The sales of hookah pipes and associated tobacco called shisha has gone up ten-fold in the last couple of years, says a local tobacco seller.

Peter Hogue, a manager at Old Morris Tobacconists on Government, said most of the sales are to university-aged people, around 21 years old although some users, including himself, are up to 35 years old.

“It’s a young thing. It’s a social thing. The general population is not doing a reefer in it,” Hogue said, adding that in many cities including Vancouver and Seattle,  hookah bars are springing up.
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Mark Locklear, Staff writer

LUMBERTON - The opening of the tobacco markets in Southeastern North Carolina last week went virtually unnoticed in Robeson County. Aside the from the contract sales at S&P Tobacco Marketing in Lumberton, the next closest receiving station is 100 miles away in Mullins, S.C.

The Lumberton warehouse was converted into a receiving station years ago after Congress approved a $10 billion buyout of the federal tobacco quota system. The buyout dismantled the tobacco price-support and quota program that had existed since the 1930s. Many farmers turned to other alternative crops or got out of the farming business altogether.

There were 5,158 acres of tobacco planted in Robeson County this year, about a third of what was being planted in the mid-1990s. That tobacco will generate about $20 million of income, which is also about a third of the tobacco revenue produced just more than a decade ago.
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Nicola Mawson

CLAIMS that British American Tobacco SA (Batsa ) has used its 90% market share to give its brands prominence over rival Japan Tobacco International (JTI) products will be heard by the Competition Tribunal today.

JTI and Batsa are due to fight it out over who should be entitled to more display space in court for two weeks this month, and another two weeks in January. But with at least 50 witness statements, the matter is not likely to be finalised in the allotted time.

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A team that includes two University of Louisville researchers who helped develop Merck’s human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil is attempting to develop a low-cost HPV vaccine using tobacco plants, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. A. Bennett Jenson and Shin-je Ghim, who helped develop Gardasil, are working with colleagues on a vaccine that protects against at least 13 HPV strains known to cause cervical cancer. The experimental vaccine would cost about $3 for three doses, compared with about $360 for three doses of Gardasil, the Courier-Journal reports (Ungar, Louisville Courier-Journal, 7/29).
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Video: Fugitive makes cigarette pit stop

PHOENIX - A man involved in a police chase on Tuesday surprised authorities when he stopped at a convenience store to buy cigarettes — before resuming the pursuit.

That is exactly what happened Tuesday in Phoenix, where authorities chased a suspected bank robber through city streets. The suspect weaved his way through neighborhoods and made a couple of close calls with cars on the roadways. At one point, an undercover officer in a truck ran into the suspect — trying to spin him out.

Then, in the middle of the chase, the suspect made a pit stop at a convenience store — and ran inside, apparently to buy a pack of smokes. The clerk said the guy seemed to be in a hurry, but paid for the pack and left.

“I give him [the cigarettes] and he gave me $20 and he left,” the store clerk said.

Police eventually deployed a spike strip, which blew out one of the suspects tires, before taking him into custody.