Monthly Archives: February 2010

Tobacco Giants Object to United Kingdom’s Officials Plain Cigarette Packaging Plan

It is not a big secret that UK Public Health Department lead by Andy Burnham has promised to make 50 percent of adult Cigarette Packaging smokers across the nation give up their habit within a decade. Their plan includes requiring tobacco companies to pack their products in plain packages.

How the sin tax policy created a duopoly

MANILA, Philippines – The cigarette industry in the country has long been a showcase of how political economy works in the Philippines. While businessman Lucio Tan has been generally perceived to have perfected the art of influencing regulation and tax schemes to favor his Fortune Tobaco Corp., the expansion efforts of multinational player Philip Morris in the Philippines has changed the playing field.

BAT Sees Signs Of Recovery as Earnings Rise

LONDON – British American Tobacco, the world’s second-biggest cigarette maker, reported signs global economies were starting to improve, as it met forecasts with a 19 percent rise in 2009 earnings on Thursday.

Big Tobacco and the Historians

Last summer Robert Proctor, a Stanford professor who studies the history of tobacco, was surprised to receive court papers accusing him of witness tampering and witness intimidation, along with a subpoena for his unfinished book manuscript. Then in January he got another subpoena, this one for three years of e-mails with a colleague, and also for his computer hard drive. Attorneys for R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris USA are trying to get him barred from testifying in a Florida court as an expert witness on behalf of a smoker with cancer who is suing the companies.

Ghana to Host second WHO meeting on Tobacco

Ghana has been selected to host the second working group meeting on World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in April this year.

Darpa-funded Researchers: Tobacco vs. Viral Terror

The Pentagon’s after a better way to strike back against infectious diseases and bio-threats. Now, a team at Texas A&M may have come up with a way to turn tobacco plants into vaccine-making machines.
tobacco research
Darpa, the military’s risk-taking research agency, is investing $40 million into the Texas Plant-Expressed Vaccine Consortium, which will test the tobacco-based method and then offer up 10 million doses of H1N1 vaccines. Once the process has been vetted, the researchers anticipate a scalability that could yield 100 million vaccine doses per month.

French Ad Shocks, but Will It Stop Young Smokers?

PARIS — A new French antismoking advertisement aimed at the young that plays off a pornographic stereotype has gotten more attention than even its creators intended, and critics suggest that it offends common decency and creates a false analogy between oral sex and smoking.

Tasting Havana’s perfect smoke

IN the Embajadores room at the Habana Libre hotel the air is thick with the sweet, honeyed smoke of cigars. Outside, Havana’s La Rampa street bustles with the sound of the early-evening crowd. A queue forms around Coppelia’s parlour, a favorite with the locals, reputedly making the best ice cream on the island.

Teasing Vaccines From Tobacco

The U.S. Department of Defense, caught off guard by the swift spread of the H1N1 flu virus last year and delays in producing a vaccine, is backing an unusual plan to use tobacco plants to make the vaccine.

Having to Comply with Law, Tobacconists Get Use of Colors

According to several public health organizations, the claims of cigarette companies regarding their willingness to obey the new regulations in marketing low-tar cigarettes are controversial, as they would literary complain but still, conceal the truth.

Big tobacco wields First Amendment argument

WASHINGTON — Tobacco companies are relying heavily on the First Amendment in challenging the government’s prosecution of cigarette makers under the federal racketeering statute.

Star Scientific seeks FDA approval for “safer” smokeless tobacco

Star Scientific Inc. is seeking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval to market its smokeless tobacco lozenges as a Star Scientificreduced-risk product, setting up a key test for the federal agency’s new regulatory powers over tobacco.

Cuban cigar sales drop 8 pct in ’09

Cuban cigar sales tumbled 8 percent to $360 million in 2009 and have fallen by more than a tenth in the past two years as the cuban cigarsdemand for luxury goods around the world has plunged.

BULGARIA: Govt Forced Down on Genetically Modifed Crops

Budapest, – Campaigning by environmental groups and the general public has weakened the determination of the Bulgarian government to allow the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops in this country.

My Word: Dosal is not Big Tobacco

Once again, out-of-state Big Tobacco is getting Florida associations to do its bidding, and now it seems it is the Florida Retail Dosal tobaccoFederation’s turn (“Tap tobacco for its fair share,” Orlando Sentinel, Monday).