Sen. Lautenberg wants to snuff out electronic cigarettes

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) wants to ban a smoking device that several House Republicans have trumpeted for helping them quit smoking.
The battery-operated device, known as an electronic cigarette, looks like a normal cigarette, but contains no tobacco and instead of smoke emits a nicotine vapor when the user inhales. Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) have all been spotted using the device on Capitol Hill.
But the device, which is sold over the Internet and at select mall kiosks, needs to be tested by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before it is deemed safe for general use, Lautenberg wrote in a letter to the FDA on Monday.
“Manufacturers and retailers of these products claim that e-cigarettes are safe, and even that these products can help smokers quit traditional cigarettes,” he wrote.
“However, there have been no clinical studies to prove these products are effective at helping smokers quit, nor have any studies verified the safety of these products or their long-term health effects.”
Stearns shot back at Lautenberg on Monday, saying that there is no evidence that the device is harmful.
“Before the FDA takes any immediate action, it should put forward scientific evidence that these products are harmful or unsafe,” he said in a statement.
“These e-cigarettes are smokeless and do not produce carcinogens. The nicotine in e-cigarettes is controlled in a capsule that can help in smoking cessation by allowing the user to reduce gradually the nicotine level, hopefully to zero.”
Stearns has sent electronic cigarettes to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and President Obama to help them quit smoking. He’s been seen using the device in the Speaker’s Lobby, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) banned smoking two years ago. Her office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
A longtime opponent of smoking, Lautenberg authored the law that banned smoking on airplanes and a law that banned smoking in federal facilities that serve children.

Tobacco companies target girls

Tobacco marketing in South Korea has been deliberately aimed at girls and young women. Research published in the open access journal Globalization and Health has shown that transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) are using tactics long used with devastating effect in Western countries to snare new female smokers in Asia. Kelley Lee from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine led a team of researchers who studied internal documents from the tobacco industry that reveal the scheme to seduce a generation of girls. She said, "Since the opening of the South Korean tobacco market in the late 1980s, females have been targeted by TTCs as an important source of future market growth and profitability. The rise in smoking rates among females within certain age groups since the late 1980s suggests that these efforts have been successful".

The tactics used recall advertising campaigns carried out in the United States and Europe since the 1920s that link smoking with feminism and the liberation of women. According to Lee, "Product design associating smoking with body image and female emancipation, familiarly deployed elsewhere, have been extensively used in South Korea to appeal to female smokers. So-called "ultra light", "low tar" and "superslim" cigarettes have been particularly effective, falsely suggesting certain brands offer a healthier or safer option, as well as appealing to female concerns about weight gain. Tighter restrictions on the use of such descriptors, alongside public education on the fallacy of such claims, are badly needed in South Korea".

South Korea's cigarette market was opened to the world in 1988 under the threat of US trade sanctions. In 1989, the country passed laws banning tobacco advertising, marketing and sponsorship directly targeted at women and children. During the authors' literature search, they found evidence of the companies' efforts to circumvent this law by, for example, using images of couples in their adverts – something not covered by the country's guidelines, but known to appeal to the female market. One TTC wrote "Although obviously targeted to women, the campaign extension would also not be as overt in markets sensitive to female targeting".

Lee concludes, "The implementation of comprehensive tobacco control measures in South Korea, as set out under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, is urgently needed to protect and promote the health of Korean women and girls".

Cigarettes less likely to burn.

The latest salvo from Canada's four-year-old Federal Tobacco Control Strategy calls for all cigarettes manufactured or sold in Canada to be of a reduced ignition propensity. Bill C-260, an act to amend the Hazardous Products Act, says that as of October 1, 2005, all cigarettes--imported or otherwise, must conform to the Standard Test Method for Measuring the Ignition Strength of Cigarettes adopted in 2002 (ASTM E2187-02b). Are the manufacturers ready?

The standard says manufactured cigarettes--which make up 85% of all tobacco products sold in Canada--can burn their full length no more than 25% of the time during 40 replicate tests on 10 layers of filter paper. The test uses standard filter paper as a heat sink, allowing a cigarette to self-extinguish once its coal has cooled. Health Canada chose the 25% standard because it is the strictest standard demonstrated to be achievable over 20 years of research, since a US Congress-mandated study determined that a low-ignition-propensity (LIP) cigarette was commercially feasible.

Under the authority of Canada's Tobacco Act, anyone manufacturing a tobacco product that does not conform to the new standards faces fines of up to $300,000 and imprisonment for up to two years. Compliance would be monitored through sampling and analysis, and targets all cigarettes manufactured or imported in the country.

This method of testing, say critics like John Wildgust, head of corporate affairs at JTI-Macdonald Corp, is misleading. The use of filter paper instead of furniture mock-ups, no crevice testing and no artificial airflow means, "the testing required under the current regulation does not correspond to real-world situations--involving, for example, flammable fabrics or other conditions under which cigarettes may be normally used. We are concerned that consumers may mistakenly believe that these products are 'fire-safe' and...

