Tobacco Resolution

The Centers for Disease Control says more than 2.5 million Floridians are smokers. A number of anti-smoking groups are still trying to reduce that number.

Middle and High School students met at Springfield City Hall Monday to ask city officials to support Tobacco Resolution 11-04.

The Resolution is a statewide initiative from Students Working Against Tobacco or SWAT. It calls attention to tobacco companies marketing of so-called candy flavored tobacco products.

SWAT members say the tobacco companies are using the candy flavored product to market directly to kids. They’re hoping the resolution will have some influence on retail stores.

Lauren Coffman, County Representative "It's to urge to stop the sale of candy flavored tobacco. Within Bay County, the average initiation rate for tobacco is the age of eleven." Flavored tobacco can be Kiss cigarettes or GLamour cigarettes.

Many are divided on new cigarette labels

Kerry "Smokey" Hicks, owner of the Smokin' Fisherman in Clermont has on his counter a cigarette pack from Mexico, which shows the image of a dead baby lying on a bed of cigarette butts.

"I think it's stupid. How many different ways are they going to tell people cigarettes are bad for your health? It's foolish," Hicks said.

Nevertheless, the U.S. government is going to take cigarette warning labels a step farther by including a graphic photo of the negative health effects smoking causes.

The nine new images, which include a man with a tracheotomy smoking, a man with an oxygen mask and a sewn-up corpse, will be printed on the top half, both front and back of the packs. The images must appear on cigarette packs by the fall of 2012.

On Tobacco Nanny, paternalism and public health

As regular Croakey readers may know, I come out in hives when people start invoking warnings of a “Nanny State”.

Often those waving the Nanny flag have some vested interest in flogging illness-producing products, like cigarettes, alcohol or junk food.

Very demanded cigarettes are Chesterfield cigarettes and Red&White cigarettes.

Entirely predictably, the tobacco industry has trotted out Nanny as part of its campaign against plain packaging. Here is Tobacco Nanny, if you haven’t already had the pleasure…

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Library’s FlagPost blog has provided a wider framework for analysing Nanny and Co.

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Is it really as simple as Nanny versus individual choice?

Luke Buckmaster and Matthew Thomas write:

In recent times, a number of Australian Government policy initiatives have been criticised as ‘nanny state’ or ‘paternalist’ policies.

Describing policies in this way resonates with concerns held by many that there should be limits to the extent to which governments should protect people from the consequences of their choices.

But are there circumstances in which some help from ‘nanny’ can be justified?

This week the tobacco industry launched a nation-wide media campaign in an attempt to stop the Government introducing plain packaging for all tobacco products sold in Australia.

The industry has based its campaign around the idea that the policy is a ‘nanny state’ measure. The campaign has been based around the argument that by requiring the removal of tobacco-industry branding and trademarks, the Government is effectively treating Australians as though they were children, incapable of making their own decisions about whether or not to smoke.

Similar arguments have been made with regard to the Government’s plan to introduce a mandatory pre-commitment scheme for poker machines.

Senator Cory Bernardi, for example, has dubbed the plan ‘nanny state nonsense’, criticising it on the grounds that it treats all Australians as though they were unable to control their gambling impulses. Senator Bernardi goes on to emphasise that policies that involve individuals devolving their personal responsibility to the state should be ‘resisted at almost any cost’.

However, despite this type of criticism, very few people argue that the state has no role to play in restricting the choices of individual citizens in certain areas for their own good.

Arguably, the central issue is not so much whether paternalism is legitimate, but rather when it is legitimate. For example, often people who criticise paternalism in one area (say, welfare reform) may be supportive of it in another area (say, tobacco control).

What then should be the parameters of the nanny state? When is paternalism justified and when does it cross the line?

We considered these issues in a recent Parliamentary Library Research Paper on paternalism in social policy.

The starting position of the paper was that, in liberal-democratic societies, there continues to be a strong presumption against paternalist policies based on the principle that individuals are the best judge of their own interests. People are committed to the idea that they have a right to make choices for themselves.

Critics of paternalism also argue that it is ultimately counterproductive because it leads to dependence on governments and diminishes self-reliance. Critics also point to instances of paternalism ‘gone wrong’—where the state has intervened with the best of intentions but sometimes with significant negative unintended consequences (see James Scott’s Seeing like a state, for example).

Nevertheless, as public policy academic Bills New has suggested*, while it is difficult for many people in liberal societies to accept paternalism in principle, it is ‘equally difficult to avoid in practice’. All but the most dogmatic adherents to libertarian or choice theories recognise the inevitability, and in some cases, the potential benefits of paternalist interventions on the part of the state.

This leads to a dilemma: how can governments meet their obligations to ensure the welfare of citizens without interfering in people’s choices?

