Tobacco.org

Alzheimer's Starts Earlier for Heavy Drinkers, Smokers 

Heavy drinkers and heavy smokers develop Alzheimer's disease years earlier than people with Alzheimer's who do not drink or smoke heavily, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12-19, 2008.

"These results are significant because it's possible that if we can reduce or eliminate heavy smoking and drinking, we could substantially delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease for people and reduce the number of people who have Alzheimer's at any point in time," said study author Ranjan Duara, MD, of the Wien Center for Alzheimer's Disease at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, FL, and Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

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S.Korea's Tobacco Giant Opens First Overseas Plant In Turkey 

South Korea`s top tobacco company Korean Tobacco & Ginseng (KT&G) has opened on Thursday a factory in Turkey which is the first overseas plant of the company.

KT&G plans to produce two cigarette brands at its plant in Aegean province of Izmir, company`s chief executive Kwak Young Kyoon said at the opening ceremony.

The plant, which has the capacity to produce 2 billion cigarettes a year, will ship 60 percent of its production to central European and Middle Eastern countries, mainly to Iran, Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain.

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'Smoking ban putting clubs at risk'  

WORRIED social club bosses have set up a meeting with their MP to voice concerns at the effect the smoking ban has had on their trade.

Hartlepool MP Iain Wright will speak to representatives from the town's 31 social clubs at a meeting in Seaton Carew next week, and will hear how some of the venues are fighting for their futures following the introduction of the nationwide smoking ban last summer.

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1200 Sign Smoking Ban Petition in Marion County  

FAIRMONT -- The Marion County Board of Health passed an extensive smoking ban last month. Now some residents are expressing their opposition.

A bar owner in Fairmont has been collecting signatures on a petition against the new smoking ban. Michael Talkington says he's visited almost every bar in Marion County, and that both smokers and non-smokers are joining the fight.

Talkington says more that 1,200 people signed the petition in a single week, and that he expects to collect about 4,000 signatures.

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R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Makes 2008 Master Settlement Agreement Payment 

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company today satisfied its full $2.251 billion annual payment obligation for 2008 as specified in the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA).

As agreed to by all MSA signatories, a tobacco company is due a credit against its annual payment if it is determined that the disadvantages imposed by the MSA were a significant contributing factor in the participating manufacturers losing market share to non-participating manufacturers (NPM) in a particular year. That determination was recently made by an independent economic consulting firm, hired jointly by the states and the tobacco companies, in connection with the 2005 market year. The Settling States dispute that R.J. Reynolds and the other tobacco manufacturers are entitled to these credits.

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Schweitzer-Mauduit Expects First Quarter 2008 Earnings, Excluding Restructuring Expenses, to be $(.03) to $.03 Per Share 

Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. (NYSE: SWM) today indicated that net income per share, excluding restructuring expenses, for the first quarter of 2008 will likely be in the range of a net loss of $0.03 to net income of $0.03 compared with first quarter 2007 net income per share of $0.38, excluding restructuring expenses. The decline in net income per share is attributable to a longer than expected start-up of a rebuilt paper machine at SWM's Papeteries de Mauduit paper mill in France which caused lower unit volume and increased manufacturing costs. The earnings comparison also was negatively effected by company-wide inflationary cost increases, unfavorable currency impacts from the U.S. dollar weakening significantly versus the euro and the Brazilian real and increased interest expense from higher debt levels.

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Investigation shows Cherokee smoke shops complying with law 

A newspaper investigation indicates that Tulsa-area smoke shops licensed by the Cherokee Nation are complying with a tobacco tax compact between the tribe and the state of Oklahoma.

The Tulsa World's investigation found most of the Cherokee licensees are using an 86-cent tax stamp, the rate set by the 2004 compact.

As part of the investigation, the newspaper bought cigarettes last week at 22 smoke shops or stores. Of the seven Cherokee-affiliated stores from which cigarettes were purchased, six used the correct 86-cent tax stamp.

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• American Legacy Foundation Steps Forward to Fight For, Safeguard Ohio's Tobacco Settlement Dollars 

In a concerted effort to preserve Ohio's tobacco settlement dollars for their originally intended use, the American Legacy Foundation has asked the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas for permission to intervene in the ongoing litigation regarding whether these state funds, wisely dedicated by the State to tobacco prevention and control, can now be diverted for other purposes. The Foundation - the nation's public health foundation devoted solely to tobacco control and prevention - has also asked the court to declare that the contract it signed with the Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation (OTPF) is valid.

"We did not ask for these funds, but we are proud to fight to secure them - and keep them dedicated to the cause of tobacco control in Ohio," said Cheryl G. Healton, Dr. P.H.

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UST Executives to Discuss First Quarter 2008 Results in Webcast 

UST Inc. (NYSE: UST) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Murray S. Kessler and members of his executive team will discuss first quarter results in a live audio webcast at http://www.ustinc.com on Thursday, April 24, 2008 starting at 9 a.m. Eastern time. A press release announcing results will be issued earlier that morning.

During the webcast, Kessler also will answer questions from the investment community. The webcast will be in a listen-only mode.

