Tobacco News

U.S. Senate Votes to Give FDA Much More Power over Tobacco
After many efforts to stem smoking through FDA regulation have failed in the past, the Senate – in a 79-17 vote - passed a measure on Thursday to greatly increase FDA authority to limit the tobacco industry.

Congress Votes to Give FDA Control over Tobacco
The House voted 326-102 this week to give the FDA authority over the tobacco industry, something supporters say is decades overdue.

Versatile and green-friendly hemp
The Declaration of Independence and the first American flag were both made from hemp, a plant that is now illegal to grow in the United States because, though smoking it cannot get you "high," it is a relative of the marijuana plant.

Treaty Signatures of WHO called Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)
The World Health Organization (WHO) created a signatory treaty called Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Read the full article to find out what's inside the framework.

Cheap Tobacco From Smugglers 'causes 4,000 Deaths a Year'
Clampdown on contraband would raise prices forcing up to 8 per cent of smokers out of their habit

Marlboro Maker to Buy Chewing Tobacco Firm
Cigarettes empire Altria in talks on a potential deal worth more than $10bn (£5.7bn)

Tobacco products and tobacco industry
Commercially available in cured, dried and natural forms, it is often smoked in the form of a cigarettes, cigar or in a stem pipe, water pipe, and hookah.

Imperial Cuts 2,500 From Global Workforce As It Absorbs Altadis
Tobacco company announces closure of six factories, with redundancies in France, Spain and the UK

Bars Use Smoke and Mirrors to Flout Ban
Bars in Minessota exploit loophole in smoking ban by staging 'theatre nights'

40% of German Soldiers Too Fat
German soldiers are fat, unfit and too fond of cigarettes and stodgy food, according to a parliamentary report

I'm in a Rage Right Now Because I've Stopped Smoking.but Some People Are Aching for a Fight All the Time
Charlie Brooker: Shortly before writing this sentence, I literally punched myself in the head, because I'm unbelievably angry for no good reason

Nigeria Takes on Big Tobacco Over Campaigns That Target the Young
Developing world's first such case seeks £22bn from three cigarette firms

The 2014 Games Will Inspire Our Children
Ruaridh Nicoll: It used to be that if you looked down from Glasgow's necropolis, you could see the Wills cigarette factory, the brewery and the hospital. Now the young will be able to gaze down on preparations for a great games.

Nervous Cecil Hoping That Time is Ripe
He is out of his element in New Jersey, but chain-smoking Henry Cecil has the chance of a first Breeders win, reports Greg Wood.

Over-by-over: Evening Session
Cricket: I imagine the atmosphere inside the England dressing room is pretty flat right now. While you're listening to that, I'm going out for a cigarette, during which I'll stare wistfully into the middle distance. Enjoy.

Emerson Hart-Cigarettes & Gasoline Review
Cigarettes And Gasoline Gets Under Your Skin

Emerson Hart Tranforms Memories Into Enduring Gems On Cigarettes And Gasoline
New Album Out On Manhattan Records July 17th

Fourth Test, Day Three: Over-by-over: Morning Session
Cricket: Ummm. I'm off for a cigarette. Don't blame me. Blame someone else. The tobbacco maunfacturers maybe.

Over-by-over: Second Test Day Three
Cricket: A symphony orchestra. there is a thunderstorm, they are playing a Wagner overture and the people leave their seats under the trees and run inside to the pavilion the women giggling, the men pretending calm, wet cigarettes being thrown away, Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the pavilion.

Cricket: Follow the Second Test Between England and West Indies at Headingley With Our Live Over-by-over Report
A symphony orchestra. There is a thunderstorm, they are playing a Wagner overture and the people leave their seats under the trees and run inside to the pavilion the women giggling, the men pretending calm, wet cigarettes being thrown away, Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the pavilion.

Over-by-over: New Zealand's Innings
Cricket: It has been a bad one so far. Even as I was stood at the bus stop, almost alone on the empty streets and contemplating how bad the first cigarette tastes when you've only had two hours of sleep, it seemed like an unusually bad one.