Political philosopher, Robert Goodin’s **way through this dilemma is to say that paternalism can be justified if it is consistent with a person’s own deeper values, objectives or choices. According to this approach, paternalism can be about helping people to address failures (for example, failures of reasoning or weakness of will) that prevent them from acting in their own best interests.

Goodin identifies various conditions under which he considers that paternalism can be justified. First, he says that the state should only intervene in instances where (a) high-stakes decisions are involved and/or (b) where decisions are more or less irreversible. Goodin cites, as an example, the decision to begin taking addictive drugs.

Second, Goodin says that several requirements must be met if people’s choices are not to be respected, and state interference considered justifiable. As Goodin sees it, paternalism is only justifiable in instances where public officials better respect a person’s own preferences than the person might have done through his or her own actions or choices. This means that public officials should not interfere with people’s choices if they are convinced that people are acting in accordance with their actual preferences.

For example, Goodin makes a distinction between ‘surface’ preferences and ‘deeper’ or ‘relevant’ preferences’. He argues that where people make factual mistakes in their reasoning (they may, of course, be led to do so by advertisers), and their surface preferences (to smoke or gamble despite their limited income) undermine their own deeper preferences (to stay alive, not be ill or in poverty), then it may be justifiable to override their surface preferences in favour of their deeper or relevant preferences.

As another example, Goodin suggests that people have ‘preferred preferences’—preferences that, despite their making different, contradictory or opposing choices, they would actually rather prioritise. For example, a smoker may want to quit smoking but experiences great difficulty in doing so (many smokers are in precisely this position).

Where public policies help people to realise their preferred preferences (through, for example, making it more expensive or inconvenient for people to smoke), then such policies cannot be said to be paternalistic in a morally unjustifiable sense. As Goodin observes, ‘in helping them to implement their own preferred preferences, we are only respecting people’s own priorities’.

In instances such as these where some of a person’s preferences clearly deserve precedence over others, there may be a case for paternalism. Paternalism may or may not be justifiable against such criteria and it remains a matter for debate whether or not a given intervention is justified merely by satisfying such criteria. However, the point is that it is not enough to argue against a given intervention simply on the grounds that it is a nanny state measure or paternalistic.

Nanny state arguments highlight the concerns of many in liberal-democratic societies that states should not place undue restraints on individual freedoms.

However, Goodin’s approach illustrates that the formation of choices can be a far more complex act than is generally supposed and that there may be instances in which nanny’s interference can be warranted in terms of helping a person to achieve that which they truly value.

CONSUMER GROUP PRAISES FDA CONCESSION TO COURT OF APPEALS RULING

On April 25 the FDA announced its decision to forego petitioning for Supreme Court review of the legal victory won last December by a major electronic cigarette distributor. "This is a profound landmark in the federal legal definition and regulation of smoke-free tobacco and other nicotine products", stated Yolanda Villa, Legal Director for the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA).

"With the question of highly restrictive and cost-prohibitive drug product classification finally put to rest in favor of reasonable regulation as an alternative and less hazardous tobacco product, electronic cigarette sales will continue to increase, and many more retailers will probably begin to make them available to their customers", said Ms. Villa.

"The FDA's decision to regulate electronic cigarettes under the Tobacco Act is a great victory for public health," stated Dr. Theresa Whitt, M.D., CASAA Medical Director.

"We estimate that over a million smokers have switched to electronic cigarettes," stated Dr. Whitt. "As a result of avoiding the toxins, carcinogens, and particulates in smoke they are reporting their health has improved. Regulating electronic cigarettes as medical devices would have resulted in these life-saving products being removed from the market, pending lengthy and expensive clinical trials."

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are battery-operated devices that heat a liquid solution to create a vapor. Medical experts say that the combination of mimicking the hand-to-mouth action of smoking as well as providing adequate nicotine make the products an acceptable long-term substitute for smoking.

Providing safer long-term substitutes for cigarette smoking is a public health approach referred to as Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR). Dr. Whitt remarked, "Opponents of the THR approach claim that it delays or prevents nicotine cessation in people who might otherwise quit using nicotine. On the other hand, it is more likely that insisting on nicotine cessation delays or prevents smoking abstinence in people who might otherwise quit smoking."

Dr. Whitt stated that the profile of an e-cigarette user is a middle-aged adult who smoked for decades and tried numerous times to quit smoking, without lasting success. "All of the medically approved smoking cessation treatments require the smoker to give up nicotine as well as smoking," said Dr. Whitt. "The Tobacco Advisory Group of the Royal College of Physicians reported that changes in brain structure and function can impair the ability of smokers to achieve and sustain abstinence. Some smokers may never be able to quit all nicotine use."

Program offers free training on smokeless tobacco

A tobacco prevention program offers a free training about the use of new forms of smokeless tobacco Tuesday afternoon.

