• September 04, 2009 - RJR suing over rights
R.J. Reynolds, Conwood Co. LLC, and other companies filed a lawsuit against the federal government in federal court in Bowling Green, Ky., over cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies' "First Amendment right to communicate with adult tobacco consumers about their products. For more details go to this link.

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/sep/01/312340/rjr-suing-over-rights/

• August 07, 2009 - Tobacco Regulation Is Expected to Face a Free-Speech Challenge
Congress would like to stop young people from smoking, but opponents say
the marketing and advertising restrictions in the measure don't abide by
the First Amendment.

• August 05, 2009 - Are Cigarette Packs the New Cigarette Ads?
As more routes of advertising get closed off to cigarette makers, cigarette pack designs are taking on greater importance as marketing tools -- and carrying more meaning for smokers.

• August 05, 2009 - American Legacy Extends Anti-Tobacco Efforts
The American Legacy Foundation is launching the next iteration of its latest campaign, "Do You Have What it Takes to be a Tobacco Exec?" Here is an article about this new campaign.

• July 23, 2009 - Join Together
State Budget Cuts Burn Tobacco Prevention Programs

State smoking-prevention programs are being slashed or even shut down as states grapple with massive budget deficits, the Associated Press reported May 27.

In Vermont, for example, state lawmakers are cutting $1.9 million from antismoking efforts, while Washington state legislators slashed a whopping $22 million over two years from a prevention campaign that includes a quit line and TV and radio ads.

Maryland's tobacco-control budget was cut from $16.7 million last year to $4.6 million, while Colorado cut $6 million from its tobacco education and cessation program even as it raised cigarette taxes and took money from a cash reserve account funded with proceeds from the 1998 nationwide tobacco settlement.

"You're seeing disproportionate cuts to tobacco prevention and cessation programs, and it's a foolish strategy," said Thomas Carr of the American Lung Association. "It may solve the budget deficit now, but it increases your costs in the long run, because of the costs tobacco use imposes on state economies in healthcare costs and lost productivity."

• March 30, 2009 - American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society has created a great tobacco resource online for teens. This website explains the facts about teen smoking in a clear and honest way. Highly recommended. Here is a sample:

Child and Teen Tobacco Use

Understanding the problem

The good news: The number of younger Americans who smoke has been going down since the late 1990s.

The bad news: The rates of tobacco smoking among teenagers are still higher than those of adults. On top of that, about 1 in 7 high school boys use some form of spit or other type of smokeless tobacco. More than 2% of high school girls use spit or smokeless tobacco.

Children and teens are easy targets for the tobacco industry. They're often influenced by TV, movies, advertising, and by what their friends do and say. They don't realize what a struggle it can be to quit, and having cancer, emphysema, blindness, or impotence may not seem like real concerns. Children and teens don't think much about future health outcomes.

Here we talk about tobacco use among children and teens. We also give some tips for parents, teachers, and other adults who want to keep their kids tobacco-free.

Facts about kids and tobacco

Almost all smokers start while they're young.

Nearly all first use of tobacco takes place before high school graduation. A 2007 survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 50% of high school students had tried cigarette smoking at some point. Studies have shown that, for the most part, people who do not start using tobacco when they are teens never start using it.

The younger you are when you begin to smoke, the more likely you are to be an adult smoker. Almost 90% of adult smokers started at or before the age 19. And people who start smoking at younger ages are more likely to develop long-term nicotine addiction than people who start later in life.

• March 23, 2009 -
Cigarettes in New Film Stir Anger at Studio

Link


LOS ANGELES — Angry at Warner Brothers over images of cigarettes in the comedy “He’s Just Not That Into You,” an arm of the American Medical Association is demanding that the studio step up its policing of tobacco images on screen.

The American Medical Association Alliance said it intends to lodge an official complaint on Thursday with Warner Brothers and its corporate parent, Time Warner, over “disturbing images of specific cigarette brands in this youth-rated movie,” said Melissa Walthers, director of the health advocacy group’s effort to reduce teenage smoking.