Tunnels for Hire As Gaza's Smugglers Risk Their Lives
Young men of Rafah dig their way to Egypt to bring out arms and cigarettes.

EU Bars Online Duty-free Sales
The European court of justice today effectively blocked online shoppers from buying cheap cigarettes and alcohol from anywhere in Europe.

Poland Fires Warning Shots at German Pleasure Boat
Polish border guards fired warning shots at a German pleasure boat in the Baltic Sea after a squabble over the legality of alcohol and cigarettes sold on board.

French Cafe Games Get a Tax Break
The image of the French cafe as a good place for a cigarette and a philosophical debate could soon be replaced by smoke-free darts tournaments.

Sporting Heroes Who Smoke
Just days before France played Portugal in the World Cup, photographers caught Zinedine Zidane having a crafty cigarette. It's not what we expect of sporting heroes, but, says Simon Hattenstone, that's because we've got very short memories.

He Only Likes Me When My Pants Aren’t On!
This is about love kind of …when I wrote this I was on my roof smoking and crying in the middle of the night.

If the Part Demands It
It would be ludicrous to censor smoking on stage given our tolerance for sex and violence. By Mark Lawson

Rugby Union: Smoking Habana's Try-a-game Record Piles Pressure on Wales
Bryan Habana - 'The Guy with Jet Shoes' - is a man on form and if Wales aren't careful his record will only get better.

Will They Never Stand Up to the Carmakers?
Air pollution kills many times more people than passive smoking, but Britain has failed even to meet feeble EU standards.

Belly-up Body Surfing, Brit-style
Surfing: Lining up beside contenders at the world body surfing championships on Oahu's North Shore will be a trio of beer-swigging, heavy-smoking friends from Cornwall who have sneaked in after setting up their own British competition.

Diary: Simon Bowers
Time, we think, to cast the Diary's microscope over Ken Clarke's eight-year career at British American Tobacco.

Bat Role Makes Clarke Him Unfit for Office
Kenneth Clarke's role in the morally dubious British American Tobacco renders him unfit for public office. George Monbiot

Tobacco Giants Face $14bn Claim
The US government yesterday said it was seeking $14bn (£7.7bn) in penalties against tobacco companies in a racketeering case that accused the industry of conspiring to hide the risks of smoking.

US Slashes Tobacco Reparations Demand By $120bn
Political pressure feared as prosecutors ask for only $10bn.

How Malawi's Livelihood Went Up in Smoke
Tobacco giants reap profits as price slump hits impoverished country's cash crop.

Family's Victory Against Bat Could Open Legal Floodgates
The world's second largest cigarette manufacturer, British American Tobacco, expressed "astonishment" yesterday as an Italian court found it responsible for the death of a lung cancer victim and must pay his heirs €200,000 (£140,000).

Am I really a sucker?
Part 2 of the smoking wars. Just another day of dysfunction and acceptance.

The Lesson is We Can All Be Subhuman
Why the latest reports of prisoner abuse in Iraq shouldn't surprise us. The inquiry evidence is clear enough. There was totally unacceptable violence: "whipping on the soles of the feet, burning with lighted cigarettes".

Athletics: Moore Escapes Drug Ban With 'passive' Smoking Plea
One of Britain's most talented athletes Jonathan Moore has been reprimanded after testing positive for cannabis.

Felix "tito" Trinidad Vs Ricardo Mayorga
October 2: Ricardo Mayorga is famous for drinking beer and smoking cigarettes in the ring but the Nicaraguan promises to make light work of Felix Trinidad.

Tobacco Giants Deny Fraud in $280bn Trial
The US government opened a $280bn civil trial against the giants of the tobacco industry yesterday, arguing that the firms conspired for decades to hide the dangers of smoking, and illegally marketed cigarettes to children. In the biggest tobacco trial to date, lawyers for the US justice...