The training, hosted by the Solano County Tobacco Prevention and Education Program, will start at 4 p.m., at the Solano County Health and Social Services' conference room No. 1. The address is 275 Beck Ave.

The training will cover the effects of the new tobacco products, including dissolvable strips, and nicotine delivery devices including e-cigarattes and hookahs.

Guest speaker Kimberlee Homer Vagadori, of the California Youth Advocacy Network, and TPEP Project Director Felicia Flores-Workman, MPH, will describe the emerging tobacco products, how they are designed to target youth, and how individuals can become advocates in their communities.

Wakulla Co. Targets Underage Alcohol / Tobacco Sales

The Wakulla County Sheriff’s Office conducted a two day undercover operation to combat the sale of alcohol, Spice and tobacco to underage teenagers, according to Sheriff David Harvey.

The most demanded tobacco products are cigarettes as Camel Blue cigarettes or Marlboro Red cigarettes.

Members of the Criminal Investigations Division and WCSO Narcotics Unit began the operation March 22 and visited eight Wakulla County businesses to determine if the businesses were selling products to underage citizens.

A 17-year-old male entered the Chevron gas station located at 2911 Crawfordville Highway and departed after purchasing a four pack of beer, cigars and a packet of Spice. Lt. Sherrell Morrison identified the clerk through the teenager and issued Timmy Jerrell Hills, 30, of Tallahassee a notice to appear in court for selling liquor and tobacco to an underage age person.

On March 23, the same operation issued a notice to appear to Melanie Anne Gestl, 55, of Crawfordville for selling liquor to a person under age 21. The teenager purchased alcohol at the Sky Box bar at 2581 Crawfordville Highway. The teenager was allowed to purchase beer.

On March 23, Mikel Lianne Coleman, 21, of Crawfordville was issued a notice to appear in court for selling alcohol to a person under age 21. The operation targeted Victor’s restaurant at 2000G Crawfordville Highway. The teenager walked into the establishment and purchased a beer.

“Several citizen complaints have been received by my office alleging that underage citizens could purchase alcohol or tobacco products at these locations in Crawfordville,” said Sheriff Harvey. “We will continue to monitor this type of activity to make sure that we are limiting underage access to these products.”

The undercover operation visited five other locations where the underage teenager was refused his request to purchase the products.

Tobacco Corporations Step Up Invasion of Developing Countries

Facing greater restriction in the USA and other industrialized countries, transnational tobacco companies are increasingly marketing their products in developing countries, particularly among women and adolescents.

While smoking rates in some industrialized countries are decreasing at about 1% a year, those in developing countries are increasing at around 3% per year. It is estimated that, if current trends persist for the next 30 years, seven million people from developing countries will die every year from smoking-related diseases.

For the past several years, corporations such as Philip Morris,producer of Virginia Slims cigarettes, RJ Reynolds, creator of Camel cigarettes and British-American Tobacco, producer of Dunhill cigarettes have been expanding rapidly in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Tobacco-provoked deaths can only add to the inequities in health of ethnic and minority populations. Jeanette Noltenius, an expert on tobacco and alcohol abuse issues, stated, “In the US, minorities such as Hispanics have been specifically targeted by the tobacco companies since the early 1960s, and have received a double dose of advertising (in Spanish and English).”

According to data from the Bureau of Census, US Department of Commerce, Latino smoking youth will triple in size in 2020 in the U.S., increasing from 9% of the national youth population to 19%.

Since the early 1980s, US trade officials, with help from the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), have led a sustained campaign to open markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand among the Asian nations.

In Taiwan, US officials' efforts to force Taiwan to open its markets to US tobacco products have resulted in increased smoking, particularly among women and children. Talking about US government support for American tobacco companies, a corporation executive remarked, ‘We expect such support. That's why we vote them in.’

These actions have prompted the Asia-Pacific Association for the Control of Tobacco to protest strongly at what they consider an invasion of their countries by US companies targeting Asian women and children. The Association has complained about the strong-arm tactics used by US government officials in their countries. A report from the US General Accounting Office established that ‘US policy and programs for assisting the export of tobacco and tobacco products work at cross purposes to US health policy initiatives, both domestically and internationally’.

Several studies have shown that in the poorest households in developing countries 10 percent or more of the total household expenditure is on tobacco. As a result, there is less money to spend on some basic items such as food, education and health care needs, thus increasing malnutrition, illiteracy and premature death.

In China, tobacco companies have been moving steadily inland with intense promotional campaigns. It is estimated that of the world's 1.71 billion smokers, more than 350 million are in China, where lung cancer has been increasing at a rate of 4.75% a year.