Among other things, the group wants Warner publicly to certify that it received no payment for the product placement and is asking all Hollywood studios to ban filmmakers from showing specific tobacco brands in their work. “There is absolutely zero artistic justification for this,” Ms. Walthers said in a telephone interview, adding that various studies estimate that smoking in films prompts 200,000 young people annually to start smoking.

A Warner Brothers spokesman declined to comment.

• March 23, 2009 - Shapingyouth Blog!
There is a great deal of excellent information related to youth and tobacco use (including advice on how to stop smoking) at the Shaping Youth Blog.

• March 16, 2009 - Newswise, March 16, 2009
Professors Urge Food Industry to Avoid Tobacco Playbook

LINK

Two of the nation's top public-health specialists are issuing a call
to arms in a new journal article, urging the food industry not to
follow the same playbook as cigarette companies did starting in the 1950s.

The food industry of today and the tobacco industry share strategies
such as tarring opponents as "fascists," distorting science and
insisting that they do not promote overuse of their products, argue
Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and
Obesity at Yale University, and Kenneth Warner, dean of the
University of Michigan School of Public Health.

"The world cannot afford a repeat of the tobacco history, in which
industry talks about the moral high ground, but does not occupy it,"
the authors write. "The question is whether they [the food industry]
will behave in honorable, health-promoting ways or will sink to the
depths occupied by tobacco."

In an interview, Brownell said the two industries are different in
many ways, but share a number of strategies:

"One is heavy-duty lobbying; two is paying scientists to produce
results that favor industry positions; three is fighting to frame the
issue as a matter of personal rather than corporate responsibility
and the fourth is funding front groups to do their dirty work," he said.

In their article, which appears in the March issue of The Milbank
Quarterly, the co-authors make several suggestions. They say food
companies should stop selling unhealthy products in schools and
hospitals, end "unwarranted" blaming of people for their actions
regarding obesity, stop using celebrities to promote unhealthy food
and cease marketing unhealthy foods to children.

The food industry should also reformulate products with healthier
ingredients, Brownell said. "The question is whether you can you
count on industry to do this out of goodwill, or will the market just
demand these changes because people want better foods?"

Among other points, the article mentions that the American Dietetic
Association has taken a stand that there are no good or bad foods,
which the authors say is similar to the tobacco industry's early
position that "smoking per se was not bad, only 'excess' smoking."
The commentary adds that the association's close work with the food
industry is an example of the industry's "influential positions in
surprising places."

In response, Martin Yadrick, president of the American Dietetic
Association, said it is not "valid" to compare food to tobacco, since
people need one and not the other.

As for the association's ties to food makers, he said, "Health
professionals of all types, especially registered dietitians, need to
work with the food industry to ensure a wide variety of healthy food
options are available for people. There is no one-size-fits-all
definition of 'healthy.'"

• March 15, 2009 - Smoke-Free Movies?
See the ad at: This Link


Smoke Free Movies has launched a series of print advertisements in Variety and other publications. This advertisement first ran on February 20, 2009.

Congratulations! 23 films nominated for Academy Awards include tobacco.

Big Tobacco should practice its thank-you speech. This year, every live-action feature nominated in every Academy Award category* paraded tobacco imagery across the screen.

Including fourteen nominated features rated “R” by the Motion Picture Association of America. And nine more features rated PG-13 (although only two of them disclose smoking in their MPAA rating label).

Coincidence? Of course not.

Smoking is almost impossible to avoid in a year when almost 80 percent of R-rated films and more than half of PG-13 movies featured tobacco.

Eleven films this year even showcased tobacco brands. Eight of them cast Marlboro, the leading brand among adolescent smokers.

The real tragedy is that young audiences can be protected using the film industry’s own R-rating. And so few industry leaders are aware that progress is already occurring, at no cost.

Can you recall the smoking in even five of these nominated movies? If it’s so marginal to the film, who was it important to?

And why?

* Analysis included every live-action category except Foreign Language and Short Films, for which we had incomplete information.