'People Say We Should Go About Our Normal Lives. How Can We?'
For the four anxious-looking women taking a cigarette break yesterday morning on the corner of 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue, there was only one topic of conversation. Unlike former terror threats, the warnings from the department of homeland security on Sunday were remarkably specific...

Philip Morris Reaches $1.25bn Eu Agreement
Tobacco giant Philip Morris today agreed to pay $1.25bn (£674m) in a landmark agreement settling a long-running dispute with the EU over smuggling charges. Under the agreement - the biggest of its kind in the EU - Philip Morris, which manufactures the Marlboro, L&M and Chesterfield...

Graham Hughes: Calling Time on Pub Smoking
Will the smell of tobacco in British pubs soon be a thing of the past?

EU to Stop Subsidising Tobacco Crops Amid Concern at Health Costs
The EU is to withdraw the massive subsidies it pays to tobacco growers following a bitter battle among agricultural ministers in Brussels. The decision to withdraw payments for what is the most subsidised crop in Europe reflects unease about helping tobacco farmers while EU states...

Cigarette Giant to Pay $1bn to Eu
Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, has agreed to pay $1bn (£547m) to the European Union to tackle smuggling and counterfeit products and at the same time settle a long-standing legal dispute between the two sides. The amount is the highest ever extracted from a...

BAT Admits Longstanding Fear of Health Lawsuits
British American Tobacco was readying itself to fend off litigation over the health effects of smoking as early as the mid-1980s, its lawyers admitted yesterday, as they sought to prevent a former legal adviser from being forced to give evidence in a $290bn (£160bn) American lawsuit...

Days of Cheap French Drink May Be Numbered
After big tobacco tax rises, health advisers urge ministers to consider similar increases in alcohol prices.

Tobacco Grips the Smokers' Republic
Beijing dispatch: China's government insists it will get tough on smoking. It'll have a hard job, reports Jonathan Watts.

Protest at Cigarette Tax Rises
Up to 20,000 tobacconists marched through Paris yesterday in protest against successive heavy increases in cigarette taxes that they claim risk driving them out of business. In line with a campaign pledge last year by the president, Jacques Chirac, to make the fight against cancer one of...

BAT 'dragged Out' of Burma
Human rights campaigners were celebrating one of their biggest corporate victories last night after British American Tobacco agreed to quit Burma in a significant climbdown. The world's second largest cigarette group said it was leaving the military-run nation, which is also known as...

Gallaher Foothold in World's Largest Cigarette Market
Gallaher, the maker of Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut, hopes to spark off opportunities in the world's biggest cigarette market after signing a joint venture deal with China's Shanghai Tobacco Corporation. The British firm will make, distribute and sell its Memphis brand in the far...

French Tobacconists Shut Up Shop in Protest at Cigarette Tax Rise
Judging by those accosted around the Place de l'Opéra yesterday, most of France's 14m smokers had stockpiled cigarettes days in advance of yesterday's one-day national tobacconists' strike.

What Are Californians Smoking These Days?
California's new governor may be pondering what Californians smoke and where and what should be done about it. Writes Duncan Campbell.

Cigarette giant pays $2m to Texas girl disfigured in car blaze
A Texan girl who suffered disfiguring burns in a fire allegedly started by a smouldering cigarette has won an unprecedented $2m (£1.2m) settlement from the tobacco firm Philip Morris.

Best Case Scenario for Spanish Smokers
Spanish smokers have come up with a novel way of hiding the doomsday health messages that from today must appear on every cigarette packet in the European Union. They have rediscovered the old-fashioned cigarette case.

Jordan's Tobacco-free F1 Reality Tv
Sponsorship ban leads to Pop Idol-style contest concept.

Tobacco firm cuts jobs to save $1bn
RJ Reynolds, the maker of Camel cigarettes, is to cut 40% of its workforce, about 2,600 jobs, to restore the struggling company to growth.

Smoking them out
At a time when countries throughout Europe are beginning to relax their legislation on soft drugs, France is planning to introduce tougher penalties for cannabis users.

