Free Republic

American TV drama series Mad Men has triggered a dramatic boom in the sales of Lucky Strike cigarettes, causing outrage among anti-smoking campaigners. Sales of the world-famous cigarettes, owned by British American Tobacco, reached 33 billion packs last year compared to 23 billion in 2007 when the show first aired. Mad Men features New York ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in the 1960s and their turbulent relationship with iconic cigs brand Lucky Strike. …

The Kansas Health Foundation has awarded more than $830,000 in grants...

Ireland is to become the first country in the European Union to ban branding on cigarette packages by using plain packaging and uniform labeling, the government said on Tuesday. All trademarks, logos, colors and graphics will be removed from tobacco products sold in Ireland under the new rules, the Health Ministry said, after the proposal secured backing from the government. Smoking was a central part of Ireland’s pub culture until the country became the first in the world to ban smoking in all enclosed public places, public transport and workplaces in 2004. …

Teen smokers who rationalize their use of cigarettes by saying, “At least, I’m not doing drugs,” may not always be able to use that line. New research to be presented Sunday, May 5, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Washington, DC, supports the theory that cigarettes are a gateway drug to marijuana. “Contrary to what we would expect, we also found that students who smoked both tobacco and marijuana were more likely to smoke more tobacco than those who smoked only tobacco,” said study author Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH, FAAP, an investigator at Seattle Children’s Research...

Where are today’s rebels?  Where is the counterculture? Ear-budded hipsters, with their sheep-like devotion to Apple products and the Obama administration, sit in on the April 20 “Day of Pot” in Denver, content and satisfied with their free birth control and legalized maryjane.  Meanwhile SWAT teams descend on Watertown, Massachusetts, trampling Fourth Amendment rights in search of a “person of interest”– while a Saudi National is quietly sent back to his homeland.These hipsters champion the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado while the war on Big Tobacco rages on.  Since 1997 the FDA inherited control over the $365.5 billion global...

New York's proposal to ban purchases by those under 21 is off-base.As thoroughly awful as everyone knows cigarettes to be — still the No. 1 cause of premature death in this country — public officials walk a blurry line when they try to reduce smoking's terrible toll. As long as they lack the will to ban tobacco altogether, they face all sorts of ethical, legal and political problems in regulating a product that is, after all, perfectly legal. High tobacco taxes, critics say, unfairly punish smokers, who are disproportionately low income. Banning advertising of a legal product raises free-speech issues....

Oh, good grief. It's no wonder at least some gun-control advocates were probably less-than-thrilled with Bloomberg's recent foray into gun-control advertising campaigns; his particular brand of loathsome nanny-statism run amok hardly lends credibility to the cause, because of course, once nanny-staters get on a top-down regulatory roll, they’re difficult to deter: The age to legally buy cigarettes in New York City would rise to 21 from 18 under a proposal that officials unveiled on Monday, a measure that would give New York the strictest limits of any major American city.The proposal would make the age for buying cigarettes and other...

Young New Yorkers would not be able to buy cigarettes until they were 21, up from the current 18, under a proposal advanced Monday by Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city’s health commissioner, and Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. The proposal, which would give New York the highest smoking age in the country among major cities, is the latest effort in a long campaign to limit smoking that began soon after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took office, with bans on smoking in restaurants and bars, and expanding more recently to bans at parks, beaches, plazas and other public...

A recent notice from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reveals that the agency intends to acquire an online database capable of bringing up many of an individual’s personal characteristics and connections with just a few keystrokes. On March 28 the federal law enforcement organization, which is a branch of the US Department of Justice, filed a solicitation notice for a “massive online data repository system” for its Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information. The solicitation is hosted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, where vendors and developers can offer their services to the government in a competitive reverse...

