http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/country/usa.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/duncan/tags/smoking/ http://tobacco.org/news/274497.html For me, banning tobacco in the United Kingdom's bars and restaurants could not have happened soon enough. Coming from California, where tobacco has been banned in public places since 1998, I have always found it shocking to walk into the soupy air of a British pub . . . Surprisingly, according to the News@Nature.com article, many gaps remain in the science of how much damage secondhand smoke does to nonsmokers: But the data supporting the link between second-hand smoke and cardiovascular disease are more controversial. The surgeon general's report states that "pooled relative risks from meta-analysis indicate a 25-30% increase in risk of coronary heart disease from exposure to second-hand smoke." Although most epidemiologists think there is a link, it's the size of the effect that surprises them. "It seems to me that a 25% increase is not plausible," says John Bailar, a biostatistician at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, who thinks the effect should be proportional to exposure, as it is for lung cancer. . . . Despite these concerns, the surgeon general's report takes a hard line on exposure, stating that there is no "safe" level. According to Terry Pechacek, one of the authors of the report and associate director at the Office on Smoking and Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia: "Exposure to second-hand smoke for even a short time can have adverse health effects--this is not subject to debate. Compounds in tobacco smoke have the ability to cause cancer in humans, it's just a probabilistic game of whether they will cause death in a certain individual." Meanwhile, back in the United States, there are still numerous states where the fog of smoke remains in bars, restaurants, and workplaces. This includes our nation's capital, Washington, DC, which has no ban. I was there recently in a posh pub in a neighborhood within DC, Georgetown sitting near a woman who was waving her cigarette behind her and in my face--strategically out of the way of her friends. I didn't say anything, but I did wonder if this cigarette, which she was apparently enjoying, would be the one that would trigger that p53 mutation in her or in one of us in the room. A nerdy, uncool thought, perhaps, but it's sad nonetheless that in the country that launched the antismoking movement with the 1964 Surgeon General's report, the fog remains. Technology Review News@Nature.com (David Ewing Duncan's blog: smoking) UK Usa Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/CHEST/11520 http://tobacco.org/news/273749.html Action Points * Explain to interested patients that this study found that the majority of troops in a battalion serving in Iraq used some form of tobacco. * Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. MedPage Today Iraq Usa Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/ali_ettefagh/2008/10/perhaps_we_all_live_to.html http://tobacco.org/news/273620.html But again, I might be too harsh here as there are as many "studies" and papers published in favor of smoking as there are against it. That too is good for business, or so it seems. Somehow the truth falls victim to this health vs. wealth debate. A quick look at the annual reports of the top ten tobacco companies show that sales are growing in the developing world, compensating for the decline in sales in the developed world (and thus tax revenue for those governments). As such, the tobacco debate is always framed as a business discussion. The focus always shifts to the circulation of large sums of money as the centerpiece of the debate rather than to the product itself. Companies from the developing world (Korea, China, Brazil, Pakistan and Turkey) have joined their traditional rivals in a highly profitable public-private enterprise. . . . Banning smoking in public places is a trend that started in the nations of the developed world. Somehow they discovered their product to be harmful to themselves but absurdly less so to foreigners. . . . We have similar laws in Iran that ban smoking in public places (restaurants, coffee shops, government offices, etc.), sales to minors and any kind of tobacco advertising. But it has not slowed the growth of the cigarette market. Moreover, it is a business big enough to punch holes in the American policy of trade sanctions against Iran . . . However, the American sales of agricultural products to Iran are allowed and manufactured cigarettes somehow fit this definition! Lobbyists and big business, take a bow please! The Washington Post postglobal@washingtonpost.com (Ali Ettefagh) Iran Usa Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/tobacco/articles/entry/755/ http://tobacco.org/news/272670.html Jorge Abraham was a tobacco smuggler from El Paso who masterminded the trafficking of as many as half a billion cigarettes across the United States, sold largely by smoke shop vendors on Indian reservations in New York. A quadriplegic, Abraham could have received 300 years in prison when he was arrested in 2004. But when news broke that the government's star witness allegedly oversaw a dozen murders at a drug cartel "House of Death" across the border, prosecutors cut Jorge a deal he couldn't refuse. The Deal -- How Jorge got his start in the illicit tobacco trade. Marketing the Contraband -- Camels for Indians, Newports for blacks. The First Seizure -- Not a big deal. The Rat -- When seizures increased, Jorge knew he had an informant. Center for Public Integrity Usa Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/tobacco/articles/entry/757/ http://tobacco.org/news/272669.html In his more than 30 years in law enforcement, John W. Colledge investigated cigarette smuggling, narcotics, money laundering, and arms trafficking. At the U.S. Customs Service, Colledge developed the International Tobacco Smuggling Program, which he oversaw between 1999 and 2002. In this interview, he talks about the tobacco industry's complicity in cigarette smuggling; the massive profits that prop up criminal organizations; and the new tobacco black market now booming on the U.S.