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NEW YORK - Executives from cigarette maker Lorillard will keep a close eye on Capitol Hill next week as lawmakers consider measures that could threaten sales of its lucrative menthol-flavored brand, Newport.

The House of Representatives could vote before month’s end on a bill giving the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco. If signed into law, the government would gain new power to restrict ingredients used in cigarettes and crack down on advertising directed at children. Currently, additives found in cigarettes, chew and other tobacco products are not regulated by the government.

Despite wide support for the effort in Congress, debate over whether and how to restrict use of menthol flavoring is threatening to derail the bill. No company has more at stake in the outcome than Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard, which relies on menthol cigarettes for 90 percent of its sales.

The current bill exempts menthol from an immediate ban applied to other tobacco-masking flavors used in cigarettes, such as orange, strawberry and cherry. Instead the bill gives regulators power to ban or limit menthol at a later date, if they can show scientific evidence it threatens public health.

The wording of the menthol provision is a point of contention among bill supporters in the House. While some members of the Congressional Black Caucus have pushed for an outright ban on menthol, others say such strong language would threaten the bill’s chances of becoming law.

"This has been something long sought after and now that we finally have it within our grasp we shouldn’t undermine it," said Virgin Islands Delegate Donna Christensen. Pursuing an outright ban would "threaten a very fragile agreement," she added.

Some Republicans, including Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, have already vowed to block the bill if it reaches the Senate.

Menthol cigarettes make up more than a quarter of the total U.S. market. About 70 percent of black smokers buy menthol cigarettes, compared with about 30 percent of white smokers.

Supporters of a menthol ban say the flavoring makes smoking more tolerable to youngsters and functions as a starter product. However, industry advocates dispute the claim.

Lorillard said its products should not be compared to fruit-flavored cigarettes, a recent development which lawmakers accuse of blatantly encouraging children to smoke.

"Menthol has been used in cigarettes for 82 years," said company spokesman Michael Robinson. "It has never been used to attract younger smokers."

The company’s best-selling Newport brand accounts for one-third of the U.S. market for menthol cigarettes. The other leading menthol brands are Kool and Salem cigarettes, both made by Winston-Salem-based Reynolds American Inc. The two brands combined still account for less of the market than Newport.

A report from Harvard University researchers last week pointed to industry records that showed companies adjusted menthol levels to target different age groups. For instance, Philip Morris used low-menthol cigarettes to introduce their brand to younger smokers, but raised menthol levels in brands aimed at older smokers.

Lorillard said it does not alter menthol levels to hook smokers, and has not adjusted Newport’s formulation since 2000.

The company spent more than $750,000 in the first quarter lobbying the federal government on cigarette regulation, including the menthol debate, according to government filings.

Competitor Philip Morris, which markets Marlboro cigarettes, actually favors the bill and is credited with helping build support for tobacco regulation in Congress. The company sells menthol cigarettes under the brand Marlboro Milds, but they are a small segment of its revenue.

Analysts speculate the Richmond, Va.-based company supports the effort because it is better positioned than rivals to operate in a more-regulated environment. Because of its size, the company could dedicate more resources to dealing with regulators than its smaller competitors.

Altria Group Inc., Philip Morris’ parent company, already controls more than 40 percent of the U.S. cigarette market.

But despite support for the bill in both chambers of Congress, complicating issues appear to be stalling its momentum.

The Bush administration said Tuesday it opposes giving FDA oversight of tobacco because it would suggest cigarettes are somehow safe. Opposition from the White House could doom the bill’s chances of passing this year, since its supporters do not appear to have the Senate votes needed to overturn a presidential veto.

Additionally, Congress is approaching its summer recess and still has more pressing legislation to pass, including a housing bill aimed at propping up the economy.

But the threat of tobacco regulation is not necessarily going away, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Marc Greenberg.

With the potential for Democrats to win the White House and increase their majority in Congress this November, Greenberg writes that party leaders seem "inclined to wait on major issues until it has a stronger hand to play."

He said the prospect of tobacco regulation being delayed until 2009 would benefit Lorillard shares in the near term.

WASHINGTON — Tobacco companies deliberately changed the menthol levels in cigarettes depending upon whom they were marketing them to — lower levels for young smokers who preferred the milder brands and higher levels to "lock in lifelong adult smokers," researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health concluded.

Their finding is based on a review of more than 500 internal tobacco-industry documents from 1985 through 2007.

