Cigarette Smoking On Screen In China

Cigarette Smoking On Screen In China

Illegal Cigarettes And Cash Found By Dogs

Illegal Cigarettes And Cash Found By Dogs

Reynolds American, Lorillard in unification discussions

Reynolds American, Lorillard in unification discussions

CVS stores to stop selling tobacco

Want to pick up a pack of cigarettes with your prescription refill? A major U.S. pharmacy chain is breaking that habit.

CVS Caremark announced Wednesday it will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its CVS/pharmacy stores by October 1.

The retailer said the move makes CVS/pharmacy the first chain of national pharmacies to take tobacco products off the shelves.

"Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health," Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO of CVS Caremark, said in a statement. "Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose."

CVS Caremark is the largest pharmacy in the United States based on total prescription revenue, according to the company. It operates more than 7,600 CVS/pharmacy stores nationwide in addition to more than 800 MinuteClinics, which are medical clinics within the pharmacy locations.

Health-oriented organizations and President Barack Obama praised the move.

"As one of the largest retailers and pharmacies in America, CVS Caremark sets a powerful example, and today's decision will help advance my administration's efforts to reduce tobacco-related deaths, cancer, and heart disease, as well as bring down health care costs -- ultimately saving lives and protecting untold numbers of families from pain and heartbreak for years to come," Obama said in a statement Wednesday.

"This is an important, bold public health decision by a major retail pharmacy to act on the long understood reality that blending providing health care and providing cigarettes just doesn't match," said Dr. Richard Wender, chief cancer control officer at the American Cancer Society.

"We need an all-hands-on-deck effort to take tobacco products out of the hands of America's young generation, and to help those who are addicted to quit," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. "Today's CVS Caremark announcement helps bring our country closer to achieving a tobacco-free generation. I hope others will follow their lead."

It remained unclear whether other pharmacies will follow CVS' lead.

"We have been evaluating this product category for some time to balance the choices our customers expect from us with their ongoing health needs," Walgreens spokesman Jim Graham said in a statement.

"We will continue to evaluate the choice of products our customers want, while also helping to educate them and providing smoking-cessation products and alternatives that help to reduce the demand for tobacco products."

Meanwhile, David Howard, spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., said, "We value the long-term relationship with CVS and respect their commercial decision. We will work with them as they transition out of the tobacco category in the coming months."

Stopping cigarette sales comes at a price. CVS Caremark estimates it will take an annual loss of $2 billion from tobacco shoppers -- $1.5 billion in tobacco sales and the rest from other products tobacco shoppers purchase while in the store.

The company has enjoyed growing revenues in recent years, boosted by its pharmacy services business and prescription drug sales.

CVS Caremark hasn't reported its year-end results yet, but it took in nearly $94 billion in revenues in the first nine months of 2013, up slightly from the same period in 2012, according to its most recent earnings report.

In 2012, CVS Caremark reported $123.1 billion in revenues, a 15% jump from $107.1 billion the previous year.

"We commend CVS for putting public health ahead of their bottom line and recognizing the need for pharmacies to focus on supporting health and wellness instead of contributing to disease and death caused by tobacco use," the American Medical Association said.

Asked Wednesday about the reaction of tobacco executives to the decision, CVS Caremark's Merlo said they were "disappointed. At the same time, I think they understand the paradox that we face as an organization, and they understand the rationale for the decision."

On whether CVS would extend its ban to other products known to be unhealthy -- candy, potato chips or alcohol, for instance -- Merlo told reporters those items, in moderation, do not have the same adverse effects as the use of tobacco.

