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Smokers younger than 21 in the nation's biggest city will soon be barred from buying cigarettes after the New York City Council voted overwhelming Wednesday to raise the tobacco-purchasing age to higher than all but a few other places in the United States. City lawmakers approved the bill — which raises from 18 to 21 the purchasing age for cigarettes, certain tobacco products and even electronic-vapor smokes — and another that sets minimum prices for tobacco cigarettes and steps up law enforcement on illegal tobacco sales. "This will literally save many, many lives," said an emotional City Councilman James Gennaro,...

(CNN) -- Use of tobacco in flavors like Dreamsicle and chocolate mint may be a growing problem among teenagers, according to a Centers for Disease Control report. More than two out of every five middle- and high-school students who smoke report using flavored little cigars or flavored cigarettes, according to the report. And the bigger concern may be that the majority of the kids who smoke the flavored cigars -- some 60% -- say they don't plan to quit anytime soon (compared to 49% of all cigar smokers). ~ "Historically what we know from other studies is that flavors can...

Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it's unclear how state governments are using much of that money. So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement. Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center. "So go ahead...

Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it's unclear how state governments are using much of that money. So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement. Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center. "So go ahead...

European lawmakers are trying to tighten rules governing the multi-billion dollar tobacco market by imposing bigger and bolder warnings on cigarette packs, banning most flavorings like menthol and beefing up regulation of electronic cigarettes. … Treatment of smoke-related diseases costs about €25 billion ($34 billion) a year, and the EU estimates that there are around 700,000 smoking-related deaths annually across the 28-nation bloc. …

Patients are being denied minor treatments because they smoke, The Mail on Sunday has found. In one case, a healthy middle-aged man was told he could not have a ten-minute operation to cut a small benign growth off the side of his head because of his habit. Paul Merrett thought it would be no problem to get the inch-long fatty lump, called a lipoma, removed. … But when he attended King George Surgery in Stevenage, his GP said he could not have the minor operation—which doctors often do under local anesthetic in their own consulting rooms. Mr. Merrett, 46, said:...

President Obama’s plan to raise the federal cigarette tax by 94 cents a pack would put 2 million low and middle-income kids through preschool, a new report has concluded. Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal calls for a near doubling of the tax, from $1.01 to $1.95 per pack, with the proceeds going toward an expansion of early childhood education. Taxes on other tobacco products would increase proportionally, bringing the estimated additional revenue to an estimated $78 billion over the next decade.“Taken together, these two measures would help ensure a future of smart, healthy kids nationwide and in every state,” according...

<p>Top U.S. law enforcement officials urged the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to promptly issue a promised set of rules governing the sale of e-cigarettes, adding to a growing body of legal and public health officials demanding action.</p> <p>In 2009, the FDA was given authority to regulate cigarettes, cigarette tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco, although not pipe tobacco, cigars or e-cigarettes. The law allows the FDA to expand its authority over all tobacco products, but it must first issue new regulations. The FDA has said they are in development.</p>

The federal government is spending more than $13 million on studies designed to determine how a variety of groups can learn to quit smoking.This month the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a five-year study to Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I., to examine how exercise can get depressed smokers to stop. The first grant amounts to $581,991.The depressed are not the only ones to receive attention.The agency is currently funding cessation studies for American Indians ($2,899,954); Chinese and Vietnamese men ($424,875); postmenopausal women ($4,151,850); the homeless ($392,322); Korean youth ($94,580); Schizophrenics ($266,554); Brazilian smokers ($174,637); Latino HIV-positive smokers ($223,265); and...

Stop—a ban on menthol cigarettes—in the name of the law! A number of current and former top-ranking law enforcement officials from the tobacco-producing South have blasted a potential menthol cigarette ban as the Food and Drug Administration weighs restrictions on those products, contending that prohibition will spur smuggling, counterfeit cigs and other organized crime. Their comments to the FDA mirror arguments being made by Big Tobacco companies that have cited the specter of a menthol black market. But tobacco critics and a former top New York state tax official scoffed at those claims, and accused tobacco companies of scare tactics...