Researchers said the documents showed that tobacco companies studied how controlling levels of menthol could increase brand sales. They concluded new and young smokers liked mild menthol that masked the harshness of tobacco smoke. Veteran smokers, the companies are said to have concluded, favored stronger doses of menthol for its cooling effects on their throats.

The findings come as Congress weighs whether to grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products, including additives, at the national level. The bill would allow the FDA to ban all cigarette flavorings except menthol. If FDA tests of menthol showed it added to the health risks of smoking, the agency could ban menthol, too.

No conclusive evidence shows menthol cigarettes to be more harmful than conventional ones, said Terry Pechacek, the associate director of the Office of Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pechacek said there was evidence that menthol smokers had a harder time quitting.

Menthol has proven appeal to young people and is popular among African-American smokers, two-thirds or more of whom smoke mentholated brands, according to Gregory Connolly, a co-author of the report and the director of Harvard’s Tobacco Control Research Program.

According to the program’s lab tests of menthol concentrations in cigarettes since 2000, menthol went down in brands the young preferred and went up in brands that were aimed at older smokers.

According to the Harvard researchers’ report, the "rapid introduction" of new milder menthol brands violates a provision in the Master Settlement Agreement of 1998 between tobacco companies and state governments that prohibits them from targeting youths.

When the price of cigarettes topped ten dollars a pack at some city outlets last month, thousands of smokers knew it was time to quit. An analysis of data from the city’s 311 line showed the number of calls for help to quit smoking was three times higher during the week the price increase went into effect compared to the same week in the previous year. More than 2,700 New Yorkers called for help in the week starting June 2nd compared to about 850 in the same period in 2007. In addition to the 2,700 callers, about 1,600 smokers got free nicotine patches on June 3rd at sites across the five boroughs.

New York City cigarettes are now the priciest in the nation, costing a pack-a-day smoker at least $3,000 a year. The Health Department’s June campaign showed smokers how many daily necessities or seemingly unattainable luxuries can be bought with this savings, from daycare and laundry to a vacation or a shopping spree.

“Most smokers want to quit,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, NYC Health Commissioner. “And the extra push of a higher price results in many smokers stopping smoking forever. Thanks to this measure, tens of thousands of New Yorkers will live healthier lives.”

Increasing the price of cigarettes has proven to be the most effective way to motivate New Yorkers to quit. Tax increases in 2002 contributed to a five year 21% drop in adult smoking and a 52% drop in smoking among New York City public high school students, as announced earlier this year. The new state tax increase of $1.25 is expected to cut the number of smokers significantly and to save tens of thousands of lives.

The sharp rise in the cost of cigarettes appears to be leading many New Yorkers to kick the habit.
The American Lung Association of New York says more than 2,700 smokers called the city’s 311 help line the first week of June to quit smoking compared to 850 in June of 2007.
The state’s $1.50 cigarette tax hike went into effect in June. The cost of a pack of cigarettes in the City now averages about $8.

Meanwhile, a new national government study finds more lungs are free of second-hand smoke.

A study by the Centers for Disease Control finds 46 percent of non-smokers with traces of nicotine in their blood in tests done between 1999 and 2004.
The number was at 84 percent in tests a decade earlier.
Researchers say laws banning smoking in many public places are the main reason for the decline.

The study also showed the number of adult smokers is now less than 20 percent.

