Tobacco.org

A new weapon to fight cancer - tobacco plants 

scientists in Arizona and elsewhere believe tobacco plants may hold the key to developing a personalized cancer vaccine as well as treatments for other diseases.

The experiments are part of a growing field of plant-based biotechnology, and the cancer treatment has gained enough traction to interest the likes of German drug giant Bayer.

"Most important is that the vaccine has been successfully used in human clinical trials," said Charles Arntzen, director of the ASU Biodesign Institute's Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology.

The made-to-order vaccine has been tested in an early-stage clinical trial, and it showed an immune response in 70 percent of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients without harmful side effects.

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• Passive smoking kills 7 people per day in Brazil 

The diseases caused by passive smoking kill seven people per day, or 2,655 people per year in Brazil, according to a study released on Friday.

The study, released by the Rio de Janeiro State University and the Cancer Institute, showed that passive smoking could cause serious diseases, such as lung cancer, cerebral hemorrhage, angina pectoris, myocardial infection and coronary thrombosis.

Scientists also found out that for every 1,000 deaths due to cerebral hemorrhage, 29 are caused by secondhand smoke. The proportion is 25 of 1,000 deaths of heart diseases, and seven of 1,000 deaths of lung cancer.

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200 per cent tobacco tax proposed 

Gulf states will study a proposal next week to raise the customs duties charged on tobacco imports to 200 per cent from 100pc, an executive at the UAE Federal Customs Authority said.

Prices for cigarettes in the Gulf are cheap relative to global standards, costing between four dirhams (400 fils) and seven dirhams (700 fils) per box.

The GCC customs union committee, which is set to meet in Riyadh on Sunday, will discuss whether to double the levy on cigarettes

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• Slow burn for a cash crop  

Despite well-documented health concerns about tobacco use, consumption of expensive cigars began to surge in the 1990s, and demand remains high today.

But tobacco is also one of the most expensive crops to produce. Worried farmers say those costs are going up fast, raising concerns that they will not be able to fend off developers' bulldozers much longer.

The energy crisis has sent the price of diesel fuel for their tractors soaring. Propane gas used to help dry the leaves in the long tobacco sheds is way up, and organic fertilizer prices have nearly doubled in a year's time.

Farmers will have to start getting more for their crops, warned Kathi Martin, manager of H.F. Brown Inc., one of Connecticut's oldest tobacco-growing operations, "or we won't be here next year."

Growers are also struggling to find the skilled workers necessary to pick the leaves . . .

More than two-thirds of the crop comes from Connecticut, but Martin believes the unrelenting encroachment of new housing is making her state less hospitable for tobacco farmers.

"It's very farm friendly" in Massachusetts, she said.

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• Bars, eateries prep for smoking ban 

Pennsylvania’s smoking ban becomes effective Sept. 11.

Maybe you’ll breathe a sigh of relief.

Or maybe you’ll breathe a sigh of despair.

Either way, maybe you’ll breathe easy, which is what the state legislature intended when it passed the ban, officially the Clean Indoor Air Act, that was signed into law in June.

The law makes it illegal to smoke inside public places. So having a cigarette inside shopping malls, stores, schools, gymnasiums, ice skating rinks, airports, bus terminals, train stations, hospitals, restaurants — especially ones that don’t serve alcohol — will not be permitted.

The law also makes it illegal to smoke anywhere inside at work, no matter whether the work is in a high-rise office building, a store, a machine shop or an enclosed construction site.

It sounds pervasive, but given 12 exceptions to the rule and given that many places decided to prohibit smoking well before the state did, smokers and nonsmokers alike may not notice much of a difference, if Indiana and White Township establishments are any example.

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Firefighters warn of hazards of smoking in bed 

Until two fatalities this year, no one had died in an Overland Park fire for six years.

An 84-year-old woman in February and a 59-year-old women in March died the same way as a man and woman in a 2002 fire: cigarettes smoldered after the victims fell asleep and caused fires and toxic smoke.

Nationwide, experts report, smoking causes the largest number of deaths in home fires.

After the two women died this year — the first on the 10900 block of Gillette Street and the other on the 9000 block of West 78th Circle — Overland Park firefighters went door-to-door and left leaflets warning about the dangers, they said, but the message apparently missed the mark.

Last month, a middle-aged woman who lived within blocks of the second fatality narrowly escaped after she woke up with her bed on fire from a cigarette, said Jason Rhodes, a spokesman for the fire department.

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Schools beef up bans on tobacco 082308  

School systems in Columbia and Richmond counties are strengthening policies that restrict tobacco products on school grounds. The Columbia County school board is expected to give final approval Tuesday to a policy prohibiting all tobacco on school property.

"It's more or less smokeless tobacco that is being targeted," Superintendent Charles Nagle said.

The Richmond County school board approved a similar policy revision earlier this month. It expands the definition of tobacco products, tobacco use and school property and stipulates that tobacco use is prohibited 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The school systems are updating their policies to support an initiative by Georgia's East Central Public Health District to create tobacco-free schools.

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Premier League's Joey Barton to be sued for stubbing out his cigar in a young player's eye  

Premiership thug Joey Barton is to be sued for stubbing out his cigar in a young player's eye.

