedmont are scheduled to open August 4. North Carolina's 17,000 tobacco growers have plenty to worry about. Domestic cigarette consumption and exports were down in 1997, trends that are expected to continue this year. Raw tobacco exports also fell. More than 195 million pounds of tobacco that went unsold last year is piled up in price stabilization warehouses to be sold later, presumably when prices are better.
- Linda Lee's title is Cancer Risk Educator for WellStar Health System, but it is a role she has taken on personally . . It is that drive that caused Lee to be named a finalist in Atlanta Business Chronicle's 1998 Health-Care Heroes Awards program in the allied health professionals category. . . Lee is chair-elect of the statewide tobacco prevention coalition, CHARGe (Coalition for Healthy and Responsible Georgia). The program includes Youth in CHARGe, which works with students, and a policy arm that educates the public about clean indoor air and the effects of second-hand smoke.
- Russell Lincoln ("The X-Files's" Steven Williams) extends this invitation in the opening minutes of "Linc's," the new 13-week series starting Saturday at 10 p.m. EDT on Showtime. Accept it, and you'll find a winning blend of comedy and drama that's one part "Cheers," one part "Murphy Brown," one part "The McLaughlin Group" and two parts "Frank's Place" . . . Among the barflies is Johnnie B. Goode (Georg Stanford Brown), a suave, slippery and sharply dressed lobbyist who in the opening episode is working for the Tobacco Foundation -- and against a cigarette tax that will fund school lunches. He pays top dollar for the information he gets from Winston Iwelu (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) . . . The cigarette tax's biggest supporter is the beautiful Eleanor Braithwaite Winthrop (Pam Grier), a dedicated children's rights advocate and big-government liberal who regularly stops into the bar to drink, spar with the guys and escape from her unhappy marriage. Eleanor and Linc may be polar opposites politically, but when it comes to matters personal those opposites attract.
- DOUG HARVEY leaned back in his chair and unbuttoned the lower part of his shirt. . . Harvey, a National League baseball umpire for 31 years and the long- time host of the feature "You Make the Call," was in Chicago last week as part of a campaign sponsored by Oral Health America to try to educate the public about the dangers of spit and smokeless tobacco.
- His "philosophy" was that, "hired to sell a product or service, he instead sold whole new ways of behaving, which appeared obscure but over time reaped huge rewards for his clients and redefined the very texture of American life." This is not an exaggeration. Hired by GEORGE WASHINGTON HILL of the American Tobacco Company in 1928, BERNAYS didn't just sell Lucky Strikes; he staged an elaborate -- and notably successful -- campaign to eradicate old prejudices against women smoking in public.
- It seems there's a smoker in our midst and the only way I'm going to track him down is to catch him in the act of lighting up. . . The whole thing is quite puzzling. Is he on my news staff? . . . He might even be from the first floor and not wanting to stink up his own space, he comes upstairs to stink up ours.
- Seen, but not believed on Woodward. Near the Boston-Edison district I passed a guy riding a skinny-tired racing bike toward downtown Detroit. He had the expensive bike. He wore a helmet, those Spandex bicycle shorts and one of those form-fitting racing jerseys. I was really impressed. I thought, here's a guy who's committed to the environment and to his own good health. Until I noticed he was smoking a cigarette as he pedaled!
- The leaders have been far less accommodating when it comes to the moderates' pursuit of campaign finance reform. Their intransigence on this issue may shed light on the party's real strategy for winning this fall. Rather than producing legislation the voters like, they seem to be betting that they can hold their own by collecting masses of money from special interests like the tobacco lobby, to finance enough television ads in key districts to keep the party's slender majority intact.
- The Senate, opening a new front in the antitobacco wars, endorsed a statutory, no-smoking standard not only for U.S. airlines but also for foreign carriers operating flights into this country. Most U.S. airlines already bar smoking on international flights. But the provision now would require the Transportation Department to order foreign airlines to adopt the same rules when flying to or from the U.S., or reach some negotiated compromise to limit smoking in the passenger cabin.
- Although the legislation still has to be signed by President Clinton, he is not expected to block it. While he enjoys sucking cigars, he does not light them, and is an anti-smoking militant.
- "This is good politics in the United States because there is a strong anti-smoking lobby," Wanda Potrykus, spokeswoman for the Montreal-based International Air Transport Association, said Friday. "However, there is an equally virulent pro-smoking lobby in Asia and France. . . If the U.S. starts requiring this, France could turn around and say all carriers flying into France must have smoking flights for their passengers," she said.
- The bill, set for a final vote in the Senate today, would provide record spending for highways, transit and airport improvements. . . Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., earned approval for the proposal that effectively would ban smoking on international flights. It gives the transportation secretary four months to require air carriers to prohibit smoking on domestic flights, as well as those "between a place in the United States and a place outside the United States."
- "This would require companies to choose between two unacceptable choices," Dinger told a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "Forced disclosure, or not being able to sell their products in Massachusetts."
- Massachusetts will ask a federal appeals court Tuesday to lift a preliminary injunction that prohibits the state from enforcing its law requiring tobacco companies to disclose the ingredients in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. . . Officials with the attorney general's office and the tobacco manufacturers will present oral arguments before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday.
- Connecticut's attorney general called a judge's decision Monday giving the go-ahead to allegations of tobacco-industry violations of trade practices "a profoundly important victory." During a status hearing on a state lawsuit against tobacco companies, Superior Court Judge Michael R. Sheldon ruled the state may pursue its claims under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act. . . "It is entirely specious for the attorney general to claim there is anybody out there who is unaware of the health consequences of smoking," Wachtell said. "It is clearly a risky and dangerous habit. But from the scientific view, the cause and effect has yet to be proven." "If this is your view," Sheldon broke in, "you should be talking about a settlement because you don't fight the fundamental premise."
