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Why Macmillan refused to tell us smoking was harmful | Mail Online 

Harold Macmillan claimed smoking was no more dangerous than 'crossing a street' and argued against issuing a Government health warning, Cabinet papers released yesterday reveal.

The then Chancellor, a keen pipe and cigar smoker, had another reason for ignoring evidence of a link between cigarettes and lung cancer - he was afraid of losing tax revenue.

There was already growing concern that smoking caused the disease when in 1956 the Cabinet was given a scientific report showing clear statistical evidence of a connection.

It prompted panic among ministers over whether they should 'expose' the facts and condemn smoking as a health risk. . . .

He added: 'The Treasury think revenue interest outweighs this. (It is) negligible compared with risk of crossing a street.' Notes from the meeting on April 17, 1956, were released at the National Archives in Kew, South West London. . . .

Despite repeated warnings from medical experts about the link between smoking and cancer, ministers took no action until 1965 when they banned cigarette advertising on television.

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Jesse Helms, Beacon of Conservatism, Dies at 86  

Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator with the courtly manner and mossy drawl who turned his hard-edged conservatism against civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86. . . .

From 1960 to 1972, he did political commentary on WRAL radio, WRAL-TV and the Tobacco Radio Network. The stations' statewide reach and Mr. Helms's piquant commentaries against Communism, the "lax" criminal justice system and welfare turned him into a household name, both loved and hated.

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MARK RONSON - RONSON TO BE PROSECUTED OVER ONSTAGE CIGARETTE? 

MARK RONSON is facing prosecution after he was caught smoking onstage at a gig last weekend (28-29Jun08).

The Grammy-winner was performing at Britain's Wakestock Festival in the grounds of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England on Saturday (28Jun08) night but he broke the U.K.'s strict no smoking laws by sparking a cigarette up during the concert.

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Scruggs' downfall remains baffling  

Hollywood director Michael Mann, in his letter to U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers, said Scruggs "is simply not a boastful man."

Mann directed the 1999 movie, The Insider, about the secrets of the tobacco industry that led to the record $206 billion nationwide settlements Scruggs helped negotiate. Scruggs was a consultant.

"Dick never talked himself up to be more than a hero than was accurate," Mann wrote. . . .

So how did Scruggs, who made up to $800 million in legal fees on tobacco litigation, get involved in a scheme to pay a seemingly paltry $40,000 bribe to a judge?

Scruggs' friends say they're baffled. Scruggs' attorney, John Keker of San Francisco, suggested it might take an author along the lines of a William Faulkner or Walker Percy to explain it all. . . .

Like Jones, two former law partners, Alwyn Luckey and Bob Wilson, sued Scruggs, in 1994, saying he never paid them their share from asbestos and tobacco litigation. Convinced Scruggs was being "shaken down" by others, Jones said he poured all his might into defending Scruggs.

The case bounced from court to court until both sides agreed to let U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerry Davis arbitrate the case involving Luckey in 2005. Davis ordered Scruggs to pay Luckey $17 million.

"The irony is the bulk of the majority of the award was interest because Dickie had litigated it for 12 years," Jones said.

Jones viewed the ruling as a victory since he had successfully protected Scruggs' interests with regard to any legal fees earned from the tobacco litigation.

But Scruggs saw it as an unacceptable defeat, Jones said.

From that point on, Scruggs decided to stop trusting the system that had made him a multimillionaire, Jones said. "I was dealing with a different man emotionally and psychologically."

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USC smoking doc opens at Nick 

"Why We Smoke," a documentary completed over two semesters by media arts students at USC, explores the many reasons smokers light up.

Given a grant by the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative, 14 undergraduate filmmakers set to work researching the subject of smoking and videotaping interviews with smokers, health and scientific professionals.

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• Jesse Helms, Conservative Force in the Senate, Dies at 86 - Obituary (Obit) 

Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July. . . .

Helms served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee and Foreign Relations Committees over the years at times when the GOP held the Senate majority, using his posts to protect his state's tobacco growers and other farmers and place his stamp on foreign policy.

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Death stalked Betancourt's captivity in Colombia 

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Ingrid Betancourt began each day in captivity at 4 a.m. -- cold and depressed but awake in the dark waiting to hear her mother's words of encouragement over the radio.

She was haunted by thoughts of suicide and fears that she would be killed. . . .

