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I was 12 when I smoked my first cigarette. . . .
Thirty years (and 500,000 cigarettes) later, coughing and wheezing, unable to climb a flight of stairs without panting, diagnosed with heart disease and other smoking-related disorders, I decided to quit. Cold turkey. . . .
I am now violently allergic to smoke. Smokers are not welcome in my home unless they abstain. I consciously avoid any venue that might expose me to someone's foul exhalations.
Now comes word that the nicotine levels that smokers typically absorb per cigarette rose dramatically in the past 10 years, perpetuating what a Harvard University study funded by the National Cancer Institute describes as a "tobacco pandemic" that makes it even harder for smokers to quit. . . .
Next time you light up, look at yourself in the mirror and ponder this. You are consuming a product manufactured by a gang of criminals dedicated to killing you --- at your own expense. If this ghoulish revelation is not enough to make you mad and encourage you to quit forthwith, you risk joining the 450,000 people who die each year from lung cancer and other diseases related to tobacco use.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
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FLORIDA: A Cutler Bay resident admits to smuggling more than 27 million cigarettes out of the United States.
Roman Vidal, 57, has pleaded guilty in connection with the smuggling cigarettes into various European Union countries in order to avoid paying more than $6.5 million in customs and tax duties.
To execute the scheme, Vidal, who ran the Miami portion of the operation, arranged for the purchase of hundreds of cases of cigarettes from Panama and the transportation of those cigarettes into the Port of Miami.
In 1999, the World Health Organization (WHO), CDC, and the Canadian Public Health Association developed the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) to help countries monitor youth tobacco use (3). At the same time, WHO initiated the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the first international public health treaty on tobacco control (4). Panama ratified WHO FCTC in 2004 and enacted two key antitobacco regulations in 2005 and 2008. To evaluate progress toward attaining tobacco control goals in Panama, Panama's Ministry of Health, CDC, and WHO compared results from GYTS surveys conducted in Panama in 2002 and 2008. This report summarizes the results of that comparison, which revealed substantial decreases from 2002 to 2008 in youth current cigarette smoking (13.2% versus 4.3%), current use of tobacco products other than cigarettes (9.8% versus 5.8%), and likely initiation of smoking by never smokers (13.8% versus 10.0%). In addition, factors influencing tobacco use showed substantial decreases, including 1) exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) at home and in public places, 2) best friends smoking, 3) protobacco advertising in newspapers and magazines, and 4) having an object with a tobacco company logo on it. These results suggest that comprehensive regulations in Panama helped reduce tobacco use among adolescents and further gains are possible.
an government is considering a bill to fight nicotine poisoning, one of the main death causes in the country.
Health Minister Camilo Allyene declared this weekend that if this bill is approved by Parliament smoking will be prohibited in any closed space, public or private.
The state Supreme Court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by two foreign governments against the tobacco industry.
Panama and the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, seeking to recover expenses for the medical care of sick smokers, appealed last year after a Superior Court judge said they were not seeking damages for personal injuries suffered by smokers and they failed to establish that tobacco products were the proximate cause of their alleged economic injuries. . . .
In a decision handed down Friday, the Supreme Court agreed that the lawsuit should be dismissed, but not for the reasons cited by Cooch. . . .
The real issue, the justices said, is whether the tobacco companies owe a direct duty to insurers or health care providers of smokers, a theory that other courts have rejected.
An attorney representing Panama and the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn the dismissal of a lawsuit against the tobacco industry.
The two foreign governments, seeking to recover expenses for the medical care of sick smokers, turned to Delaware last year after a judge in Louisiana said Louisiana was not the proper forum for a lawsuit initially filed in 1998.
New Castle County Superior Court Judge Richard Cooch dismissed the lawsuit in June, ruling that the two governments were not seeking damages for personal injuries suffered by smokers and had failed to establish that tobacco products were the proximate cause of their alleged economic injuries.
half of Scotland's cash was ploughed into the ill-fated Darien venture.
Just like the internet companies, there was no return on the 1698 investment.
Four thousand volunteers sailed to Darien - a peninsula in Panama - to cash in on its riches and set up a trading centre.
But their disastrous failure effectively bankrupted the country and paved the way for the Act of Union with England.
Up until now, it's been claimed disease did for the jungle colonists. . .
Dr Mark Horton led the 12-strong dig team. He said: "We discovered pipes for tobacco along with empty brandy bottles, and it is obvious that the soldiers enjoyed themselves too much.
"If they had concentrated on getting themselves better fed, and if they could have held out against the Spanish for a month until the rainy season, then the colony could have survived.
"As it was, they were all so weak that the Spanish actually had to help tow them away."
The 72 most beautiful women in the world have descended on Panama City for the June 3 Miss Universe pageant . . .
The contestants' every move have been shadowed by the tabloids, on of which reported that Miss Spain (Eva Maria Gonzalez) and her roommate Miss Colombia (Diana Lucia Mantilla) got into a fistfight over Gonzalez's smoking habit.
The two girls were all smiles later when they publicly denied the report. [This graph only]
THE AGE OF GOLD: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. . . Some traveled by ship around Cape Horn or across the isthmus of Panama to the Pacific. . .
The book is full of tidbits the author can't seem to resist. For example, he quotes J.D. Borthwick's report on an odd habit of Panamanian women: They stowed their partly smoked stogies in their hair. "[I]t is not unusual to see the ends of three or four half-smoked cigars sticking out from the folds of their hair at the back of the head," Borthwick wrote, "for though they smoke a great deal, they never seem to finish a cigar at one smoking." One wishes for a picture.
Airtech International Group, Inc. announced the Company has shipped two marine containers full of Airtech air purification products to both the country of Panama and Taiwan...
Airsopure Panama (Airepuro S.A.) General Manger, Marcelo D'Amato reported, ``The City of Panama recently passed a new strict smoking law which has accepted the Airtech technology as an alternative to the non-smoking ban. This is a major accomplishment for Airepuro and Airtech. We are utilizing this break-through to gain recognition and position Airtech's product line as a solution to individuals suffering from respiratory related problems.'' This is the second Marine Container being shipped to Panama, to fulfill their sales forecasts for calendar 2001 of USD $750,000.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Barbier, a former president of the Louisiana Trial Lawyer's Association, was listed on a 1991 friend-of-the-court brief in a suit against tobacco companies.
The judge's previous involvement in a tobacco case ``may lead a reasonable person to doubt his impartiality,'' the appellate panel ruled, acknowledging it was a ``close case'' and that Barbier displayed no obvious bias in his handling of the case. . .
The appeals court sent the case back to federal court in New Orleans and ordered the chief judge there to reassign it. The appellate panel also reversed Barbier's decision to transfer the trial to the state court, ruling he should have disqualified himself from the case before taking that action.