Tobacco.org

IPCPR Stresses 'Freedom, Unity' for All Vermont Citizens 

Contrary to its motto - 'Freedom and Unity' - the state of Vermont is one step closer to tightening its current smoking ban by prohibiting the use of tobacco and other smoking products in all workplaces throughout the state.

The International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association says the freedom of all Vermont citizens - smokers and non-smokers alike - is at stake and state legislators should be spending their time on issues that truly matter - like jobs and the economy.

"The United States Constitution gives the right to employers to decide how to conduct their businesses, and that includes whether or not to allow smoking on their premises.

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• The Latest Thing They're Smoking in Pipes on College Campuses: Tobacco  

Dan Nemets, a sophomore at Central Michigan University, likes the TV show "Family Guy," heavy-metal musician Ozzy Osbourne and a good pipe.

Mr. Nemets took up pipe smoking 18 months ago . . .

Friday is International Pipe-Smoking Day, when a number of puffers will unite to protest tobacco taxes and smoking bans. They will also engage in slow-smoking competitions to see who can keep a pipe going the longest. Each contestant is given just two matches. Events, which will go on all weekend, are promoted by the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association. . . .

Health advocates may warn of oral cancer, mouth lesions and rotting teeth, but Mr. Nemets and his online brethren are in the vanguard of an unlikely set of smokers taking to the brier -- people in their 20s.

"They're eager to learn," says 71-year-old Vernon E. Vig, president of the New York Pipe Club and the United Pipe Clubs of America. . . .

sales of pipe tobacco are rising again after years of decline, and many think young smokers are the reason. . . .

Pipe-smoking groups on social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have attracted thousands of members. Questions in the forums include: A bent or straight pipe? . . .

"It's a misconception that pipe smoking is a healthy alternative," says Thomas J. Glynn, director, cancer science and trends, for the American Cancer Society. Dr. Glynn says that pipe smoking has been associated with oral cancers and lesions of the lip, tongue and gums which can cause severe facial disfiguration.

Youthful pipe smokers seem to think the habit is less harmful than smoking cigarettes because the smoke isn't inhaled.

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• Tobacco paraphernalia targeted  

Imperial Beach is tightening the rules for tobacco shops with an ordinance that prohibits any new business from selling tobacco paraphernalia, such as pipes, bongs, cigarette rolling papers and hookahs.

Existing businesses, however, may continue selling tobacco paraphernalia, which is legal. And the ordinance states that the sale of tobacco and cigarette lighters is OK. But no new shops may sell water pipes or any pipe made of metal, wood or glass.

The City Council approved the ordinance with a 4-0 vote at a meeting Wednesday. Councilman Jim King was absent. The ordinance will take effect 30 days after a second reading set for Feb. 4.

Other cities in San Diego County have passed similar ordinances, including El Cajon, which passed one last February. That city limits how tobacco paraphernalia is displayed. For example, items in store displays may not be visible to passers-by.

State and federal laws already criminalize the sale of drug paraphernalia. However, tobacco shop merchants say their pipes are used for smoking tobacco.

City Attorney Jim Lough said the new ordinance is trying to close that loophole. He said while the city can't regulate tobacco, it can limit shops that sell tobacco paraphernalia.

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ABC Gives 'Boston Legal' - A Few More Days in Court  

DENNY CRANE and Alan Shore, the two high-priced lawyers played by William Shatner and James Spader on ABC’s “Boston Legal,” were having a spirited argument about the continuing liability of big tobacco when the conversation was brought to a halt by the unfurling of a zipper.

It was Crane’s. . . .

Since the middle of the first season virtually every episode has ended with Mr. Shatner and Mr. Spader settled in club chairs on the balcony of Crane’s office, talking late into the night about their (apparently) platonic affection for each other over sips of Scotch and puffs of cigar smoke.

“I sometimes think the episode might just be a vehicle to get us to the balcony scene,” Mr. Spader said, clad in one of Shore’s elegant pinstripe suits, his diction as tight as his character’s, during a pause in filming on a recent afternoon.

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L.A. Publisher Leads Fight Against New Anti-Smoking Proposals  

"Smokers are not criminals." Those are the words of Rich Perelman, Los Angeles-based publisher, as he leads the battle against a motion by Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks to criminalize and ban smoking essentially everywhere in the City of Los Angeles and a resolution to ban smoking throughout the county.

"Imagine a Los Angeles police officer interrogating you if you were smoking a cigarette, cigar or pipe in the hallway of your apartment building, on a street corner, in a parking lot or in back of your office building, in the open air," suggested Perelman. "If Councilman Parks has his way, the officer will be able to cite you, or even arrest you, for using a legal product: tobacco."

Perelman is a principal in Perelman, Pioneer & Company, publishers of several cigar publications and producer of CigarCyclopedia.com

"It's time for everyone -- smokers and non-smokers alike -- to take a stand . . .

"People should stop blaming second-hand smoke from tobacco products for every ailment, especially in outdoor settings,"

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Drawcard for puff daddies 

In 1900 smoking was seen as a predominantly upper-class pursuit. Edward, Prince of Wales, was among the first public figures to champion the fad - after dinner, of course, in the drawing room.

By this time most tobacco - including more than 85 per cent in England - was sold in tins for pipe smoking. Gentlemen of distinction could order a personal blend to be kept in one's humidor at home.

