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'Light' Cigarettes Hurt Quit-Smoking Effort 

Want to quit smoking? Your chances may be better if you don't switch to a "light," "ultra-light," or "low-tar" cigarette before you try.

In a newly published study, smokers who traded in their so-called "full-flavor" cigarettes for cigarettes with these labels made more attempts to kick the habit than other smokers, but were almost half as likely to actually do it.

Health officials have long recognized that brands labeled light, ultra-light, mild, and low-tar are no less likely than other cigarettes to cause smoking-related diseases like lung cancer and heart disease; that's because people tend to smoke more of them and inhale more deeply.

But it has not been clear if making the switch to these '"light" brands had an impact on smoking-cessation rates.

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Image warnings on cigarette packs go up in smoke 

Pictorial warnings on cigarette packs and other tobacco products are largely ineffective and don’t convey ill effects of tobacco consumption, a study has found.

Researchers from the non-governmental organisation, Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health, interviewed 615 people, including 136 smokers, across the city in September.

It was found that many of them made bizarre interpretations of the pictures the government had made mandatory in May this year to discourage tobacco consumption.

Many took the scorpion’s image represented a zodiac sign and a picture of diseased lungs was mistaken to be that of burnt leaves. . . .

The findings have been submitted to the Health Ministry with a request to impose stronger pictorial warnings.

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• Judge rejects challenge to tobacco marketing regs 

A federal judge ruled Thursday that tobacco companies hoping to block new restrictions on their marketing have little chance of succeeding.

The companies had asked U.S. District Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. to issue a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit they filed in August claiming new tobacco regulations violate their right to free speech.

The companies, including two of the industry's three largest, are challenging provisions of a law that gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration new authority over tobacco. In a 29-page decision, McKinley outlined the arguments in the lawsuit and found that blocking the provisions was not warranted. . . .

The companies say the law, which takes full effect over three years, prohibits them from using "color lettering, trademarks, logos or any other imagery in most advertisements, including virtually all point-of-sale and direct-mail advertisements." Their complaint also says the law prohibits tobacco companies from "making truthful statements about their products in scientific, public policy and political debates."

The tobacco makers say new mandated warnings for cigarettes would relegate their branding to the bottom half of cigarette packaging and make it "difficult, if not impossible, to see."

In its response to the lawsuit, the FDA said the new marketing rules do not restrict free speech and serve a greater public health interest.

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Judge denies RJR motion for injunction 

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s bid to carve out a "free speech" marketing niche for innovative products was dealt a blow today.

A U.S. District Court judge in Richmond denied a motion for a preliminary injunction sought by Reynolds and other tobacco manufacturers regarding The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

A lawsuit was filed Aug. 31 against the federal government and the Food and Drug Administration by Reynolds, Conwood Co. LLC, a sister company with Reynolds American Inc., Lorillard Inc. and Commonwealth Brands Inc.

The companies had sought a preliminary injunction against The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. They said they are trying to "protect their First Amendment right to communicate with adult tobacco consumers about their products."

But Judge Joseph McKinley ruled that the "plaintiffs have little likelihood of success" in their challenge to the modified risk tobacco products provision in the law.

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Want to quit smoking? Switching to mild cigarettes will NOT improve your chances 

Smokers who swapped to low-tar cigarettes were less likely to successfully quit the habit

Smokers who hope to kick the habit by first switching to a low-tar or mild brand of cigarette may actually find it harder to quit, researchers said today.

They found that smokers who traded to light cigarettes were 50 per cent less likely to kick the habit.

'It may be that smokers think that a lighter brand is better for their health and is therefore an acceptable alternative to giving up completely,' said study author Dr Hilary Tindle from the University of Pittsburgh.

Her study of 31,000 smokers found that 12,000, or 38 per cent, had switched to a lighter brand.

Nearly half of these said they had switched brands because they wanted to smoke a less harmful cigarette and hoped to give up smoking completely.

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Want to quit? Don't go to light smokes 

Smokers who switch to a low-tar, light or mild brand of cigarette will not find it easier to quit and in fact may find it harder, researchers reported on Tuesday.

They found that smokers who traded to light cigarettes were 50 percent less likely to kick the habit.

"It may be that smokers think that a lighter brand is better for their health and is therefore an acceptable alternative to giving up completely," Dr. Hilary Tindle of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who led the study, said in a statement.

Her study of 31,000 smokers found that 12,000, or 38 percent, had switched to a lighter brand.

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• Switch to lights goes up in smoke  

SMOKERS who switch to low-tar cigarettes have half the chance of successfully quitting the habit.

A study of the smoking history of almost 31,000 US adults found that the odds of smokers managing to leave the habit behind them were 46 per cent lower if they had previously tried to switch to a "lighter" cigarette for any reason.

About 38 per cent of the sample, or 12,000 people, had switched in this way and 43 per cent of those said their reasons had included a wish to quit smoking altogether.

The study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, said although low-tar cigarettes made up about 84 per cent of the US market, the amount of harmful chemicals they delivered into the lungs was comparable to that from regular strength cigarettes. . . .

Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney and a senior editor with the journal, said the popular belief that "mild" or "light" cigarettes were less harmful than other variants was "a complete myth".

"Smokers adjust the way in which they smoke the cigarette, in order to give them the dose of nicotine that their brain says they want," Professor Chapman said. "The tobacco industry would not put any product on the market that actually contributed towards a cessation of smoking."

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• State high court ponders award in cigarette lawsuit  

A multimillion-dollar award from Philip Morris to the estate of a Salem woman will hinge on a narrow legal point argued Monday in the Oregon Supreme Court.

At stake is a 2002 jury award of $150 million in punitive damages against the cigarette maker, later reduced by the trial judge to $100 million, and then reversed in 2006 by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

On a 5-4 vote, the appeals court upheld a verdict of fraud and negligence against Philip Morris, and an award of $169,000 in compensatory damages to the family of Michelle Schwarz, who died of lung cancer in 1999 at age 53.

Schwarz's family argued in Multnomah County Circuit Court that Philip Morris had fraudulently marketed its low-tar Merit brand, which Schwarz switched to in 1976, as safer than regular cigarettes.

But the appeals court ruled the jury should not have considered the harm to individuals outside Oregon in deciding the amount of punitive damages.

The appeals court ordered new proceedings in circuit court to determine only those damages, but the case was appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court.

A lawyer representing the Schwarz family, Maureen Leonard of Portland, said Monday that "more reprehensible conduct (by Philip Morris) justifies higher punitive damages."

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Shocking pictures on cigarette packs in Mauritius soon 

New cigarette packs with shocking pictures of some diseases related to tobacco use will soon appear on the Mauritian market, official sources in Port-Louis told PANA Sunday.

These pictures, according to Mauritian Minister of Health, Rajesh Jeetah, represent the various tobacco-related diseases, including oral and lung cancers.

The decision to emblazon cigarette packs with such pictures are consistent with the new legislation on tobacco in force since 1 March 2008, Jeetah said.

"We have adopted a zero tolerance policy on smoking, which affects the health of the population with adverse effects on vital organs such the lung, the heart, the kidney, promoting cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, kidney failure, among others," he added.

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• Pictoral warnings on cigarette packs watered down 

Pictorial warnings on cigarette packets recently introduced by the government are about to be phased out, reports say. It is its a clear attempt to safe guard the interest of the people involved in the tobacco industry and to keep the governmen'ts crucial vote bank intact.

Initially, there were some gruesome pictures that depicted the worse possible effects of tobacco on the human body. These pictures were first notified by the Health Ministry in July 2006 as pictorial warnings for cigarette and gutka packets. But these pictures were shot down by the Group of Ministers (GoM) as 'objectionable'.

Former Union Labour Minister, Oscar Fernandes said, "If we're talking about making the pictures harsher, we may as well shut down the industry. There are several districts in West Bengal where poor bidi workers earn their livelihood from this."

In a meeting of the GoM chaired by Pranab Mukherjee in July 2007, it was decided that the picture of the dead body be replaced with a 'suitable' one.

The minutes of the meeting available with CNN-IBN show that in the GoM, Pranab Mukharjee said, "A number of representations have been received from the bidi industry that employs a large number of workers from the weaker sections of society. The basic issues raised by the bidi industry relate to the size, colour and obnoxious nature of the pictorial warnings. Keeping this is view, the pictorial warnings may be modified."

The GOM also asked the Health Ministry to consult the Ministry of Law and remove the 'skull and cross bone' as a warning sign.

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Death and decay on cigarette packs by 2011  

Gruesome images of decaying teeth, blackened lungs, tumours and even dead people, will become the latest additions to the warnings on tobacco packets in Malta, this newspaper has learnt.

The colour illustrations are officially scheduled to be printed on cigarette boxes by April 2011, and on other tobacco products by October 2011.