BAT fumes over plain-packaging regulations

BRITISH American Tobacco (BAT) chairman Richard Burrows issued a stern warning against further efforts to bring in plain packaging for cigarettes and tobacco products, at the group’s annual general meeting on Wednesday.
Australia introduced plain-packaging regulations at the end of 2012, prompting speculation — so far unfounded — that other countries, including South Africa, could follow suit.
Plain-packaging regulations in Australia stipulate that cigarette brands are sold in identical packs featuring prominent and graphic images of smoking-linked ailments.
Speaking at the annual meeting held in London on Wednesday, Mr Burrows said BAT believed packaging regulations had gone too far with recent moves to bring in plain packaging. "Along with failing to respect our minimum guaranteed rights on trademark protection, we have seen no credible evidence that plain packaging will stop children from taking up smoking or encourage current smokers to quit," he said.
He stressed that where BAT disagreed with measures being proposed, the company would always try to offer practical alternatives for delivering regulatory aims and public health objectives.
Mr Burrows noted that Australia introduced plain packaging one year ago. "Since then the amount of tobacco shipped equated to an increase of 59-million cigarettes, the first increase in Australian tobacco volumes in over five years."
He said that an industry-commissioned KPMG report published last month found that the illegal tobacco market was now at its highest point yet and was equal to 13.9% of total consumption, costing the Australian government and taxpayers about $1.1bn a year.
"These facts clearly place a question mark over the policy."
Mr Burrows noted that five sovereign states were challenging Australia’s decision to introduce plain packaging via the World Trade Organisation. "Those countries are challenging it because they believe the legislation is a barrier to trade and restricts intellectual property."
BAT also released an interim management statement — covering the three months to end-March — on Wednesday. The quarterly statement showed revenue up 2% at constant rates of exchange, but declining 12% at current rates of exchange.
Cigarette volumes slipped 1% to 158-billion with a decrease of 1.1% for total tobacco volume.
The market seemed disappointed with the numbers, with BAT’s shares drifting down as much as 2.2% to an intraday low of R602.94 on the JSE on Wednesday. In a research note, investment house Renaissance Capital (RenCap) said the timing of price increases explained the temporary lag in BAT’s revenue. But RenCap believed revenue would improve during the financial year ahead.
BAT reported that Global Drive Brand cigarette volume — Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall —-grew a sprightly 6.3%.
CEO Nicandro Durante maintained that BAT enjoyed a good underlying performance, underpinned by an improving trend in volume. "We have grown revenue at constant rates of exchange and our pricing remains on track."

Smoking banned in Wellington park

Wellington City Council is banning smoking in Midland Park, a popular park in Lambton Quay where many office workers sit to eat their lunch.

The council is proposing to declare the park smokefree on May 31, which is World Smokefree Day.

The move will be a non-regulatory change with signs used to state the policy.

"Wellingtonians have overwhelmingly told us that they love our parks and playgrounds being smokefree - and now is the right time to extend this to our inner city green spaces," councillor Paul Eagle, chair of the community, sport and recreation committee, says.

Mayor Celia Wade-Brown says more than 80 percent of people in Wellington do not smoke tobacco.

Pipe lovers ride a trend with hot new flavors

Bowling Green is ideal for spring and summer strolls. Hell’s Kitchen is a dark and dingy domain for gritty New Yorkers. And Liberty Island is the place to honor the city’s cultural diversity.
The best thing about these local landmarks: You can now put them in your pipe and smoke ’em!
A group of traditional tobacconists has turned this town into tobacco flavors with a series of pipe blends based on New York icons.
“The tastes are supposed to give smokers something that’s uniquely New York,” says Lou Carbone, president of the New York Pipe Club. “We wanted to avoid cliches about how the Big Apple should taste.”

Now in its fifth decade, the Pipe Club is one of the city’s venerable smoking organizations. But it recently turned a new leaf with its New York State of Mind series, blended by one-time New Yorker Russ Oullette.
So what does New York taste like when it’s turned into tobacco? Put on your smoking jacket and take a tour from your easy chair:
* The Bowling Green blend packs a faint feeling of the fresh outdoors (though, of course, it is illegal to smoke in any park). This is a Virginia blend — meaning that it’s a light and mild smoke — with a savory and citrusy sensation. Perfect for the warmer weather.

