NY Senate debating public ban on e-cigarettes

State lawmakers are considering whether to include electronic cigarettes in the state's indoor public smoking ban. The Senate Health Committee panel heard testimony Monday from health experts who said that the nicotine liquid and the vapor e-cigarettes produce could be hazardous to both consumers and the public.

The state's Clean Indoor Air Act prohibits smoking traditional cigarettes in nearly all workplaces in the state. Proponents of the ban hope that e-cigarettes will also be included, as they are in New York City as of late last month. Research hasn't yet produced a definitive answer on whether secondhand vapor is a threat to the public, but health experts believe that e-cigarette companies are marketing to teenagers and young adults with flavors like cherry, chocolate and gummy bear.

"Federal law recognizes that the purpose of these flavorings is to addict children to nicotine and create a new generation of tobacco users," said Dr. Harlan Juster, director of the health department's bureau of tobacco control.

Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat, said he has seen e-cigarettes with the image of Hello Kitty, a cartoon cat. According to the state health department, only 12 percent of high school-age kids reported having smoked a cigarette within 30 days in a 2012 survey, down from 27 percent in 2000. The health department says 88 percent of adult smokers began before the age of 18.

E-cigarettes are marketed as safer than regular cigarettes and a transitional measure to bypass quitting cold turkey, but still contain nicotine, the addictive ingredient in traditional cigarettes. Medical and public health professionals have seen no evidence that e-cigarettes help smokers quit, according to Lawrence Eisenstein, president of the state Association of County Health Officials.

Lawmakers also heard from opponents who said the ban would infringe on the rights of business owners. "The Association sees this as another attempt by government to dictate how New Yorkers run their business," said Scott Wexler, executive director of the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association.

Opponents suggest waiting for the Food and Drug administration's review of e-cigarettes before any legislation banning indoor smoking of e-cigarettes is enacted.

Source: Poststar

Smoking Ban Faces Opposition

The smoke will soon be clearing from the corners of campus due to the recent progression of UVM’s smoke-free initiative. “I’m indifferent on the matter, but I can imagine that there’s going to be quite a few disgruntled smokers when that ban comes into play next year,” sophomore Abigail Earle said.

The University’s current goal is for campus to be fully tobacco-free by Jan. 1, 2015, according to their website. The University is going tobacco-free in an attempt to create a “healthier” environment for students, according to their website.

The goal is also to “protect” both smokers and non-smokers from the various health risks that both first and second hand smoking can experience, according to an email to students from Tom Gustafson and Jan Carney April 14. Gustafson is vice president of University Relations and Carney is associate dean of public health.

Despite this concern, many smokers remain “irked” by the prospect of not being able to “light up” whenever they wish.“I think it’s kind of futile, I mean I am a smoker, so I am not too happy about it obviously,” senior Jesse Arnaud said. “In New York they have a smoking ban there in beaches and parks and it doesn’t really work too well.”

Pharmacology professor Karen Lounsbury said she is “hesitant” to promote the ban be- cause she feels that “people should have the right to do what is legal.” She went on to say she believes that imposing the smoke-free ban on the whole campus “seems a bit impractical.” Lounsbury has been teaching cigarette toxicology at UVM since 1998.

“I think that the money going into the ban would be better spent on a health awareness campaign which informs students on the potential side effects of smoking rather than an outright ban,” she said.

The health concern comes from reports that 26 percent of UVM students who currently smoke started the habit after living on-campus, according to the University Benefit Advisory Council. Cigarette tar can cause immediate effects such as bronchitis and chronic heart disease, as well as long term effects caused by the mutations of cells which leads to lung cancer,” Lounsbury said.

Second hand smoke can also be “hazardous” to health, she said. Several students have com- plained about being subjected to this second hand smoke while walking across campus.“I’m very much against second hand smoke, and hate being caught behind a smoker on my way to class,” first-year Leah Ricitelli said.

While a smoke-free campus may benefit stu- dent health,it is also attractive to environmentalists.“It would be great to be able to walk through a rainstorm and not see a river of cigarette butts wash by and go right into the storm drain,” senior Matt Gargiulo said.