- DR. BARBARA DEBUONO, state health commissioner throughout George Pataki's first term as governor, will step down just before Election Day to become chief executive of the New York Presbyterian Healthcare Network. . . Art Levin, director of the New York City-based Center for Medical Consumers, argued that DeBuono did not do more in areas fighting smoking because the Republican Pataki administration was worried about political fallout. "I think the political reality was that the department took a lot of its direction from the administration," Levin said. "In other words, it was politicized." . . "I think the single biggest glaring failure of the Health Department has been its inability to tackle the tobacco problem," NYPIRG lobbyist Blair Horner said.
- The ordinance has been challenged by Modern Cigarettes, a New Haven-based vending machine company, on the grounds that it is a violation of First Amendment free speech rights. Orange resident Dan Presnick asked Superior Court Judge Patricia Jenkins for permission to side with Modern Cigarettes, while the state asked to file court papers supporting the town.
- MCGOVERN said yesterday that she wants to have more televised debates because she has a number of policy questions for HARSHBARGER. She said she wants to ask him why he signed on to a tobacco deal "that gives big tobacco immunity from class-action lawsuits and caps industry liability." . . A spokesman for Harshbarger's attorney general office, Ed Cafasso, said . . . Harshbarger agreed to the tobacco settlement because class-action lawsuits have routinely been thrown out by the courts, and he agreed to cap liability because "you can't get money from a company that's out of business."
- A part-time farm employee is suing U.S. Rep. SCOTTY BAESLER after he fell and badly injured himself while hanging tobacco in Baesler's barn. Orie H. Banfield filed a personal-injury lawsuit Friday in Fayette Circuit Court seeking unspecified damages.
- House Appropriations Committee chairman CHARLIE CAPPS did not support the state's lawsuit against tobacco companies, but he is pleased with the extra money the state has to spend. Capps, D-Cleveland, said lawmakers will likely use only interest from the lawsuit settlement because of concerns some tobacco companies will file for bankruptcy or the federal government will request part of the settlement.
- The family of a Lemont girl barred from playing Little League because she refused to display the name of a lounge on her jersey may sue the organization to prompt a national change in league policy. . . The goal, Zellner said, is a rule that would prohibit Little League from forcing children to wear uniforms sponsored by businesses that derive 80 percent or more of their revenue from alcohol or tobacco sales. It's inappropriate for children to be forced to wear uniforms that promote alcohol or tobacco, Zellner said.
- Legislators who participated in the study felt their governments should play a significant role in the promotion of healthy lifestyles. The legislators also expressed a strong commitment to restrictions on smoking in workplaces and public places. Most importantly, a strong majority of the legislators supported important tobacco control measures, such as regulating tobacco as a hazardous product, increasing cigarette taxes, preventing the selling of cigarettes to minors, and plain packaging of cigarettes.
- Smoking and bad diet are the reason why cancer rates - especially lung, throat, breast and colorectal cancers - are much higher in Quebec than Canada generally, an extensive Statistics Canada study says. . . StatsCan found Quebec men had the highest death rate among all the provinces, and deaths of Quebec women were second only to Nova Scotia. "These are not estimates; they give an accurate picture of cancer province to province," said Leslie Gaudette, the StatsCan senior researcher who wrote the report. "Smoking in particular appears to be influencing the high rates for men in Quebec, especially for lung cancer," she said after the study was made public yesterday. "And we're also finding for the first time an increased risk of lung cancer among Quebec women."
- Although the Canadian government is trying to end tobacco sponsorship, du Maurier, a Canadian tobacco company, will continue as the main sponsor of this tournament through the year 2000, said Jocelyne Bourassa, executive director of the du Maurier Classic. Bourassa said du Maurier is in this position only because of a June 3 amendment to a law, Bill C71, that passed in April 1997.
- A survey of Grade 8 students by the provincially funded Ontario Tobacco Research Unit uncovered strong links between psychological factors and cigarette use that could help design future anti-smoking campaigns. "A lot of the kids are under a lot of stress and are depressed and what they do is use tobacco to cope," said Dr. Linda Pederson, the study's lead researcher. . . The "scary" thing is that girls tend to have a lot more of the smoking risk factors, such as low self-esteem, than boys, she said.
- Britain's drink and tobacco industries yesterday welcomed government plans to curb cross-channel smuggling, but said the measures were unlikely to make a significant impact on a problem caused by the UK's high excise duties.
- Junior Treasury Minister Dawn Primarolo said 100 extra customs officers will be recruited to tackle the problem in a three-year, 35 million pound programme.
- Captain Brian Bliss kept 148 people in their seats for 40 minutes after landing at Malpensa airport in Milan after a smoke detector had been disabled. . . Yesterday lawyers for the British Airways low-cost airline Go were trying to disentangle Captain Bliss. Magistrates will decide whether to prosecute but there was little doubt that they would press charges either of kidnapping, which carries an eight-year jail sentence, or of the less serious "violation of the person".
- Italian police on Monday questioned a British pilot who held 148 passengers aboard his plane for 40 minutes after landing in Milan because no one would admit to being the person who broke the strict no-smoking rules. Sue Harrison, a spokeswoman for Go, the new low-cost carrier that is part of British Airways Plc, said the incident happened on Sunday afternoon after a flight from Stansted to Milan's Malpensa airport. Go made its maiden flight in May.
- Indian tobacco exports have crossed the Rs. 1,000-crore mark in 1997-98 with a growth of 29 per cent, according to tobacco board.
- Health Minister DR NKOSAZANA ZUMA seemed to be on a mission to ban all advertising associated with an unhealthy lifestyle, Democratic Party health spokesman MIKE ELLIS said on Monday. . . "We have first the banning of tobacco advertising as proposed in the draft Tobacco Bill, and now the minister seems to be targeting advertising and sponsorship by the liquor industry."
- Morgan Stanley (corrects name)analyst David Adelman made bullish comments on Philip Morris Cos. Inc. (MO - news) on Tuesday, saying he believes the stock will significantly outperform the stock market over the next 12 months.