PITTSFIELD — Smokers felt the first burn of the state’s new $1 tax increase on cigarettes yesterday. "It’s disgusting, people can’t live today with all of these taxes, it’s killing business," said a patron of A-Mart on North Street, who identified himself as "Stoney."
The statewide cigarette tax increase of $1 went into effect yesterday, after passage in the Legislature late Monday and Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s signature yesterday. In January, the average nationwide price of a pack of cigarettes was $4.25, as reported by a study tracking state cigarette prices, but in Massachusetts, an average pack cost $5.41. With the total tax now at $2.51, Massachusetts now
Projections are that the tax hike will raise up to $174 million in revenues to help support the state’s health insurance programs. Medical News Today, an online newsletter reported in February that the state’s subsidized health insurance coverage could cost the state as much as $1.35 billion over the next several years. "If they were smart, they would have the same tax that New Hampshire has," said Mark Parrott, manager of A-Mart in Pittsfield, where he was tagging new prices yesterday. The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids reports that New Hampshire’s cigarette tax is $1.08 per pack.
"They claim that they will raise $175 million with this tax increase, but they will actually raise less, because they are not going to get the same number of consumers that they had before," said Parrott. "Some are going to quit smoking, and others are going to go to (buy in) other states."
For smokers, the cigarette tax adds to the increasing cost of gas and other commodities. But lawmakers hope the new tax will cause consumers to quit smoking. But some smokers won’t quit. "Smoking is undoubtedly an addiction, in fact, it is more addictive than many more expensive drugs," said Emily Blanchard, community health worker for the Berkshire Area Health Education Center. "Everyone has their own individual struggles, for one person it might be more difficult to quit than it would be for another person," she said.
During the month of June, the state was offering free two-week supplies of nicotine patches to individuals who called 1-800-trytostop. The program may continue depending on how successful it was, Blanchard told the Eagle. Though Gloria Wilson feels the tax is too much, none of her friends seem upset by the increased tax, she said. For many smokers, cigarettes use has been a part of their lifestyles since they were teenagers, said Wilson, a Pittsfield resident. "I have smoked since I was 14," she said.
Pittsfield resident Anne Bishop, who was smoking a cigarette at a North Street park on Tuesday, said she’s been smoking since she was in high school. "I could quit if I wanted to, I have in the past, I could quit if they kept increasing the tax," Bishop said, but she indicated no intentions of quitting now.
She said cigarettes are not the products that should receive a tax increase. "I think instead of increasing (the tax on) cigarettes, they should increase a liquor tax," Bishop said. "Drinking is more of a problem to quit, they should increase an alcohol tax. People drink, and then that makes them smoke more," she said.

NEW YORK - Philip Morris International Inc.’s (NYSE / Paris Euronext: PM) Chief Operating Officer André Calantzopoulos will address investors today at the JP Morgan Global Tobacco Conference at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London.

The presentation and Q&A session are being webcast live, in a listen-only mode, beginning at approximately 9:25 a.m. London Time. An archived copy of the webcast, together with selected slides, will be available on the same site until 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, July 18, 2008.

Highlights of the presentation include Philip Morris International’s (PMI) key brand strategies and an update on major market performances.

The presentation may contain projections of future results and other forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties and are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

PMI is subject to other risks detailed from time to time in its publicly filed documents, including the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2008. PMI cautions that the list of important factors is not complete and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that it may make.

A TOWERING office block sprouting tobacco plants, private gardens transformed by sculptures and random video screens installed around the city centre will be just some of the stranger sights of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival.

The programme was launched today, with the diverse selection of exhibits and events including a chance to listen to a modern version of a record sent into outer space or read quotes from the Bible on giant rotating lightbulbs.

pective of Tracey Emin’s work, being held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, is this year’s major exhibition, and the controversial artist is expected to draw huge crowds. Among the more striking highlights on show around the city will be East Lothian-based artist Ettie Spencer’s Tobacco House, which will see large tobacco crops growing out of the windows of St Margaret’s House on London Road, as well as an outdoor crop grown behind the Craigmillar Arts Centre.
The artist hopes that the installation in the former pensions building will raise questions about the issues of slavery, poverty and taxation surrounding the tobacco industry, as well as brightening up the "grim" building.
She has not yet decided what will be done with the crop but will be taking suggestions from the public during the festival.
Another event sure to catch the eye will be Boris Eldagsen’s Spam: the musical, a series of video installations based on two years’ worth of spam e-mails collected by the artist. As it is a work of "guerrilla" art, organisers were in the dark over exactly where, or what, the installations would be, but said they would include videos around the city centre.
The videos will also be uploaded to internet sites in dozens of countries across the globe, in a bid to create the world’s biggest piece of spam art.
Big Things on the Beach is again working with the festival after last year’s successful sandbag pyramids, and this year have organised Garden Gallery, which will see artists placing works in the gardens of private houses around Portobello beach.
The homeowners have all given their permission, and the works will all be visible from the street, with tours being arranged to take people around the event.
The festival includes more than 50 exhibitions, and features more than 120 events, including artists’ talks, screenings, debates, tours and family projects.
Director Joanne Brown said she was "overawed" by the quantity and quality of the work.
She said: "I feel really proud of the way the city has taken on the Art Festival, and we now have so many galleries commissioning work and organising events, most of which are free to the public and which will really raise the profile of visual arts."
The Edinburgh Art Festival runs from July 31 to August 31.