The Chinese government is facing the dilemma of promoting tobacco cessation policies while it is heavily dependent on earnings from the state-run monopoly tobacco company. However, researchers with the School of Public Health at the University of California state that raising the tobacco tax fifteen cents per cigarette pack could save more than 13 million lives and generate $9.5 billion in revenue for the Chinese government.

Lured by financial gains from growing tobacco, millions of hectares in China are presently under cultivation. Gains from the sale of tobacco, however, may be just short-term, since the costs of treating lung cancer and other related diseases amply exceed the tobacco profits. According to experts, those excess costs are $200 billion annually on a global scale, one-third of which is incurred by developing countries.

While anti-smoking efforts gather momentum in the USA, those efforts are far less effective in developing countries. Such countries' policies will not be as effective unless transnational tobacco firms are made to limit their aggressive advertisements.

Countries in Asia and Latin America are conducting health-education campaigns and have passed legislation to control smoking. Up to now, several countries worldwide have enacted legislation to control tobacco consumption. Although in general this legislation has been passed at the national level, in the USA, Canada, and in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean these laws are being enacted by state or local bodies.

Despite increasing condemnation by public health officials and the World Health Organization (WHO), international companies continue with their indiscriminate tobacco-promotional efforts in developing countries, at a high human cost. As things stand now, only a multidisciplinary strategy including education, taxation, legislation, and regulation of trade practices of transnational corporations will be able to control this pandemic.

MCCH Bd. reviews tobacco policy

A recommendation by the Murray-Calloway County Hospital administration to allow for the use of tobacco products by hospital patients, visitors and employees has been delegated to a committee for further study by the MCCH Board of Trustees.
The topic originally came up during a meeting of the personnel committee Tuesday afternoon. John Wilson, vice president of human resources, presented the committee a report comparing the hospital’s existing tobacco-free policy to standards set by the Joint Commission, a national hospital accreditation group.
According to Wilson, a portion of MCCH’s policy is not in line with the Joint Commission, something that may turn into a black mark when it comes time for the group to re-evaluate the hospital. The Joint Commission standard reads if a hospital restricts tobacco use but allows exceptions, a designated area must be included in the policy. While MCCH allows an exception for patients to smoke on outdoor hospital grounds, there is no designated area in hospital policy.
Wilson presented two options to the committee to get into compliance. First, he said the hospital could simply modify the existing policy to remove any exceptions. Second, they could designate a smoking area and build a small shelter. There was some discussion over cost, location and how to handle visitors and employees, who would not be permitted to use the shelter. Wilson said visitors especially would be hard to enforce.
Hospital employees are currently allowed to smoke off-campus during non-paid lunch time. Normal breaks are not included because they are considered paid time. However, committee members noted there seems to be little enforcement of the policy, including at the Spring Creek Health Care facility. It was noted how many employees will cross busy streets or stand close to traffic, creating potential hazards.
“I think, as an institution, we have been poor neighbors,” said board chair Dr. Sandra Parks.
Interim CEO Brad Bloemer explained the administration’s formal recommendation included visitors and employees. The location at MCCH would be in the graveled area next to the Emergency Room in the South Tower. At Spring Creek, patients would be allowed to smoke at Station 2 and employees would go to an alternative location yet to be determined.
Dr. Rob Williams, chief of staff and member of the board and personnel committee, questioned the timeline and rush to get something done. Williams said it needed to happen quickly because of the Joint Commission, which will begin review of MCCH at some point in the future. Parks moved to accept the recommendation and send it to the full board for discussion and Dr. Burton Young seconded. Parks, Young and Murray Mayor Bill Wells voted yes, Williams voted no and Calloway County Judge-Executive Larry Elkins abstained.
In Wednesday’s full board meeting, Wilson presented the recommendation for discussion. Elkins asked if the issue had come up because of a policy change by the Joint Commission, but Wilson said it had been that way from the beginning but had never been noticed. Williams questioned the design and cost of the shelter itself, saying his concern was in giving approval to something that hasn’t been properly researched.
“The only current issue is, in the Joint Commission, it hasn’t come up before,” Williams said. “We don’t want to be in a hurry.”
The enforcement of the policy was brought up again, given the high number of employees that can be seen on the street smoking.
“It’s upsetting to me to see our employees sitting on the street smoking. I don’t want them to think we are encouraging smoking but on the other hand it’s a good idea to confine it,” said board vice chair Steve Owens.
When discussion turned to specifics of the shelter itself, some movement was made toward attempting to pass a temporary measure to try and come into compliance quickly and return to the issue at a later date. No motion was made, and board member David Garrison asked if it would be better delegated to a committee for further review. Williams, Young and Hal Kemp volunteered to serve on the committee and the motion passed unanimously by the board. The committee will also include members of the administration team, yet to be determined. Young said they would plan to bring findings to next month’s board meeting.
The hospital posted a strong financial result for January, with nearly $1 million in operational income and a total of $779,000 in net income.
“We continue to do very well,” Bloemer said. “It was the best month in several years. We’ve come a long way in the last two months and are up in just about every area in the hospital.”
Bloemer cited salary expense as having a large impact, which were just over $250,000 below budget. He said the staff has been doing a very good job of monitoring productivity. Another factor in the good month is a high daily census averaging 94. Numerous days have seen the hospital at or near capacity. While January is what Bloemer calls the “heart of the business season,” he said results were still exceptional.
Lisa Ray, vice president of patient care services, told the board they have designated two ER rooms for bed holding when the hospital is at capacity and patients are waiting. She said they can begin treatment while rooms are emptied and cleaned and it has not interfered with ER traffic or caused patient complaints so far.
In other business, the board:
• heard a complimentary report on anesthesiology from Williams, saying the facility is operated smoothly and with more local employees and less that travel in,
• heard an update on the upcoming half marathon from Keith Travis, vice president of physician development. Travis said more than 350 people have registered for the April 16 event and he expects an estimated 350 more,
• heard no recommendations from the Board Office Nominating Committee. Parks said the committee was not prepared to make a nomination but may do so at the next meeting, and
• held an executive session for personnel matters.

