Plain cigarette packaging is set to be the next battleground for anti-smoking groups in Australia, after they won another series of victories yesterday.

Mr Harper said packaging would be the next focus: "The packet is where the tobacco industry positions a lot of the image and attributes that they want to appeal to existing and new smokers."

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A San Francisco Superior Court judge threw out a Walgreens lawsuit Friday that attempted to stop San Francisco’s ordinance banning tobacco sales by pharmacies.

On Dec. 1, the Boston Public Health Commission approved a similar law, banning tobacco sales in pharmacies and drug stores, as well as hospitals and colleges. The law is set to take effect in February.

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Financial analysts estimate that Philip Morris spends about $100 million a year on research to help them create the cigarette of the future - one, that a smoker would not want to stop smoking, of course…

They are looking at different fibers and gels, and even plastics and metals to put into the cigarettes!

And their research efforts also include finding alternatives to getting people into the nicotine habit without actually burning any tobacco. 

Click below for all the details.

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I have warned here many times about Big Tobacco’s misleading claims regarding so-called "light cigarettes".

The Supreme Court now ruled that smokers can sue tobacco companies for their allegedly deceptive marketing of those products. Needless to say, any existing claims by ex-smokers against tobacco companies will experience a strong support from this ruling.

The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that smokers can sue Altria and other tobacco companies for allegedly deceptive marketing of "light" or "low tar" cigarettes.

The high court said such lawsuits are allowed under federal law in a 5-4 decision that will add weight to massive claims filed by ex-smokers against Altria, whose Philip Morris unit is best known for Marlboro cigarettes, and other big tobacco producers.

The case involved three residents of the northeast state of Maine who puffed on Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights for 15 years and had argued they had a right under state law to sue the companies for allegedly deceiving smokers that light cigarettes were healthier.

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It’s a exhibit of print advertising that is as filled with stunning creativity as it is with pure horror: Santa Claus hawks cigarettes. Doctors recommend cigarettes as cures for various ailments. Dentists urge their patients to smoke. Babies endorse the cigarettes their "daddies" smoke.

The display -covering ad agency output from the 1920s to the 1950s- fills the walls at the Science, Industry and Business branch of the New York Public Library.

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New data from the federal government show that cigarette consumption in the U.S. has decreased by an estimated 28 percent, or 135 billion cigarettes, over the past decade, which marks a major milestone in public health and tobacco control, according to the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) and the American Legacy Foundation® – the nation’s largest public health foundation dedicated to reducing tobacco use in the U.S.

Ten years after the state Attorneys General negotiated the landmark 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with tobacco companies, cigarette consumption has continued to decline and the landscape around tobacco use has shifted significantly.

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Reason To Stop Smoking: Cigarettes Are Unreasonably Dangerous, Tobacco Lawyer Admits

While Alvin Davis, lawyer for Ligget Group Inc (maker of Chesterfield cigarettes) admits that "cigarettes are unreasonable dagerous", he also believes that "the question is whether that alone is a sufficient basis to hold the manufacturer liable"!

Reason enough for Davis to ask the Florida Supreme Court to reverse a $545,000 product liability verdict Thursday because the ailing smoker who won the judgment wasn’t required to prove the company could have made a safer cigarette!!!

WHAT???

Find the whole unbelievable story below.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

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Reasons To Stop Smoking: San Francisco - Judge Denies Bid To Stop Ban On Cigarette Sales In Drug Stores

A federal judge denied a motion by Philip Morris USA Inc. for a preliminary injunction that would have put on hold San Francisco’s ban on tobacco sales by pharmacies until the cigarette company’s lawsuit against the city is resolved.

The ordinance is the first of its kind in the nation. It was approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in July, signed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in August and went into effect Oct. 1. Read my post on that.

Philip Morris, the nation’s largest cigarette company, argued in court filings that the city’s regulation violates the First Amendment because it effectively forces tobacco companies to pull the advertising that accompanies its products in drug stores.

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As of today, drugstores in San Francisco can no longer sell cigarettes.

While this basically sounds like a good idea, it is limited to drugstores only! Meaning: Any grocery store with a pharmacy in it can actually continue to sell cigarettes in San Francisco!!!

Lawmakers argue that sick folks shouldn’t be confronted with cancer-causing products when getting their medications at drugstores. – So what about the masses of people who get their prescriptions at a pharmacy at Safeway’s or CostCo?

Needless to say, the Walgreen’s chain and Philip Morris have filed lawsuites against San Francisco, contending this distinction violates the law.

Believe me, I am all for that kind of ban - but it should make more sense than what the city came up with thus far.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

Click below for a complete article on this topic from the San Francisco Chronicle

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The next time you are watching an old Hollywood movie from the 30s, 40s, or 50s, look at how Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Henry Fonda (and many, many other idols of ‘cool’) just can’t seem to ever stop smoking! The Los Angeles Times as well as some other media now revealed the reason why…

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

 

Actors from the golden age of Hollywood were paid thousands of dollars by tobacco companies to smoke and endorse their products.

A study reveals how more than 200 stars, including matinee idols John Wayne, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, all benefited and one firm paid more than $3m in today’s money in a year.

In return, the tobacco firms funded print and radio adverts for the stars and their films.

The research by the University of California, published in the journal Tobacco Control, shows how film classics of the Thirties and Forties still help to advertise smoking today.

The extent of smoking promotion was revealed following the release of documents from anti-smoking court cases.

Gable, Tracy, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford were all top earners in 1937, each taking $10,000 ($146,583 today) in one year’s sponsorship from American Tobacco, makers of the Lucky Strike brand.

Bette Davis and Betty Gable were also among 50 household names giving endorsements-with others such as Bob Hope paid $2,500 ($36,646).

Deals started as talkies took off with Jazz Singer’ star Al Jolson testifying that Lucky Strike was ‘the cigarette of the acting profession’.

The study, which concentrated on the period between 1927 and 1951, points to classic films such as Casablanca and Now, Voyager that feature prominent smoking scenes, and says glamorous publicity posters helped to ‘perpetuate public tolerance’.

Other brands that benefited from the celebrity endorsement included Old Gold, Chesterfield and Camel.

 

The researchers claim that as a result, more young people took up smoking during the era because they were influenced by Hollywood stars.

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