Altria stubs out Marlboro Ultra Smoothx

NEW YORK - Altria Group Inc's Philip Morris USA has cancelled its Marlboro Ultra Smooth cigarettes, highlighting challenges it faces in trying to grow its tobacco business despite a decline in U.S. cigarette sales, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Altria gets nearly all its revenue from Philip Morris USA after spinning off its Philip Morris International operations, the Journal reported.
Philip Morris's sales volume fell 4.6 percent last year, worse than the 4 percent decline in the overall U.S. cigarette market, the Journal reported. Underlying sales volume fell 3.6 percent, the Journal added.
The company expects overall cigarette sales to fall at an annual rate of 2.5 percent to 3 percent in coming years, the Journal reported.
Philip Morris has turned to developing tobacco products that are not as risky to their user's health, the Journal said. Ultra Smooth cigarettes include an activated carbon filter that delivers nicotine but with potentially less exposure to the carcinogens of conventional cigarettes, the Journal reported.
A Philip Morris spokesman was unavailable for comment.

Forida Preventing Fires By Issuing Tickets For Tossing Cigarettes

That last pull on your Marlboro may deliver the desired hit to your lungs, but flicking it out the window of your car could put a hit on your wallet.
Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies are stepping up their enforcement of the littering law, since the area is in the throes of a seemingly never-ending drought. The parched vegetation along the roadsides is just looking for an excuse to flare up.
Getting a ticket for tossing lit cigarettes from the window isn't cheap.
Sheriff's Cpl. Donald Morris said that between Jan. 1 and Tuesday, 30 tickets for tossing butts out the window were issued, costing each guilty flicker $100.
Such an offense is a violation of the Florida litter law and the fine was hiked in October, Morris said. It is a nonmoving violation, so it doesn't go on a violator's driving record, and doesn't result in points on a license, he said.
"A $100 fine might appear to be steep, but look at the magnitude of the situation," said Morris, who supervises the traffic unit in northwest Hillsborough County. "If you throw a cigarette butt and it ignites a brush fire, you've got the cost of firefighters, the traffic slowdown and the potential harm to the firefighters.
"Most people," he said, "don't realize that little cigarette butt can cause that amount of damage and be a threat to people's lives."
With the state firmly in the grip of a drought, and with wildfires springing up virtually every day, sheriff's officials decided to step up enforcement, he said.
"We are averaging as many as 15 brush fires a week," said Hillsborough Fire Rescue spokesman Ray Yeakley. "We can't always determine the exact cause, but the biggest offender is people flicking cigarette butts out of their cars."
Conditions are dry now, and with no rain in the near future, they are going to get drier, he said. That means fires that start along the roads will spread and intensify much quicker.

10 facts about tobacco smoking

1. Tobacco use by Native Americans throughout North and South America dates back to 2000BC.Tobacco was brought to Europe by Christopher Columbus’ crew. Smoking enveloped Spain and the rest of the world, through trade.
2.Tobacco smoke contains nicotine and harmane (MAO inhibitors), which combined cause addictive. When the primary or irregular use of nicotine, there is improvement in attention and memory, and mild euphoria.
3. A typical sigarete contains 8-9 milligrams of nicotine, a cigar - 100-200 milligrams. Five cigarettes contain the amount of nicotine, enough to kill a person. But with each smoked cigarette smokers actually get 1-2 milligrams, the rest of nicotine burns or remains in cigarette butts. Cigarettes contain other toxic substances such as arsenic, polonium and prussic acid.
4. The main health risks in tobacco pertain to diseases of the cardiovascular system, in particular myocardial infarction (heart attack), cardiovascular disease, diseases of the respiratory tract such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma, emphysema, and cancer, particularly lung cancer and cancers of the larynx and tongue.
5. About 1.1 billion people in the world smoke (1 in 6 or 16.7%) .About half of all smokers die from smoking-related diseases. In average the life expectancy of smokers is 8 - 12 years shorter than that of non-smokers.
6. Stopping smoking can make a big difference to smoker health. It is never too late to stop smoking to greatly benefit health. For example, if stop smoking in middle age, before having cancer or some other serious disease, you avoid most of the increased risk of death due to smoking.
7.The main cigarette manufacturers are the USA and China. The largest number of tobacco consumers lives in China, Yemen, Cambodia, Djibouti.
8. In spite of the enormous volume of accumulated data on the dangers of smoking, there are scientific works, speaking to the contrary. Ulcer colitis is revealed in the non-smokers twice as often than in the smokers. Nicotine of tobacco smoke has antiinflammatory properties.
9. On 27 February 2005 the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, took effect. The FCTC is the world’s first public health treaty. Countries that sign on as parties agree to a set of common goals, minimum standards for tobacco control policy, and to cooperate in dealing with cross-border challenges such as cigarette smuggling. Currently the WHO declares that 4 billion people will be covered by the treaty, which includes 168 signatories.
10. In November 2004, Bhutan became the first country in which the sale of tobacco and tobacco products is prohibited and imports of tobacco products for personal use are subject to 100% duty.