Tobacco.org

• Award Winning Smoking Alternatives to Be Featured at 'Cigar Night' at Twin Cities' Nightspot 

Ruyan America, Inc., Minneapolis, announced today that it will be previewing its award-winning and ground-breaking smoking substitutes on Thursday, May 22, 2008, at Neisen's Sports Bar and Grill, 4851 West 123rd Street, Savage, Minn., from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. The preview will feature the Ruyan Vegas E-cigar, recently awarded the honor as Most Marketable New Product at the 2008 Tobacco Plus Expo held in Las Vegas on April 24th and 25th, 2008. Ruyan will also have its E-cigarette available that night; the Ruyan E-cigarette was given the 2008 Most Innovative Product award at the same Las Vegas Expo. Products will be available for sampling and for sale.

The Ruyan Vegas looks and feels like a premium cigar, five and one-half inches in length with a circumference of approximately 50 ring size. The Ruyan Vegas uses a microchip, airflow sensor, ultrasonic atomizer and nicotine-infused cartridges to produce a vapor that provides its user with the experience of smoking, without producing dangerous second hand smoke and without endangering the health of associates or bystanders. The Ruyan Vegas has approximately 1800 mouthfuls of vapor, nearly the equivalent vapor to the mouthfuls of smoke produced in a carton of conventional cigarettes, and is meant to be disposed after it ceases to produce vapor. Smokers who use it to replace all of their smoking activity report it lasts as long as a carton of cigarettes

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In Cuba it's close, but no giant cigar 

Looks like it will be close, but no giant cigar, for Cuba's stogie-rolling king Jose Castelar. The 64-year-old former world-record holder has teamed up with five assistants, using nearly 93 pounds (42 kilograms) of top-quality tobacco to assemble a 98-foot (30-meter) cigar.

Castelar set Guinness Records for the world's longest cigars in 2001, 2003 and April 2005, when he completed a stogie measuring 20.41 meters, just shy of 67 feet. On Tuesday, he said he is shooting for a fourth title.

But Castelar, who learned the art of cigar-making from an uncle at age 5, is likely to fall short this time: Guinness says Puerto Rican cigar-maker Patricio Pena crafted a whopping 41.2-meter (135-foot) stogie last year.

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Cuban cigar roller twists it toward a fourth Guinness record 

Jose Castelar began rolling cigars when he was five. Now, at 64, the Cuban expert hopes to finish rolling a 20-meter (65-foot) stogie by Wednesday to garner his fourth world record from the Guinness Book.

"I can't tell you exactly how far I'll get, but my goal is to beat my former record of 20.41 meters (66.9 feet)," Castelar, knicknamed "Cueto," told AFP on Sunday.

He rolls his mega-cigar out of premium tobacco leaves, making a long, slender tube about 4 centimeters (1.6 inches) across. He works non-stop, eight hours a day since he began his record-seeking attempt on Saturday.

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Cuban cigar roller's latest giant won't likely be long enough for fourth world record  

HAVANA: Looks like it will be close, but no giant cigar, for Cuba's stogie-rolling king Jose Castelar.

The 64-year-old former world-record holder has teamed up with five assistants, using nearly 93 pounds (42 kilograms) of top-quality tobacco to assemble a 98-foot (30-meter) cigar.

Castelar set Guinness Records for the world's longest cigars in 2001, 2003 and April 2005

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Smokin' Joe 100 not out - cricketer's 90 years of tobacco  

Veteran smoker Joe Drew turned 100 yesterday - with no sign of running out of puff.

The cricket fanatic celebrated by filling his pipe with his favourite tobacco and lighting up.

Joe started smoking 90 years ago in 1918, aged 10. The former gas fitter, who gets through 100 grams of his rare Erinmore mix a week, has used up around 300,000 grams of tobacco since then.

Not surprisingly, doctors have urged him to give up. . . .

I walk to the shop every day. I don't drink. My vice is cigars and the pipe. I never tried to quit."

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• Anti-Tobacco Industry Using Kids To Promote Their Private Agendas and Further Misrepresent the Facts 

Casa Cubana is outraged at the latest tactics used by government-funded anti-tobacco groups. In their world of "the end justifies the means", anti-tobacco groups in Canada have felt it increasingly necessary to use kids in their attempt to manipulate public perception, create public outrage and force governments to over-regulate tobacco products. Over-regulation of tobacco products in Canada, has we have witnessed several times over the last decade - often leads to much greater problems for our country and effectively undermines the very health objectives governments purport to promote and defend. "These extremist groups are now tricking "kids" into promoting their self-serving agendas against tobacco" - says Luc Martial (in charge of government affairs with Casa Cubana, and formerly with the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health, the National Clearinghouse on Tobacco and Health, and the federal government (Health Canada). "While perhaps well-intended, these kids and their youth-oriented anti-tobacco groups are unfortunately simply regurgitating misrepresentations actively promoted by anti-tobacco extremist groups. These kids, unfortunately, have not learned to question the information being force-fed to them by people and organizations that on the face of it...seem trustworthy. And that's the problem." These youth organizations recently called upon Québec's Minister of Health to ban the use of flavours in tobacco products - citing the use of flavored cigarillos as an emerging problem among youth. If youth organizations like "La gang allumée" were actually "allumée" - then they would realize that the issues they are raising are simply misguided. It is well known that high school kids have always been (and will likely always be) unfortunately experimenting with drugs, alcohol and yes, even tobacco. Government research, however, now clearly suggests that high school kids are by far greater consumers of alcohol, gambling products and marijuana . . .

