Maryland Considers Cigarette Tax Hike

Maryland smokers already pay the eleventh highest cigarette taxes in the country, at $2 per pack; however, if lobbyists like Vincent DeMarco have their way, those taxes will increase by another dollar in 2013, vaulting Maryland to the sixth highest taxed state. Although Maryland raised its cigarette tax by $1 in 2008, DeMarco argued that additional increases would encourage smokers to quit, bring additional revenue to the state and save the state millions in tobacco-related healthcare costs.
"The good thing about tobacco increases is they achieve both goals," DeMarco told The Washington Times, estimating the proposed increase would bring in an additional $100 million in annual revenue. "It's really a win-win for the state, but we're doing this because it's a public health measure."

Supreme Court OKs $20-Million Smoker Award

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand a $20 million award against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and a second cigarette maker, rebuffing the tobacco industry’s latest effort to derail thousands of Florida lawsuits, according to a Bloomberg report. The justices on Monday refused to hear a joint appeal from R.J. Reynolds producer of Camel cigarettes and Vector Group Ltd.’s Liggett unit. A jury said the two companies were responsible for the death of Janie Mae Clay, who smoked for 40 years and died in 2003 of lung disease.

The American Medical Association's financial relationship with Big Tobacco

A few decades ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) used to run advertisements for cigarettes. They even used headlines like, "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette." The ad says, "Doctors in every branch of medicine were asked: What cigarette do you smoke? The brand named most was Camel!" Which just goes to show you that "doctors in every branch of medicine" were complete health morons. (And not much has changed since then, I would argue.)

US Surgeon General lies by omission: Smoking one cigarette can kill you? Seriously?

In what can only be called a bizarre leap of pseudoscience, U.S. Surgeon General Dr Regina M. Benjamin recently announced that smoking one cigarette can kill you. In fact, she says, just breathing in the smoke from someone else's cigarette can kill you, she claims. It's all part of a just-released report entitled A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease

How can a smoker actually quit smoking?

This is one global question for which researchers and scientists have been seeking an answer for. It's a habit that you can quit for not more than a day and the warning labels have never helped. Hence, "smoking kills" - this warning will not really matter to them. But, if warning labels indicate how smoking can affect or kill their loved one's, it might just pinch the smoker every time he notices a warning label. Researchers have said that the warning labels do not reach all the smokers and goes unnoticed. Therefore, the US Food and Drug Administration has finally decided to join the bandwagon of other countries that have used large graphic labels on tobacco products, after September, 2012. It has been concluded by the researchers that vivid and scandalizing images on the cigarette covers are more likely to motivate smokers for quitting. A vivid image of a man suffering from cancer accompanied with a warning like "Smoking can kill your children/love" will certainly affect more than a mere text-warning.

Yes! It's going to be disgusting to look at, but that's the motive. These new warning labels embarks the first change in the last 25 years. Countries like Mauritius and Thailand have shown an increase in the percentage of people who want to quit smoking, after applying the graphic warning labels. We hope the same effect is seen everywhere else.

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.