-Canada border. The Profits -- How cigarette smuggling finances organized crime. Big Tobacco's Role -- Companies know exactly where their cigarettes go. Canada's New Nightmare -- Made in the United States, smuggled across the border. A Deadly Bargain -- Why consumers should care about tobacco smuggling. Center for Public Integrity Canada Usa Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/tobacco/articles/entry/762/ http://tobacco.org/news/272664.html Undercover FBI agents Lou Calvarese, Jack Garcia, and Tom Zyckowski know a lot about being patient. For six years, the trio painstakingly worked to cultivate Charles and May Liu's confidence. Over the course of some 1,000 meetings, their investigation -- dubbed "Operation Royal Charm" -- would pull the agents deep into a tangled Chinese underworld spanning coasts and continents. Together with a parallel California case, "Operation Smoking Dragon," the twin investigations would result in 10 indictments, with 87 individuals charged, mostly ethnic Chinese. "We really got to see a network of cigarette smugglers up close," said Garcia -- who, like the other agents, has since retired and is sharing his full story with a reporter for the first time. "It's sophisticated, the way it works. And these guys are like hookers," he said. "There's a lot of them." Calvarese, Garcia, and Zyckowski -- based out of Atlantic City, New Jersey -- first heard from an Italian informant about Charles and May Liu in 1999. The informant had fingered the pair as cigarette smugglers, wheelers and dealers who'd been sneaking counterfeit smokes into the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. But authorities had lately intercepted a few of their containers. The couple might be receptive to an offer of assistance at the ports, the informant intimated -- that is, from the right kind of individuals. Center for Public Integrity China Usa Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/tobacco/articles/entry/715/ http://tobacco.org/news/272663.html Jorge Abraham Abraham, now 38, lived a luxurious life until 2004, with an ever-present entourage of bodyguards and personal assistants, and at one point owning four late-model vehicles. Not everyone believed he made his fortune legally operating his import-export businesses in El Paso and across the border in Juarez. Drug dealers in Mexico and FBI agents in Texas suspected he made his millions smuggling narcotics. But Abraham had a deal that was sweeter than dope. Abraham was the unlikely kingpin of one of America's biggest ever cigarette smuggling rings -- a racket that spanned three continents and six states and moved as many as a half-billion contraband cigarettes across the United States. As lucrative as narcotics, but with far less onerous penalties, tobacco smuggling is booming around the country -- and around the world. Abraham, released from federal custody in June, recently talked for the first time publicly about his operation, the cheap, illegal smokes that Americans increasingly crave, and the bungled case against him that led from Chinese counterfeiters and American Indian smoke shops to a chilling Mexican house of death. "This was an extremely important case," said John W. Colledge III, former program manager for international tobacco smuggling at U.S. Customs Service. "Very sophisticated… probably one of the two most significant [federal cigarette] cases." But Abraham's case was far from isolated. The trade in illicit tobacco today makes up 11 percent of all tobacco sales, and it has made cigarettes the world's most widely smuggled legal consumer product, according to the Framework Convention Alliance for Tobacco Control Center for Public Integrity China Mexico Usa Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hJguX5hUFvVHCDHl6QWoQ_TWRQGQ http://tobacco.org/news/270917.html Sales of contraband tobacco are skyrocketing and now account for one in three cigarette purchases across the country, according to a new study by the tobacco industry. Police are seizing more and more contraband smokes each year. But industry leaders say the seizures are merely drops in the bucket and want governments and police to target large-scale manufacturing plants on aboriginal reserves. "The seizure of illegal tobacco products from the small-time distributors is really addressing the tail end of the problem," Benj Kemball, president of Imperial Tobacco, said Tuesday from the company's Montreal headquarters. "It's important that you get to both the illegal manufacturing operations as well as the criminal networks that are taking these products off reserves and distributing them across Canada." The study, funded by the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council and conducted by independent market research firm GfK Research Dynamics, surveyed 2,046 adult smokers in May and June. . . . The RCMP say the study, obtained this week by The Canadian Press, is not industry hype - it matches what they're seeing on the street. "In our area, we're way over the amount we seized last year," Sgt. Michael Harvey said from the RCMP detachment in Cornwall, Ont., near the heart of the contraband trade. . . . Police say another challenge is convincing law-abiding citizens to stop buying