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Cigarette Taxes, Chicago 

A study co-authored almost a year ago by Michael D. LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative at the Center, continues to garner media attention.

"Cigarette Taxes and Smuggling," released Dec. 2, 2008, and LaFaive were cited Friday in Chicago Talks and Saturday by NBC Chicago. Both media outlets addressed two major points in the study: higher cigarette taxes do not increase government revenue, and those higher taxes can also lead to more cigarette smuggling.

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City tobacco expo organiser fined 

A Nonthaburi court yesterday fined the organiser of the controversial Tabinfo Asia expo 20,000 baht for displaying tobacco products at the event.

The Thai Health Promotion Institute took action against the organiser, Tobacco Reporter magazine, on Thursday for illegally displaying tobacco products at Tabinfo Asia 2009.

The three-day event, which was held at Impact Muang Thong Thani, ended yesterday.

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• 'Rolling Stone' Fights Claim It Misappropriated Indie Bands' Names to Promote Cigarettes 

Fending off accusations it misappropriated the names of more than 185 indie rockers to promote cigarettes, Rolling Stone magazine on Thursday appeared to have one appellate justice solidly in its corner.

However, two votes are needed to win and one justice was absent during oral arguments in San Francisco's 1st District Court of Appeal. The third didn't tip his hand.

Rolling Stone was sued last year by a class of indie bands -- led by the San Francisco Bay Area's Xiu Xiu and Toronto's Fucked Up -- who claimed the magazine had traded on their names by using them in a November 2007 graphic/article juxtaposed with a four-page, fold-out advertisement by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. that touted Camel cigarettes and the manufacturer's collaborations with indie groups. . . .

Nonetheless, the bands claim Rolling Stone intentionally used their names to help R.J. Reynolds sell Camels and that the ad implied the bands endorsed the product.

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WOLF: Will they have an exclusive interview with Mayor Byrne?  

The Brown & Williamson tobacco company plans on suing Walter Jacobson for libel today and hopes to win a verdict against Jacobson in time for him to read it on the air when he returns to Channel 2 Newsthey'reverywhere tomorrow night.

Jacobson will be teamed with Bill Kurtis on CBS2 tomorrow night for one-night only because the current anchor, Rob Johnson, will have the night off. The move reunites the legendary Chicago news team and is the brainchild of news director Jeff Kiernan.

In conjunction with the stunt, Brown & Williamson will reprise its famous lawsuit against Jacobson which resulted in one of the most bizarre moments in Chicago TV news history when Jacobson as a news anchor delivered the lead story one night about himself. The story was that he had been beaten in a mult-million-dollar lawsuit. The announcement of the story was even more bizarre than the fact that someone could actually lose a libel suit to a tobacco company.

"It was like losing a defamation suit to Hitler,"

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• Editorial - Lebanon has yet to tackle killer smoke 

Even though many other countries have already passed Lebanon by on the issue, and even though a conference blooming with well-meaning rhetoric is no guarantee of future action, it certainly was praiseworthy for the Health Ministry and its National Tobacco Control Program to agitate last week for a comprehensive ban on smoking in public places.

Before even addressing the stale arguments over whether a ban would encroach on personal freedom, a prohibition makes sense purely to keep more humans alive and cut health-care expenses from this country's already catastrophic budget . . .

In case any doubt remains over the meaning of universal protection, we only have to note the smoking bans lately adopted in Bahrain, Syria, Israel, Iraq, Qatar, Turkey and the UAE. Put another way, Lebanon has now fallen behind all those countries on a major human-rights issue - yes, Lebanon has fallen behind Syria in liberating its citizens to be free of murderous second-hand smoke in public places.

But we here in our glass house at The Daily Star should not be the first to cast stones. To illustrate the hurdles a welcome and overdue ban would face, we at the newspaper enjoy a smoke-free work environment - until 9 p.m. Even this would-be watchdog of the public interest seems to respect human rights only some of the time.

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Do movie critic's "smoke breaks" glorify an unhealthy smoking habit? 

It's no secret that Post-Standard movie critic Joan Vadeboncouer is a smoker. Drive past the downtown building at any time of day, and you're liable to see her standing outside smoking her cigarettes. (Smoking hasn't been allowed in the Post-Standard building for almost two decades.)

It's also no secret that JV knows movies. . . .

Last week, a fun new feature appeared on Syracuse.com called "Joanie's Smoke Break Movie Reviews." There's one posted about Whip It, and another about Zombieland. . . .