- Humor, some critics fear, can appeal to children, and poking fun at warnings might make people less wary. Besides, is smoking funny anyway? "I wish you could capture my level of incredulity. It's amazing. I can't believe they're doing this right now," said Stan Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "My guess is that they went with cavemen and pro wrestlers only because Mr. Snuffleupagus wasn't available," said Bob Garfield, critic for Advertising Age.
- Brazil's leading tobacco company Souza Cruz SA (E.SCZ) announced Tuesday a net profit of 133.6 million reals (BRL)($1=BRL1.16) in the first half of the year. The figure corresponds to a 3.3% rise compared to the first six months of 1997, when the company posted net earnings of BRL129.4 million.
- The University of Kentucky agriculture communications service has made a Spanish-language video that farmers can use to explain harvesting and housing burley to migrant workers. With more than 20,000 Hispanic migrant workers -- many of whom speak little English -- working Kentucky's 227,500 acres of tobacco, explaining how to cut and spear the plants and not the workers is vital.
- The SMOKER'S SIDEKICK(TM) is a portable ashtray that fits conveniently into a standard car beverage holder and can clip easily to a belt or bag. "Smokers can take the unit along in the car, on the boat, to the beach, or golf course, it goes anywhere they go," says Luedecke, the company's President (Suggested retail $19.95. Call 800-622-6069 or see http://www.cslincenviro.com).
- Troy Percival is not certain his use of smokeless tobacco and caffeine caused him to suffer dizzy spells so severe that he went to the hospital Saturday. But the Angels' closer will not wait for additional tests before he takes action. Percival said he will quit chewing tobacco and ween himself of his dependence on caffeine. . . Doctors told him he might be allergic to smoke, an allergy he might have inherited from his mother and one that was aggravated when he began smoking cigars a couple weeks ago.
- Few dispute that Hun Sen is one of the country's most astute politicians. He likes to portray a human side - he's hopelessly addicted to cigarettes, has written a few score romantic ballads and is becoming a golf buff.
- The American Association of Health Plans (AAHP) will use a two-year, $219,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to assist health plans in reducing tobacco use among pregnant and postpartum women. The goal of the "Addressing Tobacco in Pregnancy" project is to reduce smoking-related rates of low birth weight, infant morbidity and mortality, childhood asthma and impaired respiratory function.
- Now a new study by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine, published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, has found that risk factors for heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, are greater among African American and Mexican American women than among white women of the same socioeconomic status. . . Among women with more than 12 years of education, there were pronounced differences in body mass index, a measure of obesity, as well as inactivity and smoking. . . Cigarette smoking varied as well in this group of women, the most highly educated in the NHANES survey. Of the black women, 23.5 percent were current smokers, compared with 20.3 percent of the whites and 10.8 percent of Mexican Americans.
- Backed by $1 million (£606,000), it will be a shrine to the objects and materials that have inflicted injury on US consumers - and made lawyers rich - including asbestos, tobacco, breast implants, defective cars and toxic toys.
- But listen to Ralph Nader, this town's most famous native son, as he details his dream of a MUSEUM OF AMERICAN TORT LAW and brings the same passion that started the consumer movement to the unlikely cause of making personal injury law into a tourist attraction. . . The head of the fund-raising committee is a Knoxville, Tenn., lawyer, J.D. Lee, a pioneer in litigation against the tobacco industry.
- The usual trolling for adolescents, that is. Having taken a stab at more adult imagery, the brand that improved its market share and wrecked its industry with the infamous Joe Camel cartoon is backsliding into juvenalia with a smart-alecky campaign that trades on a Joe Camel-like dose of attitude. . . But, once again, advertising is a shotgun, not a rifle, and the issue is who unavoidably--or intentionally--will be caught in the spray. Considering the company's history, and these ads' sly assault on protectors of the commonweal, giving RJR the benefit of any doubt would be, shall we say, mighty hasty.
- We had many arguments about this during her first pregnancy. She made no attempt to quit . . . I realize I should not have married her and certainly should not have had children with her, but it's too late to change that. . . Ann says: I urge you two to get joint counseling immediately. Something besides Miranda's smoking has soured your relationship. It is apparent that your wife is addicted and needs help to get off cigarettes, but your vehemence suggests that you are seriously fed up with the woman, and you need to find out why.
- Lest anyone put too much reliance on the results and recommendations of Ms Goldman and Dr Glantz,[1] we would like to raise some serious concerns about the methods used in their study. . . Unlike other research in smoking prevention, this study does not attempt to link these prevention strategies with changes in smoking behavior. . . There is excellent evidence in support of presenting positive social influence and social norms messages in a well-designed paid advertising campaign,[4] or in the context of other community support programs.[5] Such strategies have resulted in substantial long-term reductions in youth tobacco use. Until evidence of other effective strategies is found, we recommend that tobacco use prevention groups rely on these theory-based, proven concepts for message development.
- Democratic congressional candidate Barry GORDON has surpassed Republican incumbent James ROGAN in campaign contributions for the most recent filing period. . . According to the campaign reports, Rogan received . . $500 from Philip Morris in Washington, D.C. . . Rogan said records show that Deomocratic Reps. Richard GEPHARDT of Missouri and David BONIOR of Michigan -- whom he characterized as "Gordon's sponsors" -- are among the top 10 recipients of big tobacco money in Congress. As an example of proof, Rogan referred to recent news articles indicating Gephart has received over $130,000 in tobacco contributions over the last seven years.
- Luzerne County Correctional Facility officials say they plan to forge ahead with a ban on smoking effective Aug. 1, despite suggestions by some prisoners that there may be repercussions. "It's tense. The air is getting thicker," one inmate told The Citizens' Voice in a July 23 letter. Warden Gene Fischi said prison officials met with cell block representatives a few days ago to outline what will happen when smoking is banned in its entirety on Saturday.