31 tobacco distributors fined for price-fixing

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) slapped fines totaling NT$21.9 million (US$741,995) on 31 tobacco distributors Thursday for conspiring to fix the prices of various tobacco products.The most known tobacco products are cigarettes, they can be of different brands: Vogue cigarettes, Virginia cigarettes or Rich cigarettes.

It marks the first time tobacco dealers in Taiwan have been punished since the FTC was established in 1992.

The results of an investigation by the FTC show that the distributors, affiliated to Japan Tobacco International, held three meetings last May in which they decided to raise the prices of 36 products from June, including Mild Seven cigarettes, the prices of which were increased from NT$660 per carton to NT$680.

Also in the meetings, the distributors agreed to set aside NT$10 to NT$15 from every carton of cigarettes sold and deposit the funds in accounts they held separately in a Taipei City bank, as a form of insurance to make sure they all stuck to the terms of their price-fixing agreement, the FTC said.

The distributors decided that the deposits could only be withdrawn after three months, and accountants were hired to supervise the distributors to make sure they deposited the money regularly into the accounts, the investigation revealed.

According to FTC spokeswoman Shih Hui-fen, the commission began a probe into the case last June after receiving tip-offs from informers.

The distributors were questioned in July as part of the investigation, prompting them to drop the prices of their products over the following months, Shih said. (By Hsieh Jiun-

Legislature debates new cigarette tax

Lincoln, NE – Raising cigarette taxes would improve people’s health and ease the state’s budget problems, advocates told a legislative hearing Friday.

The proposal by Grand Island Sen. Mike Gloor would add $1.35 to Nebraska’s current tax of 64 cents a pack for a total of $1.99. Supporters project that would raise more than $100 million a year, and more importantly they say, deter 11,000 adults and 20,000 children from smoking. The bill would use about one quarter of the extra revenue to cancel proposed cuts in Medicaid payments to doctors, hospitals, and others. Almost all the rest could be used for whatever the Legislature wants. Kim Russel, president of Bryan LGH hospital in Lincoln, supported the bill on behalf of the Nebraska Hospital Association.


Sen. Mike Gloor's proposal would increase taxes on cigarette purchases throughout Nebraska .

“It will save the state money in the short and the long run on the cost of health care,” he said. “And it will preserve urgently needed Medicaid funding to serve Medicaid patients in every hospital in the state. I really believe your vote is a two-fer because it’s a vote both for physical health and for fiscal health.”

Senator Deb Fischer of Valentine asked Lou Kleager, president of the Nebraska Medical Association, about his support of the bill.

“If it’s truly a health concern, why don’t we ban the sale of cigarettes?” she asked.

Kleager responded, “I think it would be a long term goal. And I think you’d have to arrive there incrementally over a period of time. And in the meantime, get some increased revenue as you work toward that.”

Senator Abbie Cornett, chairwoman of the Revenue Committee that heard the bill, commented that you’d have to use all of the revenue for law enforcement to enforce a ban. Opposing the bill for the Nebraska Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Stores, Mark Whitehead, predicted it would fail.

“The reality is, people will find their cigarettes whichever way they possibly can, and that is a reality at the detriment of the retail industry in the state of Nebraska. They will bootleg it in, they will do it under the counter, they will do it via email.”

At the end of the hearing, Gloor said lawmakers might scale back the $1.99 proposal to match Iowa’s tax of $1.36. Any proposed increase would probably have to get extra votes to overcome a likely veto by Governor Dave Heineman.

