Tobacco Facts.

TOKYO -Japan Tobacco Inc. (2914.TO) said its net profit for the fiscal third quarter declined 34% on year, blaming foreign exchange factors and a slump in domestic demand.
The world’s third-largest tobacco company by sales volume after Philip Morris International Inc. and British American Tobacco PLC, had a net profit Y40.86 billion in the October-December quarter, [...]

A LOG fire crackles invitingly outside, casting shadows on the wall of Plato’s new beer garden. At the neatly arranged tables customers are chatting, laughing and smoking.
Beer in hand I head for the door, but I am halted at a sign over it that decrees “Smoking Area Only. Non-Smokers Will be Asked to Leave.”
Around the [...]

NEW YORK -Newport cigarette maker Lorillard Inc. (LO) announced Monday it will soon enter the market for moist smokeless tobacco products, but said that an earlier joint venture with Swedish Match AB (SWMA.SK) to develop a new product in the U.S. had been mutually terminated.
Moist smokeless tobacco is a type of tobacco product that is [...]

Cigarettes have a lot of ingredients which can be carcinogenic, according to many studies. That’s why the Food and Drug Administration wants to list all the ingredients used in cigarettes and other tobacco products.
So for the first time, in June, Tobacco Companies must tell to the FDA their recipes. Manufacturers also will have to check [...]

After the massive earthquake in Sichuan Province in May 2008, a primary school funded by a tobacco company was set up in the quake-stricken area. On the roof of the school building stands the signboard “Sichuan Tobacco Hope Primary School.” A slogan engraved on another board reads, “Tobacco helps your success.”
Statistics show in China, there [...]

The evolution of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. may be shaped in large part by how well it can live down — and learn from — its past.
Reynolds received another clear example of that reality last week when the Food and Drug Administration requested research on the company’s three innovative dissolvable smokeless products — Camel Orbs, [...]

Smoke-free policies (i.e., policies that completely eliminate smoking in indoor workplaces and public places) result in health benefits, including preventing heart attacks. Preemptive legislation at the state level prohibits localities from enacting laws that vary from state law or are more stringent. A Healthy People 2010 objective is to eliminate state laws that preempt stronger [...]

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Customers may already have noticed the change—although it has been subtle thus far. But they will starting March 1. That’s the official launch date of the latest line extension from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s Camel brand: menthol cigarettes containing a menthol burst capsule that enhances menthol flavor when squeezed.
The new cigarette supplanted [...]

As President Obama and a credulous media continue to portray the administration’s economy-wide push for more regulation as a frontal attack on industry giants, the current wrangling over tobacco regulation shows how the opposite is true: Heightened government regulation tends to put big business in the driver’s seat, at the expense of the little guys.
When [...]

RICHMOND, Va. — The Food and Drug Administration is saying in letters to two tobacco companies that flavored, dissolvable tobacco products – that the agency compares with candy and says contain a lot of nicotine – could be particularly appealing to kids and young adults.
The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products wrote to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco [...]

The increasing popularity of roll-your-own tobacco products has given a boost to Commonwealth Brands Inc. at a time when local competitors are cutting back on production and jobs.
The company said yesterday that it is expanding its plant in Reidsville by adding a product line for cigarette tubes, which consumers use as a device for rolling [...]

While Indiana may only now be getting around to discussing whether smoking should be banned in bars and restaurants, other parts of the world are taking matters a lot further.
Indeed, when I lived in Ohio (from 2004 to 2007.) I was surprised to find that laws banning smoking in restaurants and bars were only just [...]

Less than a week after President Obama proposed a spending freeze on nonsecurity-related federal programs, the US Food and Drug Administration released its fiscal year 2011 budget request, calling for a 23% increase. FDA is asking for a total of $4.03 billion in FY 2011 “to promote and protect public health,” according to an agency [...]

At a time when Cancer still remains a feared and dreaded disease, our headline – “Cancer can be prevented too” may sound a bit incredible, and clichéd, more so as cancer still remains theleading cause of death worldwide. For this reason, it has been a constant endeavor by the WHO and the International Union against [...]

The Food and Drug Administration is a screaming exception to the Obama administration’s freeze on discretionary spending in the 2011 budget.
Overall, the FDA budget could grow by as much as 23% to just over $4 billion from the current $3.3 billion. But getting all of what the agency wants will require Congress to authorize more [...]

