Tobacco Facts.

Smoking pot isn’t what it used to be for Joe Lee, a 62-year-old vintage-record dealer in Rockville. Back in the late 1960s, as an art student in Baltimore, he kept his landlord in a constant state of suspicion, with clouds of marijuana smoke poorly masked by clouds of incense. These days, after four decades of [...]

BANGKOK, Thailand – Assailed by the western world’s laws, taxes and anti-smoking mores, the global tobacco industry has little choice but to keep pushing eastward into Asia. Tobacco bosses learned this week that some Asians are ready to push back. This week, more than 500 screaming protesters converged outside TabInfo Asia 2009, the region’s largest [...]

The children pick through mountainous piles of waste tobacco and sweep it up with their bare hands into giant bags in the hope of scraping a living. From behind a veil of dust, they stare back at us with bloodshot eyes. As the wind gathers in a fading dusk, infant siblings strapped to their mothers’ [...]

The movement to ban smoking in New York City has grown so quickly that no place seems immune — certainly not restaurants or bars, and public beaches and parks may not be far behind. Now the efforts are rapidly expanding into the living room. More landlords are moving to prohibit smoking in their apartment buildings, [...]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning more than a dozen online cigarette sellers that they may be in violation of the new regulations against selling most types of flavored cigarettes to U.S. citizens and have 15 days to prove that they have stopped those sales or risk government action. A ban on the [...]

Why would a cigarette company buy a firm that makes products to help smokers quit? It’s a question that’s left many scratching their heads ever since reports surfaced that Reynolds American — the no. 2 U.S. tobacco company and the maker of Camel, Kool and Winston cigarettes, among others — is in talks to acquire [...]

Africa is already beleaguered by infectious diseases, such as AIDS and malaria, but now the continent’s residents face growing health threats from preventable illnesses brought on by lifestyle changes, such as from poor diets and smoking. In an effort to stave off these maladies, advocates have turned their sights on tobacco use, which is on [...]

Cigarette smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the United States. Full implementation of population-based strategies and clinical interventions can educate adult smokers about the dangers of tobacco use and assist them in quitting. To assess progress toward the Healthy People 2010 objective of reducing the prevalence of cigarette [...]

ATLANTA — Cigarette smoking rose slightly for the first time in almost 15 years, dashing health officials’ hopes that the U.S. smoking rate had moved permanently below 20 percent. A little under 21 percent of U.S. adults said they smoked, according to a 2008 national survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [...]

Secondhand smoke (SHS) causes immediate and long-term adverse health effects in nonsmoking adults and children, including heart disease and lung cancer, and SHS exposure occurs primarily in homes and workplaces. Smoke-free policies, including not allowing smoking anywhere inside the home (i.e., having a smoke-free home rule), are the best way to provide protection from exposure [...]

Washington, D.C., - With the latest research estimating that nearly six million people worldwide will lose their lives to tobacco next year[1], an innovative approach is critical to helping the 43 million Americans who smoke to finally quit. This month, new advertising that aims to help individuals do just that will begin airing on television [...]

As a big sports fan, I’ve been to more than my fair share of sports bars. And in general, I’ve found very little differentiation among most of them — plenty of beers, burgers and wings on the menu with flat screens and neon beer signs adorning the walls. Greensboro’s newest sports bar, Refs, has all [...]

DAR ES SALAAM — More Africans risk dying from smoking as tobacco use will double over the next 12 years in a continent where 90 percent of people have no protection against second-hand smoke, experts said Wednesday. Africa accounts for 14 percent of the world population and has only four percent of world smokers, presenting [...]

Trying to buy a company that specializes in products that help people quit smoking may seem like a radical change for Reynolds American Inc. But analysts said yesterday that it all depends on how Reynolds would potentially use and market cigarette-replacement products in gum, pouch and spray form made by that company, Niconovum AB. Media [...]

LONDON -Japan Tobacco Inc.’s (2914.TO) U.K. business is closing the gap on market leader Imperial Tobacco PLC (IMT.LN) and will retain its recent market share gains, despite pushing up prices at the end of this month, JT’s U.K. managing director said Wednesday. Daniel Torras told reporters at a briefing in London that the company had [...]