The fact is that alcohol and marijuana use are now much greater problems among youth than tobacco. It's important to note that the market for specialty tobacco products in Canada (which include premium cigars, little cigars, cigarillos and cheroots) - continues to represent less than 1% of all tobacco products sold and consumed in our country. More to this point, the very same flavours in cigarillos that youth groups are now requesting that government ban - are similarly and in much greater varieties found in alcohol products distributed in government-run liquor stores . . .

Casa Cubana is a Montreal-based importer of quality cigar products.

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San Jose cigar shops: where to find them 

Mission Pipe Shop

1205 The Alameda,

San Jose

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CIGAR SMOKING ESSENTIALS 

• Cigar smoking is an equipment-intensive sport. There are, for example, three methods of cutting off the tip of the cigar - the guillotine, the bullet or punch cut, and the V-cut - each with its own special cutter.

• Because fluid-based lighters and sulfur matches can transfer their noxious chemicals to the cigar's taste, serious smokers use butane micro-torches - called "burners"

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Where San Jose cigar smokers find refuge, fellowship  

cigar stores are thriving by becoming more social.

Governor's retreat

Cigar shops are the last best place to be with other like-minded lung cases and smoke your brains out. . . .

Like many cigar converts, Harrison believes his new vice is healthier than his old one.

"Cigars are 100 percent natural, with no chemicals or other additives," he asserts. "A lot of people have left cigarettes and moved to cigars because they are better for you."

SURGEON GENERAL WARNING: Cigars are not a safe alternative to cigarettes. Cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease. Cigar smoking can cause cancers of the mouth and throat, even if you do not inhale.

Even that kind of serious buzzkill doesn't make cigar smokers pessimistic.

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Altadis Group Results for the twelve months ended 31 December 2007 

Imperial Tobacco Group PLC (Imperial) announces that it has today filed the accounts of its wholly owned subsidiary, Altadis, for the year ended 31 December 2007 with the Spanish Mercantile Registry. . . .

The Cigarette Division grew significantly during the year with strong positive performances in Spain, Morocco and the Middle East. . . .

The performance of the Cigar Division was impacted by the weakness of the US dollar. At constant exchange rates, economic sales rose by 2% and EBITDA by 1%.

In the USA, product launches and additional advertising and promotion expenditure to address Q1 sales declines showed positive results later in the year in spite of challenging market trends.

Sales of Cuban cigars grew by 6% in dollar terms with improvements in both mature and emerging markets.

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Cigar-loving Bobby Cox faces smoke-free Shea Stadium this weekend 

Puffing on his usual post-game cigar, Braves manager Bobby Cox flashed a startled look when asked what he thought of Shea Stadium's total ban on smoking.

"You mean the new one?" he asked, referring to Citi Field, where the New York Mets will begin playing in 2009. No, skipper. The Mets announced in March that they were going smoke-free in their final season at Shea Stadium. The only area where smokers can light up is a designated area outside the park.

Which brings us to Cox, the longtime Braves manager and cigar aficionado. He'll be at Shea this weekend when the Braves face the Mets in a three-game series. . . .

"The clubhouse doesn't count," Cox quipped.

The Mets wouldn't say Tuesday whether the ban does or does not apply to the clubhouses.

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Cigars & Smokeless Tobacco 

Offering smokers new alternatives has been a stepping stone for huge growth in the OTP segment. The category as a whole has been showing big numbers, but MST, in particular, has been leading a bold charge in the c-store industry.

Retailers are eager to capitalize on the profits OTP offers. Of the 77 key decision makers to participate in the CSD Brand Preference Study, 65% reported they were working closely with OTP suppliers and communicated with three or more companies in the past 60 days. However, 10% reported no sales presentation in the past two months.

Communication is crucial especially as the stakes get higher. A USB study on smokeless products showed that MST alone enjoyed a sales boost of 8%, reaching a peak of unforeseen sales that have continued to rise since 2004.

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Cigar clubs grow despite Minn. smoking ban 

Private cigar clubs like the Lilydale Social Club have provided indoor havens for cigar lovers, despite smoking bans in Minnesota and across the country.

The clubs have been popping up from New York to California. A few are in the open like Lilydale's. Others operate in secret, like one in downtown St. Paul.

Minnesota's smoking ban doesn't have a provision allowing smoking at social functions, including clubs, said the state Department of Health's indoor air supervisor, Dale Dorschner. He hadn't heard of the local clubs, and the state hasn't challenged the legality of any of these locations.

But the attorney for the Lilydale Social Club says the smoking ban was created to protect employees from secondhand smoke. Their club has no employees, and is not open to the public.

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Man falls asleep smoking and dies 

Leonard Goggins had a fondness for smoking cigars and had smoke detectors in his two-story home on Detroit's west side.

But the smoke detector outside the 90-year-old's bedroom on the second floor didn't have a battery, and that cost Goggins his life early Tuesday morning, said Detroit Fire Capt. Steve Varnas.

Firefighters were called to the home in the 3200 block of Doris at 3:33 a.m. Smoke was pouring from Goggins' bedroom.

Varnas said Goggins apparently fell asleep in a chair while smoking a cigar. Goggins' walker had been moved as if he tried to escape, the captain said.

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LEININGER: Pro-freedom, not pro-smoking club 

A few weeks ago I tried to illustrate the silliness of Fort Wayne's no-smoking law by enjoying a cigar at a south-side bar.

It worked. Several readers basically suggested I be taken out and shot for daring to use a legal product in an adults-only establishment - with the owners' blessing!

Members of the Tri-State Pipe & Tobacco Club, on the other hand, aren't really interested in civil disobedience. Since its inception seven years ago, the club has gathered each month to talk and share their passion for a culturally rich but politically incorrect hobby that has rendered them vagabonds in their own community.

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