The rules will implement European Union laws introduced back in 2003 on using photographs to depict the health consequences of smoking.

Tobacco packages will now carry a combined warning with pictures

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• Taste the Rainbow: Cigarette Makers' Colorful Answer to FDA Packaging Regs  

"As marketing restrictions become stronger the pack becomes the best marketing tool," Hammond says. "When the words come off the pack, the industry relies on colors to a greater extent then they used to."

For example, Pall Mall recently removed descriptors like "full flavor" and "light," relying entirely on the color of the pack and the names of colors to identify each flavor.

"Of course, brands have always used colors," Hammond says. "The so called strengths of brands are aligned with the strengths of colors, and many smokers use colors as an indicator of risk. For example, red is perceived to be stronger than blue."

In other words, as the flavors get "lighter," so the do the colors. . . .

"Orange is a very interesting choice," Bansal-Travers says. "No other brand I can think of uses orange as a cigarette pack color, but orange is certainly the lightest that PM uses, creating a spectrum of color and trying to equate that with the spectrum of risk."

Primary design changes: Flavor descriptors, such as "Filter" and "Light," have been dropped, replaced with the names of colors.

Secondary design changes: The phrase "Famous American Cigarettes" has been moved to the bottom. While the logo and Latin phrases "Per aspera ad astra" ("Through hardships to the stars") and "In hoc signo vinces" ("By this sign you shall conquer") remain, the phrases "KING SIZE BOX" and "Wherever particular people congregate" have been removed from the front of the boxes.

For its Salem brand, manufacturer RJ Reynolds has changed the coloring of the packs and the descriptor terms.

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Cigarette Companies Use Color, Rather than Words, To Convey Message 

Even without words like 'light' on the packaging, many of the people we showed the new packaging to still perceived the lighter or brighter colors to be lower in nicotine, tar, or tobacco, and less harmful.

"Certain colors do elicit certain responses, feelings, emotions", said Tom Neal, Director of Brand Development at Kinziegreen in Wausau. He says with the tobacco already so heavily regulated, they're using the methods that are allowed as effectively as possible. "As the color scheme goes from darker towards lighter, you're seeing they're trying to say to the consumer the things they can't really say with words."

So while cigarette companies won't be able to say 'mild', 'light', or 'ultra-light', by using a cool, calming blue, an energetic orange, or even a natural, healthy light green, would-be customers are getting the message. That's something that has health officials concerned.

"They're trying to make the consumer believe that they are getting a healthier product as a result of the packaging.", said Renee Trowbridge, a public health educator for Marathon County. "They are doing a very good job of making it appealing."

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• National tobacco case to be heard in Bangor  

Attorneys from around the country descended Wednesday on the federal courthouse in Bangor for a conference on a class-action lawsuit against the makers of light cigarettes.

It is the first multidistrict litigation case ever assigned to U.S. District Court in Bangor.

Multidistrict litigation, or MDL, is the label the federal judiciary gives cases filed against the same party or parties in federal courts around the nation. Once cases have been combined, a three-judge panel assigns them to one federal judge.

At least 20 lawsuits from around the country have been combined in Bangor. The MDL has been assigned to U.S. District Judge John Woodcock, who has not handled one since his appointment to the federal bench in 2003. Moreover, the original Maine case that led to the 20-case MDL is once again in the hands of Woodcock, whom the U.S. Supreme Court reversed last year.

In a 5-4 a split won by the court’s liberals, the justices ruled in December that smokers may use state consumer protection laws to sue cigarette makers for the way they promote “light” and “low tar” brands. . . .

No hearings in the case will be held until January or February. Once Woodcock rules on whether the facts in a landmark case upheld earlier this year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., Circuit can be applied to the MDL case, his decision is expected to be appealed to the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. That decision also could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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• 'Jordan committed to implementation of tobacco control treaty' 

Jordan is committed to the implementation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC), Minister of Health Nayef Fayez said on Tuesday, noting that it was the second country in the region to endorse it.

The Ministry of Health has formed a committee to draw up a plan to implement articles 9 and 10 of the convention, which entered into force in 2005, he added.

"We are studying the possibility of enlarging the graphic warning printed on tobacco packets from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the pack's total size," Fayez said at a meeting of 20 FCTC state parties to discuss the implementation of articles 9 and 10 yesterday.

He added that the ministry is also studying printing other graphics related to the impact of smoking on health.

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