Source: http://www.vermontcynic.com

Colorado and Utah to raise smoking age to 21

A proposal to raise the tobacco age to 21 in Colorado is up for its first review in the state Legislature. The bipartisan bill would make Colorado the first with a statewide 21-to-smoke law. It's before the House Health, Insurance, and Environment Committee Thursday afternoon.

People who are currently between the ages of 18 and 20 would be grandfathered in, meaning the measure wouldn't be fully implemented until today's 17-year-olds are 21.

It's not clear how many of Colorado's current smokers are younger than 21. However, a paper published last year in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine said that 9 out of 10 daily smokers have their first cigarette by 18 years of age.

A Senate committee has approved a bill raising the age Utah young people can legally buy cigarettes from 19 to 21. The Senate Health and Human Services committee voted 4-1 on Thursday to approve the measure. It now advances to the full Senate. Ogden Republican Sen. Stuart Reid sponsors the bill and says it may prevent young people from getting addicted to tobacco.

Opponents say the bill infringes on the freedom of young adults. Utah is one of a handful of states that ban sales for those under 19 years old, instead of 18. Reid's bill could make Utah the first state in the country to raise the age to 21.

Altria Q4 Profit Falls as Cigarette Sales Decrease

Altria Group's fourth-quarter profit dropped 56% as the Marlboro maker sold fewer cigarettes and recorded charges related to paying off debt early. Its adjusted earnings and revenue narrowly missed Wall Street expectations, and its shares slipped in premarket trading.

The owner of the nation's biggest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, posted earnings Thursday of $488 million, or $0.24 per share. That's down from $1.1 billion, or $0.55 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding one-time items, earnings were $0.57 per share, missing Wall Street expectations by a penny.

Altria Group, based in Richmond, Va., said that revenue, excluding excise taxes, fell 1% to $4.4 billion as higher prices helped offset a decline in volumes. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $4.5 billion. The company also said Thursday it expects 2014 full-year adjusted earnings between $2.52 and $2.59 per share. Analysts expect $2.57 per share.

Cigarette volumes fell about 6% to 31.8 billion cigarettes compared with a year ago. Adjusting for trade inventory changes, cigarette volumes fell 4%, on par with the total industry decline.

Marlboro volumes fell 5.7%, while volume for its other premium brands fell by more than 11%, and volumes for discount cigarette brands like L&M increased 2%. Its share of the U.S. retail market rose 0.3 percentage points to 50.7%. Marlboro's share of the U.S. market rose 0.2 percentage points to 43.7%.

The Marlboro brand has been under pressure from competitors and lower-priced cigarette brands amid economic uncertainty and high unemployment.

That's on top of the tax hikes, smoking bans and a social stigma that have made the cigarette business tougher. Altria and others are focusing on cigarette alternatives -- such as electronic cigarettes, cigars, snuff and chewing tobacco -- for future sales growth because the decline in cigarette smoking is expected to continue.

Volumes of Altria's smokeless tobacco brands such as Copenhagen and Skoal fell 4.3% from a year ago. Adjusting for one less shipping day and trade inventory changes, Altria says its smokeless volumes grew about 5%. For the quarter, the company's smokeless tobacco brands had about 55% of the market, though smokeless tobacco is a tiny market compared with cigarettes.

Volumes for its Black & Mild cigars rose 8.5% during the quarter. Altria Group also owns a wine business, holds a voting stake in brewer SABMiller, and has a financial services division.

Source: http://www.fool.com

Michael Fine: City's historic tobacco ban helps youth

Rhode Island may be the smallest state but we do big things. We are trendsetters in the Tobacco Control Movement. Rhode Island has the second highest cigarette excise tax, the third lowest youth smoking rate and now, our capital city has put Rhode Island on the map once again.

Providence has made major history in the fight against the tobacco industry. Providence has put Rhode Island on the map. In a landmark decision handed down recently, the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the City of Providence’s anti-tobacco laws prohibiting the sale of fruit-flavored tobacco products and eliminating the use of promotional discounting strategies usually aimed at kids, such as buy-one, get-one.

Thanks to a grassroots network of organizations that includes Tobacco Free Providence, the Providence Mayor’s Substance Abuse Prevention Council and the City of Providence Healthy Communities Office, fewer youth will have access to the deluge of new candy-flavored and inexpensive tobacco products.

