Monthly Archives: August 2010

United States of Smokers

About one in five American adults smokes, according to the 2009 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being survey.

Roll-Your-Own Cigarette Machines Help Evade Steep Tax

WOOD DALE, Ill.—Scores of tobacco retailers in the U.S. are taking advantage of a federal tax loophole to offer deep discounts on roll-your-own cigarettes. But the practice is attracting scrutiny from regulators and cigarette manufacturers.

E-Cigarettes Spark New Smoking War

ELMHURST, Ill.—Victoria Vasconcellos, the petite founder of an Internet retailer in this Chicago suburb, is in the thick of a regulatory battle that could affect millions of American cigarette smokers.

Oneidas moving cigarette plant to city of Oneida

The Oneida Indian Nation is moving its cigarette-manufacturing plant from Western New York to Nation land in the city of Oneida – bringing 15 jobs and continued controversy along with it.

YouTube used to sell tobacco

Tobacco companies have turned to video-sharing website YouTube to market their products, new research from Otago University has revealed.

Native Americans call New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s ‘cowboy hat’ remark racist

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s advice to Gov. David Paterson on how to collect sales tax on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations was simple: “Get yourself a cowboy hat and a shotgun” and enforce the law.

New smokeless tobacco products ignite debate

As states make it tougher to light up in public, tobacco manufacturers are rolling out new smokeless tobacco lines — some flavored, some spitless, prompting worries from public health officials about potentially unknown risks of these new products and their appeal to underage users.

Crackdown on teenage smokers

A TOTAL of 15 students under the age of 18 had been caught smoking in public this year and ordered to undergo mandatory treatment at a smoking cessation clinic.

Corporations, profits, and public health

Shortly after taking over as CEO of British Petroleum (BP), Tony Haywood said, “We have too many people [at BP] who want to save the world…we need to concentrate on our primary goal: creating value for our shareholders.” Similarly, a well known anti-tobacco advert features an actor playing a tobacco company executive saying to its customers: “We’re not in business for your health.” Tobacco and oil companies are easy targets, the first causing completely preventable disease and death, the latter consistently befouling the environment and killing endangered species as an integral cost of doing business. Public health, by contrast, is in business “for your health” and in the context of global health, “to save the world”. Are these two enterprises totally incompatible, as editor William Wiist suggests in the title to this collection, or is it possible that the energy of corporations can be directed and managed in ways that can protect and promote the health of the public in a meaningful way?