It wasn't until World War I that packaged cigarettes began to outsell pipe tobacco. . . .

This brief history, courtesy of the Benson and Hedges One Hundred Years booklet, seems almost fanciful today. Yet, against increasing public pressure, there are still those who enjoy a pipe even if they can no longer do it in public.

Prolific puffers have included Albert Einstein . . .

Pipe collectors and smokers can join clubs or online forums such as the Australian Pipe Smoking Forum.

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C-566: An Act to amend the Tobacco Act (cigarillos, cigars and pipe tobacco) 

10. (1) No person shall sell cigarettes or cigarillos except in a package that contains at least twenty cigarettes or cigarillos, or at least a prescribed number of cigarettes or cigarillos, which number shall be more than twenty. . . .

10.1 No manufacturer or retailer shall sell an empty wrapper that consists of reconstituted leaf tobacco at retail. . . .

10.2 No manufacturer or retailer shall sell a tobacco product that includes a flavouring agent other than sugar, tobacco, tobacco extracts or reconstituted tobacco.

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C-566: SUMMARY 

This enactment amends the Tobacco Act by adding requirements with respect to the packaging and sale of cigarillos, cigars and pipe tobacco.

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Puff, puff & kill yourself 

Bidi smoking is probably killing more people and causing more disease than any other tobacco product in India, the first comprehensive report on the health impact of bidis has indicated.

A typical bidi has less tobacco than a cigarette, but contains higher levels of tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, carcinogenic hydrocarbons and other toxic substances, according to the report released by the health ministry today.

The material used in the wrapping of bidi tobacco is less porous and less combustible than cigarette wrapping paper. This could lead to a higher intake of carbon monoxide, nicotine and tar during bidi smoking, one study in the report said.

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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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Pipe smokers huff and puff about smoking ban  

"How would you like it if you went to a wine tasting and you couldn't taste the wine?" asked the 53-year-old Denver resident. "It's a freedom issue."

On Thursday, pipe aficionados learned that their attempts to allow smoking inside the Pheasant Run convention center, where some 4,000 were expected to linger over tables laid out with aromatic tobacco and intricately carved briar pipes Saturday and Sunday, had gone up in smoke.

The group had sought, with the help of its attorney members, to get around the state smoking ban that went into effect in January by arguing that the event was essentially a private club meeting. . . .

The hall is strictly staffed with volunteers, convention-goers were to pay $15 to join the club, and attendees were to sign a waiver stating they "freely and willingly accept all the risks of smoking, second-hand smoke, third-hand smoke, and all other risks, both real and imagined, regarding smoking tobacco."

But St. Charles police, DuPage County health officials and anti-smoking advocates didn't buy it. . . .

"I've been thrown out of nine restaurants and three bars in Saginaw because of a pipe," Michigan resident Brad Benard, 58, said after lighting his corncob pipe. "But this is a new low."

Anti-smoking forces "just keep grinding us down," said Reg Stevens, 65, who flew in from Birmingham, England, for the convention and planned to compete in Sunday's pipe-smoking contest.

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Ill. smoking ban tamps down puffing at pipe convention; collectors light up in outdoor tent 

There will be no indoor smoking at a large convention for pipe smokers in Illinois.

A new Illinois law bans smoking in public places. That's taken some of the steam out of this weekend's Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show in St. Charles.

The event draws 4,000 pipe collectors from more than 60 countries. Organizers tried to get around the new law by arguing their gathering was a private club meeting. Police and health officials said no.

Instead, a large smoking tent has been set up 15 feet away from the Pheasant Run convention center.

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Illinois smoking ban tamps down puffing at pipe convention 

A new Illinois law bans smoking in public places. That's extinguished some of the fun at this weekend's Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show.

The event draws 4,000 pipe collectors from more than 60 countries. Organizers tried to get around the new law by arguing their gathering was a private club meeting.

But police and health officials said no.

Instead, a large smoking tent has been set up 15 feet away from the Pheasant Run convention center.

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No hot air: St. Charles pipe club has to move 

Pipe enthusiasts from across the region can enjoy the aroma and flavor of fine tobacco at a convention in St. Charles this weekend -- but they'll have to do it outside just like everybody else.

That's because their meeting place, Pheasant Run Resort, has pulled the plug on an arrangement to allow indoor smoking that came under scrutiny by tobacco opponents and public health officials just days before the convention.

"What we originally had planned, in our opinion and in the opinion of (the city of) St. Charles, met the law," resort general manager Mike Larson said Friday, referring to the statewide smoking ban that took effect Jan. 1.

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Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | Seen & Noted: Pipe show finds a way for smokers to light up | Crain's 

The Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club hosts its 13th International Pipe & Tobacciana Show at Pheasant Run Resort in west suburban St. Charles starting Saturday. The event is expected to draw 4,000 pipe enthusiasts from as far as Russia and China.

And there will be smoking.

With the help of attorneys within its local membership of 150 pipe collectors, the club has found enough loopholes in the Illinois smoking ban to allow puffing. The convention center will be leased for the weekend, and members will serve food and provide janitorial services so no hotel employee is exposed to second-hand smoke. Each visitor will pay a membership fee ($15) to join the club before entering.

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