Flavored cigars, in particular, have exploded in popularity among our kids. National surveys show high-school students are twice as likely as adults to report smoking cigars in the past month, and young adults (ages 18-24) smoke cigars at even higher rates (15.9 percent).

Despite the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s ban on flavored cigarettes in 2009, the tobacco industry continued to market sweet-flavored products to attract teenagers. Flavored cigarettes were simply modified to fit the legal definition of “cigars” by adding a tobacco leaf wrapper. Dissolvable forms of tobacco make it easier to conceal its use. All of these products, despite their colorful and attractive labels, threaten the public’s health.

Knowing that a high price tag also helps keep tobacco products out of the hands of kids, Providence commendably went a step further. Eliminating price promotions, such as the use of coupons, will keep prices high and Providence teenagers from becoming replacements for the tobacco industry’s dying customers. The 2000 U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, “Reducing Tobacco Use,” found that raising tobacco-product prices decreases the prevalence of tobacco use, particularly among kids and young adults with limited financial means.

The court’s decision has national significance. The ruling allows for similar laws to be passed in other cities, towns, and states. It is an important victory in the fight against a Goliath-sized enemy and paves the way for our struggle against binge drinking, gun violence, and diabetes and heart disease caused by poor nutrition and inadequate exercise. We can improve people’s health and strengthen our democracy even in the face of big marketing and expensive lawyers.

I commend Providence, the organizations that fought for the passage of these laws and the community that supported it. There is still much work to be done across the state at the retail point of sale and also on an environmental level.

Promoting smoke-free public places, such as beaches, parks, recreational areas and college campuses, reduces secondhand-smoke exposure and makes it more difficult to find places to smoke. I encourage all Rhode Island cities and towns to learn more about the benefits of healthy policy changes at the local level.

Source: http://www.providencejournal.com

Hookah Smoke Less Harmful Than Cigarette Tobacco

Hookahs, or water pipes, and the tobacco used in them may be considered "the first new tobacco trend of the 21st century" and may be less harmful than cigarettes.

In new research presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, hookah tobacco and smoke contain lower levels of four toxic metals than those found in cigarettes.

"Any form of smoking is dangerous, and our studies on toxic metals in hookah smoke are taking the first steps toward the necessary animal and human studies that will establish a clearer picture of the relative dangers of hookah and cigarette smoking," Joseph Caruso, Ph.D., who led the study, said in a statement. "It is very difficult to compare hookah smoking with cigarette smoking because they are done so differently."

A team of scientists collected 12 different varieties of hookah tobacco made in the U.S. and Middle East and broke them down to liquid form. Test results showed that hookah tobacco contained fewer toxic metals, such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and chromium, than those in cigarette tobacco.

While some believe the difference lies in filtering smoke through water, Caruso said his team’s findings point to the composition of shisha itself. The specially prepared tobacco for water pipes contains molasses, honey and flavoring agents and lower levels of toxic metals. Caruso’s team did not detect excess amounts of the toxic metals in the hookah water.

Despite the recent findings, Caruso said there are difficulties comparing the two kinds of tobacco. Previous studies have shown that a typical hourlong hookah smoking session involves 200 puffs – equivalent to five to 10 packs of cigarettes, according to the World Health Organization. An average cigarette smoke takes 20 puffs.

In April, a study conducted by the University of California San Francisco showed that hookah smoke contained different kinds of harmful toxins that expose smokers to heart or respiratory conditions, and to higher levels of benzene, long associated with leukemia risk.

“People want to know if it is a lesser health risk if they switch from cigarettes to smoking a water pipe on a daily basis,” UCSF research chemist Peyton Jacob, said in a statement. “We found that water-pipe smoking is not a safe alternative to cigarette smoking, nor is it likely to be an effective harm-reduction strategy.”

A hookah, also known as narghile, shisha and goza, is a water pipe with a smoke chamber, a bowl, a pipe and a hose. Specially made tobacco is heated, and the smoke passes through water and is then drawn through a rubber hose to a mouthpiece.