Research has shown that young people start lighting up partially because of what they see in the movies, because of the way filmmakers glamorize the dirty habit. US News & World Report has written about the controversy, and so has Forbes, in a story about how student participation in sports can't compete with the powerful influence of smoking in films. . . .

Clearly, it's a hot research topic, and a controversy in Hollywood. What about right here in Central New York? I've heard some complaints about JV's cigarettes, but what do you think? Are JV's "smoke breaks" a vector in the expansion of the smoking epidemic?

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• DICKINSON: Echoes of Philip Morris and Hillarycare 

I touched on the Philip Morris campaign, briefly, in "The Lie Machine," but I've since uncovered a bumper crop of additional memos from the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library that offer a detailed picture of the cigarette maker's behind-the-scenes moves to defeat the Clinton health care reform in '94 -- and why the tobacco company was so motivated.

The costs of the Clinton health reform were to be covered, in part, by new tobacco taxes. As this memo from the company's Washington Relations Office reveals, Philip Morris' decided it would try beat back this threat by torpedoing health care reform altogether: . . .

• Third Party support is important. We provide assistance to Citizens for a Sound Economy, Center for Policy Analysis, Manhattan Institute and numerous other organizations. . . .

Citizens for a Sound Economy's effort bore a striking resemblance to the town-hall campaign waged this August by its offspring. This "Tobacco Strategy" memo describes CSE's program in full swing, replete with a mobilization of up-in-arms constituents at town halls . . .

Philip Morris tapped its own employees to play the part of concerned citizens . . .

Who were those allies? This March 22, 1994, "Tobacco Strategy Review" marked "confidential" lists Philip Morris' friends in the foxhole, including, notably, the Manhattan Institute, where one Betsy McCaughey was a fellow: . . .

To influence swing Democrats in the House, PM quietly paid CSE to gin up a "grassroots" anti-tax rebellion, as detailed in this memo . . .

• PM COMPANIES INC. AND RJR HAVE FORMED THE PM/RJR TOBACCO TASK FORCE TO COORDINATE ACTIONS ON… FET.

This “Task Force” was star-studded. Indeed, it was anchored by a former top George H.W. Bush consultant who would go on to found FoxNews:

• TASK FORCE MEMBERS INCLUDE:

…

Roger Ailes, public affairs strategist

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• Betsy McCaughey Responds to the Baseless Charges From Rolling Stone Magazine 

The October 1, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine includes the outrageous and fictional accusation that I worked for a tobacco company in writing my critique of the dangers of the Clinton Plan. I did not. I was a scholar at the Manhattan Institute, and did no fundraising or conferring with corporations. Absolutely none. My article was based on text of the Health Security Act, period. Because of the accuracy and insights in the article, it was awarded a National Magazine Award for the best article in the nation on public policy and the H.L. Mencken Award.

It is shocking that fifteen years later, Rolling Stone still accepts tobacco advertising. See page 93 of the current issue. Shame on hypocritical Rolling Stone Magazine.

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• A Different Camel Is Back in the Glossies 

Now the Camel logo is back prominently in major glossies, including Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and Maxim -- but not to advertise cigarettes. R. J. Reynolds is advertising Camel Snus, a tobacco packet that wedges in the upper lip and, unlike chewing tobacco, is promoted as "spitless" because low salt content spares users the unpleasantness of public expectoration. Although snus is popular in Sweden, this is the first time it has been marketed in the United States by a major American tobacco company.

The campaign, by Quaker City Mercantile in Philadelphia, pitches Camel Snus (pronounced snoose) as a way around smoking bans. The ads cater to specific magazine audiences, with a recent issue of Rolling Stone promoting snus as "sweaty outdoor festival friendly" and one in Sports Illustrated declaring it "extra inning friendly." Others call snus "your flight just got canceled friendly," "ridiculously long conference call friendly" and "fancy hotel friendly."

David Howard, an R. J. Reynolds spokesman, said that the company had not reversed its magazine policy, but that this was a Camel of another color.

"We do not advertise cigarettes in print right now and have not done that for a couple years, but Camel Snus is not a cigarette," Mr. Howard said. "This is a different product, and if ultimately you want your adult tobacco consumers to be aware of the product and its attributes, clearly you have to advertise." . . .

But the way Camel Snus is marketed might be "harm increasing if people delay quitting because of them," Dr. Henningfield said.

