Tobacco production in Africa

Large-scale commercial (LSC) farmers dominate tobacco production. LSC farmers are characterized by their use of modern machinery, overhead and drip-line irrigation, and permanent wage labour. Holdings in the LSC sector can be very large and it has been estimated that fewer than 5 000 farmers occupy 21 percent of Zimbabwe’s total land area of 8,2 million hectares, including 3,7 million hectares in Natural Region II.

Obsession with Nicotine as Sole Component of Smoking Addiction

This month's issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research is devoted to articles on the study of nicotine receptors in mice and rats.

The articles in the issue include:

    Nicotinic ACh Receptors in the Hippocampus: Role in Excitability and Plasticity
    Preclinical Evidence That Activation of Mesolimbic Alpha 6 Subunit Containing Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors Supports Nicotine Addiction Phenotype
    Nicotinic Regulation of Energy Homeostasis
   

DHHS Hides from Public the Fact that Chantix Has Been Associated with Hundreds of Suicides

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), on its new web site devoted to smoking, is hiding from the public the fact that Chantix (varenicline) has been associated with hundreds of suicides. It is also recommending Chantix - a drug that has caused hundreds of deaths - over electronic cigarettes, which have no known serious adverse side effects, because of its concern over potential unknown risks of electronic cigarettes.

Reynolds Solid in Third Quarter

This morning, Wells Fargo Securities LLC reported good news for Reynolds American: the Winston-Salem, NC-based company met Wells Fargo's third quarter expectations with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) at 79 cents, up 6.8%. The news was all the more impressive, considering the company's declining cigarette performance during an admittedly tough quarter. "Camel volume was much weaker than we expected (down 8%)," said Wells Fargo New York City-based senior analyst Bonny Herzog. And although Pall Mall volume was technically up 1%, meeting Wells Fargo's predictions for the brand, Herzog noted "'aggressive competitive promotional activity' … negatively affected RAI's shipment volume and share."

Senate Passes Pathetic Tobacco Control Bill

There's no other word to describe it: The U.S. Senate's tobacco control bill is pathetic. It bans candy cigarettes and fruit-flavored cigarettes, but doesn't even require cigarette companies to disclose the ingredients they use until nearly a year-and-a-half later. The bill bans the use of the word "light" from cigarette packages, but even the tobacco companies admit this will make virtually no difference, as smokers have grown accustomed to buying cigarettes labeled with color codes that indicate a "light" designation.

And perhaps most importantly, this bill now puts the FDA in the position of approving the marketing and consumption of a product that directly promotes heart disease, strokes and cancer. The FDA, in other words, will now lend its stamp of approval to a product that openly kills people.

FDA hypocrisy

The FDA, it seems, is very selective about which poisons it wants you to know about versus those it wants to keep quiet. If the FDA had any actual ethics, it would warn consumers about ALL the toxins in foods, beverages and consumer products, not just a very small number of selected ones that are convenient targets. The FDA even goes out of its way to force natural cigarette companies to lie in their marketing materials about how dangerous smoking tobacco can be for your health. Natural American Spirit cigarettes, for example, which are made with no chemical additives whatsoever, are required to state, "No additives in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette."

Tobacco taxes are a win-win measure for fiscal space and health: ADB report

New Delhi, