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Philip Morris USA Sues to Stop Counterfeit Cigarette Sales  

Philip Morris USA (PM USA) filed a lawsuit today against G.J. Smokes for selling counterfeit versions of the company's Marlboro® brand cigarettes. The lawsuit is part of the company's efforts to stop the sale of counterfeit cigarettes in New York and the unauthorized use of PM USA's trademarks.

"G.J. Smokes is the fifth Mastic location in less than a year that we have sued for selling counterfeit product," said Joe Murillo, vice president and associate general counsel, Altria Client Services, speaking on behalf of PM USA. PM USA estimates only about 20 smoke shops operate on the Poospatuck reservation.

In addition to violating many trademark laws, counterfeit cigarettes are almost always sold without the appropriate federal and state excise tax. The counterfeit cigarettes purchased from G.J. Smokes bore no genuine tax stamp. As a result, the applicable excise taxes were not paid. "This underscores the need for the state of New York to end its non-enforcement policy and begin collecting the excise tax on cigarettes sold through Native American outlets," said Murillo.

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• Discrimination May Lead to Smoking in Boys 

Minority teen boys smoke more when they suffer discrimination, but that's not the case for minority teen girls, a U.S. study finds.

Perceived discrimination had no effect on smoking rates among minority girls aged 12 to 15 and was associated with lower rates of smoking among minority teen girls aged 16 to 19.

"Our findings in girls, especially in the older girls, really surprised us," study first author Dr. Sarah Wiehe, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, said in a news release from the school. "We do not know why older girls who perceived discrimination were less likely to smoke, but there may be a possibility that they perceived discrimination because they were pregnant and also that they did not smoke due to pregnancy."

The study included 2,561 black and Hispanic teens, aged 12 to 19, living in low-income households in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. About 25 percent of the teens reported discrimination within the previous six months, and 12 percent said they'd smoked within the previous 30 days.

Increased smoking by boys who suffer higher levels of discrimination may be caused by increased stress from male-specific targeting by police and business, the study concluded.

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Ruling could muddle Brown's case against electronic cigarettes 

A federal court decision issued last week could complicate California Attorney General Jerry Brown's case against the maker of electronic cigarettes.

Brown, a Democrat, is suing Smoking Everywhere, alleging that the Florida-based company is targeting minors in its marketing and making "misleading and irresponsible" claims that its cigarettes are safe.

Brown is seeking to bar the company from doing business in the Golden State until it can prove that its products are safe and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

But U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of the District of Columbia, in a 32 page opinion, fou

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• Legacy(SM) Files Appeal Today to Ohio Supreme Court  

Today, Legacy(SM) -- a national public health foundation devoted to tobacco cessation and prevention -- asked the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the appeal in its case seeking to preserve tobacco funds and the life-saving tobacco control programs they support in Ohio.

Former Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery, former Ohio Senate President Richard H. Finan and former Director of the Ohio Department of Health, J. Nick Baird MD, and a broad array of Ohio and national public health organizations and leaders filed Friend of the Court briefs in support of Legacy's request that the Court hear the case. General Montgomery, Finan and Baird were instrumental in creating the Ohio Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Endowment Fund and, in their brief, explained that the General Assembly specifically intended that the Endowment Fund be permanently dedicated to tobacco use prevention and cessation programs for the benefit of Ohioans.

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MEMO TO THE MEDIA : Quitline Messages That Stress Benefits of Quitting May Improve Smoking Cessation  

Smokers who received gain-framed messaging from quitline specialists (i.e., stressing the benefits of quitting) had slightly better cessation outcomes than those who received standard-care messaging (i.e., potential losses from smoking and benefits of quitting), according to a new study published online January 7 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Researchers also established that quitline specialists can be trained to provide gain-framed messaging with good fidelity. . . .

In an accompanying editorial, Robert T. Croyle, Ph.D., of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Md., calls the study timely, given the urgent need for more effective quitline strategies as generations shift.

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UK brothers, aged 11 and 12, sentenced for torture 

A pair of British children who lured two other youngsters to a secluded area and subjected them to a horrifying catalog of near-fatal abuse were sentenced to at least five years in custody Friday.

The attackers, 10 and 11 at the time, were convicted of robbing, beating, and stabbing their victims with sticks and bricks. . . .

The attackers suffered from a "toxic home life," according to Peter Kelson, who represents the eldest brother. Kelson said his client watched ultra-violent films like the "Saw" series, had access to pornographic DVDs, drank cider, had 10 cigarettes a day and smoked cannabis grown on his father's plot from the age of 9.

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EDITORIAL: Increasing the Effectiveness of Tobacco Quitlines  

The alarming increase in tobacco use in the developing world has been paralleled by a rapid growth in cell phone access and use. As a result, quitlines will continue to play an essential role in the implementation of tobacco control programs throughout the world. This fact reinforces the relevance and need for research that delineates the processes and mechanisms underlying telephone-based cessation counseling. Because many developing countries will be unable to provide the access to cessation medications that is provided by quitlines in developed countries, communication processes will often be the only avenue for encouraging and facilitating cessation. The next generation of quitline research will need to address the cultural adaptation of quitline counseling and inform its implementation in limited literacy populations. Within the United States, our immediate challenge is to strengthen support for a fragile public health infrastructure that has demonstrated both efficacy and cost-effectiveness. Few technologies have as much potential to increase our reach and translate evidence into prevention both here and abroad.

