Tobacco.org

‘Mad Men’ Star Jon Hamm on Smoking Clove Cigarettes  

How is smoking herbal cigarettes?

Terrible. They taste like a mixture between pot and soap.

Does anyone on set smoke real ones?

Some people do, but not to the extent that we smoke the fake ones or else we'd all be dead.

Doesn't it make the set stink? Your clothes, your hair?

Yeah, and I wear contacts and it dries out your eyes and your skin, so it's a drag, But it looks real and it looks really cool so . . .

So you come home from work and smell like you've been out at a bar all night?

Well, that's not that far away from the truth, you know?

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Puffy Duffy is smoking again  

The chart-topper gave up the habit after relocating from her native Wales to London, but started puffing away again as her career took off.

She told me: "Back home everybody smoked because there was nothing else to do.

"I started again because I just needed something to allow me to feel human again. It's a way of getting five minutes to yourself.

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Tobacco Heritage Trail plan slated for unveiling  

Roanoke River Rails to Trails is rolling out the Master Plan for the Tobacco Heritage Trail. A presentation of the project is being held Wednesday, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. in the basement auditorium of the Brunswick County Government Building located at 100 Tobacco St., Lawrenceville. The two-year effort was funded by a grant from the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Program.

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Agung Laksono kicks smoking habit 

Anyone who has smoked cigarettes for a long period of time may find it difficult to kick the unhealthy habit -- but Agung Laksono says he is finally free of his nicotine addiction.

The House of Representatives spokesman says he forced himself to stop smoking, a bad habit he picked up when he was 13.

"I had been smoking since I was in high school and smoked heavier when started working. I could smoke up to five packs a day," Agung was quoted as saying by Antara on Tuesday.

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• At 50, AARP Enters Its Golden Years 

Fifty years after its founding by a retired high school principal, AARP is a premier lobbying power in Washington. Its 40 million members, many of them more than capable of finding a voting booth on Election Day, make it the country's single largest organization -- that is, if you don't count a little outfit called the Catholic Church. . . .

"If you're trying to grow revenue and gain new members who are turning 50, then what they're doing is brilliant," Dychtwald said. "However, if your proposition is to be the defender and the advocate of the poor and elderly, it could be argued that you're a bit turning your back on them."

William D. Novelli, AARP's avuncular chief executive, waves off the criticism with the easy laugh of an elder dismissing a whippersnapper. . . .

Novelli's path to AARP was a bit more circuitous. He grew up outside Pittsburgh, the son of a steelworker-turned-insurance agent, before embarking on a career in marketing and advertising. . . .

he focused on building his public relations firm, Porter Novelli, which amassed an impressive portfolio that included Kellogg's, Hewlett-Packard and Corning. But what fired him up, he said, were campaigns such as the one launched to educate the public about the dangers of high blood pressure.

At the age of 49, Novelli left Porter Novelli, hoping to devote himself full time to social issues. His first stop was CARE, which combats global poverty, then the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. He joined AARP in 2000, becoming chief executive the following year. His mission was to lasso the millions of baby boomers becoming old enough to join up.

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Majority of Muslim world begins fasting month, except for Iraqi, Lebanese Shiites and Iran  

Most of the Muslim Mideast began the first day of Ramadan on Monday, but Iraqi Shiites, some Lebanese Shiites and Iran will start observing the holy month of fasting on Tuesday. . . . .

Ramadan can last either 29 or 30 days, depending on when the first moon of the next lunar month is sighted. During the month, Muslims are expected to abstain during daylight hours from food, drink, smoking and sex in order to focus on spiritual introspection.

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Mo Gets Sara Fuming 

Earlier this morning, as the housemates stirred in the Basic Bedroom it became clear Sara was suffering the heckle-raising cravings of nicotine withdrawal.

Having asked Mo if could lend her a death stick, Mo told her he didn't have enough left to spare her one.

"I'd put a million pounds on the fact that you have a full packet of cigarettes left Mo," said Rex.

"I do," said Mo.

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Sara's cigarette row 

Sara and Mohamed argued about cigarettes this morning. Angelina Jolie lookalike Sara woke up and realised she had run out of cigarettes so asked Mohamed if he could give her one of his, but the former Head of the 'Big Brother' House told her he couldn't spare one. . . .

A furious Sara chimed in: "Yeah, greedy."

Flaunting his tobacco by rolling a cigarette in front of Sara, Mohamed responded: "I'm not."

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Doctor, collector holds smoking gun' on tobacco and health at University of Alabama center  

Dr. Alan Blum knows where the smoking gun lies in the case of who-knew-what-when in the dispute over tobacco and lung cancer.

. . .

The archive reaches back more than 200 years. From the 1980s onward - the period during which Blum has been collecting - its level of detail is enormous.