contraband cigarettes, which can sell for less than a quarter of the price of legal smokes. "These products are being trafficked by criminal networks who also deal in alcohol, drugs and firearms," Kemball said. "It's not just an economic problem ... it's a social problem that really does threaten the fabric of society in terms of widespread criminal acts." Canadian Press Canada Usa Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=619200 http://tobacco.org/news/270905.html The most comprehensive global snapshot ever taken of lung cancer diagnoses and related death rates among patients who have never smoked has found that, contrary to prior indications, lung cancer risk is not on the rise. The analysis also revealed that the lung cancer death rate among those who have never smoked is higher among men than women. Both findings stem from an enormous collaborative international effort that draws on information from 13 large studies and 22 cancer registries, and represents upwards of 2 million men and women living in 10 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. "The great majority of lung cancers are caused by smoking," stressed study author Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society. . . . Thun and his colleagues collectively published their observations in the September issue of PloS Medicine. Their conclusions are based on incident and mortality rates for lung cancer among more than 630,000 and 1.8 million men and women (respectively) who had never smoked, and who had participated in one of 13 different large studies (each involving a minimum of 20,000 participants) conducted in North America, Europe or Asia. HealthDay [HealthScout] editors@healthday.com (Alan Mozes HealthDay Reporter ) Canada Europe Asia Usa Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/health/09canc.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=tobacco&st=nyt&oref=slogin http://tobacco.org/news/270885.html A huge new study conducted in Europe, North America and Asia, based on 2.4 million nonsmokers who had lung cancer, provides new information about just who is at risk. Male nonsmokers are more likely than female nonsmokers to die of the disease, the study found, and the overall risk to nonsmokers is not increasing. “Concerns have been raised that the risk was higher in women and that the risk was increasing, but this study counters those two misperceptions,” said Dr. Michael J. Thun, the lead author of the study and the head of epidemiologic research for the American Cancer Society. The study is being published online in PLoS Medicine. New York Times Canada Europe Asia Usa Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://lux.hexun.com/2008-09-04/108587038.html http://tobacco.org/news/270710.html 他常常搭乘豪华私人飞机往返于世界各地的豪宅之间，却每天坐地铁上班；他曾经是个老烟枪，现在却花巨资大力禁烟。他一半是商人，一半是政客，他就是迈克尔•布隆伯格，纽约市的CEO。 和讯新闻, Hexun.com Usa Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://news.china.com/zh_cn/news100/11038989/20080901/15062447.html http://tobacco.org/news/270612.html 据路透社报道，美国研究人员上周说，加利福尼亚州的大规模禁烟运动实施头15年来已经使该州在医疗保健方面节省了860亿美元。 中国网, China.com.cn newsgroup@bj.china.com Usa Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.trurodaily.com/index.cfm?sid=166173&sc=75 http://tobacco.org/news/270504.html The federal government has to move to stop the flow of cigarettes from across the United States border. Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, is calling on Ottawa to insist American authorities shut down illegal cigarette production operations on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall, Ont. . . . Much has been done to reduce smoking rates and initiatives such as removing the so-called power walls have helped people butt out. However, until law enforcement agencies are given the tools necessary to crack down on contraband tobacco, we will never achieve a smoke-free society. Truro Daily News news@trurodaily.com Canada Usa Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080825/national/smoking_contraband_cigs_1 http://tobacco.org/news/270414.html Efforts to cut smoking rates among Canadians have stalled and the Canadian Cancer Society is blaming huge sales of cheap contraband cigarettes in this country. Federal and provincial governments need to take action, including insisting that American authorities shut down illegal cigarette production operations on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall, Ont., the organization said Monday. Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the cancer society, said the RCMP has identified the American side of Akwesasne as the most important source of illegal cigarettes sold in Canada. "So it's essential that (Minister of Public Safety) Stockwell Day persuade his U.S. counterpart, the secretary of homeland security, to shut down the illegal operations on the U.S. side of Akwesasne," Cunningham said in an interview. Canadian Press Canada Usa Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.mmm-online.com/Pfizer-union-launch-anti-smoking-campaign-for-firefighters/article/113672/ http://tobacco.org/news/269993.html Pfizer is teaming up with a firefighters' union for a smoking cessation campaign aimed at making the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) "the first smoke-free union." The campaign features a website advising firefighters on the risks of smoking and how to quit and featuring video messages from Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler and IAFF general president Harold Schaitberger. Additional resources are coming soon, including a DVD with stories from firefighters about quitting. Medical Marketing & Media brittany.thompson@haymarketmedia.com (Matthew Arnold) Canada Usa Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT