Tobacco.org

• Hazard in plain sight? 'Crossover products' may help hook kids on smoking, drugs 

Redford recently spoke about the products at a Marblehead Board of Health meeting, unloading for the board a bag of such products that she's collected throughout the year. Her presentation left most board members in disbelief.

"Are we the only ones who don't know about this stuff?" asked a bewildered Helaine Hazlett, the board's chairman.

Take a walk into the 7-11 store in Marblehead, and here is what you will find: "grinders" (small metal contraptions that are used to grind up tobacco or drugs), pipes, hookah pipes for smoking specially made flavored tobacco, flavored chewing tobacco, boxes of blunt wraps (tobacco-based rolling papers), cigarettes that are packaged like Chanel perfume boxes, and smokeless-tobacco gum that comes in a candy-mint-like container. The list goes on.

None of these products are illegal to sell, although in most states, including Massachusetts, to buy any tobacco-related product a person must be 18 or older. In fact, as a local tobacco-control officer, Redford's job is to conduct "compliance checks," . . .

Cigarette companies spent approximately $13 billion on advertising and promotional expenses in 2005 for those tobacco-specific products, nearly double what was spent in 1998, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of that money, Redford says advertisers are more often targeting women and teens.

In 2008, tobacco company Philip Morris USA unrolled its sleek "purse pack" cigarette packaging containing ultra-slim cigarettes; the packaging is made to look as if it is a cosmetics case.

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Newton takes public comment on extinguishing pharmacy tobacco sales  

Residents can butt in at an aldermen meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 4 about a proposal to ban tobacco from being sold at CVS and other city pharmacies.

"We wanted to give a chance for the public to weigh in on an important issue," said Alderman Ted Hess-Mahan, one of the proposal's sponsors.

The public comment will be at 7:45 p.m. at City Hall on Wednesday. The Programs and Services Committee will host it in Room 222.

The ban would be similar to ones in Boston, Uxbridge and Needham

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Ayer smoking ban may soon include fines 

But exposing young children to cigarette smoke is another matter, said Mayo, a town Parks Commissioner who inspired the board to ban smoking at the park and Sandy Pond Beach this summer.

Now, the Board of Health is teaming up with the Parks Commission to put more teeth into the regulation, possibly instituting some fines for violators.

The Ayer Board of Health is expected to discuss nuts and bolts of its potential smoking regulation at its biweekly meeting scheduled for Monday, Nov. 9. The purpose of the proposal is to add an enforcement component to the smoking ban that the Parks Commission adopted in August.

The commission recently had smoke-free signs up at the beach and park, but that's the extent of what the panel can do, according to Jeff Thomas, the town's parks supervisor.

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• Smoking ban in Ayer covers the great outdoors  

It was a recent trip to the park that finally did it.

Jason Mayo watched as a father pushed his child on a swing, cigarette clenched between his teeth. On every upswing, the child got a face full of exhaled smoke.

"We can't tell people how to parent,'' said Mayo, a member of the Ayer parks and recreation committee, which has banned smoking in the town's recreation areas. "But all the other kids around him were inhaling that cigarette too.''

As antismoking sentiment sweeps across the country, nonsmokers are taking back bars, restaurants, and workplaces, snuffing smoking out of its indoor havens. And now some of them are turning their sights on the great outdoors.

Holliston and Upton have enacted similar outdoor smoking bans. And in another example of the widespread public crackdown on smoking, Needham has outlawed the sale of cigarettes in pharmacies and Newton and Framingham are trying to do the same.

Ayer's parks and recreation committee implemented its outdoor ban in August, and the panel may also pursue a bylaw at the spring Town Meeting. In a more sweeping stroke, the town's Board of Health is pursuing a regulation that would apply the prohibition to all town-owned property and land and impose a $100 fine on offenders. The board has set a public hearing on the subject for January.

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Massachusetts Supreme Court: Smokers Can Pursue Medical Monitoring Costs Against Philip Morris 

To the casual observer, tobacco litigation may seem very 1990s. But could it be making a comeback? A decision Monday by the Massachusetts Supreme Court hints that it's trying.

The court ruled that plaintiffs in a purported class action pending in federal court can pursue claims against Philip Morris USA for medical monitoring expenses even though they have not been diagnosed with smoking illnesses. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Francis Spina, the court noted that theories of negligence have to be updated. . . .

Steven Phillips of Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told us that in fact most states have not addressed medical monitoring. He called the Massachusetts opinion "carefully thought out," and predicted that other courts would find it persuasive. He was also upbeat about the prospects of class certification. "I rather like my chances," he said.