The future for smokers

To mark the 70th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell's 1984, Mayor Olivia Nutter today signed an executive order banning cigarette smoking within the city limits. The ban extends to e-cigs, but not marijuana.
The mayor exempted new postal zone 19019 - carved out of Eastwick and Paschall - as a "refuge" where smokers will be forced to live. It is adjacent to the carcinogenic oil refineries.
Nutter said "19019 will be known as Tobacco Town," objected to opponents' use of the term "ghetto" and said ordering smokers to wear a bright yellow "S" on their clothing was nothing more than a "health warning for nonsmokers to stay away."
Asked why she didn't simply ban cigarettes, the mayor said that would be an "infringement of civil liberties, and besides, we use cigarette-tax money to run the schools and to fund food stamps for smokers."
Food stamps have been provided since 2016, when all American cigarette smokers were fired under the "We Will Make You Healthy or Kill You Act."
Ten years earlier, Westgate Resorts, the largest private employer in central Florida, fired employees who smoked. "When I found out it was legal to discriminate against smokers, I put the policy in place," Westgate president and CEO David Siegel said.
Other employers followed suit, saying that firing smokers would reduce their health-care costs.
Using the same rationale, employers then began to fire fat employees, resulting in a wave of American unemployment and more visas for skinny foreigners.
The mass firings followed earlier actions banning smoking in workplaces, restaurants, bars, college dorms and public housing. The housing ban was attacked as discrimination against the poor, but it survived court challenges.
Next came smoking bans in condominiums, with smoker/owners being grandfathered, but prohibiting sale to smokers. Under the Big Brother Act, potential purchasers were required to take a urine test to detect nicotine. That led to the scandal of a black market in clean urine, organized by Lance Armstrong.
Smoking was considered so pernicious that after banning smoking in cars carrying children, child-custody laws were rewritten to award custody to the nonsmoking parent. When both parents were smokers, children were turned over to the Department of Human Services.
In Philadelphia, the original author of anti-smoking legislation was Michael Nutter (the current mayor's father), who banned smoking in workplaces and bars under the heading of the "Clean Indoor Air Worker-Protection Law."
His last "smoking" gun was an executive order in 2014 banning smoking in all city parks, including the 9,200-acre Fairmount Park.
At the time, he gave three reasons: 1) To protect the environment from cigarette butts; 2) to protect people from secondhand smoke; 3) to help people quit.
Critics said that littering was already against the law and that ashtrays - like trash cans for other litter - could relieve the butt problem; that the vast expanse of the park system protects people from secondhand smoke, and that quit-smoking programs (which the city offers) were better options. But they were easily brushed aside by the majority.
"It remains legal to discriminate against smokers," Mayor Olivia said. "And Philly will."

The Weird Link Between E-Cigarettes and Mental Health Disorders

A new study finds elevated rates of depression, anxiety and other mental disorders among users of e-cigarettes

A new study has found that people suffering from depression, anxiety and other mental disorders are more than twice as likely to spark up an e-cigarette and three times as likely to “vape” regularly than those without a history of mental issues.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego drew their findings from an extensive survey of American smoking habits. Among 10,041 respondents, 14.8% of individuals suffering from mental health disorders said they had tried an e-cigarette, compared with 6.6% of individuals who had no self-reported history of mental disorders.
The e-smokers’ elevated rates of mental disorders reflected the elevated rates of mental illness among smokers in general. The authors note that by some estimates, people suffering from mental disorders buy upwards of 50 percent of cigarettes sold in the U.S. annually.
Many respondents said they switched to e-cigarettes as a gateway to quitting. The FDA has not yet approved e-cigarettes as a quitting aide.
“People with mental health conditions have largely been forgotten in the war on smoking,” study author Sharon Cummins said in a university press release. “But because they are high consumers of cigarettes, they have the most to gain or lose from the e-cigarette phenomenon.”