Stinking Shrimp Story Follows Bat From Burma to Bin
British American Tobacco - under fire in the UK over its refusal to withdraw from Burma - has caused a stink in the United States because of some mysterious seafood imports. A shipment of shrimps with the name of BAT subsidiary Rothmans of Pall Mall stamped all over it was impounded by...

General: No Excuses 5
I recently turned 18. It's not about buying porn, smoking cigarettes or staying up late: it's all about entering those contests at ESPN.com, baby!

Burma Activists Claim Victory Over Travel Links
Human rights activists yesterday claimed Abercrombie & Kent, the upmarket travel group, as the latest scalp in the campaign to terminate links with Burma's military dictatorship. Attention now switches to tobacco group British American Tobacco, which is under pressure from the UK...

Last Cigarette Factory in Seville, Home of Carmen, Closes
Carmen, the sultry cigarette-maker from Seville, and her kind will never again be seen after a multinational yesterday pulled the plug on the city's last tobacco factory. The thousands of feisty, independent-spirited female cigarette-rollers - the cigarreras - employed by Seville's...

Montenegrin PM accused of link with tobacco racket
Montenegro's prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, is under pressure to come clean about his alleged involvement in tobacco smuggling after Italian prosecutors linked him with an organised crime racket worth billions of euros.

Ban All Tobacco - Us Health Chief
Richard Carmona, the surgeon general of the United States, has said he would support the abolition of cigarettes and all tobacco products, the first time that such a senior public health official has taken that kind of stand over the industry. Dr Carmona's statement was welcomed yesterday...

Imperial Tobacco reports 40% profit surge
Imperial Tobacco today reported a 40% leap in half-year profits driven by its acquisition last year of German cigarette maker Reemtsma.

BAT defends US division
British American Tobacco yesterday insisted its Brown & Williamson business in the US was "not a sinking ship" despite the division more than halving its quarterly profits and preparing for the potentially crippling costs of a lawsuit over its branding of "light" cigarettes.

Chirac fires up crusade to stub out smoking
Fifteen years after kicking a two-packets-a-day habit to improve his presidential hopes, Jacques Chirac yesterday launched a "war on tobacco".

Cleeve Hill
Channel Four's Cheltenham Festival preview programme went out after midnight, which was no surprise considering the x-rated content. There was the very rare sight of a television presenter, Alastair Down, puffing on a cigarette and the words 'wanker' and 'prick' broadcast on the airwaves.

Waiting for war
The scent of apple tobacco swirled out of the nargilas and around the men sprawled on the tapestry cushions of the Babylon cafe. They were whiling away the hours with a new pastime last night: setting odds on the chances of war.

European Court Rules Against Tobacco Manufacturers
Three of the world's largest tobacco companies suffered a setback yesterday after the European court of first instance in Luxembourg ruled against them and refused to shield them from legal action linked to cigarette smuggling in the US. The action - initiated by the European commission...

Imperial Boss Held in German Smuggling Raid
An Imperial Tobacco main board director was yesterday charged by the German authorities after police and customs officials investigating allegations of smuggling and Iraqi sanctions busting raided the group's Reemtsma subsidiary. Hundreds of customs officials and police swooped on homes...

US governor to rule whether 160 must die
Oliver Ridgell's fatal mistake was refusing to light another man's cigarette. That was what the jury heard, anyway: it was 4am and Ridgell was parked with his girlfriend on Chicago's violence-plagued South Side when he noticed a figure loitering in the darkness.

Get Your Face Out Of My Cigarette!
An Open Letter from the Inveterate Smoker to the Antismoking Crusaders.

Cigar smoke, bung bandits and a not-so-ready Freddy
The whiff of cigar smoke, a camel hair coat, and Oliver Holt is in adolescent heaven. Mention such things and the Daily Mirror's chief sports writer is taken back to a youth spent in Stockport County's Main Stand, enduring his boyhood team's annual flirtations with re-election.