“Young people are very interested in it,” Ryan Saadawi, the lead graduate student on an American Chemical Society study examining the effects of hookah smoking, told Vice.com. “Cherry apple and bubble gum are more enticing than Marlboro Red.”


Source: http://www.ibtimes.com

Will E-Cigarettes Save Big Tobacco?

Back in April, I asked if E-Cigarettes would relight Big Tobacco’s prospects.  I had my doubts.

E-cigs seemed to be a more pleasurable version of a nicotine patch: something that an existing smoker might switch to for health reasons but not exactly an attractive or glamorous product for someone who doesn’t already smoke.  (Humphrey Bogart would not have been as cool in Casablanca with an e-cig dangling between his lips.  This is an indisputable fact, not an opinion.) It certainly made sense for Altria, Reynolds American RAI -3.43% and the rest of Big Tobacco to get in on the action; it’s better to extract a little more revenue from defecting cigarette smokers than to lose them altogether.

But investors should be realistic about the potential for e-cigs to make Big Tobacco a growth industry again.  It’s not going to happen. Though there are hundreds of millions of tobacco users worldwide (the World Health Organization puts the number of tobacco users at over 1 billion), public health campaigns, legal restrictions, and changing consumer tastes have put cigarette smoking in terminal decline in the developed world.  As a sobering (no pun intended) case in point, American teenagers are more likely to use illegal drugs than to light up a cigarette.

Perhaps most damaging, new “plain packaging” rules are directly assaulting the single most valuable assets of Big Tobacco companies: their brands.
In Australia, all cigarette boxes look identical, regardless of brand: plain white boxes with the brand name written in a uniform font, size and placement.  Oh, and the same graphic photos of people dying of lung cancer on the back.
 Similar rules are being considered in Canada, India, the UK and the European Union.  Big Tobacco is fighting it tooth and nail on trademark and intellectual property grounds, and I consider their objections valid.  But the assault on branding seems to be the next front in the ongoing war of attrition between public health advocates and Big Tobacco, and if history is any guide, the public health advocates will win.

This brings me back to e-cigarettes. Altria is jumping into the e-cig market with a new product under the brand name Mark Ten.  Nowhere on the packaging will there be any prominent mention of Altria or its best-known brand, Marlboro.
 I’m left scratching my head here.  There are over 250 e-cigarette brands currently on the market.  While I don’t see a smoker paying a large premium for a Marlboro-branded e-cig, I would certainly expect them to gravitate to a brand they already know. In failing to use the Marlboro name, Altria seems to be neutralizing its single biggest strength: a consumer brand that is behind only Coca-Cola KO -1.27% and Anheuser-Busch InBev ’s  Budweiser in name recognition.

This would be tantamount to calling Diet Coke “Healthy Pop” and leaving all mention of the Coke brand off the can.  It’s madness.
 If Big Tobacco is wanting to start fresh with new branding because of the toxic association between the existing brands and those filthy, old traditional cigarettes, they are wide off the mark.  Their market is existing smokers, not nonsmokers.  Unless they brand e-cigs as “portable flavored hookahs” or something with novelty appeal, it’s hard to imagine this product appealing to a young, unbiased consumer.

 This brings me to a related topic.  I noted last month that marijuana stocks were a terrible investment.  The companies engaged in legal production and marketing are small, poorly capitalized, and not likely to still be in business five years from now. But as the legal regime surrounding their product continues to be relaxed, there may be room for a large, well-capitalized company to sweep in and take over the market.  Big Tobacco’s massive production and distribution machine could be easily tweaked for the new product—which could be branded under familiar brand names such as Marlboro or Camel.

A lot of Americans would be put off by this, of course.  Fully 49% of Americans are against marijuana legalization for very valid reasons.  But the question Big Tobacco needs to ask is this: can their reputation get any worse than it already is?

Big Tobacco is already a pariah industry under constant attack.  What would they have to lose by marketing marijuana cigarettes in Colorado and Washington?  It’s hard to see a loyal cigarette smoker kicking the habit because of additional bad publicity.

At any rate, if Big Tobacco is going to continue to be a good investment for its shareholders, management needs to focus on leveraging their core brands.  The alternative is to slowly fade away.

Article source: Forbes