[Ashtray with caption]

Introducing the Roscoe®, an elegantly restrained but practical ashtray award to put next to your flashy statuette. This year, we ordered crates.

[Sidebar]

You’ve seen the movies, now get the big picture.

A new report issued Feb. 18 by Breathe California and UCSF spotlights on-screen smoking trends from 1991 to 2008. The deeper inside the industry you are, the more it will interest you. Download your copy now:

Click Here

Smoke Free Movies

SmokeFreeMovies.ucsf.edu

Smoking in movies kills in real life. | Smoke Free Movie policies—the R-rating, certification of no payoffs, anti-tobacco spots, and an end to brand display—are endorsed by the World Health Organization, American Medical Association, AMA Alliance, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Heart Association, American Legacy Foundation, American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, L.A. County Dept. of Health Services, New York State Dept. of Health, N.Y. State PTA, and many others. Visit our web site or write: Smoke Free Movies, UCSF School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA 94143-1390.

• January 13, 2009 - U.S. House Acts to Protect Kids
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 13, 2009
CONTACT: Joel Spivak, 202-296-5469

U.S. House Acts to Protect Kids, Save Lives by Increasing Federal Tobacco Taxes
Statement of Matthew L. Myers
President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. House of Representatives today delivered a tremendous victory for children’s health by voting to increase federal tobacco taxes, including a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax, to fund reauthorization and expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). By both reducing tobacco use – the number one cause of preventable death in our country – and expanding health care coverage, this legislation will create a healthier future for literally millions of children. We look forward to Senate approval of this legislation and its signature into law by President Obama.

Increasing tobacco taxes is a proven strategy to reduce smoking and other tobacco use, especially among children. Studies show that every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by seven percent and overall cigarette consumption by about four percent. A 61-cent increase in the federal cigarette tax will prevent nearly two million kids from starting to smoke, help more than one million adult smokers quit, prevent nearly 900,000 smoking-caused deaths and produce $44 billion in long-term health care savings by reducing tobacco-caused health care costs. To maximize the health and revenue benefits and health care cost savings, we urge the Congress to increase federal taxes on all other tobacco products to parallel cigarette tax rates.

Higher tobacco taxes are a win-win-win solution for the country – a health win that will reduce tobacco use and save lives, a financial win that will raise revenue to help fund the SCHIP program and reduce tobacco-caused health care costs, and a political win that is popular with voters. Polling conducted for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids found that more than two-thirds of all voters support a significant increase in the federal cigarette tax to provide health care coverage to uninsured children. This support is evident among virtually every political and demographic subgroup of voters across the country, with large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents, men and women, and urban and rural voters supporting the cigarette tax to fund children’s health care.

Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people in the United States and costs the nation more than $96 billion in health care bills each year. Currently, 20 percent of high school students smoke and more than 1,000 kids become new regular smokers every day.

We urge Congress to pass this important legislation without delay. It will expand health care coverage for America’s children while helping to reduce tobacco use and save lives.

More information:

Fact sheet: Benefits from a 61-cent federal cigarette tax increase: www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0314.pdf

• July 14, 2006 -
CASACONFERENCE
CASACONFERENCE
Up in Smoke: Tobacco and American Youth
Thursday, September 21, 2006

• July 14, 2006 - The Seattle Times
Tobacco could kill a billion people, report says
WASHINGTON — Curbing tobacco use and taking other steps to eliminate some of the most common risk factors for cancer could save millions of lives over the next few decades, health officials said Monday.

• June 28, 2006 - Seattle Times
Surgeon general's dire new warning on secondhand smoke
WASHINGTON — Secondhand smoke dramatically increases the risk of heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmokers and can be controlled only by making indoor spaces smoke-free, according to a comprehensive report issued Tuesday by U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.

• June 16, 2006 - Seattle Times
Smoke-free grads earn $500 reward
As he mourned his father's smoking-related death in 1995, Rob Hill looked to his former elementary school as a way to honor his dad.

He promised more than 100 fourth-graders over two years at Brookside Elementary in Lake Forest Park $500 each if they stayed tobacco-free until graduation. He called it The Smoke-Free 500 and set up a foundation in his father's name.

