Free Republic

Packs of ten cigarettes could be banned under a European proposal to crack down on smoking. The EU’s Health and Consumer Commissioner also unveiled plans to ban menthol cigarettes and to force companies to cover three quarters of their packs with a picture warning. The idea is to make smoking less attractive to children, who are more likely to buy smaller packs of cigarettes with their pocket money. Youngsters are also more likely to buy flavored cigarettes such as menthol and strawberry. … The EU wants the new rules to come into force across the continent by 2016. Under the...

Missing a Father in Iran Daniel Levinson June 22, 2008 It has been 471 days since my father, Robert "Bob" Levinson, went missing in Iran -- more than the 444 days that 52 American diplomats were held hostage after they were seized in Iran in 1979. These past 15 months have brought my mother, four sisters, two brothers and me nothing but grief and sadness. We are no closer to finding answers than we were when our father disappeared March 9, 2007, on Kish Island, Iran. He was on a private business trip, and I emphasize "private" because, although he...

Iran May Consider American's Request August 05, 2007 Associated Press Nasser Karimi TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's Foreign Ministry said Sunday it would consider allowing the wife of an American man who vanished in Iran earlier this year to visit the Islamic country to search for him. "The request has not officially been relayed to us yet. If it is conveyed, we will review it," ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters. On Thursday, Christine Levinson, the wife of missing former FBI agent Robert Levinson said she was planning to travel to Iran in search of her husband even though she...

When the South Windsor town council meets on Monday night, they will consider an ordinance that would ban the sales of tobacco products at CVS. In July Town Councilor Dr. Anwar Saud, who specializes in lung diseases and critical care medicine, proposed banning the sales of tobacco in pharmacies. Nationally, there is a problem, he said in video posted on the town's Web site. Some large pharmacies, which run “minute clinics,” sell cigarettes, while smaller, community pharmacies do not allow cigarette sales, he said during a council meeting over the weekend. “So they are becoming healthcare facilities … but, as...

I've smoked since I was 15 years old. I turned 55 last March and now it's time to quit!

A US court on Friday shot down orders to slap graphic anti-tobacco messages on cigarette packs, saying the government overstepped its authority by trying to "browbeat" smokers into quitting. In line with campaigns in several other nations, the United States planned from September 22 to require images on cigarette packs including a man smoking through a hole in his throat and a body with chest staples on an autopsy table. In a 2-1 decision, the US Court of Appeals in Washington said that the images planned on cigarette packs were not necessarily false but they went beyond "pure attempts to...

While more Americans than ever before are quitting their cigarette habit, a growing number are also turning to large cigars and pipes, suggesting that gains in curbing tobacco consumption may be more elusive than previously thought. The findings were outlined in a report released on Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall consumption of smoked tobacco products declined 27.5 percent between 2000 and 2011, but use of noncigarette smoked tobacco products increased by a whopping 123 percent in that same time. One major culprit for the trend is likely price, particularly in the latter part of...

It’s bad news for smokers and tobacco shops alike. Long regarded as a cheaper option for nicotine lovers, roll-your-own cigarettes are set to be a thing of the past as a new law is introduced by President Barack Obama. In coming days he will sign a federal highway bill with a section defining any business with roll-your-own cigarette machines as a tobacco manufacturer and upping taxes on the its products, the Chicago Sun Times reported. The move will come as a blow to smokers without brand loyalty who for years have been able to feed their habits at a fraction...

For smokers who bargained on roll-your-own cigarette stores for cheap smokes, it looks like those days are numbered. On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes. The move comes a month after Illinois increased taxes on such roll-your-own machine-made cigarettes. Marcia Smith, 47, of Lake County, decided after the state tax increase that she should move her Smokes & Such tobacco shops in Skokie and Gurnee...

PETERBOROUGH — Jackie R. Whiton of Antrim had been a six-year employee at the Big Apple convenience store in Peterborough until a single transaction sent her job up in smoke. The store clerk was fired after she refused to take a customer's Electronic Balance Transfer card to pay for cigarettes. Whiton said a young man came in to the store to buy two packs or cigarettes on May 29. When she asked him for his ID, he handed her his EBT card. EBT cards are used for both food and cash assistance programs. There are two types of cards: one...

