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美国总统奥巴马22日将包含强硬限制烟草业措施的法案签署成为法律。他在签字仪式上引述自己年轻时染上烟瘾并努力戒烟的事实说，新法律能向儿童提供必要保护。
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6月22日，美国总统奥巴马在首都华盛顿白宫玫瑰园签署一项历史性的禁烟法案。该法案给予美国食品和药物管理局在监管烟草业方面前所未有的权力。奥巴马称赞该法案对于阻止年轻人吸烟尤为重要。[组图]
新华网华盛顿６月２２日电（记者 杨晴川 王薇）美国总统奥巴马２２日签署一项烟草监管法案，这一法案使美国食品和药物管理局在监管烟草行业方面获得前所未有的权力。
the American trade embargo of the communist island, he sent out his press secretary to stock up on 1,000 to ensure that his personal supply was well supplied.
Forty-seven years later, as his successor begins to relax the blockade, tobacco companies are lining up to fight for the rights to cigars not sold or owned legally in the States since JFK's stash ran out.
Gordon Mott, the executive editor of Cigar Afficionado magazine, said that his readers were watching President Obama's overtures to Cuba with interest. "If the trade embargo is lifted, anyone who's a cigar connoisseur in this country will know about it," he said.
American smokers could soon have the chance to buy Cuban.
Canadians hoping to blow off economic anxiety with cigarettes could get burned, according to new research linking smoking with significantly higher-than-normal stress levels.
Drawing on data from 2,250 adults, Pew Research — a non-partisan American think-tank — found half (50 per cent) of all smokers claim to experience frequent stress in their lives, compared with just 35 per cent of ex-smokers and 31 per cent of non-smokers. Even controlling for basic demographic traits such as sex, age, education, income and parental status, the researchers say current smokers are still significantly more likely than non-smokers and quitters to have self-reported stress.
With a survey showing a quarter of smokers worried about the recession are smoking more, and another 13 per cent are delaying quitting for the same reason, experts say the new report reflects an urgent need to debunk the "mythic relaxation response" of cigarettes.
"Many smokers perceive smoking as a way to calm stress, when, in fact, what they're doing is satisfying nicotine cravings and withdrawal," says Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst for the Canadian Cancer Society. "In many respects, smoking — or the delay in having a cigarette — is the cause of stress."
Cunningham believes Pew's report supports the need for more educational messages
Tobacco advocates used to being on the defensive in their own country are fuming over a Canadian proposal they say could essentially ban some American leaf often used in cigarettes.
The measure winding through Canada's parliament would outlaw selling tobacco embellished with fruit and candy flavors, which health officials say entice youngsters to smoke. Supporters of the cash crop worry that American burley -- a variety commonly blended with other types of tobacco and laced with flavors to smooth its harsh taste -- will be snarled in the ban, and that other countries will be encouraged to enact similar restrictions.
The bill was passed by Canada's House of Commons and has gone to the nation's Senate. Tobacco officials and their congressmen are working hard to keep the bill from passing, arguing the livelihood of farmers and manufacturers is in jeopardy.
Roger Quarles, president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative in Lexington, said the flavorings added to burley are undetectable to consumers.
Kentucky's tobacco industry will be able to conduct this growing season as usual, but farmers question what new FDA regulations and a possible Canadian ban on burley will mean for the future.
"Contracts are being signed as we speak today," Tommy Bale said of the sales contracts farmers make with tobacco companies, meaning this season won't be impacted.
Bale is not only a farmer, but also president of Bale Tobacco Marketing, with a tobacco weigh station in Glasgow with Phillip Morris International and elsewhere. Phillip Morris exports what it purchases in Glasgow to manufacturing plants outside the United States, including to Canada.
"From the knowledge that I have, the (Canadian) regulation is overkill," Bale said. "It was good that it originally targeted cigars that had a candy flavor, but now it will eliminate any flavorings at all."
That means that Kentucky burley - which is blended with flu cured tobacco - could be banned from the nation.
The future of menthol cigarettes, smoked by 12 million Americans and 75 percent of African-American smokers, could be the next flashpoint in a decades-long campaign against smoking in the United States.
Last week, Congress passed a bill giving the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products, a move that includes the banning of Indonesian clove cigarettes.
President Barack Obama is expected to sign it into law soon. The bill also outlawed o ther flavorings like chocolate an d cherry that can attract young people to start smoking, but excluded menthol, by far the most popular flavoring, accounting for around 27 percent of the cigarette market.
Under the bill, the FDA must study the medical effects and marketing of menthol and its impact on blacks, Hispanics and other groups and report within 18 months. In theory, the FDA could then move to ban menthol cigarettes but some anti-smoking activists are skeptical the agency will do so.
Billy's News and Smoke Shop in downtown Calgary caters to a diverse clientele . . .
This week, five congressmen and a senator wrote U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton complaining C-32 "unfairly discriminates against U. S. tobacco growers" representing an "unfair assault" on the economy of tobacco-belt states Kentucky and Tennessee. They also wrote our health, industry and trade ministers, cautioning C-32 could "violate several trade agreements," including NAFTA. American farm, commerce and manufacturing groups are rallying more politicians to protest, while several Canadian counterparts are urging Ottawa to narrow the bill to keep adult-oriented tobacco brands legal, and avert trade trouble.