New York State lawmakers are considering a different way to collect taxes from cigarettes sold on Indian reservations.
Native Americans say they don’t have to charge New York State taxes on cigarettes because they’re on sovereign territory. But some state lawmakers, including Antoine Thompson, say they want to level the playing field for stores in New York that do collect taxes.
One potential plan is to make it illegal for cigarette manufacturers to sell to wholesalers that sell to tax-free stores on reservations.
Thompson, a Democrat from Western New York, says lawmakers including himself are considering further "bold" ideas, including charging the non-Indian customers a sales tax once they leave Native territory. He says one idea is to set up a mechanism around Indian territory where consumers would be asked whether they made any purchases. Consumers would either pay the tax at that point, or risk being charged with tax evasion if they don’t declare their cigarette purchase.
Thompson also says these proposals or eventual laws could convince all the affected parties, including the Senecas, to work toward a compromise.
No word tonight on whether the Senecas would entertain a compromise, but the leaders of the sovereign nation have not considered a compromise before.

Fear of a dreaded disease has been part of the bargain for years. Shame came slower, as smokers were cast from offices, restaurants and even bars. Now, in New York City, there is yet another scary side effect to smoking: empty pockets.

As a new $1.25 state tax took effect on Tuesday, making the combined tax in New York City the nation’s highest and pushing the price of a pack of cigarettes above $8 in most places, many smokers around the city swore they were stopping, even as they bought what they promised would be their last pack.

Barbette Gaines, 47, who started smoking when she was 12, said she was in a bad mood after paying $8.90 for Newports at a deli on the Lower East Side, and was considering calling a cessation hotline.

Violeta Mujovic, a clerk at the Always Love Discount Smoke Shop on the Upper West Side — which advertises “cigarettes sold at the lowest price in NYC” — said that about two dozen customers complained as they forked over $8.15 a pack on Tuesday morning, but two people stormed out empty-handed.

“They said they were quitting and just left,” said Ms. Mujovic, 23, who smokes a pack a day herself and said she had called the city’s 311 line to sign up for a program that provides quitters with free nicotine gum. “It is just too ridiculous.”

Cigarette prices in the city have been going up steadily in recent years, and taxes now total $4.25 a pack: $2.75 for the state and $1.50 in city taxes that began in 2002.

At a news conference to announce the new tax Tuesday, city and state health officials cited studies showing that smoking rates decrease as cigarette prices rise, and said they expected that up to 140,000 of the city’s 1 million smokers would quit because of the increased cost.

They said that the state expected to raise $265 million in new revenue from the tax, but that the revenue was dwarfed by the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses in the state, which they estimated at about $8.2 billion a year.

“At a pack a day, smoking is now a $3,000-a-year habit in New York City,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner, said at the news conference at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. “Quitting now will not only improve your health, but it will save you money you can use for yourself or your family.”

The immediate reaction from smokers across the city ranged from resignation to outrage. Outside the Rosebank Tavern on Staten Island, Mike Sheehy, 49, saw the $8.75 he just paid at a nearby deli for a pack of Marlboro Lights as an affront to his liberty.

“The Revolution was backed by tobacco,” he said, cigarette in hand. “That’s where we got our dough from during the Revolutionary War. That’s the crop that built America. We’re true Americans.”

In Downtown Brooklyn, Oleg Gulchinsky, a 67-year-old immigrant from Ukraine with an open pack of Misty 100s in his breast pocket, said, “Time to stop smoke and begin drink vodka.”

“I joke,” Mr. Gulchinsky said. “But it’s too bad. I understand people say it’s no good. But for me it’s good, it’s my choice.”

In Woodside, Queens, Chris Bastianos, 47, said he could not bring himself to end his 30-year-affair with tobacco — yet. “If it went over $10 a day I’d stop,” he said.

There undoubtedly are some places where a pack already tops $10. Random sampling showed a range of prices around the city: a newsstand on the corner of Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village had Marlboro Lights for $9, while the Big J Deli in Woodside, Queens, was selling them for $6.75 (a clerk said he was not aware of when the taxes took effect). The large drug stores were in the middle of the range, with Marlboro Lights costing $8.51 at a CVS in Midtown.