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Randomized Trial: Quitline Specialist Training in Gain-Framed vs Standard-Care Messages for Smoking Cessation  

Conclusions: Quitline specialists can be trained to provide gain-framed counseling with good fidelity. Also, gain-framed messages appear to be somewhat more persuasive than standard-care messages in promoting early success in smoking cessation. . . .

Implications

Quitlines should be encouraged to test novel counseling strategies for their ability to increase smoking cessation rates. Because long-term cessation is necessary to prevent cancer-related mortality and other tobacco-induced diseases, future research should focus on how to extend the short-term rates of smoking cessation to increased long-term rates.

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MORRISON: Just spell it ''$upreme Court of the United $tate$ of America' 

Thanks to the Supreme Court – well, five-ninths of it, anyway – one sector of the economy will be thriving this autumn: campaign consultants, TV ad creators and commercial sales people, and anybody who stands to get rich riding a tsunami of TV and radio political mud. . . .

This ruling is premised on the notion that the 1st Amendment rights of the nation's corporations are being treated cruelly and unconstitutionally when companies are banned from throwing unlimited money chum in the political waters. The court deep-sixed limits on corporate million-dollar bigfooting that have been around since Teddy Roosevelt’s trust-busting days, and which were strengthened after Watergate, and most recently by the McCain-Feingold limitations. The court found these limits to be constitutional seven years ago, but that was when Sandra Day O’Connor was on the court. What a difference a justice makes.

The Supreme Court ruling means that labor and public interest groups are perfectly entitled to the same spend-a-thons, but that’s just dousing legal manure with eau de cologne. The day that labor can even come close to match the ante of Wall Street or Big Tobacco or Big Pharma is the day Rush Limbaugh is the Peace and Freedom Party candidate for president. . . .

it’s not illegal to spend ungodly gobs of dough to turn every elected official in the country into a wholly owned subsidiary of Oligarchs R Us. . . .

Money talks, all right. And theirs is going to out-shout us all.

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‘Fighting’ Obama hits Supreme Court over campaign finance  

Fresh off a fighting stance at an Ohio event, President Obama aimed a haymaker at the Supreme Court in his Saturday morning address, saying a 5-4 ruling striking down the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law undermines the Republic by giving “voice to the powerful interests that already drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

In unusually testy language, Mr. Obama vented his frustration at the end of a tough week for liberals that saw the election of a Republican in dark-blue Massachusetts, the potential demise of broad-based healthcare reform, and the crash of the liberal radio network Air America.

But the Supreme Court’s ruling, which lifted some limits on corporate and union campaign spending, represents perhaps the gravest threat of all to Americans since it could mean the end of “common sense legislation” regarding healthcare or the environment, Obama said. Republicans, meanwhile, hailed the ruling as a tribute to free speech, which GOP chairman Michael Steele said “strengthens democracy.” . . .

“This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy,” Obama said. “It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way – or to punish those who don't. That means that any public servant who has the courage to stand up to the special interests and stand up for the American people can find himself or herself under assault come election time. Even foreign corporations may now get into the act. I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest.”

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This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way – or to punish those who don't. That means that any public servant who has the courage to stand up to the special interests and stand up for the American people can find himself or herself under assault come election time. . . . I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest.
President Obama, on the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision.

• Philip Morris USA sues another retailer in NY 

Philip Morris USA, the nation's biggest cigarette seller, said Friday it has sued another New York retailer, accusing it of selling counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes.

The latest lawsuit is against G.J. Smokes in Mastic, a town on New York's Long Island.

The company has sued 27 retail outlets in New York and New Jersey since May 2009 in an effort to stop the sales of counterfeit smokes. The counterfeits often are sold without payment of excise taxes, the company said.

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Editorial - The Court’s Blow to Democracy  

With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court's conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.

Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy. . . .

The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate. . . .

After the court heard the case, Senator John McCain told reporters that he was troubled by the "extreme naivete" some of the justices showed about the role of special-interest money in Congressional lawmaking.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the ruling not only threatens democracy but "will, I fear, do damage to this institution." History is, indeed, likely to look harshly not only on the decision but the court that delivered it. The Citizens United ruling is likely to be viewed as a shameful bookend to Bush v. Gore. . . .

Congress and members of the public who care about fair elections and clean government need to mobilize right away, a cause President Obama has said he would join. Congress should repair the presidential public finance system and create another one for Congressional elections to help ordinary Americans contribute to campaigns. It should also enact a law requiring publicly traded corporations to get the approval of their shareholders before spending on political campaigns.

These would be important steps, but they would not be enough. The real solution lies in getting the court's ruling overturned

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High Court Decision May Bring ‘Cascade’ of Spending (Update1)  

The U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down federal restrictions on corporate political spending may pump millions of dollars into the 2010 campaign from companies with stakes in congressional action.

