High school students in Florida are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco, according to a new report on adolescent health from the state Health Department.

About 16 percent of Florida high school students said they used marijuana in the past month versus 15.5 percent who said they smoked cigarettes, according to a 2006 government survey.

The difference is dramatic in Martin County where 24 percent of high school students say they’ve used marijuana in the past month, compared to 20 percent who used cigarettes. Martin County had a higher rate of teen tobacco and marijuana use than neighboring counties.

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The vast majority of people believe the price of cigarettes should be increased in a bid to reduce the numbers smoking, according to a survey.

International experts at a conference on tobacco control in Dublin were told taxes should be raised further to make the cost of the habit a major turn-off.

And one of the country’s leading anti-smoking campaigners Professor Luke Clancy called on the Government to hike prices by at least 50 cent every year. “Raising tobacco prices, removing tobacco signage from retail outlets, removing tobacco from our consumer price index and massively increasing the spend on educating our young people on the risks of tobacco use are all proven measures to combat smoking,” he said.

Latin America’s per capita consumption of tobacco will drop over the next four years due to new laws and increased enforcement.

BY JIM DALY

Countries throughout Latin America have been increasing the number of laws controlling labeling and public smoking. In the midst of growing health concerns and increased global pressures to establish and enforce tobacco legislation, some Latin American countries are strongly pushing new legislation as it relates to bans on tobacco, while others are making moves to expand previous legislation that was rarely enforced.

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Look closely at what a model in a fashion magazine is smoking: a green cigarette to go with her neon yellow jacket.

Fashionably hued cigarettes?

Oh, goodie. Lung cancer now comes in colors!

Next thing you know, Heidi Montag will launch a line of zebra-stripe (her trademark print) ciggies.

How do we stop this nightmare?
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April 23 (Bloomberg) — Philip Morris International Inc., spun off last month by Altria Group Inc., posted first-quarter profit that rose faster than analysts estimated after new varieties of Marlboro cigarettes and acquisitions spurred sales in Indonesia, Pakistan and Mexico.

The cigarette maker jumped 3.9 percent in New York trading, the biggest increase since the March 28 spinoff, after saying profit this year will exceed its forecasts.

Net income advanced 29 percent to $1.87 billion, or 89 cents a share, the company said today in a statement. Sales rose 18 percent to $15.6 billion, boosted by the dollar’s declines.
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It may sound like an oxymoron…a fire safe cigarette. But they are real and they are law in two states in our area. That means every pack sold is labeled FSC or fire safe cigarettes. The cigarettes are made to go out on their own and the new law has plenty of people fired up.

At cigarette stores across Kentucky, three letters are igniting quite the controversy. “I don’t really care for them. They don’t taste the same anymore,” says Danny Scott. His cigarettes taste different because they are FSC. It’s not a brand, but rather a brand new rule in Kentucky that all cigarettes sold be fire safe.
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Police are investigating the use of harmful herbicide on seedlings
By Martha Quillin - McClatchy Newspapers

LEE COUNTY, N.C. –In a quarter-century of farming, John Gross has taken his licks from weather and the markets, but this is the first time he has felt personally under attack.

Gross said someone broke into his Lee County greenhouse last month and sprayed herbicide on his tobacco seedlings, killing the entire crop of nearly 1 million tiny plants. The loss is not covered by insurance.

“It may have been done out of jealousy, I don’t know,” said Gross, a fifth-generation farmer. “I do know I haven’t made nobody mad - nowhere near mad enough to do something like that.”
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RICHMOND, Va. - Philip Morris USA, the nation’s No. 1 tobacco company, said Tuesday it filed lawsuits against two cigarette importers for alleged counterfeiting and unauthorized use of the Marlboro trademark.

Richmond-based Philip Morris filed separate federal suits in the Eastern District of New York against C.H. Rhodes and U.S. Sun Star Trading Inc., both of New York.

The suits come after U.S. Customs and Border Protection confiscated about 16,450 cartons of counterfeit cigarettes in separate incidents when Rhodes and Sun Star were the respective importers of record.
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By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily News

The consensus from smokers on the new self-extinguishing cigarettes: They don’t like them.

“The self-extinguishing cigarette sucks, it really does,” said Nick Atlas, an Arlington resident who stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts on Rte. 30 in Natick.

Atlas, who has been smoking Camel Lights for 20 years, did not know the reason his cigarettes suddenly started tasting different. The manufacturers of his preferred cigarette, like most tobacco companies, modified their product a few months ago to comply with a state mandate that went into effect Jan. 1.

On New Year’s Day, Massachusetts joined New York and Vermont in requiring retailers to sell self-extinguishing cigarettes to prevent fires.
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Trading standards bosses in Preston are cracking down on counterfeit cigarettes.

Officials say a large number of fakes are flooding the UK market and more than half the illegal cigarettes that are seized by trading standards officers are counterfeit.

Imitations of well-known brands of cigarettes and rolling tobacco are not regulated and imported in almost identical packaging which can be almost undetectable to the smoker.

Fake cigarettes can have up to three times the legal limit of tar and nicotine found in genuine cigarettes, as well as many unknown substances including arsenic.
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