Shahid Akhter, who opened the Amazing Store and Smoke Shop on Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side a month ago, said that past increases caused business to drop slightly, but that crossing the $8 threshold — especially as the cost of everything from oil to eggs continued to rise — was likely to have a bigger effect.

With the rising cost of a pack of cigarettes, some groups in the Southern Tier say it’s just time to quit.

Groups like Tobacco Free Broome-Tioga, Reality Check and the TEAM-ACT Cessation Center believe the new tax is an incentive for people to quit smoking. The groups predict that the tax increase will prevent more than 243,000 from smoking and lead more than 140,000 smokers to quit.

"People need deterrents. They need the information about the health risks of smoking and they need a deterrent that’s going to say you know what, it’s really not worth it to smoke anymore. Because I don’t have anything. At the end of a $180 habit a month, I have nothing to show for it," said Christie Finch, Chair of the Tobacco Free Broome and Tioga Coalition.

British cigarette makers face a new and serious risk to their profits if the U.K. government rules that all brands should have plain packaging, analysts said yesterday.

The industry offset lower sales by raising prices when England imposed smoking bans in bars last year, but a move to plain packaging would sway smokers to switch to cheaper brands, they said.

The U.K. has begun a three-month public consultation on a number of measures to cut the number of smokers. The most serious for industry profits is the move to ban branding.

All U.K. packs would be white, with brand names printed in plain black type. The only colour on the packages would be graphic health warnings.

Plain packaging would require new legislation, and likely wouldn’t reach shelves until 2010.

U.K. market leader is Imperial Tobacco, with a 46.1 per cent share. An analyst said it nets 96 pence ($1.89) a pack for top-priced Embassy, but only 70p from mid-priced Lambert and Butler and much less for discounted brands.

Analysts say the premium brands may taste different, but the range in quality is barely perceptible.

OTTAWA, - Fourth-quarter profit at Rothmans Inc grew 17 percent, Canada’s No 2 cigarette maker said on Friday, as price increases more than offset pressure from a growing trade in contraband tobacco.
Increased competition to sell low-priced Davidoff cigarettes and declining volumes posed further difficulties, but Rothmans said it is well positioned financially to withstand market pressures thanks to C$234.9 million in cash reserves.
Known for its Craven A, Rothmans and Benson & Hedges brands, the company said it earned C$21 million ($21 million), or 31 Canadian cents per share, in the period ended March 31.
That is up from C$18 million, or 26 Canadian cents per share, in the same period last year and betters analyst expectation for a profit of 30 Canadian cents a share. Revenue increased 4.8 percent to C$145.7 million.
Toronto-based Rothmans, Canada’s only publicly traded cigarettes maker, said rising sales of lower-priced cigarettes lifted results, despite weakness in premium market sales.
Rothmans Benson & Hedges Inc., which is a 60 percent co-owned unit, shipped 2.3 billion cigarettes into the domestic market in the period, down 2.6 percent from last year.