- A boom in smuggling and a European Union decision allowing cigarettes to be sent mail order has forced Sweden to abandon taxes that made the country home to one of the most expensive packs of cigarettes in the world. When introduced last August, the new taxes were expected to bring in an extra 2 billion kronor ($250 million) a year. Instead, the state has so far lost more than 250 million kronor because of smugglers. The rise in tobacco duty saw the price of a pack of cigarettes go up from 31.5 kronor ($3.95) to 44.5 kronor ($5.58). But in nearby Poland they cost the equivalent of 5 kronor and in Estonia, just a ferry ride away across the Baltic, they are 4 kronor.
- The Social Democrats contend that Sweden is on course for the future. Unemployment is down to 6.9 percent after rising into double digits during the economic crisis of the early '90s; the government foresees a budget surplus by 2000; and there's enough money coming in that the government will lower cigarette taxes in August.
- "Let's go! We need some help! Let's go!" McIntyre, a Lumberton Democrat, yelled to the buyers as they worked their way past the first piles of tobacco on the floor. By day's end, prices in North Carolina's Border Belt marketing region averaged $1.71 per pound, a good price, several people said. But buyers for the cigarette makers left 44.4 percent of the crop -- or 892,000 pounds -- on the warehouse floors in Robeson, Bladen and Columbus counties.
- Tobacco market openings used to entail celebrations at the warehouses. Farmers, farm workers, townspeople, business owners and others with an interest in the crop would come out for the party. But the ceremony at the Hi-Dollar warehouse in Fairmont was anything but a celebration. "It's kind of subdued," said Bob Murphy, head of the state Agricultural Statistics Office.
- Farmers have delivered, now it's time for the tobacco companies to do their part, officials said yesterday as lackluster sales greeted the opening day of North Carolina's flue-cured market. "Too much is going to stabilization. We're going to have to do something about that," Agriculture Commissioner Jim Graham said as sales began on South Carolina and Border North Carolina flue-cured markets. "I know one thing, we don't want it to stay like this."
- In its heyday, opening day of flue-cured tobacco sales brought politicians out in droves to stump for votes with promises to help farmers. . . State Agriculture Secretary Jim Graham put in a plug for U.S. Rep Mike McIntyre, McIntyre promised to fight for farmers in Washington, D.C., and that was about it for partisan politics. "It is not what is used to be," said Graham, who has attended the opening-day ceremony each of his 34 years as the state's chief cheerleader for a crop that seems to be under constant criticism.
- Lackluster sales and concern for the future dominated the opening Tuesday of tobacco-auction markets in the Carolinas. Prices were comparable to opening day last year, but most of the tobacco sold was actually left over from last year's crop.
- The 1998 flue-cured tobacco sales start this morning in Robeson, Columbus and Bladen counties, and they start Wednesday morning in Moore, Lee, Sampson and other eastern North Carolina counties.
- Philip Morris USA announced plans yesterday to cut 150 cigarette-factory jobs in Richmond, sparking an outcry among workers and anger among union officials who'd hoped to break the bad news themselves. . . . At a sometimes-heated meeting with company officials yesterday afternoon, workers complained that the job cuts come at a time when Philip Morris is increasing its share of the domestic cigarette market and company executives are getting large bonuses. "They'll be buying bigger houses, while we'll probably be selling ours," Young said.
- BAT Industries yesterday said the "backlash has begun" against the American anti-tobacco lobby, with class actions from smokers turning in favour of cigarette makers. . . chief executive Martin Broughton hailed a series of recent rulings in favour of tobacco companies. He said: "There appears to be an emerging trend in favour of the industry stance in these huge but unfounded claims."
- BAT Industries is racing towards demerger but its share price is struggling behind like a malnourished nicotine addict.
- British financial services and tobacco group B.A.T Industries reassured investors on Wednesday that plans to merge its financial services division with Switzerland's Zurich Insurance remain on course.
- B.A.T Industries' Brown & Williamson tobacco company said it is "consolidating and realigning" its ad-agency assignments.
- Quarterly profits at BAT Industries PLC fell 25 percent to 490 million pounds ($803 million) as the cigarette and insurance group paid out millions to settle tobacco litigation in Minnesota, the company said Wednesday. The pre-tax earnings for the three months ending June 30 compared with profits of 656 million pounds in the same period a year earlier.
- Second-quarter results from B.A.T Industries PLC (BTI) Wednesday are unlikely to have much of impact on the group's share price, say analysts. They say the figures are in many ways little more than a sideshow to the demerger of BAT's financial services business later this year and its subsequent merger with Zurich Insurance Group (Z.ZIN).
- Rumors that cigarette company SAMPOERNA was planning a rights issue sent its shares up 475 rupiah, or 15%, to 3,575. Cigarette company GUDANG GARAM gained 300 rupiah to 9,050 after several sessions of declines. . .
- Drug giant Pharmacia & Upjohn's (NYSE:PNU - news) second-quarter earnings plunged nearly 18 percent and net sales fell 3 percent, depressed by the struggling Asian economy. . . . Pharmacia & Upjohn got solid sales increases from key products such as Xalatan for glaucoma, up 88.5 percent to $67.5 million, and Nicorette products, up 33.5 percent to $47.4 million.
- Health: Adolescence is a potentially healthy time for girls, but the leading causes of premature death among women--including lung cancer, other cancers, heart disease, and AIDS--are associated with behaviors that often begin during adolescence. Evidence that sparks concern includes the rise in the percentage of girls who smoke (from 13 percent of eighth graders in 1991 to 21 percent five years later); a report that 30 percent of adolescent girls have
- Girls are catching up with boys in less positive ways, too, the national report indicates. Girls age 12 to 18 are now just as likely as boys to drink alcohol and illegal drugs, and they start at about the same age. They are also smoking as often as their male counterparts. . . . The report, The Girls Report:What We Know and Need to Know About Growing up Female, was commissioned by the [National Council for Research on Women], a consortium of 77 teaching and research centers
- An Austrian miner, rescued after being trapped in a collapsed mine for 10 days without food or water, said Wednesday he had lived on prayers, cigarettes and visions of his girlfriend bringing him glasses of water. . . "Once I saw my girlfriend coming toward me with a drink, I often fantasized like that," said Hainzl, who spent his time lying on a table in a staff room 200 feet underground. He smoked a packet of cigarettes he had with him.
