Tobacco.org Updates

THIS WEEK'S HOT SPOTS:

It's all over but the appealing! The 10-year saga of the DOJ trial continues. Visit: http://www.tobacco-on-trial.com.
Late-Breaking DOJ Trial News is here: http://www.tobacco.org/articles/lawsuit/doj/

Latest Top Tobacco Headlines

Latest Quotes

  • “If limiting distribution and limiting the visibility of this dangerous product reduces smoking in communities, we believe pharmacists would be more than happy to be part of the program”
    San Francisco entrepreneur Stuart Skorman, who wants to make pharmacies the only places that sell tobacco products.
    » Push to restrict tobacco sales to drugstores, San Francisco Chronicle (Friday, November 6, 2009)
  • “It is not an advertisement if there are no words.”
    Ms Chim, a vendor who said tobacco companies helped her renovate her stand by adding display boxes, and were still paying her about HK$3,000 a month in "advertising fees"--even though her posters and banners had been taken down as Hong Kong's final phase of its advertising ban took effect.
    » Display boxes for cigarettes may be illegal ($$), South China Morning Post (Monday, November 2, 2009)
  • “A fully scientifically-based Misuse of Drugs Act where drug classification accurately reflects harms would be a powerful educational tool. Using the Act in a political way to give messages other than those relating to relative harms undermines the Act and does great damage to the educational message. We also have to fully endorse harm reduction approaches at all levels and especially stop the artificial separation of alcohol and tobacco as ‘non-drugs’.”
    Professor David Nutt
    » Estimating drug harms: a risky business? (PDF), Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (uk) (Thursday, October 1, 2009)
  • “The Good Life—that is the art of living. A culture of its own that revolves around taking time, perceiving the world with all the senses in order to experience the fine nuances of pleasure. ”
    Davidoff's "The Good Life" campaign. The Davidoff Swiss indoor tennis tournament is under fire.
    » Tobacco sponsorship of tennis tournament goes ahead because of weak Swiss legislation, says campaigning group , British Medical Journal (Monday, October 19, 2009)
  • “Modern living has exposed people to a variety of toxic substances. Illness and disease from exposure to these substances are often latent, not manifesting themselves for years or even decades after the exposure. Our tort law developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . . . We must adapt to the growing recognition that exposure to toxic substances and radiation may cause substantial injury which should be compensable even if the full effects are not immediately apparent.”
    MA Supreme Court Justice Francis X. Spina, writing for the court in the Donovan medical monitoring suit.
    » SJC: Philip Morris may have to pay for diagnostic tests for smokers , Boston (MA) Globe (Monday, October 19, 2009)
  • “[W]e got 80 percent of the people who were going to quit smoking to quit smoking. That's great, but the next 20 percent is going to be tough. Smoking tends to be a disease of poverty and lack of education. Thirty years ago, 50 percent of the population smoked and now we're down to roughly 25 percent. What we have left is a very select group of people.”
    Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans.
    » Smoking Keeps Its Grip on Urban Poor , HealthDay [HealthScout] (Friday, October 16, 2009)
  • “Golden Holocaust: A History of Global Tobacco”
    Tentative title of Robert N. Proctor's work-in-progress. RJR is battling in a Florida court for a sneak preview.
    » Scholars' Right to Keep Unpublished Work Private Is at Issue in Lawsuit, Florida Board of Governors - State University System (Wednesday, October 14, 2009)
  • “Tobacco packaging is no longer the 'silent salesman' it once was, now it shouts loudly. These screams for attention are used to defy advertising bans and drown out health warnings. The industry will fight tenaciously but the only consistent and effective policy response is generic packaging.”
    Professor Gerard Hastings , lead researcher based at the Institute for Social Marketing at the University of Stirling.
    » Tobacco Research Reveals The Packet Racket, Medical News TODAY(UK) (Tuesday, October 13, 2009)
  • “I found no support for the claim that a display ban is likely to cause a reduction in smoking prevalence. In contrast, tobacco price increases, driven mainly by increases in taxes, had a negative and statistically significant impact on smoking prevalence. Furthermore, other tobacco control measures, like bans on smoking in public areas and health warnings on cigarette packages were effective tobacco control measures, as they had a negative and statistically significant effect on smoking prevalence.”
    Display bans must be tremendously threatening to Philip Morris if its own report establishes taxes, warning labels and smoking bans as effective tobacco control measures. It seems PM would prefer ANYTHING but a display ban.
    » The effectiveness of display bans: the case of Iceland (PDF), Banning the Display of Tobacco Products (Philip Morris International) (ch) (Thursday, October 1, 2009)
  • “The country is swamped in legislation that is making life very difficult for compliant retailers like me. The ban on the display of cigarettes is just one example of a piece of over-regulation that has negatively affected my business. As a law-abiding retailer, I have a responsibility to my employees to make sure that I can continue to employ them going forward.”
    Donegal Town shopkeeper Maurice Timony--the local presence Philip Morris partnered with to bring a lawsuit in Ireland--sounding just like a corporate press release.
    » Shopkeeper and cigarette giant unite to fight Irish tobacco law , The Guardian (uk) (Monday, October 5, 2009)
MORE QUOTES »