Restaurant smoking bans may be as powerful as peers or parents in the battle to keep teenagers from becoming smokers, a new study suggests. Teenagers who lived in towns that adopted early bans on smoking in restaurants were 40 percent less likely to become smokers than their counterparts in towns with weaker restaurant smoking laws, Boston researchers report.
The study did not address how smoking bans discourage teenage smoking. But Dr. Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health said the findings bear out his hypothesis that if teens see fewer people smoking and conclude that smoking isn’t socially acceptable, then they may be less likely to pick up the habit.
Writing in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, Siegel reported results from three waves of phone surveys in 301 Massachusetts towns starting in 2001. Massachusetts banned smoking in all workplaces, bars, and restaurants in 2004, but 227 cities and towns in the state had rules on tobacco at work sites, including restaurants, before the law went into effect.
Siegel and his colleagues asked more than 3,800 young people who were between the ages of 12 and 17 at the beginning of the study if they had ever smoked, if they had a cigarettes in the past month, and if they had smoked more than 100 cigarettes. "Restaurant smoking bans are actually one of the most effective interventions to reduce youth smoking," Siegel said. "There are not a lot of interventions out there which can produce a 40 percent reduction in youth smoking."
In towns that banned smoking in restaurants ahead of the state law, 7.9 percent of participants had smoked more than 100 cigarettes when the study began; in towns with weak laws, the rate was 9.6 percent. After adjusting for a variety of factors, such as age, race, and household income, the difference widened to 40 percent, Siegel said.
Having a parent or a close friend who smoked was a factor in whether a child tried smoking, but not in whether the child continued to smoke, he said. "Everyone talks about whether parents or friends smoke," Siegel said. "This shows that a restaurant smoking ban is equal in power."
In an earlier paper based on the same survey, Siegel found that teens living in towns that had an early smoking ban thought fewer people smoked and considered it less socially acceptable than those who lived in towns with weaker smoking laws. According to state figures, teen smoking hit a 15-year low in 2007, dipping to 17.7 percent of high school students from 20.5 percent two years earlier. Sales to minors took an even steeper dive, with 22 percent of teens able to get cigarettes if they wanted them in 2006, compared with 13.3 percent in 2007, according to a state program that sends teens to stores to track how many businesses violate the law against selling to underage buyers.
Lois Keithly, director of the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program, said many factors might have contributed to the substantial decline in teen cigarette use. "Certainly the statewide workplace smoking ban was part of it," she said. "I think in a couple of years we’ll be able to compare it to other factors."
Since 2006, counseling and medications to help smokers quit have been covered by MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid plan, and the benefit has been used by more than 10 percent of members, she said. Public health efforts aimed at adolescents have been reinvigorated, including the launch of the84.org, a website with antismoking ads created by teenagers and named for the 84 percent of their peers who don’t smoke.
A proposed increase in the cigarette tax, should it be approved by the Legislature, could also have an effect on teen smoking rates, Keithly said. "What I took from this study is the importance of adolescents not seeing adults whom they respect smoking," she said.

Vending machines in Japan are to start counting the wrinkles on peoples face to determine if they are old enough to buy Camel cigarettes.
Fujitaka say their new machines will use a digital camera to analyze customers facial characteristics such as bone structure, sags and crow’s feet.
They will then only serve the Camel cigarettes smokers if they are believed to be over 20 years old. Any baby-faced smokers who are of the legal age of 20, will still be able to buy from the machine, but only after inserting ID such as a drivers license.
There are over half a million automated tobacco vending machines in Japan where a 2004 survey found 14% of boys and 4% of girls aged 17 and 18 smoke every day.
The Japanese finance ministry is yet to give permission for the roll out of the facial recognition vending machines as they have concerns over the accuracy of the technology.

Japan Tobacco Inc., the world’s third- largest publicly traded Marlboro cigarettes maker, rose the most in two weeks in Tokyo trading after the Nikkei newspaper reported it may raise prices.
The company is considering higher prices because the cost of leaf tobacco and packaging has increased as much as 30 percent, the newspaper said, citing an interview with President Hiroshi Kimura. Japan Tobacco climbed 3.8 percent to 493,000 yen at the 3 p.m. close on Tokyo’s stock exchange, its biggest gain since April 25.
“We won’t rule out the possibility of a price hike, but there’s no concrete plan at this stage,'’ Yukiko Seto, a Japan Tobacco spokeswoman, said in a phone interview. “It’s one of the options we will consider.'’
Operating income from Marlboro cigarettes sales slid 9.4 percent to 222 billion yen ($2.14 billion) in the 12 months through March. The percentage of Japanese men who smoke has fallen by half over the past 40 years to about 40 percent because of an increase in health consciousness.
The company’s last price increase that wasn’t linked to higher taxes was in 1993, Nikkei said.

BEIJING—Li Zhigang inhaled deeply from a cigarette while sitting on his haunches last week near the Beijing Railway Station before deciding there was no way that tighter smoking regulations would change where or when he would grab a smoke.

Li, a 30-year-old real estate salesman, said he could support tighter rules in theory but could not see himself changing his habits.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville to require "fire-safe" cigarettes in Tennessee passed the state Senate today and is on its way to Gov. Bredesen for his signature.

The fire-safe cigarettes bill passed in the house by an overwhelming majority on April 10 and was approved in the Senate this morning.

Fire-safe cigarettes are made from a special paper that contains "speed bumps" — areas of increased thickness that extinguish the cigarettes when air is not pulled through them, according to a news release today from the Senate Democratic Caucus. Unattended cigarettes burn out when the flame hits the speed bumps.

The new law will require that only these cigarettes be sold in Tennessee.

