Monthly Archives: May 2011

Is New York City’s Outdoor Smoking Ban Going To Be Successful?

If you’re looking to light up in New York City, your chances of finding a place to do it just went up in smoke.

RFID Makes Matches for E-Cigarette Smokers

Smokers of Blu Cigs electronic cigarettes already use technology to update an ancient practice. Rather than inhaling the smoke of e-cigarettes matchburning tobacco, they breathe in water vapor that delivers the same dose of nicotine provided by a traditional cigarette. But there is a social aspect to using the company’s e-cigarettes. Every time that a Blu pack is opened to retrieve or put away an e-cigarette, a blue LED light on the pack’s front is illuminated. According to the company, a blue light shining on the pack is a conversation starter that pleases users. With that in mind, Blu Cigs is adding a new component—RFID—to help its customers connect with each other, as well as start conversations between them. With an active RFID tag in each pack, one pack of Blu Cigs can detect the presence of another from the same manufacturer, and the packs will then light up and vibrate to indicate that someone in the vicinity also uses that brand. The system, expected to be made commercially available in August 2011, is known as BluBand.

Philip Morris International Buys Nicotine Aerosol Technology

NEW YORK -Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) bought the global rights to technology that creates nicotine in the form of an aerosol as the company seeks smokeless and potentially less harmful alternatives to traditional cigarettes.

British American Tobacco – collaborative effort sees more responsible growing

A landmark rural community project builds on work to identify and address the risks posed by British American Tobacco’s leaf-growing Best-Practice-tobaccooperations and to look at improvements beyond day-to-day business.

State dodges bullet on tobacco payments

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A recent sharper-than-expected decline in smoking has caused payments to West Virginia from a national tobacco settlement to plunge by more than $10 million a year.

Farmers who took buyout still active in tobacco

LONDON, Ont. — Some Ontario tobacco farmers who raked in an estimated $50 million in federal money to stop growing the crop are still actively involved in the business three years later, a health watchdog says.

Pictorial warnings on chewing tobacco soon

The Centre will soon notify new pictorial warnings on tobacco products, which will be “harsher” for chewing tobacco, as it has been found more harmful than smoking.

Antismoking Bill May Mean the End of Hookah Houses

California’s last governor was so committed to lighting up that he kept a cigar tent outside his office, vetoed the state-park beach smoking-bansmoking ban, and even went out of his way to demonstrate that the occasional Cuban won’t impair a man’s ability to procreate.
Fred Noland

Is tobacco control no longer a federal priority?

When he announced the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy in the spring of 2001, Allan Rock, then the health minister, called smoking the single smoking-publicmost pressing public-health issue in the country.