"This is a 30-year daily biopsy of the tobacco industry and its promotion, advertising and marketing, along with the anti-smoking movement," said Blum, who is also a practicing physician and holds the Gerald Leon Wallace endowed chair in family medicine. . . .

The collection is contained in 2,500 boxes, most of which are in public storage. A small portion of the collection is housed in the basement of Nott Hall. It's not open to the public, but provides assistance to researchers, health officials and universities. "We are considered a resource for the World Health Organization," Blum said. . . .

Blum is also highly suspicious of efforts to bring the cigarette industry under control of the Food and Drug Administration. He has testified before Congress against the legislation, which was written with the assistance of Philip Morris. It's just another ruse, he said, but this time the tobacco industry is co-opting one of the primary government agencies responsible for the nation's health.

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'Cigar City' 

TAMPA - Hoping to escape labor issues, Vicente Martinez Ybor became the first Key West cigarmaker to move his operations to Tampa. . . .

That's part of the story visitors will see and hear at the $52 million Tampa Bay History Center, scheduled to open in December in the Channel District. The three-story building, under construction for nearly a year, will take visitors from the Tampa Bay area's prehistory through the arrival of the Spanish explorers, the Seminole Indian wars, Civil War, coming of the railroad and rise of the modern city.

Cuban, Spanish and Italian immigrants came to work in the cigar factories and related businesses, creating an unusual culture that continues to help define Tampa more than 120 years later.

They built their own clubhouses in Ybor City

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Ivanka Trump’s View From the Top 

At just 26, Ivanka Trump reigns over her father Donald's real estate kingdom, runs her own jewelry company and may or may not be dating NYC's most eligible bachelor. . . .

At the uber-exclusive schools she attended--the Chapin school in Manhattan, Choate in Connecticut, Georgetown University in D.C. (for two years) and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania--she was, by accounts, a model student. "There were times in college when I loved to go out dancing," Ivanka shrugs, but that's about as wild and crazy as she got as a co-ed. More recently there have been sightings of her smoking cigarettes on the streets of Manhattan, but she also exhibits a prim air.

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• Minister Doubts Effectiveness Of MUI Ban On Smoking  

Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni said he doubted the effectiveness of a ban on smoking the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) was planning to issue.

"It is better to prioritise efforts to promote public awareness about the dangers of nicotine because many MUI fatwas (edicts) have been issued before but remained unimplemented," Indonesia's ANTARA news agency quoted the minister as saying here on Monday. . . .

A fatwa against smoking was most likely to be ignored by people in the absence of efforts to make them aware of the harmful effects of the habit, the minister added.

MUI intended to issue the ban on smoking because its demerits outweighed its merits for one's health and finances.

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• Exclusive: Coronation Street's pregnant Alison King is ordered to smoke  

She's pregnant in real-life - but stunned Corrie star Alison King has been ordered by soap bosses to start smoking again.

In a controversial storyline, her bitchy Street character Carla Connor lights up because she is so stressed-out.

Actress Alison, 35 - who immediately packed in when she learned she was expecting her first child next February - has been told she will be provided with HERBAL cigs for the scenes.

But she has revealed to friends she was horrified when she saw the script called for her to start puffing away.

A source said: "She isn't best pleased. It was hard enough for her to give up in real life.

"And even inhaling smoke from herbal tobacco surely can't be a good thing for a mum-to-be."

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Drawcard for puff daddies 

In 1900 smoking was seen as a predominantly upper-class pursuit. Edward, Prince of Wales, was among the first public figures to champion the fad - after dinner, of course, in the drawing room.

By this time most tobacco - including more than 85 per cent in England - was sold in tins for pipe smoking. Gentlemen of distinction could order a personal blend to be kept in one's humidor at home.

It wasn't until World War I that packaged cigarettes began to outsell pipe tobacco. . . .

This brief history, courtesy of the Benson and Hedges One Hundred Years booklet, seems almost fanciful today. Yet, against increasing public pressure, there are still those who enjoy a pipe even if they can no longer do it in public.

Prolific puffers have included Albert Einstein . . .

Pipe collectors and smokers can join clubs or online forums such as the Australian Pipe Smoking Forum.

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Julius Richmond: Man behind cigarette pack health warnings  

‘There may be more famous surgeons general, but there was none more dedicated, tenacious or courageous’

Julius Richmond, who has died aged 91, was the US surgeon general who first warned the Carter administration that cigarette smoking was “slow-motion suicide”.

A pioneer of a vigorous anti-smoking campaign, he produced a report three decades ago citing “overwhelming proof” that tobacco causes lung cancer. . . .

Richmond’s 1979 report on the health risks of smoking persuaded congress to require new labels on cigarette packets stating “Surgeon General’s Warning” and outlining specific health risks related to smoking. He formally retired in 1988 but continued to research and write about the effects of smoking and he served as a key witness in legal actions against the tobacco industry. “We are in the midst of the largest man-made epidemic in history,” he declared.

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