- Former state Attorney General G. Oliver KOPPELL . . . managed to browbeat his Democratic primary opponents into giving back contributions from one of New York's most distinguished families, the Tisches. . . Thus, candidates Eliot SPITZER and Catherine ABATE had taken money from - gasp! - Big Tobacco. . . Yeah, maybe New York University should close down TISCH HOSPITAL, or its Tisch-endowed program for biomolecular medical research. Perhaps the university's TISCH SCHOOL OF THE ARTS and TISCH HALL at the College of Business and Administration should also be shuttered. The METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART took $10 million from the Tisches and the JERUSALEM ZOO another $7 million. Give it back, guys. And the NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY ... the CHILDREN'S MUSEUM ... and the GAY MEN'S HEALTH CRISIS ... But maybe, in the end, it's all just jealousy. After all, all three of them know the truth - that the Tisch family has done more for the people of this city and state than Koppell, Spitzer and Abate combined.
- But wait - it gets weirder! Today's youth are starting to like it, too! . . . "Most people initially choose to smoke cigarettes because it's supposed to be cool," Dave continues. "After a while they're addicted and can't stop. Whereas with snuff, I can chew it maybe twice a day at most and not have to worry about not being able to quit, or catching lung cancer."
- Whatever his motives, and they may be as varied as they are murky, the gutting of anti-tobacco legislation has been the main achievement of Starr's constant efforts to undermine Bill CLINTON. No group has benefited as much from the weakening of this president as the tobacco industry, which employs STARR as a legal hit man.
- The House bill, however, does not include language banning smoking on international flights. The Senate in passing its $47.1 billion version of the bill last week included such language. The two chambers will meet to work out their differences in the bill
- The moist snuff portion of the smokeless tobacco business has grown to one-and-a-half billion dollars a year. It has led CONWOOD TOBACCO, maker of Kodiak and other brands, to claim U.S. TOBACCO's Skoal and Copenhagen brands have illegally used deception and cash to dominate sales rack. . . Conwood is suing in U.S. District Court in Paducah for 'substantially in excess of a billion dollars.' The lawsuit includes charges dealing with anti-trust violations. It claims that U.S. Tobacco told its salesmen the way to get ahead in U.S.T. is to remove Conwood's racks and to 'turn up the heat' on Conwood.
- Smokers should know that when they light up a butt, they may be inhaling ammonia and industrial chemicals along with their tobacco smoke, Democratic gubernatorial candidate MYRTH YORK said Thursday. If elected, York said she would push legislation requiring tobacco companies to disclose to state health officials the ingredients of cigarettes, chewing tobacco and snuff . . "These companies have not only been manipulating nicotine levels to keep people addicted, but have also been pulling the wool over the consumers' eyes by keeping the ingredients a great industry secret," she said.
- More than 15-thousand cartons of untaxed cigarettes, seized in Washington state, have been auctioned for 133-thousand dollars. A grocery wholesaler was the highest bidder yesterday. The sale was part of a crackdown on the sale of untaxed cig arettes from tribal smokeshops and elsewhere, a practice the state contends costs the treasury 96-Million dollars a year.
- District Court Judge Milton I. Shadur, in his ruling, stated that the ordinance "proves to be built on a foundation of quicksand," and ruled the ordinance null and void on the grounds of the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act which provides that: "No requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this chapter."
- A federal judge struck down Chicago's ordinance prohibiting alcohol and tobacco advertising on most billboards Wednesday, saying only the federal government can regulate cigarette ads. Paul Levy, an attorney for the billboard companies that challenged the ordinance, applauded the decision, saying it protects free-speech rights. . . "This is only round one in a 15-round fight," Peterson said. "The billboard companies are only running interference for the alcohol and tobacco industries . . . and we are committed to taking them on for the welfare and safety of our children."
- A proposal would ban smoking in all 17 bars and restaurants in Sky Harbor International Airport by fall. . . A number of employees petitioned in July for the smoking ban. . . "I'm going to have some real problems with this," said Councilman Sal Diciccio, pointing out that frequent flyers might be accommodated by the clubs but that "the common guy will have to go smoke outside or not at all."
- The scion of a prominent Israeli family recently visited Minnesota to learn more about a lawsuit against the tobacco industry that resulted in a recent $6 billion settlement for the state and the Blue Cross health insurance company. AMOS HAUSNER, an anti-smoking activist in Israel for the past 15 years, announced that both the Israeli government and KUPAT CHOLIM, the nation's largest health insurance fund, are preparing to file lawsuits against tobacco companies.
- Johnston County is a place where the brightleaf tobacco tradition thrives despite the heat in the fields -- or in Congress. On Wednesday, growers, buyers, auctioneers and others gathered at steamy Riverside and Planters Warehouse to begin the annual ritual of selling the tobacco crop.
- Tobacco farmer Wayne Loftin stood silently and surveyed the action as the auctioneer's chant echoed across Wainwright's Warehouse yesterday. "I'm pleasantly surprised," said Loftin, a 46-year-old Winterville farmer who has grown tobacco for half of his life. Others were too, as Eastern Belt flue-cured tobacco markets opened with a sign of hope amid otherwise gloomy predictions.
- The Coastal Farmers tobacco market opened Wednesday, selling 269,744 pounds of tobacco for $478,886.88. The average price was $177.53 per 100 pounds, up slightly from last year.
- Cigarette prices are set to rise by about 10¢ a packet as manufacturers move to recoup higher import costs due to the weaker Australian dollar. . . The price rise reflects the easing in the last six months of the fierce discounting wars fought in the industry over the previous 2 years.
- Shares slipped Thursday amid rumors that tobacco maker ITC will post lower-than-expected first quarter results.
- Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) said Thursday net profit for the first half of 1998 rose 39% to 11.15 billion pesetas (ESP). ($1=ESP150.04).
- 07/29/98 June 20 + 1: Little Progress on Key Legal Challenges
- 07/29/98 Rating the Tobacco Analysts
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The tobacco industry analyst with the best stock-picking record in 1997 was A.G. Edwards' Timothy Swanson. According to a June 30 analysis by The Wall Street Journal, Swanson came out on top "not because of the stocks he recommended, but because of those he prudently avoided." Swanson currently has a "speculative buy" rating on RJR, a "speculative accumulate" rating on Philip Morris and a "maintain" rating on UST.
- 07/29/98 Company Profile: B.A.T Industries PLC
- 07/29/98 Three Funds Take Some Flak for Tobacco Decisions
- Trustees of the MINNESOTA STATE BOARD OF INVESTMENT voted on June 11 to freeze that fund's tobacco investments in actively managed accounts. Trustees of the NEW YORK CITY EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM voted on June 16 to freeze its tobacco investments in indexed (passively managed) accounts. On July 9, the KENTUCKY TEACHERS RETIREMENT SYSTEM revealed it had sold more than half of its tobacco holdings in August 1996, coinciding with the issuance of new tobacco regulations by the Food and Drug Administration.
- 07/29/98 Shareholder Resolution Topics Make Headlines
- 07/29/98 Court Spotlight Shines on Florida Once Again This page has a calendar of Medicaid trial dates through 2000
- A new analysis of health data shows that lower-income, minority, and younger populations are more responsive to cigarette price increases. . . The report is based upon an analysis of 14 years of health data (1976-1993) >from the National Health Interview Survey. The study found that lower-income ($33,106 or less), minority (Hispanic and Black), and younger populations (18-39 years of age) are more likely than other groups to quit or reduce their smoking as a result of cigarette price increases.
- Government researchers say one of every eight U.S. smokers would quit or cut back if the price of cigarettes rose 50 percent -- and young minorities would be most likely to break the habit. . . "The tobacco industry in particular tried to make the case that increasing the price would be harmful to minority groups and low-income groups ... but just the opposite is true," said Michael Eriksen, director of the CDC's Office of Smoking and Health. "That's good news because these same groups are the ones who bear the greatest burden from tobacco-related disease."
- "When you hold income constant, increases in the price of cigarettes has a larger effect on minorities than it does whites in this country," said Michael Eriksen, head of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health. "More research is needed" to understand the possible relationships between price and race, he added. . . Researchers suggested that the age-related differences reflected the increasing strength of nicotine addiction over time.
- "Although it is certainly possible that the decline in the prevalence of smoking will slow, the demographics of smoking imply that prevalence will inexorably continue to decline over the next several decades," write David Mendez of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues. "Even so, smoking will remain the nation's leading cause of premature death," according to their report in the July issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
- "We might be able to do a better job," Elsie Pamuck, a health researcher at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), who helped write the report . . "This is the first time a lot of this information has been pulled together and examined in a fairly systematic way," Pamuck said. She said the Public Health Service might need to stop looking at health in a piecemeal way -- for instance how to fight high blood pressure or how to persuade people to stop smoking -- and look at ways of improving health overall. "As long as we approach it in a piecemeal fashion we are sort of battling the tide," she said. "Maybe there are better and more comprehensive ways to approach it and I really don't think we've had that dialogue in this country."
- The widespread dissemination of information about diet, exercise and smoking has reached richer, better educated people first, improving their health but widening the gap, Jones said. The solution, Shalala said, is targeted messages. She pointed to successes in reducing teen pregnancy and increasing immunizations. "We need to modernize our messages," Shalala said. "That means music and television and getting to young people much earlier."
- Archaeologists unearthing the remains of LONDON, a bustling 17th-century community on the South River, say there are at least seven or eight more "lost towns" in the county. County archaeologist Al Luckenbach established The Lost Towns of Anne Arundel County project to find them. . . Local interest in unearthing these Colonial-era communities has been spurred by the excavation of London, a once-booming tobacco town that existed in what is now Edgewater from about 1683 to 1783. It was abandoned shortly after the General Assembly limited tobacco exports to authorized ports in 1747. . . The London site, much of which lies under the 23-acre London Town county park, has turned into a popular destination for archaeology buffs
- "It would be a disaster if we lost the du Maurier," said Laura Davies, who counts the 1996 du Maurier among her four major championships. "It seems that the government isn't looking at the wider picture. They [du Maurier] contribute so much to the community. They don't just sponsor golf."
- Maybe the totalitarianism he is worried about is like his characterization of the smoking habit itself: a little of it won't hurt you; only when it exceeds a certain limit does it begin to kill. Yet it is to Sullum's considerable credit that he has made us even think about totalitarianism in this most unlikely context. By the end he has made at least plausible his attack on what he calls the "collectivist" public health movement. As he concludes: "Of all the risk factors for disease and injury, it seems, freedom is the most pernicious. And you thought it was smoking."
- As Gloria Tuttle recalled Wednesday: "The players felt, 'Who's this?' Then they would see my husband's face and they would just look. Bill would give his story and you could hear a pin drop. Then they would hug us. Million-dollar players would come up with tears in their eyes and cans of tobacco in their hands and they would say, 'I want you to throw this away for me."' Tuttle said then that he wanted players to consider the example they were setting for youngsters, and he asked them at least to refrain from chewing while they could be caught by television cameras. "It's going to be pretty hard to tell someone making $4 million a year not to chew," he said. "So what we're trying to do is get it off TV."
- Former major leaguer Bill Tuttle, who lost much of his jaw and cheek to cancer and became a leading spokesperson against chewing tobacco, died at age 69. . . Tuttle subsequently became actively involved in Oral Health America's National Spit Tobacco Education Program, speaking to major and minor league baseball players, schools and health and dental organizations across the country.