Smoking prohibitions prompt more smokers to quit, so industry watchdogs are leery of a campaign that flaunts circumventing bans.

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We do not advertise cigarettes in print right now and have not done that for a couple years, but Camel Snus is not a cigarette. This is a different product, and if ultimately you want your adult tobacco consumers to be aware of the product and its attributes, clearly you have to advertise.
David Howard, an R. J. Reynolds spokesman.

Camel clearly is not marketing snus as a replacement product -- it's a complementary product. [With dual use] you have two forms of nicotine addiction, and if that's the future, then we have a real problem, because that's going to be very difficult to treat.
Gregory N. Connolly, a professor and tobacco researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, on "dual users."

Letters: Good reasons for cutting out cigarettes 

LAWSON: Banning snaps of smokers is a real drag 

A QUIZ question: what is the link between former French president Jacques Chirac, the composer Rachmaninov and the British journalist Lynn Barber? The answer is that attempts have been made to ban photographs of them on the grounds that they were shown smoking. . . .

Most deaths from illness result from a combination of lifestyle, genes and luck, and celebrity role models seem unlikely to play much of a part. Repeated listening to Hough's cigarette-illustrated Rachmaninov CD has not made me a smoker, and readers of Chirac's reminiscences are as likely to become president as a result of the experience as to head to a tabac to match his habit. What, you sometimes wonder, are these people on?

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Media struggle with anonymous online comments  

Getting named the local paper's Person of the Year was supposed to be an honor for small-town politician Dean Zuleger. But the award only enraged many townspeople.

Readers anonymously flooded the Wausau Daily Herald's Web site with comments bashing Zuleger's salary, his management style, his weight. One person suggested his third chin should have been nominated. . . .

Zuleger, administrator of the Wausau suburb of Weston, demanded to know who was saying all those nasty things about him, and the paper did something unusual: It handed over one critic's e-mail address. The politician then sent a letter on official stationery telling the commenter, businessman Paul Klocko, to stop the personal attacks and "come out from behind the cloak" and meet him.

The episode has added fuel to the debate over anonymity on the Internet and how far readers who aren't willing to use their names should be allowed to go.

The paper has since apologized for turning over the address, and its corporate parent, Gannett Co., has clarified its policies on anonymous speech. The paper will now release information only if ordered by a court or if a comment contains a threat of imminent harm.

Lawsuits have been popping up across the country involving anonymous online speech. . . .

Before and after the Person of the Year award, "juanmoore" called Zuleger a "little Hitler" . . . and bashed him for his support of a smoking ban and his management style.

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• Scribe Jailed 10 Months 

The Arua-based Red Pepper reporter was on Thursday sentenced to a 10-month imprisonment for receiving a bribe.

Ronald Afeku pleaded guilty of taking sh1m from the British American Tobacco Uganda (BATU) manager for not running a story against the company last Thursday.

"You have acted against the ethics of journalism, a noble profession that informs, educates the masses. "You are sentenced to ten months imprisonment," the Arua Grade II magistrate, Marchelo Alioniin, read the judgement before a fully packed courtroom with the convict's relatives and journalists.

Alioniin urged journalists to clear their image from criminal acts if they wanted to get public confidence. . . .

On August 6, Afeku was arrested by plain clothed policemen from BATU offices after receiving a bribe to kill a story on a motor accident involving the tobacco firm, which claimed over 10 people and left many others injured.

The court heard that Afeku had asked for sh2m and the balance would be paid later after handing over the story to the manager

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• Watchdog slams Viz over saucy smoking advert 

STANDARDS watchdogs have banned a saucy advert which appeared in adult magazine Viz over claims it glamorises smoking.

A page in the Newcastle-born adult comic showed a scantily-clad woman with cigarette rolling papers appearing to float out of her handbag.

The model was pictured in silver high-heels, skimpy shorts, and sitting with her legs crossed next to the slogan: "OCB X-PERT: Europe's Premium Cigarette Paper."

But the risque image prompted a complaint against the cigarette papers company to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), which agreed it was irresponsible and associated glamour with smoking tobacco.

OCB Papers Ltd, which produces the cigarette papers, has been told the advert must not appear in the magazine - or anywhere else - again.

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VIDEO: Penn & Teller Second Hand Smoke Correction 

Penn explains there is evidence that second hand smoke does cause cancer. This is from a Q and A session at the Amazing Meeting (January 2005). Southpark did an episode which incorrectly asserts there is no tie as well.

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