ALTRIA GROUP IS VIEWED AS ONE OF THE country’s most fearsome companies because of its willingness to use its political clout and legal muscle to maintain the dominance of its domestic cigarette brands. Known on Wall Street as Big MO — a reference to its ticker symbol (MO: 19.07, +0.20, +1.05%), which harks back to [...]

Imperial Tobacco reported solid fiscal 2009 results that confirm our thesis that the firm’s positioning in value categories will give it a short-term performance boost. We are maintaining our fair value estimate. Fiscal 2009 net tobacco revenue grew 5% after adjusting for foreign exchange movements and the acquisition of Altadis. We think this is very [...]

When the phrase “food fight” leaves the lips of the hero of a children’s movie, it always comes with a few exclamation points and waste — lots of lobbed mashed potatoes, smashed tomatoes and flying slices of pizza. Chris Taylor’s “Food Fight” is also about waste, even if there isn’t any airborne mac and cheese [...]

The American Medical Association on Tuesday issued a cautious but historically significant call to change America’s marijuana prohibition laws, urging a “review” of the drug’s status as a Schedule I drug. At a meeting in Houston, the AMA’s House of Delegates adopted a new policy that calls for “marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I [...]

DAR ES SALAAM — More Africans risk dying from smoking as tobacco use will double over the next 12 years in a continent where 90 percent of people have no protection against second-hand smoke, experts said Wednesday. Africa accounts for 14 percent of the world population and has only four percent of world smokers, presenting [...]

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent out warning letters this week to retailers, both in the US and abroad, concerning the sale of flavored cigarettes. Flavored cigarettes have been illegal to sell in the United States since the passage of congressional bill H.R. 1108 also known as the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control [...]

LONDON, - Alison Cooper is set to become the youngest female chief executive of a FTSE 100 company as she looks to put sales growth at the top of her agenda for the world’s No 4 cigarette group Imperial Tobacco Plc (IMT.L) Cooper, 43, was widely tipped to take over the top job at the [...]

In a Louisville, Ky., Holiday Inn, Brown and Williamson researchers brainstormed novel ways to sell tobacco. It was 1992, and the goal was to find “socially acceptable” ways to use it, according to one of the company’s internal research and development documents. It needed to be smokeless, spitless, and not produce an odor. It needed [...]

OHAWK NATION OF AKWESASNE — The NYPD has gone on the reservation — sending its drug czar upstate to try to help cut off a massive pipeline of pot and ecstasy to the city run by Mohawk Indian smugglers on the Canadian border. “I was astounded at how lenient the border is,” said Chief Joseph [...]

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — As more cities ban smoking in restaurants and bars, there is a newer product to the United States that makers claim you can still smoke indoors. It’s under fire from cities across the country, the Food and Drug Administration and a metro parent. If you’ve been to the mall lately, you [...]

Being a long-time tennis fan and a non-smoker, I as well as thousand other tennis aficionados, was shocked to hear that ubiquitous health organizations are demanding the cancellation of the sponsorship contact between Basel ATP World Tour 500 event and Davidoff Group what could result in the closure of one of the most prestigious tournaments [...]

David Evans: We cannot legalize marijuana because its use has destructive health and social consequences. Marijuana is far more powerful today than it was years ago and it serves as an entry point for the use of other illegal drugs. This is known as the “gateway effect.” Despite arguments from the drug culture to the [...]

The tennis fans around the world were shocked this week when they found out that the persistent war against tobacco industry reached tennis events and threatens with the closure of one of the best tournaments in the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) – the Basel ATP World Tour 500. London-based Imperial Tobacco, the fourth largest [...]

A severed finger sparked an online uproar that went viral. And very quickly, rattled authorities here took note. The story of Sun Zhongjie, a 19-year-old driver who chopped off his finger to decry police entrapment, shows how the Internet has become an effective tool of public protest in this tightly controlled country. Almost every form [...]

TORONTO — Pop a vitamin, ban doctors’ neckties, vacuum away swine flu germs and smoke an e-cigarette to ward off H1N1. Those are just some of the suggestions making the rounds on the Internet that have health officials and experts shaking their heads. The Web is awash with dubious advice and various flu kits for [...]