- His priorities, which he outlined to about 175 people Thursday at the National Association of Local Boards of Health's 6th annual conference, surely will generate debate. SATCHER . . . said his top priority was giving children a healthy start in life. "That relates to making sure that parents are ready to be parents," Satcher, 57, told the . . . "It relates to the risk of having HIV transferred from mother to child and exposure to tobacco smoke or crack cocaine in utero. . . "
- The Senate quietly has approved $1.9 billion for U.S. forces in Bosnia . . . An amendment by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, appropriates $50 million for anti-smoking programs in the military. The money would come from cuts to military consultants. "My amendment will not require those serving in the military to quit smoking," said Harkin. It "would merely provide critical help for those who wish to quit smoking."
- Washington state Attorney General Christine Gregoire helped negotiate one national settlement with the tobacco industry... and she's confident she can do it again. Gregoire says she's encouraged by the progress made during the talks that began earlier this week.
- The tobacco industry and a group of state attorneys general tentatively turned their attention to actual dollar figures, but little specific progress has been made after four days of renewed settlement talks. . . The talks, which broke Thursday for the weekend, had centered at first on the question of what marketing restrictions, antismoking measures and other public-health concessions the industry might tolerate to end the litigation. Without reaching any concrete agreement on those ideas, the two sides in the past two days began talking about monetary components of a possible settlement, said Fred Olson, spokesman for Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire
- The tobacco industry and state attorneys general have crossed major hurdles in their litigation negotiations and have begun discussing money, state officials said Wednesday. A spokesman for Washington State Attorney General Christine Gregoire, a key negotiator, said the group has begun discussing economic issues. North Carolina Attorney General Michael Easley would not comment on topics of discussion but said "I am very optimistic and very much encouraged. . . "
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Negotiators for U.S. tobacco companies and states seeking to recover the costs of treating sick smokers said that they are pushing to reach agreement this week on the major pieces of a $196 billion settlement, amid fears that delays could lead to a breakdown in the talks. "If we don't make substantial progress by the end of the week, there's no point in continuing," said Attorney General Christine Gregoire of Washington, the lead negotiator for the states.
- Talks between cigarette makers and state attorneys general to salvage a national tobacco settlement will extend at least into next week, a state negotiator said Wednesday. The negotiators will meet again Thursday and then break for a three-day weekend to report their progress to the respective camps, North Carolina Attorney General Mike Easley said. . . He said the discussions remain focused on health concerns and measures -- such as tobacco marketing restrictions -- to curb teen-age smoking
- Lamar Advertising, Rochester's largest billboard company, is asking a federal judge to nullify a new city law that significantly limits how and where tobacco can be advertised. The company claims the restrictions -- which go into effect tomorrow -- violate its First Amendment rights. Lamar also argues that the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act preempts state or local regulations on tobacco advertising.
- "My answer is no, no, no, no," Bennett said when asked if Ms. SAUERBREY would support a $1.50 increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes. . . GLENDENING said he supports a higher tobacco tax and would put the money in a special fund that could be used only for programs that benefit children.
- A legislative committee yesterday voted to ban smoking in the Capitol building. Richland Senator DARRYL JACKSON, who proposed the ban, says allowing smoking inside the Statehouse and banning it in other public state buildings sends the wrong message. The statehouse opens next month.
- A national campaign to break the link between smokeless tobacco and baseball is hitting a Jackson ballpark. Young fans attending the JACKSON GENERALS-TULSA DRILLERS ballgame received pledge cards featuring Major League players encouraging them to remain tobacco-free. In addition, members of a HATTIESBURG little league team were honored for their role the campaign.
- Despite carrying the most beloved surname in Minnesota politics, Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III is not considered a lock in the gubernatorial election - even in his party's primary. "I'm concerned . . . I'm running like I'm one vote behind." . . . Since the tobacco lawsuit ended, he has done little to distinguish himself in the crowded field. . . Despite his success in the tobacco lawsuit, Humphrey has lost some battles this year.
- The WHO's other major campaign--against tobacco--will be tailored to each country. "Take CHINA," Dr BRUNDTLAND said. "With more than one billion people, it is one of the highest risk countries, really the most threatened in terms of sheer numbers, and the news is shocking: tobacco may eventually kill about 50 million of all Chinese children and youth alive today. The WHO will provide information and advice, but it is the national government's responsibility. They must own it; otherwise it is not sustainable."
- Smokers will be slugged yet again by the automatic increase. Excise on a pack of 20 will rise 6c, while the rate on a pack of 50 jumps 14c. Roll-your-own smokers face a 30c excise rise on a 50gm pack to tobacco. Tobacco Retail Association president, Mr John Tunney, said at a retail level, smokers will have to pay 10c-20c extra per packet. "The bottom line is smokers will have to pay more for their cigarettes," Mr Tunney said. "It is really time for a review of all taxes in this country."
- [W]hat's new for cities such as Portland are contracts between tobacco companies and clubs for brand-name sponsorship . . . the tobacco industry appears to have found a creative way to appeal to a slightly older crowd. Fellini and Satyricon are "Camel clubs" -- among about 1,000 such nightspots across the nation to sell and promote Camel cigarettes exclusively to their clientele.
- Two months ago, I received in my mailbox at New York University an invitation for myself and two guests to go to a party, "spinning hip hop and R&B." . . As the tobacco companies face a growing wall of advertising restrictions, music is emerging as a major marketing tool. The industry is sponsoring a growing slate of parties, music festivals, and concerts as a way to attract a more precise group of young adults, like me, than can be reached by billboard or print ads, and to provide them with free samples.
- PHILIP MORRIS, the maker of MARLBORO cigarettes, is reportedly promoting contests and prizes for young adults in bars in Buffalo and other cities. . . Taro Carrara, spokeswoman for Philip Morris, says the sweepstakes are a way to provide added value.