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STAFF EDIT: Addiction affliction 

Americans are quick to sue whomever they believe is behind the products and activities that put them in uncomfortable positions. It's easy to take money from giant corporations with bad reputations, and then play the victim of the capitalist monster. But this is a backward practice that only corroborates claims that Americans are indulgent and greedy - and eager to blame anyone but themselves. But it's time to stop wasting the resources of the courts and ask that American smokers, fast food consumers and general bad habit-holders take responsibility for their own actions and get themselves out of the problems they willingly get themselves into. Money won't cure cancer or heart disease, and it certainly can't pay for this country to start making smarter decisions.

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Troubled times for tobacco farmers  

A disastrous growing season plagued by bad weather and crop viruses -- combined with sagging cigar sales -- has left many tobacco growers in the Connecticut River Valley reeling.

There's no better place in America to grow broadleaf and shade tobacco, used for premium cigar wrappers and binders. But these are troubled times along New England's own tobacco road, roughly 75 miles straddling western Massachusetts and Connecticut.

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• DONOVAN v. PHILIP MORRIS USA, INC.  

In this case, it is not merely the risk of cancer of which the plaintiffs have notice, but the substantial increase in the risk of cancer, as reflected in their complaint. Because the harm involves subclinical changes that only will be discovered by a physician, notice most likely will take the form of advice by a physician, together with a recommendation for diagnostic testing conformably with the medical standard of care. In short, the statute begins to run when (1) there is a physiological change resulting in a substantial increase in the risk of cancer, and (2) that increase, under the standard of care, triggers the need for available diagnostic testing that has been accepted in the medical community as an efficacious method of lung cancer screening or surveillance.

As previously discussed, medical monitoring expense is the plaintiffs' only arguably provable damages. They could not have sued for pain and suffering or lost earning capacity. This is not a case where plaintiffs recovered damages for pain and suffering, lost earning capacity, but only some medical expenses based on existing medical technology. These plaintiffs, or so they allege, had absolutely no remedy until LDCT technology appeared. If they can establish these circumstances, which are unusual and perhaps unique to medical monitoring claims, then their claims are timely. This is a question that cannot be resolved on the record before us; it must be resolved on a motion for summary judgment or, if genuine issues of material fact remain, by a jury. The plaintiffs also must show that the standard of care of the reasonable physician did not call for monitoring of any precancerous condition prior to the statute of limitations period, not just that the technology at that time was less effective for monitoring.

We answer the second certified question in the negative, subject to determination as we have outlined it.

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SJC rules Philip Morris may have to pay for smokers’ chest exams  

The state's high court said yesterday that cigarette maker Philip Morris USA may have to pay for diagnostic chest exams so smokers can get early warning they have developed lung cancer, possibly opening a new front in tobacco liability lawsuits.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court said Massachusetts law has an antiquated definition of negligence. Historically, plaintiffs had to show explicit injury, such as a broken leg, before the other party can be ordered to pay for diagnostic tests.

Writing for the court, Justice Francis X. Spina said that such legal thinking must change. "We must adapt to the growing recognition that exposure to toxic substances and radiation may cause substantial injury, which should be compensable, even if the full effects are not immediately apparent,'' he wrote.

The court's decision means that a lawsuit filed by two Massachusetts smokers can move forward in US District Court.

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• SJC: Philip Morris may have to pay for diagnostic tests for smokers  

Massachusetts' high court said today that cigarette maker Philip Morris USA may have to pay for diagnostic chest exams so smokers can get early warning they have developed lung cancer.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court said that Massachusetts law has an antiquated definition of negligence that must be updated. Historically, plaintiffs had to show explicit injury -- such as a broken leg -- before the other party can be ordered to pay for diagnostic tests. Writing for the court, Justice Francis X. Spina said that legal thinking had to change.

"Modern living has exposed people to a variety of toxic substances," Spina wrote. "Illness and disease from exposure to these substances are often latent, not manifesting themselves for years or even decades after the exposure."

Spina added, "Our tort law developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries ...We must adapt to the growing recognition that exposure to toxic substances and radiation may cause substantial injury which should be compensable even if the full effects are not immediately apparent." . . .

"The overwhelming majority of federal and state courts have rejected class certification of smokers' claims, including those seeking medical monitoring," Murray Garnick, Altria senior vice president and associate general counsel, said in a statement. "Six of the last seven state supreme courts to consider the issue have refused to recognize claims for medical monitoring based on the risk of future injury.''

