Free Republic

PARIS If Alexander Schoppmann is right, then where there's smoke, there's a flier. As more countries ban smoking in public places, his idea might seem malapropos. But Schoppmann, a German entrepreneur, is hoping to turn smokers' umbrage at ever-expanding efforts to stub out their habit into a highflying business proposal: Smoker's International Airways. As the name suggests, the airline, known as Smintair for short, will probably not be for the faint of lung. The carrier, expected to begin luxury service with only business and first-class seats early next year, plans daily flights between Schoppmann's hometown of Düsseldorf and Tokyo -...

SMOKERS struggling to stub out that final cigarette may have new insight into why it is so hard to quit. A report shows American tobacco companies increased nicotine levels by an average of 10 per cent over six years.

BOSTON (AFX) - The level of nicotine that smokers typically consume per cigarette has risen about 10 percent in the past six years, making it harder to quit and easier to get hooked, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Department of Health. The study shows a steady climb in the amount of nicotine delivered to the lungs of smokers regardless of brand, with overall nicotine yields increasing by about 10 percent. Massachusetts is one of three states to require tobacco companies to submit information about nicotine testing according to its specifications and the only state with...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Attorneys for a man who has been sentenced to death say some members of the jury rushed to judgment because they needed a nicotine fix. Tuesday the Ohio Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in the appeal of Phillip Elmore, convicted three years ago in the strangling of his ex-girlfriend in Newark. Elmore's attorneys say that the fact the judge wouldn't let jury members smoke or step outside to smoke led them to make a quick decision. That's one of 17 allegations the appeal makes. Lawyers for Elmore also say his trial attorneys were ineffective.

Excerpt - LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee, who successfully pushed for a statewide workplace smoking ban earlier this year, predicted Wednesday that cigarettes eventually won't be sold because of their health risks. "I think the day will come when we probably won't" sell cigarettes, Huckabee said on his monthly call-in radio show. "If cigarettes were introduced to the marketplace today, they wouldn't be sold. They'd never make it because what we didn't know when they were first created, sold and marketed is just how deadly harmful they were." Huckabee was responding to a caller's question of why cigarettes are...

Cigarettes could slash blood-alcohol levels, making smokers drink more. A new study helps to explain why smokers tend to have boozier nights out than non-smokers. The work, done in rats, shows that a heavy dose of nicotine can cut blood-alcohol levels in half. If cigarettes similarly lower intoxication in people, it could mean that smokers need to drink more than non-smokers to get the same buzz... To mimic more closely the effect in human drinkers, (Texas A&M researcher Wei-Jung) Chen and his colleagues studied the effects of binge drinking in adult rats. They injected rats' stomachs with a dose of...

Eliminating the threat of secondhand smoke would prevent more than 228,000 new cases of heart disease and 119,000 heart-related deaths over the next 25 years, according to a new study. Using a model to estimate the impact of eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke on heart disease, researchers found stopping secondhand smoke would quickly reduce the number of heart-related deaths. This effect would increase over time, adding up to hundreds of thousands of preventable heart attacks and other problems. National surveys suggest that 4 percent to 17 percent of the nonsmoking population (depending on age and sex) are exposed to secondhand...

A German company has come up with a novel way of beating bans on smoking in pubs - put the nicotine in the beer. A new beer, known as NicoShot, is undergoing testing in Germany with hopes it can be moved toward approval in the next few months. Each beer contains three milligrams of nicotine and a 6.3% alcohol reading.

Smoking Ban Meeting Planned For Tuesday POSTED: 7:04 pm CDT September 19, 2005 UPDATED: 1:35 pm CDT September 20, 2005 MADISON, Wis. -- The Madison Common Council is preparing to clear the air on the city's smoking ban Tuesday night. Many of those who have rallied to repeal the smoking ban are expected to attend Tuesday night's common council meeting. Three smoking-related things are on the agenda including an outright appeal of the ban, an amendment to allow businesses to apply for a hardship exemption and a proposal for a citywide referendum. "It doesn't look like there's enough votes to...

World Briefings Published: April 15, 2005 SOUTH AFRICA: GET THIS MONKEY OFF HIS BACK A male chimpanzee at Bloemfontein Zoo is wrestling to break a nicotine addiction after picking up the smoking habit from visitors who tossed lit cigarette butts into his enclosure, zoo officials said. The adult chimp, named Charlie, probably acquired the butts by mimicking zoogoers' smoking as they passed by, leading them to toss him cigarettes. Charlie now hides his cigarettes when zookeepers approach so that they will not be confiscated, officials said. Nor is it his only bad habit. Charlie has three bad teeth, said a...