Guntur: Tobacco prices are continuing to rule high in the Andhra Pradesh auctions. For the first time, Virginia tobacco fetched a record Rs 110.40 a kg on Thursday on the Koyyalagudem auction floor in West Godavari district. The district produces the best cigarettes in the State.
Average price
So far, 94.5 million kgs of cigarettes has been sold on the auction floors in the State at an average price of Rs 77.25 a kg as against last year’s average price of Rs 47.50 a kg by this time. Still, roughly 60 million kgs of tobacco remains to be sold in the State. According to rough estimates, the farmers have got an incremental income of Rs 285 crore more this year than the same time last year.
Admitting that the farmers are getting very good prices this season, Dr Y. Sivaji, President of the Andhra Pradesh Virginia Tobacco Growers’ Association, said that certain factors in the international market triggered the price rise on the auction floor. “The drastic slump in production in Zimbabwe from a level of 250 million kgs to 60 milion kgs, due to racial unrest in that country, is one of the major factors for the price rise. There has been production slump in Brazil by 70 million kgs or so and besides that China is no longer able to dump in the international market at lesser prices, as it has joined the WTO. There are no carryover stocks in India or anywhere else in the world,” he said. Plea to growers
Dr Sivaji, however, cautioned the farmers in the State to be wary of the “designs of the trade to effect a price correction in the State.
The trade is attempting to depress prices by forming into syndicates and imposing a ceiling price. Such attempts should be foiled by farmers and they should get an average price of $2 a kg on the floors. They should not part with the crop, if they do not realise the price”.
On the floors in the southern lights soils and southern black soils, he alleged, “the trade is up to its old tricks.” He also cautioned farmers that they should not go in for surplus production, encouraged by the high prices. The reduction of punitive cess for the current year’s surplus from Rs 2 a kg plus 15 per cent of the value to Rs 1 a kg plus 5 per cent of the value was not a correct move, he said.

A bill aiming to replace the current text warnings on cigarettes packs with pictures on the effects of smoking will be discussed in the committee on health Tuesday at the House of Representatives.
Under HB 3364 or the Picture-Based Health Warning Bill, all packages of cigarettes and other tobacco products shall have colored and graphic health warnings on their front and back panels to warn the public about the hazardous effects of smoking.
"Madali lang po makinig [pero] hindi naman natin talaga nakikita yung mga nangyayari. Pag nakita po talaga natin, baka magdalawang isip na tayo, [It’s easy to listen, we never really get to see the effects. Maybe if we do, we may change our minds]" Congresswoman Anna York Bondoc, co-author of the bill, said.
If the bill is implemented, the sale of cigarettes that do not have the graphic health warnings will be banned, while descriptions of the brand such as "low tar, "light," ultra-light," and "mild" that might mislead the public will be removed, Bondoc said.
Cigarette manufacturers will also be mandated to shoulder the printing expenses of the picture-based health warnings, she said.
Manufacturers, importers, exporters, and distributors not complying with the rules will pay a fine of P1 million on the first offense, P5 million on the second offense, and P20 million on the third offense. An imprisonment of not more than one year may also be imposed on the third offense upon the discretion of the court, according to the bill. Implementation of the bill is targeted for Sept. 6, 2008, the deadline of the compliance of the Philippines with the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), according to Congresswoman Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, co-author of HB 3364.
The FCTC is a world treaty on smoking which took effect in 2005 with 350 countries, including the Philippines, as signatories. Other countries, such as Canada and Singapore have imposed the use of picture-based health warnings on cigarette packs.
"Kung nagawa nga ng iba, bakit hindi natin magawa dito [If other countries were able to implement it, why not here]?" said Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo, FCTC Program Manager of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance. He cited the cigarette packs with image warnings that were being sold in Thailand but manufactured in the Philippines.