This week, the Department of Health put out a 70-page document titled A Smokefree Future, full of plans to make cigarettes the preserve of a very hard-bitten minority. On the front, a twentysomething father looks lovingly at his young son. Inside, scores of other parents are doing the same – all apparently enjoying the health [...]

LONDON -The possibility of cigarettes being sold in plain packaging–threatening the profitability of the world’s tobacco companies–resurfaced Monday, as the U.K. government pledged to halve the number of smokers in the country over the next 10 years.
Included in the U.K. government’s proposals to crack down on smoking in the U.K. Monday was a pledge [...]

WASHINGTON—The Food and Drug Administration is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that the agency doesn’t have the authority to regulate electronic cigarettes.
The FDA on Monday night asked a federal appeals court in Washington to immediately stay an order that prevented the agency from blocking electronic cigarettes from entering the country.
The FDA said it does have [...]

Fighting HIV with tobacco doesn’t sound like something a doctor would normally recommend. Condoms and/or abstinence are the two standardly recommended methods of avoiding infection, but both clearly have inherent drawbacks.
“Condoms work well, but they also prevent fertility, so if you want to have children and you’re part of a community where there’s high risk [...]

Chen, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute and professor in the PolyTechnic Campus’ College of Technology and Innovation, is the first to demonstrate a plant-derived treatment to successfully combat West Nile virus after exposure and infection. The research appears in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (advanced [...]

WASHINGTON—Food companies and drug makers could face more than $250 million in new fees under a proposal included in the Food
and Drug Administration budget Monday by the Obama administration.
The fees would be used to review applications for generic drugs, improve inspections of food facilities and cover the costs of reinspecting drug manufacturing plants.
The fees would [...]

LONDON -Imperial Tobacco Group PLC (IMT.LN) said Tuesday it has made a good start to the year despite a weak economic environment and hit out at the U.K. government’s latest proposals to strip cigarette packaging of logos and branding.
The world’s fourth-largest global tobacco group by sales said in its first-quarter trading update that its performance [...]

Smoking in Ohio bars and social clubs has been illegal for more than three years, but it certainly hasn’t been extinguished.
A CentralOhio.com review of 25,000 smoking ban violation investigations shows discipline is rare and offenders largely ignore financial sanctions.
Three-fourths of all investigations resulted in the complaint being dropped without discipline, according to the data from [...]

The following companies may have unusual price changes in Japanese trading today. Stock symbols are in parentheses, and share prices are from the previous close. The information in each item was released after markets shut, unless stated otherwise.
All Nippon Airways Co. (9202 JT): Japan’s second-largest carrier by sales said it swung to a 35.2 billion [...]

ATLANTA –A new American Cancer Society report outlines 21 challenges and needs for global tobacco control, covering the wide range of issues to be addressed and expertise needed to reduce the rising tide of tobacco use worldwide, particularly in the low- and middle-income nations that are the target of the multinational tobacco industry. The report [...]

FOR years, Altria, home to Philip Morris and its popular Marlboro cigarette brand, was a corporate pariah
blamed for the deaths of millions of people and sued for hundreds of billions of dollars by attorneys general in every state. After eventually acknowledging, like others in its industry, that cigarette smoking was, indeed, addictive and caused disease, [...]

Cigarette makers must be worried. A tiny U.S. company has a drug that could all but destroy nicotine addiction in America and beyond, and its shares give investors a chance to profit from this potentially world-changing drug.
About 46 million Americans smoke. But most of them don’t want to. According to the Centers for Disease Control [...]

RICHMOND, Va. — Altria Group Inc., the parent company of tobacco companies Philip Morris USA (PM USA), U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. (UST) and John Middleton, reported improved performance in the fourth quarter 2009 over the comparable quarter thanks to higher operating companies income from cigarettes, cigars and financial services, as well as operating income contribution [...]

Smokeless tobacco products that are manufactured in India contain heavy metal, reveals a study report published in The Scientific World Journal.
The study—Determination of Toxic Metals in Indian Smokeless Tobacco Products— was carried out on 30 Indian smokeless tobacco brands by the Indian Institute of Environmental Medicine (IIEM), Mumbai.
As per the report, high levels of lead [...]

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha, introduced legislation Thursday to ban smoking in public places statewide (SB360) but conceded the bill is primarily intended to spur discussion.
“It’s as much for the discussion of the issue, and to make sure people recognize the success of what has been done at the local level,” said Foster, [...]