A Department of Revenue hearing later this week will address so-called "little cigars," which smoking opponents view as a marketing gimmick used by tobacco companies to make their products attractive to kids and to skirt cigarettes taxes.
A proposed tweaking of state law would classify as cigarettes several little cigar products that currently are taxed at a much lower rate.
The change would apply cigarettes taxes to any product that meets two or more of eight criteria, including being sold in packs of 20 or 25 or cartons of 10 packs, having the same size and shape as regular cigarettes or having a filter.
At a press conference Tuesday, representatives of health groups pointed out that some little cigars come in flavors like cherry or mint cholocate and have saccharin in the filters to sweeten the taste. Aside from being wrapped in brown paper instead of white, they look a lot like cigarettes .
Some come in packs of 20 that are barely discernable on the outside from traditional Marlboro , while others come one at a time in slim plastic packages that could be confused for lip gloss or makeup. Standard cigarettes are required to be sold in packs of 20 to 25.
The researchers base their findings on annual surveys of almost 6000 eleven to 16 year olds attending 36 representative schools across South London, and measurements of salivary cotinine, a biochemical indicator of nicotine intake.
Sources in national broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) said the channel was forced not to bid for rights to telecast this year's Formula One Racing event as it would have meant showing the sponsor - a major international tobacco player - on the players' T-shirts, on the cars and all across the venue of the race.
In 2004, 14% of 11 year olds and 62% of 15 year olds in England said they had experimented with cigarettes .
However, senior officials in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) said every television channel "should, at all costs, conform to the law of the land in which it is telecasting its programmes. Indian laws have completely banned advertising by cigarettes ;having dull skin and hair, and yellowed nails; and being out of shape and breathless.
The cashier said the man asked for two cartons of cigarettes .she placed them on the counter and began to ring them up, the man reached across the counter and grabbed the cigarettes to take them. The cashier said she held onto the cigarettes and a struggle occurred.
During the struggle, the cashier said she was struck in the face.
The cashier told officers she was able to bite the suspect, possibly on the hand, during the attack.
The robber took the cigarettes and ran out of the gas station, heading north and disappearing into a nearby apartment complex.
The nation's largest cigarettes maker is disputing a study by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health that found nicotine in cigarettes has risen about 10 percent in the past six years.
Durazzo points out that while severe, such a strategy might be effective because among alcoholics, "cigarettes and alcohol tend to go together. One may elicit cravings for the other. So if you are able to give up both at the same time, it may increase your chances of staying sober, because you don't have one substance serving as a trigger for use of the other."
The Melbourne event is one of a shrinking number of events on the Grand Prix circuit to continue to allow smoking advertisements.Tobacco advertising is banned at sporting events, but the Melbourne Grand Prix has been given an exemption.
The locus on chromosome four involves a cluster of roughly 200 genes, including some that are involved in alcohol metabolism. But saying there's a propensity for alcoholism behavior based on that chromosome location would not be very predictive, in part because it remains unknown exactly which genes or combination of genes play a role in this behavioral effect, Wilhelmsen said.
The study also found the three most popular cigarettes brands with young smokers - Marlboro , Newport and Camel - delivered significantly more nicotine than they did years ago.
According to state statute section 53-344, any person who sells, gives or delivers tobacco to a person under the age of 18 shall be fined not more than $200 for the first offense, not more than $350 for a second offense within an 18-month period and not more than $500 for each subsequent offense within an 18-month period.
"This shows that the tobacco industry's influence on our nation's health extends far beyond policies directly concerned with smoking or cigarettes said Ruth Malone, RN, PhD, associate professor in the UCSF School of Nursing and senior author on the study.
Donna Rheaume, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health, defended the report, which concluded that the higher nicotine levels made it easier to get hooked on cigarettes and harder to quit.
The tobacco companies are appealing the ruling and have asked for a stay of Kessler's order while they pursue that appeal.
Shouting anti-tobacco slogans, the message of the secondary students was loud and clear. “Students are buying tobacco products because they are easily available in the vicinity of the school,” Uma Mahesh (14), a class IX student, said. The government imposed a ban on manufacture, sale and distribution of tobacco products within 100 metres of educational institutions in August 2002.
Debate exists on how many cancer deaths are preventable in principle-estimates range from 50 percent to 80 percent-but most researchers agree that tobacco use (mostly smoking) accounts for the majority. Today, Camel smoking claims about 438,000 premature deaths in the U.S. annually. It is responsible for up to one-third of all cancer deaths and accounts for 20 percent of annual U.S. mortality due to all causes, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., did not vote on the amendment July 15 due to an injury he suffered in a July 3 motorcycle accident, but his press secretary said he supports the amendment.
Two facts about smokers rivet cancer researchers: the notion that not everyone who tries cigarettes becomes addicted, and the knowledge that only a fraction of long-term smokers (about 15 percent) will develop lung cancer, although tobacco also is responsible for one-third of all cardiovascular deaths under age 85.
Differences also are likely between smokers in their physiological responses-how their bodies vary in susceptibility to the cancer-causing compounds in cigarettes -which implies that agents might be designed that help prevent cancer from developing or treat it more.
Donna Rheaume, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health, defended the report, which concluded that the higher nicotine levels made it easier to get hooked on cigarettes effectively if it does. To explore these topics, other teams of researchers in the Department of Epidemiology and the Department of Clinical Cancer Prevention are working together.