Hike cigarette prices

By now, everyone knows two things - Louisiana is in a budget crisis and smoking is bad for your health. There is one action that can have a positive impact on both these problems - increasing the price of cigarettes.

As a physician, I support a cigarette tax increase because it's a proven way to discourage young people from starting to smoke and to encourage smokers to quit. Both my parents smoked and died of lung cancer. The only way to really decrease lung cancer is to get more people to quit smoking. In Louisiana each year, an astounding 11.8 million packs of cigarettes are bought or smoked by our children and 6,700 kids under 18 become new daily smokers. Smoking causes serious health problems among children and teens, including respiratory illnesses, reduced physical fitness, poor lung growth and function, worse overall health and addiction to nicotine.

Raising cigarette prices is one of the most effective ways to prevent and reduce smoking, especially among kids, save lives and cut health care costs. I urge our Legislature and governor to do the right thing.

Cigarette ban on minors intensified

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan, Palawan’s provincial legislative body, passed recently a resolution urging the Department of Trade & Industry, Department of Health, local government units and other concerned agencies to strictly enforce the law against selling of cigarettes and intoxicating drinks to minors.

The resolution authored by Provincial Board Member Ernesto Llacuna seeks to put some teeth into the law particularly sections 9 & 10 of the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003. Based on reports he has been receiving, cigarettes are still being sold to minors and there are minors seen smoking.

The resolution which was unanimously approved and signed by Palawan Governor Baham Mitra, recommends the review of the implementation of the law in the local scene and the strengthening of its enforcement.

The goal of Republic Act 9211 or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003 is to regulate the use, sale and advertisements of tobacco products to promote a healthful environment and protect the citizens from the hazards of tobacco smoke, and at the same time ensure that the interest of tobacco farmers, growers, workers and stakeholders are not adversely compromised. This includes protection of the youth from being initiated to cigarette smoking and tobacco use by prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to minors. (vsm/pia-palawan)

FDA Sued Over Menthol Cigarettes

Reynolds and Lorillard, the second- and third-biggest US cigarette makers, filed suit to block the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from receiving recommendations from an advisory committee that the cigarette makers claim have conflicts of interest, Reuters is reporting.

Reynolds, a unit of Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Reynolds American Inc., makes Camel and Winston cigarettes in addition to its Kool and Salem menthol brands. Lorillard Tobacco is a unit of Lorillard Inc., based in Greensboro, North Carolina. It makes Newport, the top-selling menthol brand.

The plaintiffs seek an order preventing the FDA from receiving the report, which is thought to include recommendations on the use of menthol in cigarettes. Mentholated cigarettes make up roughly 30 percent of US annual cigarette sales of more than $83 billion, according to Euromonitor International.
The FDA was given regulatory power over tobacco products in 2009 and the legislation called on the FDA to seek advice from a panel of outside experts before determining whether menthol cigarettes should also be taken off the US market.

Filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia, the lawsuit accuses three panel members of having “severe financial and appearance conflicts of interest and associated biases,” and the suit claims these three advisers have received funding for research or consultation work from drug makers that make smoking-cessation products.

According to the suit, two others on a panel subcommittee also have biases because they have served as paid expert witnesses in lawsuits against tobacco companies. Health advocates denounced the lawsuit as a frivolous attempt to keep the FDA panel’s recommendation from coming to light.

Matthew Myers president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, tells Reuters, “They fear that the committee, having examined the evidence, will recommend effective actions that reduce or eliminate the lucrative market for menthol cigarettes, said “Once again, they are putting profits ahead of lives and health.”

Since the FDA’s panel began holding meetings last year, all three companies have spoken out against any menthol ban. The advisers are scheduled to meet on March 2 and March 17 ahead of issuing its report. The FDA is not bound to follow its recommendations and the law did not set a deadline for any action on menthol.

“As a matter of general policy, the FDA does not comment on possible, pending or ongoing litigation,” FDA spokesman Jeff Ventura concluded.

Men stab store clerk, take cigarettes, cash

Police were searching for two men who robbed a downtown 7-Eleven store early Sunday, grabbing cash and cigarettes and leaving a clerk with stab wounds to his back.
About 2 a.m. Sunday, a heavyset black man and a thin white man in their early 20s walked into the convenience store at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Juniper Street. The black man immediately started struggling with the clerk while the white man started grabbing cigarettes, said Sgt. Craig Miller of the Escondido Police Department.
During the struggle, the clerk was stabbed several times in the back. The black man then grabbed cash from the register and the pair fled, Miller said.
The clerk was taken to a local hospital with injures Miller described as non-life threatening.
The white suspect was about 5 feet, 10 inches tall and wearing a gray sweatshirt and a black-and-white knit cap with earflaps. The black suspect was 6 feet to 6 feet, 4 inches tall with a shaved head wearing a dark-blue Chargers jacket with a lightning bolt on the back, an oversized white T-shirt and dark jeans, Miller said

Non-smoker Pranab spares cigarettes from excise hike

New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who quit smoking pipe several years ago, has spared the tobacco industry -- a prime source of raising revenue for the exchequer -- by not raising excise duty on cigarettes in the budget proposals for 2011-12.

This is the first time in many budgets that excise duty on cigarettes has not been hiked.

The cheer in the industry was evident Monday, with ITC, the largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the country, seeing its shares soaring 8.33 percent to an intra-day high of Rs.170 at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

Over 41 lakh shares of the company were traded on the BSE, as compared to a two-week average of 5.5 lakh shares.

Items like cigarettes and cigars attract a basic excise duty of 10 percent and an additional excise duty of 1.6 percent.