- The folks who make the world's best-selling cigarette brand have been holding Marlboro-themed parties at trendy bars and beer dives around the Triangle and in 40 cities nationwide. . . But one thing you won't see is Marlboro cigarettes. . . Since 1995, Philip Morris has toned down some of its so-called "event marketing," even in tobacco-friendly states such as North Carolina. And more changes have come this year, even as the company has launched its biggest, most elaborate bar promotion yet. The main idea, analysts and observers say, has been to try out innovative, aggressive marketing techniques but in ways that are less offensive to some politicians, consumers and public health officials who can make the industry miserable.
- RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. (RN - news) chairman and chief executive officer Steven Goldstone said Friday the company's third quarter earnings will be close to forecasts. Third quarter earnings "will be close to analysts expectations," Goldstone told reporters after giving a luncheon speech here. According to First Call, which tracks analyst estimates, the consensus forecast for RJR Nabisco's third quarter is $0.64 per share. He said a difficult year in the tobacco business in Russia and Asia has forced the company to lower its expectations for 1998. "I'll be glad to see this year end," he said.
- The tobacco sector had another good day yesterday after stockbrokers upgraded their profit forecasts for W.D.&H.O. Wills by as much as 34 per cent after its strong first-half result. Wills shares rose 15c to $3.65. This follows a 35c rise in reaction to the better-than-expected 70 per cent rise in net profit to $21.8 million for the six months to June. Wills' shares are up 92 per cent for the year. The result also helped Rothmans up 25c to $10.10. Rothmans has risen 25 per cent since the beginning of the year.
- Australian tobacco company, WD & HO Wills Holdings Ltd. (A.WLS) Wednesday reported a jump in net profit to A$21.8 million for its fiscal first half ended June 30, up from A$12.9 million a year before.
- Strawberries, sweet corn, watermelons, cantaloupes, shiitake mushrooms, garlic, honey, organic poultry and emu are among the farming ventures being tried, said Gary V. Hodge, executive director of the Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland. "State lawmakers in Annapolis make it sound so easy when they stand up and say, `Tobacco farmers should switch to something else,' " Steven H. Walter
- A woman filed a $3 million lawsuit against Charles Barkley on Friday, accusing him of throwing her against a restaurant wall last year after she complained he was smoking in a nonsmoking area. Anna Adams said she had also complained that the Houston Rockets star was taking chairs from the table she was sitting at with her husband and guests at Regine's restaurant in Houston in April 1997.
- As tournament director of the LPGA's du Maurier Classic, Jocelyne Bourassa would rather avoid discussing Canada's anti-tobacco legislation.
- In 1995, Frank Freudberg got an idea for a novel. He put everything he had into it -- money, time and energy. A year later, he had finished Gasp!, a thriller about a chain- smoking news editor dying of lung cancer and obsessed with destroying the tobacco industry through a deadly scheme of product tampering. . . Like the madman in his novel, Freudberg let nothing stand in the way of his obsession with getting his book into bookstores and out to Hollywood. . . And this week, Freudberg . . . entered into a deal with Hollywood production firm Jaffe / Braunstein Films for a six-figure option on Gasp! The producers are now shopping the project to television networks and cable companies
- At the tender heart and deranged mind of "Killer Condom" stands Luigi Mackeroni, a New York police detective played with unwavering seriousness by Udo Samel, who is a sort of Teutonic Bob Hoskins. Uprooted from his native Sicily, cynical about love, unreformed in his devotion to cigarettes, comfortable in the demimonde of the pre-Disney Times Square, Mackeroni is unashamedly gay.
- Rambling, overly cute saga of Polish American family's travails with infidelity, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, young woman learning her power over men. Strong sexual innuendo, less graphic sexual situations; profanity; much smoking.
- A POLISH WEDDING . . . The movie glorifies teen pregnancy and smoking.
- Between them, talking politics and sex, with topical references to Linda Tripp, Eddie Murphy, and Ellen DeGeneres, stands an engaging roster of regulars. Chief among them is amoral lobbyist Johnnie B. Goode (Georg Stanford Brown), who can't understand why Winthrop and her political allies are pushing a bill to penalize the tobacco companies he represents. "Doesn't anyone realize they've employed more people than they've killed?" Goode asks plaintively.
- Eleanor and Johnnie haggle over a cigarette-tax-for-school-lunch bill she is pushing through Congress. As an undercurrent, sparks begin to fly between Linc and Eleanor.
- What should the BMJ be doing? The BMJ's policy is disclosure of conflict of interest rather than prohibition.5 . . . Authors of all original papers, editorials, and review articles will be asked to complete our questionnaires. Competing interests will be disclosed, and if authors tell us they have none (the usual case) we will write "none declared" rather than "none." With letters we will continue to encourage authors to disclose competing interests but will send them a questionnaire to complete only if we suspect that authors might have competing interests. Authors of letters about drugs will usually be sent a questionnaire.
- This issue of the journal is thus unusual in having information on two people running through the journal. Even more unusually one is a clear "goody" and the other a "baddy." Gro Harlem Brundtland is seen as the saviour of the World Health Organisation, while Chris Proctor is head of science and regulation at British American Tobacco, the antichrist to many doctors.
- "Haven't you sold your soul to the devil?" I ask Dr Chris Proctor, the head of science and regulation at British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the major tobacco companies. He smiles back at me. "I don't think I have, and my kids don't think I have," he reassures himself.
- Experts who evaluated studies seem not to have had relevant experience/Opinions depend on what sort of evidence is thought most convincing/BAT has not tried to discredit data on passive smoking
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07/31/98 The hot air on passive smoking Simon Chapman, British Medical Journal March 21, 1998
- Authors need to analyse the same data/Evidence on passive smoking and heart disease needs re-evaluation/BMJ should encourage open debate of available evidence/There must be better uses for money spent on vilifying passive smoking/Authors' reply
- Opinions are divided on whether research and educational material funded by the tobacco, alcohol, or infant formula industries can be scientifically sound or whether it is inevitably tainted. Here, doctors, researchers, and a member of a pressure group argue the pros and cons.
- Allied Dunbar is owned by BAT Industries and endorsed by BMA Services/Reply from BMA Servies
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