Nearly four years after it began regulating cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration is poised to extend its reach to a broader range of tobacco products. At the top of that list: cigars, which have experienced a boom in recent years even as cigarette sales have declined, in part because of growing popularity among young people. Anti-tobacco advocates and industry representatives widely expect the agency to require changes in the marketing and manufacturing of cigars. But the central question remains: What kind of cigars will the FDA target, and how? On one end of the spectrum are the hand-rolled Cohibas...

A new proposal would require New York City retailers to keep tobacco products out of sight under a first-in-the-nation proposal aimed at reducing the youth smoking rate, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. The legislation would require stores to keep tobacco products in cabinets, drawers, under the counter, behind a curtain or in other concealed spots. They could only be visible when an adult is making a purchase or during restocking. "Such displays suggest that smoking is a normal activity," Bloomberg said. "And they invite young people to experiment with tobacco."

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal investigators have unraveled a massive scheme among dozens of insurance agents, claims adjusters, brokers and farmers in eastern North Carolina to steal at least $100 million from the government-backed program that insures crops. Forty-one defendants have either pleaded guilty or reached plea agreements after profiting from false insurance claims for losses of tobacco, soybeans, wheat and corn. Often, the crops weren't damaged at all, with farmers using aliases to sell their written-off harvests for cash. Prosecutors compared the case to busting a drug cartel, where federal investigators used a confidential informant to ensnare a key...

The Natural American Spirit is produced by the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, which sprang up in left-wing Santa Fe, New Mexico in the early 1980s with a new innovative approach to cigarette-making. The American Spirit consists of “100 % Additive-Free Tobacco,” without the nuanced chemical combinations that give most mass-marketed cigarettes their savory taste and potent impact. As such, the Spirit satisfies a growing niche market of left-leaning types who want smoking’s well-documented coolness without earning it through hard respiratory work. This brand’s very existence is a response to the cancer research conducted by various academic elites in the...

Trying to quit smoking? You might want to move to Oregon. A new bill would classify cigarettes as a Schedule III controlled substance, making them illegal to purchase without a doctor’s prescription. Portland Rep. Mitch Greenlick introduced the bill in the Oregon State Legislature in an attempt to reduce the number of addicted people, but has received criticism from smokers and non-smokers alike who believe the initiative is not feasible. Under Greenlick’s proposal, smokers would be charged with a misdemeanor and face up to one year’s imprisonment and a $6,250 fine for being caught with a cigarette or any of...

Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Obama’s health-care law, according to experts who are teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation. The Affordable Care Act — or “Obamacare” — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1. For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year...

SALEM, OR (KPTV) - If you're a regular smoker, you may want to keep an eye on a new bill in the Oregon Legislature. Rep. Mitch Greenlick, from Portland, is sponsoring a bill that makes cigarettes a Schedule III controlled substance, meaning it would be illegal to possess or distribute cigarettes without a doctor's prescription. Under the proposal, offenders would face maximum punishments of one year in prison, a $6,250 fine or both. Other drugs and substances that are considered Schedule III controlled substances are ketamine, lysergic acid and anabolic steroids. "The State Board of Pharmacy may adopt rules placing...

With all the nonsense that’s been going on in the Empire State of late – especially the Governor’s successful gun rantings - I’d begun to worry that New York was doomed for mediocrity. But for better or worse, you just can’t keep the government of this state down. If we can’t lead in freedom, prosperity or employment, we can at least be the capital of piracy. (Cigarette smuggling piracy, that is.) The Midland, Mich.-based Mackinac Center has released smuggling reports in 2006 and 2009, in addition to its most recent report covering 2011. In 2006, the Mackinac Center estimated that...

A federal judge will soon decide whether your next tank of gas or bottle of soda comes with a free apology from the Marlboro man and Joe Camel. A recent ruling ordering a multimedia blitz stating that the nation’s largest tobacco companies lied about the dangers of smoking left open the possibility that retailers could be required to post large displays with the mea culpas. Retail trade groups are upset about the possibility the displays would commandeer their most valuable selling space and imply their own guilt-by-association. …

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...