The demand for cheap cigarettes in Europe is fueling the manufacture and consumption of illicit tobacco at unprecedented levels. A report, released on Wednesday (20 June) by Philip Morris International (PMI), says Europeans smoked more than 65 billion illicit cigarettes in 2011. Of those, more than 12 billion were consumed in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta. Western and central EU countries consumed a combined total of 36.5 billion. But in Spain alone, cigarette contraband jumped by 300 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. In Greece, illicit consumption increased five-fold compared to 2008. “Despite efforts by law enforcement authorities...

We were saddened last night as deadline approached and it seemed as if Proposition 29 was going to pass, adding yet another tax on Californians, even if it would fall directly only on those people who have yet to kick their cigarette habits. But as dutiful journalists on deadline, we were obliged to report the situation as it stood as we sent the paper to the presses. So, the newspaper you received on your porch included our editorial saying that to our dismay, Prop. 29 appeared to be passing. But . . .

It killed 695,000 people in the EU last year. But despite restaurant bans and gruesome health labels, the number of smokers is hardly going down. A European Commission survey published for the UN's international anti-smoking day on Thursday (31 May) shows that 28 percent of the EU population smokes today compared to 29 percent in 2009. The number is still going up in the Czech Republic, Finland and Slovenia. Another 21 percent used to smoke but say they have given up. The typical smoker's profile is unflattering: it is the most prevalent among young men aged 15 to 54 who...

In the hunt for Saddam Hussein's billions, investigators have identified five networks of more than 100 companies used to launder money skimmed from Iraqi oil sales. Saddam's gangster regime set up shell companies in Switzerland, Jordan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Panama, according to investigators. Those company networks and their banking affiliations were used to enrich the former Iraqi strongman, his sons Uday and Qusay, and other family members. "Ultimately, the money was stolen from the Iraqi people," said Taylor Griffin, spokesman for the Treasury Department, which is heading the government's laundering probe along with U.S. Customs, the Secret Service and various...

While the US has been trying to disgust smokers into giving up tobacco, New Zealand has been considering a more direct idea: raising the price of cigarettes to $100 a pack. The Ministry of Health wants a smoke-free NZ by 2025, and the $100 price tag—which would be implemented by 2020—is one of the ideas being discussed … although officials admit it is "probably unrealistic." The plan seen as the most likely would make a pack of cigarettes a still-sizable $60 by 2025, Sky News reports. But, 3 News adds, Prime Minister John Key is concerned that higher prices may...

In the 1970s it seemed like we had problems we could never fix — and I'm not talking about white polyester disco suits and the band Air Supply. To punctuate the dismal vibe, everybody smoked, or so it seemed if you were sitting on an airplane at the edge of the DMZ between the smoking and nonsmoking sections. But then something funny happened. We tackled those problems. A move toward more fuel-efficient vehicles, plus Alaskan oil and geopolitical changes, gave us a breather from the tyranny of oil. How'd we do it? The answer is worth considering as we struggle...

ONEIDA, N.Y. — The trucks lumber past cornfields and dilapidated farm houses, pull up to a onetime bingo hall and unload their cargo: boxes of tobacco imported from the Carolinas. Inside, employees of the Oneida Indian Nation dump the shredded tobacco leaves into rolling machines and fashion them into cigarettes to be sold at a dozen tribal convenience stores midway between Syracuse and Utica. The cigarettes, branded with names like Niagara’s and Bishop, sell for as little as $39.95 for a 10-pack carton — much cheaper than those at non-Indian retailers — and bring in millions of dollars a year...

>I can't think of a stock that's more hated. I've written about this company several times before. I've personally owned it for years. But just about every time I mention it, I end up receiving nasty emails admonishing the fact that I would cover... let alone recommend... investors own shares of this company.In fact, it happens so often that I instruct our staff to put in a mention that this investment isn't for everyone whenever they cover it. If you don't want to invest in this stock, I can certainly understand. But if you have an open mind toward this...