Conflict with neighbors was the last thing Donna and Richard Ganguet expected to encounter when they moved into a gated community for people age 55 and older.

“In a senior community, you think we’ll all be compatible and have the same values,” said Richard Ganguet, a retired El Dorado County sheriff’s deputy.

But three years after settling into their single-family home in El Dorado Hills’ Four Seasons development, the Ganguets are suing their next-door neighbor over cigar and cigarette smoke they say wafts into their backyard and house.

Because of the smoke, the couple say, they no longer sit on their patio. They also try to sandwich in swims in the side-yard lap pool between their neighbors’ smoking sessions.
(more…)

With so many places around the world instituting smoking regulations, increasing taxes and, quite literally, kicking smokers to the curb, it’s getting harder to find cigarette-friendly vacation spots.

But not every country is trying to kill that buzz. On the flip side, some of them, such as Greece, are attempting to crack down but are failing miserably.

You may feel alone smoking in some major U.S. cities, so we’ve compiled a list of countries with the most prevalent tobacco use among people aged 15 or older, based on 2005 data from the World Health Organization.

Nonsmokers, too, will want to take note of the list. As you might guess, a smoker’s paradise can be, in turn, a nonsmoker’s hell.
(more…)

The nation’s two top cigarette-makers are boosting per-pack prices by 6 to 8 cents a pack.
Though the companies won’t say why, analysts believe it is to cover new user fees charged by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to pay for the costs of its new assignment to regulate tobacco.
The increase on what Altria’s Philip Morris USA and Reynolds American’s RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. charge wholesalers seems unlikely to have a big effect on smoking, as this spring’s 61.66 cent-a-pack hike in federal excise taxes did.
Last week, Altria Group Inc. chairman and chief executive Michael E. Szymanczyk told analysts the effect of that tax hike accounted for about two-thirds of the 16 percent drop in the number of cigarettes it sold in the third quarter. The rest came from wholesalers’ inventory reductions.
That price effect was in line with the historical trend, he said.
Though tobacco companies don’t disclose their models for forecasting the effect of price changes on smoking, economists and security analysts have estimated that every 10 percent increase in prices cuts consumption by 4 percent.

The 111th Congress of the United States’ acceptance of the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” represents a blow to the liberties of Americans and further erosion to the integrity of the Constitution of the United States. The act gives massive new powers to the FDA in all things tobacco related. Under the new law all businesses involved in the production, processing, packaging and distribution of tobacco must register with the FDA and comply with unwarranted FDA inspections. (more…)

The June 11 passage of the FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill, which provides the U.S. government with extensive power to regulate tobacco products, is a major step for federal regulation of cigarette manufacturers. The bill provides the Food and Drug Administration with its most expansive authority over the tobacco industry to date: not only does it grant the FDA the power to dictate product ingredients and overrule new products, it compels tobacco companies to eliminate potentially misleading labels like “light” and “mild,” regulate a product’s ingredients and increase the size of the warning labels on cigarette packs. The tobacco industry is no stranger to regulation, however. Over the past half-century, cigarette manufacturers have found ways to successfully sell their product despite increasing advertising restrictions and will no doubt try to continue to do so in the face of this new legislation. (more…)

Landmark legislation approved by the Senate yesterday will give the federal government sweeping new powers to oversee tobacco products, allowing regulators to control factors including the amount of addictive nicotine in a cigarette and how that cigarette is packaged and marketed.

For the 20 percent of Americans who smoke, the law will mean confronting more graphic warnings of the risks of their habit every time they pick up a pack. The law also bans most cigarette flavorings. (more…)

In a sign of the significant weakening of the tobacco lobby, the Senate on Wednesday moved toward a vote on regulating tobacco in a big way.

The Senate voted 67-30 to end debate — a procedural move — on the legislation, which would give the Food and Drug Administration significant regulatory power over the packaging, manufacturing and marketing of tobacco products. If the legislation is signed into law, which the White House — even with a reformed smoker as president — has indicated a willingness to do so, it will give the F.D.A. more power to ascertain what a “light” smoke means or whatever, and whether there is any distinction whatsoever in the harm to a person’s lungs.

(more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has refused to get in the middle of a patent fight over a way to cure tobacco that may make it less carcinogenic.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., who is being sued by Star Scientific, Inc.

Star Scientific, Inc. says R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. infringed on its patents on a way to cure tobacco minimizing the formation of tobacco-specific nitrosamines or TSNA, which may be carcinogenic.

But a trial court says the patents are unenforceable, because the inventor kept from the Patent and Trademark Office key documents and information — including that low-TSNA tobacco already had been grown in the U.S.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned that decision, saying a judge cannot throw a patent out without clear and convincing evidence that a deception was intentional.

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - Philip Morris churns out Marlboros and Virginia Slims at the world’s largest cigarette factory in Richmond.

Now, Morris is raising the price of Marlboro and 17 other brands of cigarettes.

Parent company Altria said the per-pack price will hike up to 81 cents.

This increase comes almost a month before a national cigarette tax increase is set to begin in April.

“It just seems a little silly to raise the price on that,” said smoker Aaron Willings.  ”Everybody knows the tobacco companies aren’t hurting.”

Experts predict cigarette sales will decline by as much as 8% as a result of the tax increase.

Just weeks after state lawmakers agreed to boost the sales tax and vehicle license fees, two state senators proposed today that the tax on cigarettes be increased by $1.50 a pack.

Such a hike would raise $1.2 billion a year, most of it for routine state services. But 15% of the money would be spent on lung cancer research, efforts to reduce tobacco use and enforcement of tobacco laws. The proposal came from state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).

The measure is part of a package that includes a proposed ban on the sale of tobacco within 1,000 feet of schools and at retailers such as video stores, doughnut shops and other settings that attract children. (more…)