Cigarette-trial ad may lead to legal strife

Several organisations may have breached the Smokefree Environments Act in an attempt to recruit Christchurch students for a cigarette trial.

Canterbury Community and Public Health Smokefree Enforcement and Health Promotion officer Cindy Crampton-Cairns said she would be investigating an advertisement placed with Student Job Search looking for 15 students to take part in a cigarette product test. The act prohibited publication of tobacco advertisements in New Zealand, she said.

"Further investigations will establish if this clause is breached by Student Job Search and anyone else involved in arranging the publication of the advertisements. Tobacco companies appear to use middle men like Student Job Search to recruit smokers for product testing.

"This should be a warning for all potential job advertisers who do not have strict screening processes for what is being advertised, as they may unknowingly breach the Smokefree Environments Act."

The company supplying the cigarettes could also be breaching the act.

‘Pictorial warnings on packets to reduce tobacco habits’

Pictorial warnings on packets of tobacco products could greatly motivate users to quit and reduce tobacco habits as such warnings would remind them about the harms caused by tobacco, reports UNB.

The speakers stated this while speaking at a day-long workshop on "Media for Tobacco Control: Training Course for Journalists on Tobacco Control in Bangladesh" organised by PROGGA and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in collaboration with Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB) at its auditorium in the city Friday.

Pictorial warnings can be on every brand, even on most famous Marlboro cigarettes.

About 21 journalists from different print and electronic media took part in the workshop.

Coordinator of Addiction Management and Integrated Care (AMIC) of Dhaka Ahsania Mission Iqbal Masud mentioned that smokers have low understanding of many diseases caused by smoking and pictures are more easily understood by smokers, be they literate or illiterate.

Masud said pictorial warnings on tobacco products are being used in many countries including Canada, Brazil, Singapore, Venezuela, Thailand, Uruguay and Chile to good effect.

Referring to a study conducted by Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh (CAB), he said 90 per cent people observed that pictorial health warning on the tobacco products could be effective in Bangladesh.

Pasco deputy arrested, accused of being too friendly with inmates

LAND O'LAKES — Brian Call spent 14 years in construction before becoming a road patrol deputy in 2007. When the Sheriff's Office decided to build a hangar for its aviation unit using inmate labor, the agency put Call in charge — he could supervise the inmates and the construction at the same time, saving taxpayers' money.

Construction began in September and Call was transferred Nov. 1 from road patrol to work at the hangar.

But on his evening shifts monitoring the inmates — who are low-risk and given the option to do work duty to reduce their sentences — Call fraternized too much with them, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Call, 35, used his own cell phone to contact inmates' girlfriends and had them visit the hangar site, a report states. He brought Copenhagen smokeless tobacco and shared it with inmates, and had the inmates' girlfriends bring more to the site, the Sheriff's Office said.

An inmate told another construction supervisor — Deputy Karl Crawford — about the tobacco products. Crawford informed his superiors Dec. 7, beginning a criminal investigation. Call was placed on paid administrative leave Dec. 10 and unpaid leave Dec. 21.

He was arrested Tuesday and is in the process of being fired, said sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll.

Call was charged with introduction of contraband into a jail facility and unlawful compensation or reward for official behavior — for allegedly taking tobacco from the inmates' girlfriends.

Doll said the investigation into what else might have happened at the hangar is ongoing.

"As soon as allegations against Brian Call were reported, we began an investigation," Sheriff Bob White said in a press release. "As is the normal process, we turned our completed investigation over to the State Attorney's Office for action, which advised us charges were warranted. It is always disappointing when a member of our office is arrested.

"The Pasco Sheriff's Office holds itself to extremely high standards and we continuously strive to maintain the public trust."

Sheriff's Office employees are not allowed to use tobacco products if they were hired after 2005. All new employees — including Call, hired in 2007 — sign a document stating they will adhere to the anti-tobacco policy or face possible termination.

This was Call's first job in law enforcement. He's from New York and bounced between Florida, New York and New Jersey as an adult, working jobs as a carpenter, toll collector, foreman, handyman and construction project manager, according to his personnel file. Call didn't stay long at most of the jobs — he had 13 different employers since graduating from high school in 1993, the file states. He worked in construction in New York a few months before applying for the deputy position in Pasco in May 2007. He was hired in July. He made $40,376 a year.

Call's performance reviews were solid — he follows instructions, he needs to be more punctual, he's a good listener. He has "that unique ability to remember people's names that he contacts and he is very at ease speaking with people," his latest review said.

Inmates have done the majority of the work on the hangar, expected to be finished in February. The Sheriff's Office said using inmates to build the hangar has saved taxpayer money.

Sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin said Call and the other construction supervisor "are basically doing the job of four or five people, so the savings to the county is significant, as much as $700,000 if a private contractor had built the project."

The department would not release the names of the inmates who worked on the hangar, citing the ongoing investigation.

Call, who lives in New Port Richey, was released from the jail Tuesday on $15,000 bail.

FDA to review new or altered tobacco products

Tobacco companies that want to introduce new products or make changes to existing brands will soon face more scrutiny from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA said Wednesday that it will start reviewing new tobacco products or changes to existing brands for public-health dangers on March 22.

The requirements cover cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco introduced commercially after Feb. 15, 2007, and changes to existing brands since that date. The rules were part of the legislation passed by Congress in 2009 that for the first time gave the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. Tobacco products can be considered cigarettes like Winston cigarettes or Vogue Cigarettes.

"The law requires this because up till now, tobacco products have been the only mass-consumed product for which users do not know what they are consuming," Dr. Lawrence Deyton, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said on a conference call with reporters.

"Manufacturers frequently alter ingredients, again without anyone knowing what they are consuming," Deyton said. "This law requires the FDA to carefully examine the impact those changes, or new products, may have on the public health."

The FDA issued guidance to the industry yesterday about how to submit products for review.

A spokesman for Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. said the company was studying the guidelines and plans to submit comments to the FDA during a public comment period. The company had no comment Wednesday on the possible business impact of the requirements.

Altria is the parent company of the nation's largest cigarette manufacturer, Philip Morris USA, and the largest smokeless tobacco maker, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co.

"This guidance is certainly more restrictive than any tobacco company anticipated when the FDA initially began regulating tobacco and appears to be more restrictive than the underlying statute contemplates," said Ashley L. Taylor Jr., a partner with Troutman Sanders who heads the law firm's tobacco team.

"For example, on their face, the new guidelines will require that certain changes made by virtually every company to its cigarettes in response to state 'fire-safe' laws must now seek FDA approval for such changes when the companies were simply following the underlying state law requirements," he said.

Taylor said the firm is encouraging its clients to actively participate in the FDA's comment period as the regulations continue to be shaped.

"The FDA is simply beginning the process to establish the framework it will use in its approval of new products," Christopher Growe, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in St. Louis, said in a note to clients. The "discussion in our view could be characterized as largely procedural."

Under the law, companies can bring a new tobacco product to market or make changes to existing brands if they can show the product is "substantially equivalent" to one already being sold before Feb. 15, 2007. A product that does not meet that requirement could be banned or removed from the market if the FDA finds it poses new public-health concerns.

What constitutes a change in a product is fairly broad under the federal law. It includes changes in ingredients, design, composition and the heating source, FDA officials said.

The purpose of those requirements, Deyton said, is to ensure that new products are not more dangerous to consumers than existing ones. "FDA's involvement does not indicate that these products are safe," he said. "There is no tobacco product that is safe."

Deyton said he believes companies still will be able to make product innovations under the regulations.

Reynolds American Inc., the second-biggest U.S. tobacco company, is reviewing the FDA guidance and has submitted "several applications to date on substantial equivalence" to the agency, David Howard, a spokesman for the North Carolina-based company, told Bloomberg News. Howard said the specifics of the submissions were proprietary.

One major tobacco-control group said the requirements are an important step for public health. It also will be significant because the FDA will collect information about tobacco product ingredients and design, and how companies change them over time.

"As a result of the bright spotlight of FDA scrutiny, tobacco companies will no longer be able to secretly manipulate their products in ways that make them more addictive and appealing," the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said in a statement.

Deyton said about 200 people are now working at the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, which was created in late 2009. The center is still hiring, but it has "sufficient staff" now to handle the review process, he said.

Under the law, companies also may submit products for FDA approval as "modified risk" products that might be less risky to health. The FDA is still developing its guidelines for that approval pathway.

Alta. seizes millions of illegal cigarettes

About 75,000 cartons of cigarettes suspected to be contraband were seized Wednesday in central Alberta.

The Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission and the RCMP said they found the 14 million cigarettes after executing a search warrant at a Quonset hut near Ponoka.

Federal customs officials are also involved in the investigation.

The cigarette packages are not marked for legal sale in the province, said Hobbema RCMP Const. Perry Cardinal.

"You're talking about $3 million in lost tax revenue to the province of Alberta," Cardinal said. "Those agencies will conduct their investigation … and find a point of origin and what not of these tobacco products."

The investigation is still underway. No charges have yet been laid.

FDA's Middle Road

For all the polemics surrounding FDA's jurisdiction over tobacco, it is precisely last week's move by Star Scientific Inc. that buoys tobacco manufacturers about the future of their business but also stokes their starkest concern.