Betancourt took up smoking while captive. She would use her cigarettes to trade for scarce essentials such as a slither of soap or medicine for her stomach ailments.

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As Amy Winehouse shows, signs of emphysema can begin early  

in fact, Winehouse is not an anomaly. Health experts say that young adult smokers are no strangers to mild emphysema, a shortness of breath caused by damage to the lung's small air sacs. Smoking can permanently deteriorate the lungs, irreversibly diminishing lung capacity -- and the damage starts young, even in teens who smoke five cigarettes a day, according to one 1996 study from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston of 10,000 youths who smoked.

But many smokers don't show symptoms for years, leading them to believe no damage is being done when, in fact, it is accruing all the time. "Teenagers and people in their 20s think they're invincible," says Dr. Norman H. Edelman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Assn. "They think they can wait until they're 35 to stop smoking and everything's going to be fine, but they can do permanent damage before that." . . .

As well as emphysema, Samet adds, smoking can cause chronic bronchitis, lung inflammation characterized by irritation and scarring. "There are a lot of extraordinarily irritating substances in tobacco smoke. The lung has defense mechanisms that can clean out things that get in. But smokers dump so much toxic stuff in that the lungs can't keep up."

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Smoking Sienna real deal 

smoking in her new movie ‘The Edge of Love’. The 26-year-old actress - who plays Dylan Thomas’ wife Caitlin MacNamara in the film - was unaware her co-star Keira Knightley was using fake nicotine sticks for the scenes. She said: “It was the 40s and everyone smoked then.”

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Scruggs’s Son Sentenced in Bribery Case  

Zach Scruggs, son of Mississippi lawyer Richard F. Scruggs, was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Wednesday for his part in a scheme to bribe a judge.

The government had recommended probation for Zach Scruggs, 34, also a lawyer, who was sentenced by Judge Neal B. Biggers Jr. at a hearing in Federal District Court in Oxford, Miss.

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Mohamed and Bex clash over tobacco  

Mohamed angered Rebecca this afternoon when he took the remains of her tobacco without asking.

Bex spent several minutes searching for her pouch of tobacco before Mohamed admitted that he had thrown it away because he thought it was empty.

But when Bex retrieved the packet from the bin, she discovered that "two fags worth" of tobacco was gone and that Mohamed had smoked it.

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Gorilla kicks cigarette addiction, starts new life 

Ai Ai was imported from Japan with a male gorilla in 1982. The male gorilla died in 1989.

Ai Ai then became restless and irritable, refusing food, instead chewing on cigarette butts left on the ground by zoo visitors.

"We did not pay attention to her at first," said zookeeper Wang Aiying.

"But gradually the gorilla got a craving for tobacco and needed at least 20 cigarettes a day."

"If we refused to give her cigarettes, she would knock the door very hard, yelling and screaming, and sometimes she would go on a hunger strike," the zookeeper said.

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Festival grows up in world with high-rise tobacco plants  

A TOWERING office block sprouting tobacco plants, private gardens transformed by sculptures and random video screens installed around the city centre will be just some of the stranger sights of this year's Edinburgh Art Festival. . . .

The first UK retrospective of Tracey Emin's work, being held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, is this year's major exhibition, and the controversial artist is expected to draw huge crowds. Among the more striking highlights on show around the city will be East Lothian-based artist Ettie Spencer's Tobacco House, which will see large tobacco crops growing out of the windows of St Margaret's House on London Road, as well as an outdoor crop grown behind the Craigmillar Arts Centre.

The artist hopes that the installation in the former pensions building will raise questions about the issues of slavery, poverty and taxation surrounding the tobacco industry, as well as brightening up the "grim" building.

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Black kicks nicotine habit 

Jack Black has finally quit smoking - crediting his busy family life with helping him to kick the habit. . . .

And, after more than 10 years of promising I would quit smoking, I've finally done so."

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Anti-tobacco lawyer's son sentenced for failing to report bribe plan  

The son of anti-tobacco lawyer Richard (Dickie) Scruggs has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for knowing about a judicial bribery scandal and not reporting it to authorities.

Zach Scruggs was sentenced Wednesday by the same federal judge who last week sent his father to prison for five years for planning to bribe a Mississippi judge.

The sentence for Zach Scruggs went beyond the prosecution's recommendation of probation. The charge was misprision of a felony, which meant he had knowledge of a crime and didn't report it.

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