Touted as a way to quit smoking, the latest data raise concerns that electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, may actually be a gateway for teens into tobacco use. ~snip he said. “Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes.” Most addictions to nicotine start at a young age,...suggest that a vast majority of students who use e-cigarettes also turn to conventional tobacco products as well. ~snip Whether e-cigarettes are actually safer than regular cigarettes isn’t clear; a recent study found that e-cigarettes can...

A Brazilian-born researcher who runs minority health programs at a public university in Alabama has convinced the U.S. government to give her $1.5 million to help women quit smoking in her native country. A noble cause indeed, but likely not on the high list of the American taxpayers funding the project. Nevertheless, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s medical research agency, has given the Brazilian researcher, Isabel Scarinci, a five-year, $1.5 million grant to fund her international tobacco-control project. The goal is to better understand “women and their tobacco-related issues” in the South American country, especially in Scarinci’s...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn’t just want to limit the use of cigarettes – but electronic cigarettes as well. In a newly leaked draft of three tobacco-related bills soon to be voted on by the NYC City Council, the new definition of “tobacco products” under city law would be changed to include e-cigarettes and related components, parts and accessories. If the ordinances pass, the display of e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco would be banned in retail stores. Also, while tobacco and menthol flavored e-cigarettes would still be available in retail stores, all other flavored e-cigarettes could only be sold...

(CNSNews.com) – The National Institutes of Health is funding a program to convince female “light-smokers” in Brazil to kick their bad habit, at a cost to American taxpayers of $653,190. “There is a great need for the development of gender-relevant tobacco control efforts,” the description of the study on the NIH website reads.

First it was bars, restaurants and office buildings. Now the front lines of the "No Smoking" battle have moved outdoors. City parks, public beaches, college campuses and other outdoor venues across the country are putting up signs telling smokers they can't light up. Outdoor smoking bans have nearly doubled in the last five years, with the tally now at nearly 2,600 and more are in the works.

Most current smokers in the U.S. would like to give up smoking. Perhaps as a testimony to their desire to quit, 85% of smokers say they have in fact tried to quit at least once in their lifetime, including 45% who have tried at least three times. ~snip Smokers on average are engaging in a habit they wish they didn't have, and, in fact, the average smoker has attempted to quit at least three times in their lifetime. The difficulty in quitting is attested to by the fact that more than seven in 10 smokers say they are addicted to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some smokers trying to get coverage next year under President Barack Obama’s health care law may get a break from tobacco-use penalties that could have made their premiums unaffordable. The Obama administration — in yet another health care overhaul delay — has quietly notified insurers that a computer system glitch will limit penalties that the law says the companies may charge smokers. A fix will take at least a year to put in place.

With just days to go before two of Philadelphia's most prestigious hospitals refuse to hire smokers, the ban has relit a debate about the wisdom of regulating workers' behavior away from the workplace. Both the highly rated University of Pennsylvania Health System, which includes the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, named by US News and World Report as America's top children's hospital this year, will join dozens of hospitals across the country when they implement their policy on Monday, July 1. The move has generated criticism among civil liberties activists, hospital...

EU ministers of health have reached political agreement to strengthen EU tobacco legislation in an effort to curb the number of smokers. “I do believe that this is truly an important step because it is about stopping the next generation ever getting hooked,” Irish health minsiter James Reilly, chairing the talks, told reporters on Friday (21 June). The ministers endorsed a deal that would ban menthol, fruit, or chocolate flavored cigarettes. Other rules include imposing large graphic warnings. The European Commission had proposed a warning to cover 75 percent of the package but health ministers agreed to 65 percent. Member...

Enlarge image i Don't sit down here and have a smoke with your coffee, Starbucks says. Mark Memmott/NPR Don't sit down here and have a smoke with your coffee, Starbucks says.Mark Memmott/NPR Starbucks is moving its smoking ban outdoors.Starting Saturday, according to signs posted in its more than 7,000 shops across the U.S. and Canada, "the no-smoking policy ... will include outdoor areas.""Smoking will be restricted within 25 feet of the store and within outdoor seating areas," the notices read.AdWeek says that "since smoking bans have swept the nation in the last decade, it's doubtful there will be a...