Insurers affected by pending health-care legislation, such as Indianapolis-based Wellpoint Inc., and banks targeted by President Barack Obama's proposal yesterday to curb risk taking, such as New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., are among entities now able to spend unlimited amounts to help elect or defeat federal candidates.

Yesterday's 5-4 ruling reverses a century's worth of federal legislation and court decisions limiting the influence of corporate money in politics. Labor organizations such as the Service Employees International Union, which supports legislation that would make it easier to organize workers, can also open their treasuries.

"The decision drastically alters the landscape for candidates and political parties," said Benjamin Ginsberg, a partner at Patton Boggs LLP in Washington and former counsel to President George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns. "We can expect much more spending, a virtual cascade of spending, by outside groups." . . .

The ruling may prompt members of Congress to think twice before voting against business interests, out of concern that companies could oppose them with critical advertising, said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a Washington group that supports stronger campaign laws.

"Every time they cast a vote, they potentially face multimillion-dollar campaigns against them," Wertheimer said of lawmakers.

. . .

Companies may shy from buying attack ads themselves, avoiding disclosure by giving money to trade groups for political use, said former Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner.

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Every time they cast a vote, [lawmakers] potentially face multimillion-dollar campaigns against them.
Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, on Thursday's SCOTUS campaign finance decision.

LETTER: Supreme Court decision gives power to big companies 

The only silver lining in the Supreme Court's decision allowing corporations to advertise for political candidates is that maybe now the newspapers and radio and TV stations won't go broke. There will be a lot more advertising money.

But the rest of us will get information overload, or more accurately, misinformation overload as we receive an even bigger barrage of attack ads at election time. If you thought campaigns were excessive already, just wait.

Corporations have access to essentially as much cash as they need, while those fighting against corporate and elite power will continue to have the same relatively small amount to counter it. Simply the threat of massive corporate spending will be enough to keep most politicians in line. . . .

Our "conservative" Supreme Court just gave Wall Street, Big Drug Companies, Big Insurance, Big Oil and Big Everything Else the keys to the country.

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Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm'n (PDF) 

Because Citizen United’s narrower arguments are not sustainable, this Court must, in an exercise of its judicial responsibility, consider §441b’s facial validity. Any other course would prolong the substantial, nationwide chilling effect caused by §441b’s corporate expenditure ban. This conclusion is further supported by the following: (1) the uncertainty caused by the Government’s litigating position; (2) substantial time would be required to clarify §441b’s application on the points raised by the Government’s position in order to avoid any chilling effect caused by an improper interpretation; and (3) because speech itself is of primary importance to the integrity of the election process, any speech arguably within the reach of rules created for regulating political speech is chilled. The regulatory scheme at issue may not be aprior restraint in the strict sense. However, given its complexity and the deference courts show to administrative determinations, a speaker wishing to avoid criminal liability threats and the heavy costs of defending against FEC enforcement must ask a governmental agency for prior permission to speak. The restrictions thus function as the equivalent of a prior restraint, giving the FEC power analogous to the type of government practices that the First Amendment was drawn to prohibit. The ongoing chill on speech makes it necessary to invoke the earlier precedents that a statute that chills speech can and must be invalidated where its facial invalidity has been demonstrated. . . .

Its censorship is vast in its reach, suppressing the speech of both for-profit and nonprofit, both small and large, corporations. Pp. 32–40.

(2) This reasoning also shows the invalidity of the Government’s other arguments. It reasons that corporate political speech can be banned to prevent corruption or its appearance. The Buckley Court found this rationale “sufficiently important” to allow contribution limits but refused to extend that reasoning to expenditure limits,424 U.S., at 25, and the Court does not do so here. While a single Bellotti footnote purported to leave the question open, 435 U. S., at788, n. 26, this Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy. . . .

With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are “‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.” 540 U. S., at 259 (opinion of SCALIA, J.); see MCFL, supra, at 261. The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages. . . .

Modern day movies, television comedies, or skits onYoutube.com might portray public officials or public policies in unflattering ways. Yet if a covered transmission during the blackout period creates the background for candidate endorsement or opposition, a felony occurs solely because a corporation, other than an exempt media corporation, has made the “purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money or anything of value” in order to engage in political speech. 2 U. S. C. §431(9)(A)(i). Speech would be suppressed in the realm where its necessity is most evident: in the public dialogue preceding a real election. Governments are often hostile to speech, but under our law and our tradition it seems stranger than fiction for our Government to make this political speech a crime. Yet this is the statute’s purpose and design.

Some members of the public might consider Hillary to be insightful and instructive; some might find it to be neither high art nor a fair discussion on how to set the Nation’s course; still others simply might suspend judgment on these points but decide to think more about issues and candidates. Those choices and assessments, however, are not for the Government to make. “The First Amendment underwrites the freedom to experiment and to create in the realm of thought and speech. Citizens must be free to use new forms, and new forums, for the expression of ideas. The civic discourse belongs to the people, and the Government may not prescribe the means used to conduct it.”

--KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court