RazeWV

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 West Virginia ranks 21st in the nation in funding programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit, according to a national report released today by a coalition of public health organizations. West Virginia currently spends $6.9 million a year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, which is 24.7 percent of the $27.8 million recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last year, West Virginia ranked 25th, spending $6.7 million on...  click here for full article>>>

RICHMOND, Va. — Reynolds American Inc., maker of Camel cigarettes and Grizzly smokeless tobacco, is in talks to buy a Swedish company that helps people stop smoking, a tobacco expert who said he was briefed by people close to the talks told The Associated Press Monday. The second-largest U.S. tobacco company is eyeing Niconovum AB, which sells cigarette replacement products in gum, pouch and spray form outside the U.S., according to David Sweanor, a Canadian law professor and tobacco expert. The...  click here for full article>>>

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is being given new authority to regulate the manufacturing and marketing of tobacco, after President Obama signed the '”Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act" into law last June. Starting next summer, large labels, warning about the health risks associated with smoking, must cover at least half of the front and back of cigarette packs. Certain flavored cigarettes will also be banned, and words like 'light' and 'mild' will no longer be allowed. The FDA...  click here for full article>>>

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - The Red Ribbon program focuses on staying healthy and achieving goals. The schools use games and other activities to show kids how drugs, alcohol, and tobacco can affect those goals. Wednesday, the kids at Consolidated Elementary in Vigo County wrote letters to tobacco companies to let them know how they feel about their role in getting kids to smoke. "They're doing a good job of getting kids addicted. And so we want them to stop targeting kids," student Kelsey Farris...  click here for full article>>>

Today’s smokeless tobacco is just as addictive and marketed to the young By Geri Anne Kaikowski gkaikowski@timesleader.com It’s a misconception that just because you don’t smoke nicotine, it is less addictive and less dangerous than a cigarette. Mary Theresa Mazur of the former Steps To A HealthierPA, Luzerne County, which recently completed its five-year program, holds snuff products aimed at the teenage market. Mazur is currently an anti-smoking advocate for the Partnership for a Tobacco Free...  click here for full article>>>

For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study and, through personalized, proactive telephone counseling, significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting. These findings, by Arthur V. Peterson Jr., Ph.D., Kathleen A. Kealey and colleagues, are reported in a pair of papers in the Oct. 12 "Advance...  click here for full article>>>

WE all know that smoking can kill. It pollutes the air and leads to untold damage ... But does it harm the environment? Apparently, yes, it does. And the damage is three-fold. Firstly, for every cigarette smoked, trees are being cut down to make way for tobacco plantations. Tobacco is a very fragile plant, and needs to be sprayed with pesticides and chemicals to avoid disease. This is on top of the energy and water wasted in manufacturing cigarettes, that could otherwise be used to produce food to...  click here for full article>>>

MPs have agreed further action to protect young people from the dangers of taking up smoking and to support smokers who are trying to quit. At Report stage of the Health Bill in the Commons on Monday, MPs agreed the Government's proposals which mean that shops will no longer be allowed to promote tobacco in enticing multi-coloured displays. MPs also agreed to an amendment tabled by Ian McCartney MP to prohibit tobacco vending machines. The Government will take stock and consider how best to take this...  click here for full article>>>

Imperial Tobacco Canada destroyed up to 60 early studies that linked cigarettes to addiction and carcinogens, according to a review published Wednesday in the online Canadian Medical Association Journal. The internal studies, done from 1967 to 1984, were destroyed in 1992 on orders from head office at British American Tobacco in the United Kingdom to avoid "exposing the company to liability or embarrassment," the authors of the review say. The studies were later uncovered in British American...  click here for full article>>>

Island councilmen concur in ban on products that look more like candy than cigarettes Thursday, October 15, 2009 By PETER N. SPENCER ADVANCE CITY HALL BUREAU STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE -- They are sold right next to the candy and gum at stores across Staten Island -- products like strawberry-flavored mini-cigars packaged like lip gloss. And they will soon be illegal. Calling it a move that will help save children from a dangerous addiction, the City Council voted yesterday to ban sales of almost all...  click here for full article>>>

American Legacy Foundation Works With Series to Spread 'Truth' Message Advertising Age Posted by Karen Egolf on 10.02.09 @ 02:32 PM The American Legacy Foundation is working with MTV's "Made" to tie in its "Truth" antismoking campaign with the show. The five-week effort starts with the Oct. 3 episode of the series, which gives young adults the opportunity to make their dreams come true through dedication, hard work and assistance from MTV. The "Made: The 'Truth' Rider Challenge" segments...  click here for full article>>>

CHARLESTON, W.Va. --  A Charleston bar owner who flouted the Kanawha County smoking ban for more than a year will no longer allow his customers to light up. Kerry "Paco" Ellison, who owns the Blackhawk Saloon, said the state Alcohol Beverage Control Administration threatened to revoke his liquor license Tuesday night if he continued to allow patrons to smoke. "They said if they see one cigarette, they'll begin the revocation process," Ellison said. "In other words, checkmate." Earlier this...  click here for full article>>>

Tobacco companies are increasingly going online to promote their wares as governments ban or regulate their ability to advertise, an Australian researcher has warned. Sydney Medical School's Becky Freeman has uncovered what she describes as the "alarming sophistication" of online marketing by the tobacco industry. More than 150 nations, including Australia, have introduced restrictions on tobacco advertising across traditional media such as television, radio and print, yet Ms Freeman says online...  click here for full article>>>

RADCLIFF — Dozens in attendance Tuesday night at the first of two smoke-related forums scheduled at the Colvin Community Center were almost reverential in their response to the handful of medical professionals and health advocates making up the night’s panel, but this reverence didn’t restrain the reactions to the statistics and information provided. The forum focused intently on the health debate that swirls around smoking and its counterpart, secondhand smoke, and was hosted by the Hardin County...  click here for full article>>>

Nitro - NITRO, W.Va. (AP) - The stakes in a battle between Tri-State Racing and Gaming Center and Kanawha County health officials over smoking are getting higher. Nitro City Council plans to vote Aug. 18 on whether to allow a smoking section at the racetrack. If adopted, the ordinance would conflict with the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department's ban on smoking in public places. Kanawha County health director Anita Ray says in a letter to the state Alcohol Beverage Control Administration that a...  click here for full article>>>

American Legacy Foundation Works With Series to Spread 'Truth' Message Advertising Age Posted by Karen Egolf on 10.02.09 @ 02:32 PM The American Legacy Foundation is working with MTV's "Made" to tie in its "Truth" antismoking campaign with the show. The five-week effort starts with the Oct. 3 episode of the series, which gives young adults the opportunity to make their dreams come true through dedication,...  click here for full article>>>

WATERLOO - Shocking pictures of diseased lungs, a brain damaged from a stroke and other disturbing images that appear on cigarette packs in Canada are effective in informing people about the harms of smoking and motivating smokers to quit, says a new University of Waterloo review article. Canada was the first country to introduce pictorial warnings in 2001 and, over the past nine years, 27 other countries have introduced similar Canadian-style pictorial warnings on tobacco packaging. Many other...  click here for full article>>>

Washington - WASHINGTON Coming soon to the lives of American smokers: cigarette labels that go far beyond a simple warning. Imagine gruesome color photographs showing a mouth riddled with cancer, lungs blackened, a foot rotten with gangrene. If the images sound sickening, well, that's the point. Under a law signed by President Obama on June 22 - the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act - tobacco companies will be required to cover 50 percent of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages with...  click here for full article>>>