EU Tobacco Ad Ban 'not Tough Enough'
Britain yesterday opposed a new EU ban on tobacco advertising, complaining it did not go far enough, and vowed to press on with tougher legislation.

Philip Morris Factory is a Smoke-free Zone
The American tobacco giant Philip Morris has turned its Australian headquarters into a smoke-free workplace, in a move that anti-smoking campaigners have hailed as a breakthrough. The factory and offices in the Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin have been fitted with specially ventilated...

Brussels Sues Us Tobacco Giant for Money Laundering
The fight against cigarette smuggling took a new twist yesterday after the European commission accused RJ Reynolds, the world's second largest tobacco company, of selling black-market cigarettes to drug barons and mafiosi and of knowingly accepting the proceeds of crime.

The Golden Sham - Privatizing with Golden Shares
In a rare accord, both the IMF and independent analysts, have cautioned Bulgaria that its insistence on keeping golden shares in both its tobacco and telecom monopolies even after they are privatized - will hinder its ability to attract foreign investors to these already unappealing assets.

British American Tobacco Shares Fall
Shares in UK tobacco firm British American Tobacco (BAT) today fell sharply after Philip Morris issued a profits warning. In early trading in London, BAT dropped 39 points, or 5.7%, to 643.3 as Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro, lowered its revenue estimates for this year to a range of...

Blue-shirted Falangists are now the grey-bearded 'nostalgists'
Paco, the balding, bespectacled man who sets out his wares on a Formica table on the pavement in Calle Goya, was doing a brisk trade yesterday in Franco cigarette lighters, Falangist bumper stickers and patriotic red and gold braces.

Court Upholds Strict Eu Cigarette Rulings
'Mild' branding banned as tobacco firms lose appeal.

Italy aims to extinguish stars' smoky mystique
The next time Humphrey Bogart appears on a cinema screen in Italy, it might be with a health warning. The health minister has come up with a novel way of combating nicotine addiction: a warning flashing up as a subtitle when an actor lights a cigarette.

BAT Suffers First Legal Defeat Outside Us
British American Tobacco today suffered its first legal defeat outside the US, when an Australian court threw out the company's defence after it destroyed documents relevant to the case. A supreme court judge in the state of Victoria said he had rejected BAT's defence in a lawsuit filed...

Tobacco Firms 'deceived Public' With Low Tar Brands
The tobacco industry has "deliberately deceived" the public with low tar and light cigarettes, which are just as unhealthy as other brands, a report said today. The Tobacco Control journal claimed that it had seen industry documents showing that companies recognised that low tar products...

Imperial Close to German Conquest
Imperial Tobacco, the maker of Lambert & Butler and Embassy cigarettes, is on the brink of winning a €6bn (£3.67bn) auction for Germany's leading tobacco company, Reemtsma. The supervisory board of Tchibo, the family-controlled firm that controls Reemtsma, is due to meet...

BAT Reports Sharp Increase in Profits
British American Tobacco, the world's second-largest tobacco firm, today reported a 36% rise in 2001 profits despite difficult conditions in Argentina and Venezuela. The maker of Lucky Strike, Kent, Dunhill and Pall Mall said volume growth should resume in 2003 after a 2-3% dip this year...

Landmark Spanish Tobacco Case Begins
An epic court battle due to last more than five years began yesterday as a regional Spanish health authority became the first European government body to sue the tobacco giants for the cost of treating smoking-related diseases. The government of Andalucia, in southern Spain, said it spent...

'Rosemary, It's Now Time to Go' I Told Her
Rosemary Toole took a final draw on her cigarette before putting the plastic bag on her head that would help her drift into death. The man she had paid to assist her suicide said Toole had brought along enough helium to kill 20 people. Most of those asking Unitarian minister the Rev...

Top mobsters take it on the chin from Big Frankie
Big Frankie made nice with the guys, real nice. And he was a good fit with the Genovese crime family, earning their trust by an illegal cigarettes scam, just the way they liked it: lucrative and no one gets hurt.

But by yesterday 73 members of New York's biggest organised crime syndicate...