Barton, 25, just freed from prison after being jailed for assault, now faces a quick return to the courtroom.

Jamie Tandy, now 23, was permanently scarred after the 2004 incident.

It happened when midfielder Barton and the young reserve team player argued in a nightclub at Manchester City's Christmas party.

Barton, now with Newcastle United, was fined three weeks' pay - £60,000 - and narrowly avoided the sack.

Tandy, with no permanent vision damage, went on loan to a Danish club where he broke his leg.

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Premier League Footballer Joey Barton Facing Fresh Legal Action Over 'Cigar Attack'  

Premier League footballer Joey Barton is facing fresh legal action for allegedly ruining a former team-mate's career.

Barton leaving prison in Manchester

The 25-year-old - recently released from prison for a city-centre attack - burned team-mate Jamie Tandy's eye with a lit cigar during Manchester City's Christmas party in 2004.

Barton, now with Newcastle United, was fined by the club but did not face police action.

But Tandy, then a trainee with City, says the incident ultimately forced him out of the game at the top level.

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Gas station ditches cigarette ad signs  

There are a few things missing around the exterior of the Getty gas station here at the corner of Main Street and Mountain Avenue.

There are no signs advertising tobacco products.

Minhajuddin Mohammed, known to all of his friends here in Cairo simply as "Mohammed," has removed all the tobacco signs on the outside of his station at the request of the Rip Van Winkle Tobacco-free Coalition.

He accepted the "Tobacco-free Challenge" when he learned about it several weeks ago. In return for the removal, Mohammed has been offered $200 as an incentive and, because one of his major interests has been in helping community organizations aid youth, Mohammed has decided that $200 should go to the welfare of the school. His station is across Main Street from Cairo Elementary School.

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EDITORIAL: GOP catching drift on cigarette tax 

Republicans in the Mississippi Legislature have suddenly gotten religion when it comes to raising the state's ludicrously low tax on cigarettes.

Republican lawmakers have spent the last several years helping Gov. Haley Barbour block efforts to raise the tax, including during the recent fruitless special session. Now some GOP leaders, including Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, are saying let us take another crack at it in yet another special session in September or October. . . .

Bryant, however, actually may have a good idea to pass the tax hike first, then haggle in January over what to do with it.

There are going to be a host of ideas -- many of them worthwhile, some of them stinkers -- about what to do with the proceeds. We can see the whole effort bogging down over how to spend the money and nothing getting enacted.

The revenue potential is only half of the motivation for raising the tax. The other is making cigarettes more expensive so that more smokers are enticed to quit and fewer young people ever start.

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High court upholds higher taxes on ‘new’ cigarette brands  

The Supreme Court has declared as constitutional a section of the tax code that levies higher taxes on cigarette brands that entered the market after 1996.

The Court declared as invalid certain sections of issuances of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in that these gave the bureau the power to reclassify or update the classification of new cigarette brands every two years or earlier.

"As modified, this Court declares that: (1) Section 145 of the NIRC [National Internal Revenue Code], as amended by Republic Act 9334, is constitutional; and that (2) Section 4(B)(e)(c), 2nd paragraph of Revenue Regulations No. 1-97, as amended by Section 2 of Revenue Regulations 9-2003, and Sections II(1)(b), II(4)(b), II(7), III (Large Tax Payers Assistance Division II) II(b) of Revenue Memorandum Order No. 6-2003, insofar as pertinent to cigarettes packed by machine, are invalid insofar as they grant the [BIR] the power to reclassify or update the classification of new brands every two years or earlier," said a Court decision authored by Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago.

The case began at the Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 61, which upheld the validity of the questioned section of the tax code and the BIR issuances. The petitioner, British American Tobacco (BAT), brought the case to the Supreme Court.

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New Cigarette Tax Will Hit D.C. Smokers Hard 

in just a little over a month D.C.'s cigarette tax doubles to $2.00, something diehard smokers don't like one bit.

"Absolutely not," said Don Zimmerman, a smoker. "Like we're not taxed enough already?"

"It hurts me, cause if it goes up another dollar, I won't want to smoke anymore," said Jimmy Rauch.

The D.C. City Council signed off on the plan just this week. The goal is to raise money to help fund a health plan for the city's roughly 25,000 uninsured. The new tax could double the nearly $20 million the city takes in each year.

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• Legality of higher tax on cigarettes upheld  

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declared as constitutional a provision of the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC) which levies higher taxes on cigarette brands that entered the market after 1996.

The high court en banc unanimously affirmed the constitutionality of Section 145 of the NIRC that levies new cigarette brands at their current net retail price and existing brands at their net retail price as of Oct. 1, 1996.

It also nullified two regulations imposed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue to implement the NIRC provision which empowered the bureau to reclassify or update cigarette brands every two years or so.

The case arose from a suit brought in 2003 by the British American Tobacco (BAT)

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Ultralight Plane Crashes At Ripley Festival  

An ultralight plane crashed into the Ohio River Friday night.

It happened as people lined the streets for the annual Tobacco Festival parade in Ripley, Ohio.

Festival-goers were right in the middle of watching the parade when the plane went down.

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