Star Scientific, best known for its Stonewall products, will submit an application of approval under the Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco Control Act of 2009 to market Stonewall Moist-BDL as a modified-risk tobacco product. (Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage.)

The terms are technical, but the impact is great for those banking their future on ultra-low carcinogenic products. While most retail operators and tobacco manufacturers opposed empowering the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products, a number of non-cigarette makers muted their opposition in 2008-09.

Their restraint rested with insider appreciation and years of testing that showed moist smokeless, snus and the nascent wave of oral tobacco products produce significantly less tobacco-specific notrosamines (TSNAs), which scientists cite as one of the leading cancer-causing agents in tobacco leaf and smoke.

A few years ago, a leading OTP manufacturer told me, "I can't support FDA oversight. I don't believe in it, and there are too many 'ifs' that could harm my business. But if the FDA does eventually gain jurisdiction, you can bet that we're going to seek classification as a reduced-harm or reduced-risk product."

And that's the holy grail for not only Star Scientific, but many of the cigarette and OTP companies. This explains why these businesses are collectively investing tens of millions of dollars to pioneer new, smoke-free lines that aim to radically reshape the tobacco industry over the next five to eight years.

Star Scientific chairman and president Paul Perito said it right: "It is clear that the means are available for all tobacco companies to reduce well-established toxins in the tobacco they use in manufacturing."

What the tobacco companies are waiting for is to see if the FDA will recognize and establish a tiered approach that modifies the kind of warnings issued on every unit of tobacco. Will the agency publicly acknowledge that dissolvable products are "less bad" or "less dangerous" for consumers?

"We're not looking for them to say it's 'better for you'," one tobacco maker told me. "But we also don't want them to say that all tobacco is equally bad for you. And that's where we are today."

FDA's Dilemma

Asked specifically about Star Scientific's planned application, the FDA's tobacco division--the Center for Tobacco Products, led by Dr. Lawrence Deyton--offered a careful response. "On the question about modified-risk products, FDA is not going to speculate about a possible product submission," Kathleen Quinn told CSP Daily News in an email.

"However," said Quinn, acting director of the Center's Office of Health Communication & Education, "modified risk is a provision in the Tobacco Control Act, which outlines a path for manufacturers to legally market a product. Should a company present a modified risk tobacco product to FDA, the agency will evaluate it."

Not surprisingly, the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products walks a delicate tightrope. Empowered by Congress to regulate tobacco, the center has been bombarded by anti-tobacco advocates to ban menthol, to uphold and intensify current marketing restrictions and, essentially, take necessary steps to drastically cut consumption of any and all tobacco products.

These groups assert that any effort by the FDA to establish various grades of risk is no different than the FDA giving its seal of approval for consumers to ingest products inherently bad for them.

At the same time, realpolitik suggests that tobacco is a critical cash cow to city, state and federal coffers; is the funding backbone of the children's health program, SCHIP; employs directly and indirectly hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions; and is a vital industry in parts of the country, from the Carolinas to the Appalachians.

Pro-tobacco advocates received a boost last week when one of their staunchest critics resigned from the FDA Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC), which will be hearing evidence this week about menthol and is expected to issue a recommendation by March. Gregory N. Connelly resigned from the panel, accusing it of being too cautious in attacking menthol and nicotine, according to media reports.

His reaction should not come as a surprise--and should calm the waters among retailers who might reflexively castigate anything government related.

Expect the FDA to tread cautiously when it comes to new arenas of tobacco innovation; that it may very well deliver a middle-road recipe that permits some new forms of tobacco to enter the marketplace, but with restrictions that will be cumbersome but not unworkable.

Cigarettes and Marijuana, Why Are Cigarettes Legal?

Millions of people smoke cigarettes. It is unfortunate that I happen to be part of this statistic. Being a smoker, we know the dangers that come with smoking. We know that we can develop serious lung and throat problems or cancer.

Most smokers though, don't know some of the products that are in the cigarette they are smoking. Let's start by naming nicotine. Nicotine is probably the only ingredient in a cigarette that a person will remember. There are cigarettes which have low nicotine level, for example there is Winston White cigarettes with Nicotine volume: 0.1 mg. It is the most addictive substance in the tobacco. There is more to a cigarette than nicotine and tobacco. For instance if you smoke did you know that you are smoking ammonia, acetone, benzene(used as a solvent in fuels), and carbon monoxide. There's a list of ingredients that go on for days. Can you imagine actually bringing a flame near those ingredients.

You might blow up! So tell me something, why are they legal? I mean, I understand that alcohol can kill you but thats only due to being too intoxicated or getting behind the wheel. The purpose of the drinking age is to make sure that more mature people who should understand their limits can drink but young kids who just want to party can't. Even now though, adults do not know their limits or they just don't follow the rules. There are many deaths caused by driving while intoxicated.