THE effects of nicotine could help relieve the symptoms of schizophrenia in some sufferers, researchers suggested today. The study, in Granada in Spain, looked at the theory that smoking is a form of "self-medication" for people with schizophrenia. They found that for mildly dependent smokers, nicotine could have a beneficial effect on their symptoms. But the researchers also found that people with a high nicotine dependence were more likely to be readmitted to hospital and have a poor outcome to their condition. The results of the study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, noted that worldwide, schizophrenia was linked...

Today is the American Cancer Society's 28th Great American Smokeout. The event is certainly a smoke-out -- clean air laws kick smokers outdoors for their nicotine fixes. But is it really ''great''? No! Because the event suggests a wrongheaded option: Quit tobacco or die. The reality is that for the 400,000 American smokers who die each year, total abstinence was impossible and entirely unnecessary. Medical research shows that you can achieve almost all of the health benefits of quitting smoking without quitting tobacco. Nicotine, while powerfully addictive, is about as safe as caffeine, another widely consumed addictive drug. It's tobacco...

Nicotine could soon be rehabilitated as a treatment for schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, as well as hyperactivity disorders. Research shows that the chemical that has addicted millions to smoking has a powerful impact on brain activity in patients who suffer from psychiatric and degenerative disorders. Some experiments have shown that nicotine can slow down the onset of Parkinson's symptoms; others have had revealed its power in curtailing the hallucinations of schizophrenics. 'A whole range of psychiatric conditions seem to be helped by nicotine,' said Dr Dan McGehee, a neurobiologist at the University of Chicago. 'However, such benefits do not...

Sometimes when former smokers go out drinking, by the end of the evening they are hooked on cigarettes again. Why? Researchers say that in part, it may come down to simple brain chemistry. A new study has found that alcohol, even in very small amounts, appears to enhance the pleasurable effects of nicotine. At the same time, the researchers say, nicotine may counteract some of the effects of alcohol, like drowsiness. "It may be kind of a balancing act in the brain — that you're taking one substance to balance the effects of another substance," said Dr. Jed E. Rose...

<p>LOS ANGELES — For years consumers have been warned about the dangers of smoking, but now doctors say one ingredient found in cigarettes may hold the key to good health.</p> <p>Nicotine (search), known to be a potentially toxic stimulant, has been found to actually do some good.</p>

SINGAPORE is set to partially lift the ban on chewing gum this week, but those yearning to blow bubbles or freshen their breath will have to settle for a chewy nicotine substitute. Starting on Thursday, sale of Nicorette - a nicotine gum for smokers trying to quit - will be allowed. The Government last year agreed to relax the 12-year ban on chewing gum to allow the sale of brands that the health authorities consider 'therapeutic', as part of a free-trade agreement with the United States that took effect on Jan 1. Pfizer, the company that makes Nicorette, will send...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenagers can purchase nicotine replacement therapy with relative ease, despite the fact that these products carry warnings saying they are meant for adults, according to new research. U.S. investigators found that a 15-year-old girl was able to purchase nicotine replacement products like nicotine patches in 8 out of 10 attempts, without showing any proof of age. Unfortunately, research has shown that some teens "misuse" nicotine replacement products, either trying them when they don't need to quit smoking, or using them while they are still smoking, study author Dr. Karen C. Johnson told Reuters Health. However,...

The postal system, including the branches that serve government offices, remains vulnerable to mailings of ricin and other poisons despite efforts to improve security since the anthrax attacks of 2001, government investigators and other experts said yesterday. Even so, they said that in contrast to the hazards of infectious agents like anthrax, the risk posed by these other substances was more a matter of disruption than of mortal danger. Many experts consider the public health risk posed by a mailed poison much smaller than that from a mailed germ, particularly the easily lofted spores of anthrax, which can multiply explosively...

<p>With the closing of Pinstripes Sports Cafe on Dec. 24, some other bar owners in the city are concerned that they will be next.</p> <p>Pinstripes closed as a direct result of the state public places smoking ban, according to Frank Bokoff, who said he was a spokesman for F and J Management, the group that owned and operated the bar and grill.</p>

Lying in the name of public health A recent study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the most popular brands of smokeless tobacco in this country are the ones with the highest levels of readily absorbed nicotine. For the researchers, the finding was an opportunity to once again mislead the public about the hazards of oral snuff. "Consumers need to know that smokeless tobacco products...are not safe alternatives to smoking," said co-author Patricia Richter of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health. "The amount of nicotine absorbed per dose from using smokeless tobacco...