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Malawi has grown tobacco for over 100 years now with the first tobacco seeds introduced in the country in 1893. First tobacco exports from the then Nyasaland are reported to have taken place at the turn of the 20th Century. Today cigarettes is the biggest forex earner in the country bringing in 60 percent of the country’s export revenue and it is the largest employer in rural areas with 70 percent of the workforce in the industry. However the boom in the cigarettes industry has brought with it its own negative consequences, especially in matters to do with the environment. According to Nico Nijenhuis, a research student from the University of Twente in The Netherlands, and currently on an internship with GTZ/ProBEC, Malawi has an estimated 10,000 smallholder tobacco growers, 65 percent of whom use wood to cure tobacco. Nijenhuis says it takes a single small holder farmer 13.5kilogrammes of wood to cure a single kg of tobacco. According to German Scholar, Helmut Geist who conducted a Global Assessment of Reforestation Related to Tobacco Farming in 1999, Malawi clears 55,000 hectares of woodlands annually to cure tobacco. Heist pegged the percentage of tobacco related deforestation in Malawi at 26.1 percent, representing a quarter of all the deforestation that happens in the country. Today some analysts suggest that these figures might have increased significantly as production has switched away from politically unstable (yet fuel-efficient) Zimbabwe to other Southern African countries like Malawi where wood is the only practical fuel for curing flue cured tobacco. And again the rise in demand for Malawian Flue Cured Tobacco as evidenced by the rise in prices at the auction floors has encouraged farmers to grow more of it. This season government has set the minimum selling price for Flue Cured Tobacco at $2.20/kg (K316) while its counterpart, Burley, which is air cured is at a minimum of a $1.61/kg (K231). Such good prices are not doing the country’s forests any justice. Farmers, most of whom do not have and woodlots of their own, continue to cut down trees wantonly in order to have fuel for curing their tobacco. And most of the trees that are cut are from indigenous forests, never to be replaced. Concerned with the alarming levels of deforestation, Alliance One, GTZ, ProBEC and Total Land Care teamed up to look at energy efficient ways of curing tobacco. The answer to this problem was the rocket barn.

Millions of Russians could be urged to kick their favourite habit if a global anti-smoking treaty is ratified by the country’s lawmakers. The treaty boosts health warnings on packets and calls an end to advertising. Half a million Russians die every year from smoke-related diseases. Having played an active role in the framing of the Global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Russia is still not a member.
In Russia, 60% of men and 30% of women smoke cigarettes.
According to State Duma Chairman Boris Gryzlov, “Russia is the third most prolific producer in the world of tobacco products - some 414 billion cigarettes annually. But unlike the U.S. who are the world leaders and who export most of what they produce, Russian tobacco is consumed within the country”.
The World Health Organization Global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was adopted in 2003 and came into effect two years later. More than 150 countries already ratified it.
The document outlines tough measures aimed at reducing tobacco consumption. “For example, within three years 30 per cent of the surface area of cigarettes packet would have to carry warnings over harmful smoking is. In five years we would have to bring tobacco advertising to heel. There’s a whole lot of work to be done in this respect,” explains Ivan Dubov from the Ministry of Public Health and Social Development.
Although certain measures have already been adopted by law makers, Russia still seems to be lagging behind Europe in its anti-smoking policies. Public smoking has been banned in Ireland since 2004, in the UK since July last year and in Germany, employers can refuse to hire smoker.
But with a strong tobacco lobby and an average price for a pack of cigarettes at just around one dollar - one tenth of the price in the UK - the task of getting Russians to cut back their habit is a long one.

NEW YORK — Cigarettes companies Thursday won a legal round against smokers who claimed they were misled about the health effects of light cigarettes.
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan overturned class-action status for a lawsuit seeking at least $200 billion on behalf of tens of millions of smokers.
The damages theoretically could have ballooned to as much as $800 billion. If that were the case, it would have become the largest class action in American history, said Theodore M. Grossman, a lawyer for the tobacco companies.
The defendants, including Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., prefer trying each case on its own, saying circumstances for each smoker vary widely.
Grossman said the ruling had "tremendous significance," in part because there were similar class-action lawsuits pending in various states which made the same claims. The lawsuit said cigarettes companies promoted light cigarettes as a lower-risk alternative to regular cigarettes, even though their internal documents allegedly showed they knew the risks were about the same. The class may consist of as many as 60 million people, lawyers say.
Michael Hausfeld, who argued the case for smokers, said the ruling was upsetting but no decision had been made about whether to appeal. "Not only was a lot of money spent on a product that wasn’t what it was represented to be, but a lot of lives were lost and diseases contracted unnecessarily," Hausfeld said.
The case against the cigarette makers was first filed in 2004. The three-judge appellate panel Thursday knocked down a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn that granted the class-action status. The appeals court did say that some smokers may have relied on misrepresentations by tobacco companies to varying degrees.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that they could prove on a class-wide basis that smokers would not have favored light cigarettes had the truth been known. The appeals court said each individual would have to prove whether he or she relied completely, in part, or not at all on marketing misrepresentations in purchasing light cigarettes.