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Cigarette to blame for Cleveland Shoreway crash 

Police are investigating a two-vehicle crash that occurred just west of East 185th Street on the Shoreway.

Police say the woman who caused the wreck was distracted while trying to light a cigarette.

The unidentified motorist was reportedly ejected from her car with the lighter and cigarette still in hand.

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• Stormmy Paul: businessman, smuggler, 'renegade Indian' 

Stormmy Paul's home clings to the eastern edge of the Tulalip Indian Reservation. Smoke from his weekly campfire drifts over the reservation's border with Marysville, across the imaginary place on the road where drivers suddenly realize they've left one world for another.

On Wednesday afternoons, Stormmy, a Tulalip Indian, piles black lava rocks in the center of a fire pit . . .

Stormmy, who smuggled millions of knock-off Marlboro and Newport cigarettes into the U.S. and sold them tax-free from Indian smokeshops.

Stormmy, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy for leading, from his Tulalip home, a cigarette smuggling and money-laundering operation that led from Paraguay to China to Arlington.

Stormmy says he's lived as an Indian should his entire life, even when he was peddling tax-free smokes.

Especially then.

He admits everything, but insists he did nothing wrong. . . .

In June 2004, armed federal agents forced him onto the floor of his living room and made him wait there while they tore through his home. His father, nearing 70, a Tulalip Indian suffering from lung cancer, and his mother, who is white, could only watch helplessly as police jerked their son's arms behind him and cuffed his wrists together. . . .

The Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act in 2003 tightened the threshold for federal smuggling charges to 50 untaxed cartons -- 10,000 cigarettes -- from 300 cartons. . . .

Then his mind changed again last year. That's when Harry Smiskin, a Yakama Nation member, won a cigarette smuggling case. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Yakama Nation members are able to "transport goods to market without restriction," as is stated in the 1855 Yakama Treaty.

That means Yakama Indians can move untaxed cigarettes between Indian reservations without fear of federal agents seizing them

The Treaty of Point Elliott, which covers the Tulalip Tribes, does not include any phrases regarding the Indians' freedom to transport goods, but Browne told Stormmy that the Yakama ruling might be enough to overturn his conviction.

Then Stormmy changed his mind again, after seeing how his father hobbled through the house, desperate to catch his breath. He told Browne to go through with his guilty plea, so his family wouldn't be put through a long trial.

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EDITORIAL: Now what? 

Kentuckians just witnessed the worst legislative session in modern memory. It left undone a long list of things that should have been accomplished for the people of Kentucky. . . .

So why wait until calamity strikes? The public is so ready for a major cigarette tax increase that a special session to raise revenue and work on the pension problem just might produce some results.

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Absolutely no smoking 

At the same time as the state of New Mexico moved to embrace a nearly universal indoor workplace smoking ban last summer, a few large employers were already working on going farther.

Campus-wide smoking bans have now been instituted by several large employers, including Presbyterian Healthcare Services, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital in Taos and the city of Albuquerque. Nathan Bush, New Mexico government relations director for the American Cancer Society, said the idea was first pushed by hospitals and other health care facilities.

"Being in health care, they recognized the health and social and monetary costs of tobacco abuse," Bush said.

That was the experience at the Health Sciences Center

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Activists to Move High Court Against Amitabh Bachchan for Smoking On-Screen 

"We will seek justice in the honourable High Court of Bombay" said Dr Shekhar Salkar, General Secretary of National Organization for Tobacco Eradication (NOTE). "Mr.Amitabh Bachchan was clearly shown smoking a cigar [in 'Family' film] in all the display-hoardings prominently. This amounts to clear and unambiguous breach of the law prevalent within the state and the country. However the session court did not appreciate the view of NOTE India, thereby absolving the respondents of the charges" added Dr Salkar.

In March 2008, the Sessions Judge, North Goa, Mr U V Bakre had quashed the legal proceeding against Amitabh Bachchan, chairman of Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL), for smoking cigar on-screen in 'Family' film. The sessions' Court had also quashed the process issued against Mr Keshu Ramsay and M/s DMS Film Pvt Ltd.

These hoardings, showing Amitabh smoking a cigar, were in gross violation of The Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulations of the Trade and Commerce, Production Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 and under Section 7 of the Goa Prohibition of Smoking and Spitting Act, 1997.

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• Anti-smoking movement flames out in China 

If you ask for a non-smoking table at the Cheerful Fish Town restaurant, you'll be led to a tiny room upstairs at the back. . . .

The anti-smoking movement, which has swept across most of the world in recent years, has finally collided with its toughest challenge of all: China. The world's most populous country is also the world's biggest producer of cigarettes, the world's biggest market for cigarettes and the world's biggest paradise for smokers.

China is home to about 350 million smokers -- a third of all smokers on the planet -- and they puff almost two trillion cigarettes annually. About two-thirds of all Chinese men are regular smokers and they enjoy low prices, as little as eight cents a pack, from China's state-owned tobacco companies.

Recent studies estimate that 540 million Chinese are harmed by second-hand smoke and more than one million Chinese people die annually from smoking-related illnesses. Yet cigarettes in China remain among the cheapest in the world. Many people are unaware of the health risks and the anti-smoking movement is still struggling for recognition.

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