• February 03, 2006 - The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools
Lawsuits to Target Beverages in Schools
Lawyers who successfully brought lawsuits against the tobacco industry for damage caused by tobacco products say they will file suit in Massachusetts next year against beverage companies who sell soda and other sugary beverages to students in schools.

• February 03, 2006 - Washington State Department of Social and Health Services
2005 Tobacco, Alcohol & Drugs Trends in Washington State report
Tobacco, Alcohol, and Other Drug Abuse Trends in Washington State-2005 is an annually published reference tool that can be used to measure progress in the state's effort to prevent and treat substance abuse. This year's report finds declining trends in adolescent drug and tobacco use. Click: "The Problem: Substance Abuse Prevalence and Trends" to find out more when you get there!

• February 03, 2006 - ABCNews.com
Movies heavily shape teen smoking, study shows.
A national study carried out by researchers at Dartmouth Medical School, described as the first of its kind, found that nearly 40 percent of teens try smoking because they saw it in the movies.

• November 19, 2005 - Seattle Post Intelligencer
Movie smoking has state officials fuming
Attorneys general from 32 states, including Washington, have asked movie studios to add anti-smoking messages to upcoming DVD releases featuring the unhealthy habit in response to new research showing that movie actors' smoking spurs youths to light up.

• November 05, 2005 - University of Washington
Exposure to Movie Smoking: Its Relation to Smoking Initiation Among US Adolescents
Objective. Regional studies have linked exposure to movie smoking with adolescent smoking. We examined this association in a representative US sample.

• January 19, 2005 - www.tabaccoprc.org
Don't Pass Gas. Take it Outside
The American Legacy Foundation and the Ad Council are launching a new public service announcement campaign "to educate Americans and especially parents about the dangers of secondhand smoke and motivate them to take
steps to create smoke-free environments for their families." The tag line is "Don't Pass Gas. Take It Outside." They're also releasing research results that find more than 13 million U.S. children are exposed to secondhand smoke
in their homes.

• February 13, 2004 - Join Together
African American teen less likely to smoke than White or Hispanic youth.

• July 31, 2003 - Times Dispatch
Is it information or manipulation?
Philip Morris' new wave of television advertisements, which began airing on June 23, have prompted both interpretations

• July 15, 2003 - Beck/Smith Celebrity Gossip
Britney Spears ranks as a chump for her involvement with nicotine Britney, Put that thing Down

• June 10, 2003 - The Lancelet
Recent studies link exposure to smoking in movies with adolescent smoking initiation.

• June 03, 2003 - The Science Daily
Recent studies demonstrate that upon quitting, women show greater recuperation of lung capacity than men after one year. However, the difference tapers off over the years. In terms of decline, smokers who continued to use tobacco showed the same rate of lung degradation across the sexes.

• June 03, 2003 - Yahoo News
Newborn infants born to smoking mothers suffer the same impaired condition of those born to addicts of heroin or cocaine. This paves the way for potential changes from a legal perspective – in the future, smoking mothers may face possible removal of their children from protective services.

• May 22, 2003 - The BBC News
Following the recent world-wide adoption of the anti-tobacco treaty (see below) , Jersey's health president plans to follow in the UK's footsteps by proposing a US ban on tobacco advertising. Plans to increase taxes and raise the smoking legal age are also in the works.

• May 22, 2003 - The LA Times
A class-action lawsuit worth $144.8 billion against cigarette makers was thrown out of Florida court due to a number of reasons ranging from an incompetent jury to "race-based appeals" by the plaintiffs' lawyer to the desired compensatory amount. The 700,000 smokers suffering from tobacco-related diseases are still able to sue on an individual basis.

• May 22, 2003 - The New York times
Compared to non-smokers, tobacco users who are forced to abstain from smoking for 24 hours are likely to perceive time more incorrectly. The former estimated a 45-second interval at 52, while smokers guessed at 71 seconds. [*To read the full New York Times article, please register a free account here]

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