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Modern living has exposed people to a variety of toxic substances. Illness and disease from exposure to these substances are often latent, not manifesting themselves for years or even decades after the exposure. Our tort law developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . . . We must adapt to the growing recognition that exposure to toxic substances and radiation may cause substantial injury which should be compensable even if the full effects are not immediately apparent.
MA Supreme Court Justice Francis X. Spina, writing for the court in the Donovan medical monitoring suit.

Cigarette Maker May Have To Pay For Chest Exams, Mass. Court Rules 

The highest court in Massachusetts ruled unanimously Monday that cigarette maker Philip Morris may have to pay for computerized chest scans for its customers in an effort to detect early-stage lung cancer.

In its ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld a federal lawsuit filed in 2006 by three Massachusetts residents -- Patricia Cawley of Rockland, Kathleen Donovan of Randolph and James Teague of Lowell -- who each wanted a diagnostic chest exam known as a CT screening, but whose health insurance plans would not cover the scans.

Lawyers for the three plaintiffs -- all of them long-time smokers -- argued in the suit that Philip Morris should have to pay for their CT screens because the company had manufactured a product that contains a known carcinogen, putting its customers at high risk of lung cancer.

Boston attorney Neil T. Leifer is one of the plaintiffs' lawyers.

"We allege that Philip Morris made a defective product that contained carcinogens at a time when they could have made a safe product," Leifer said, "and as a result there are a lot of people who used their product and are at risk for lung cancer."

So, he says, Philip Morris should have to foot the bill for a test that could help save their lives.

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Court: Smokers may sue for payment on lung cancer screenings  

Cigarette maker Philip Morris may now be sued by long term smokers who have not yet developed lung cancer, a Massachusetts court ruled Monday.

The Supreme Judicial Court's unanimous ruling gives a go-ahead to a group lawsuit in the state that seeks to force Philip Morris into paying for smokers' medical screening for lung cancer.

The "[court] said that Massachusetts law has an antiquated definition of negligence that must be updated," The Boston Globe reported. "Historically, plaintiffs had to show explicit injury -- such as a broken leg -- before the other party can be ordered to pay for diagnostic tests. Writing for the court, Justice Francis X. Spina said that legal thinking had to change."

In his opinion, Justice Spina explained that diseases caused by exposure to toxic substances are "often latent," the Globe added, "not manifesting themselves for years or even decades after the exposure."

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Court allows smokers’ lawsuit for chest scans  

Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA Inc. might have to pay for chest scans so long-time smokers can get early warning of lung cancer, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled today.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously that under some circumstances, Massachusetts law recognizes a claim by individual smokers for medical monitoring even without the presence of an actual injury.

The ruling means a lawsuit filed by three Massachusetts smokers can move forward in U.S. District Court. If a jury decides in favor of the smokers, Richmond, Va.-based Philip Morris could be required to pay for low-dose computed tomography scans, which can detect early-stage lung cancer.

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• Cancer-Free Smokers Can Sue Philip Morris, Court Says (Update1)  

Philip Morris USA can be sued by cancer-free smokers seeking a court order that the company pay for medical monitoring for signs of the illness, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled.

Answering two state-law questions referred to it by a federal court where the smokers proposed a group lawsuit is pending, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court today ruled that the long-term yet cancer-free smokers can pursue their monitoring claim according to state law.

“We must adapt to the growing recognition that exposure to toxic substances and radiation may cause substantial injury which should be compensable even if the full effects are not immediately apparent,” the high court said.

Philip Morris USA, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, is a unit of Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group Inc. In a statement issued by an in-house attorney, the company disagreed with the court’s findings.

The smokers’ suit was filed in 2006 by Massachusetts resident Kathleen Donovan and two other people living in the state.

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Editorial: Smoking bans extended 

Amherst's Board of Health may once again be a trend-setter in protecting the public from the hazards of smoking in places where people congregate.

In the late 1990s, the board came under fire for banning smoking in bars, then a new frontier for government regulation. But it became clear that Amherst was ahead of the rest of the state. In 2004, smoking was banned in all bars, restaurants and workplaces.

Now, the Board of Health is considering a ban on outdoor smoking within 15 feet of town-owned buildings and in public recreation areas. There has also been discussion of a ban at the swimming area at Puffer's Pond in Amherst and at scheduled events on the town common.

We support their efforts. . . .

Most people don't want to breathe air that's been contaminated by someone else's cigarette smoke. The Board of Health's proposed regulations are not a radical assault on smokers' rights. The board is merely trying to further protect the health of nonsmokers.

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