This may not be what the Conservatives anticipated when they promised to eliminate flavoured smokes. But it's the bitterness of American "burley" tobacco that has caught it in C-32's broad parameters. Burley is used in American Blend cigarettes, such as Marlboro and Camel (Canadian manufacturers primarily use Virginia tobacco), its harsh natural taste softened slightly using a tiny dose of sweetener, often chocolate. The taste may be undetectable and packages don't advertise the sweeteners. "I compare it to lunch meat," says Roger Quarles, head of Kentucky's Burley Tobacco Cooperative. "When you bite it, you taste baloney, not the preservatives." Also, U. S. smokes may be no less healthy than Canadian ones. But in banning "additives that have flavouring properties or that enhance flavours" in cigarettes, Health Canada's bill makes no exceptions. "We know that the addition of flavours and additives makes them more appealing to youth," says ministry spokeswoman Christelle Legault. Americans will have to develop new products if they want into our market, where U. S. brands account for just 1% to 3% of sales.
What is strikingly startling is the fact that more than 400,000 Americans die from tobacco-related diseases annually. Although we may not have accurate statistics on how many people die from it in Nigeria but I know, the situation in Nigeria is no less disturbing than the situation in America, hence the need and urgency to do without delay, what the American Congress has done.
Nigeria does not have the capacity in terms of health facilities to tackle adequately the menace posed by tobacco consumption and must save her ignorant smoker-citizens the pain of untimely death and cancer this product causes. The whole world is moving on the fast lane of checking and curbing avoidable deaths and we must not be left behind. There must be a vigorous campaign to sensitise the public on the dangers of smoking and consumption of other tobacco products and it is high time the government intervened in regulating the nicotine level of tobacco products manufactured in Nigeria or imported into Nigeria.
Now that the American Congress has taken this bold step, tobacco manufacturers will begin to shift their market targets to the Third World countries and the only way to check the infiltration of our country with unwholesome tobacco products rejected in America is to adopt a similar measure.
Our National Assembly men must realise that being a Senator or a Representative is more than fighting for constituency project money or embarking on a foreign jamboree. They owe the people they represent the duty to make laws that positively impact on their lives, laws that ensure the enhancement of their health status. Nigerians including the President have shown concern about the number of bills passed into law so far by the National Assembly and the value of such bills in terms of their direct bearing and effect on the well-being of citizens of Nigeria.
It is time for the National Assembly to wake up to their responsibilities and start doing what is beneficial to the generality of Nigerians especially the endangered species like smokers even if the move to help them is unpopular among them.
As President Barack Obama moves to ease restrictions on trade with Cuba, cigar lovers are savoring the prospect of legally lighting up a smoke that has long required a black- market connection and a willingness to flout the law. . . .
The possible end to the 47-year-old embargo on Cuba trade has intensified a legal and lobbying fight between cigar makers Swedish Match AB of Stockholm and Imperial Tobacco Group Plc of Bristol, England. Each wants exclusive rights to sell Cuban-made brands in the U.S., the world’s largest market for premium cigars.
Swedish Match sells cigars in the U.S. made in Honduras and the Dominican Republic under Cuban brand names. It bought the brands from families that fled Cuba after Fidel Castro seized their cigar companies in the 1960s. Imperial distributes Cuban- made cigars under many of the same names to the rest of the world through an agreement with the Cuban government monopoly, Cubatabaco.
“Before serious commerce resumes, this is going to have to be resolved,” said Robert Muse, a Washington lawyer who advises clients on Cuba-related issues.
It began as an attempt to get candy-flavoured cigarillos out of the hands of kids, but U.S. tobacco growers said a pending Canadian law would ban imports of virtually all U.S. tobacco products.
The U.S. industry has warned that the bill, now before a parliamentary health committee, would violate World Trade Organization rules by unfairly targeting most U.S. tobacco imports.
Makers of "American-blend cigarettes" typically use flavourings to remove or disguise the harsh taste of the tobacco varieties grown in several U.S. states, including Kentucky and Tennessee.
Canadian cigarettes, on the other hand, use mainly Virginia tobacco, which doesn't include flavouring.
The Canadian legislation, Bill C-32, has attracted the ire of key members of the U.S. Congress, as well as both the U.S. and Canadian chambers of commerce.
A discriminatory bill currently pending in the Canadian Parliament would endanger agricultural jobs and could signal a worldwide movement against Virginia burley. If passed, the bill would essentially ban all burley exports from the U.S. to Canada, resulting in far-reaching, negative implications for the burley growing industry.
The Virginia tobacco industry generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Virginia tobacco farms are typically small family farms with few alternative crops capable of generating the per acre returns necessary to support their operations.
"More than 900 Virginia farmers depend on the production of tobacco to support their farming operations and rural communities," said Wayne Pryor, President of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation. "Farm sales of tobacco in Virginia will exceed $70 million in farm value this year, and this bill would have a devastating impact on Virginia agriculture."
The original intent of the bill (Canada Bill C-32) was to ban only candy-flavored little cigars. But it has been written so broadly that it will apply to all cigarettes and will ban all flavorings used with Virginia-grown burley, effectively prohibiting the manufacture and sale of American blend cigarettes - with Virginia-grown burley tobacco - in Canada. American blend cigarettes contain burley tobacco and use certain ingredients to aid in the manufacturing process and to provide the products with their distinct taste. Unlike the products that are supposed to be targeted by the bill, these American blend cigarettes do not have a fruity or sweet odor or flavor.
本报讯 据美国媒体报道，美国总统奥巴马即将签署一项历史性的反吸烟立法，将烟草业置于美国食品和药物管理局（FDA）的监管之下。从此，美国政府在烟草制品监管方面将具有空前权力。
美国国会参议院11日投票通过一项限烟法案，赋予美国食品和药物管理局监管香烟等烟草制品权力，限制相关广告、审查烟草公司以及新产品。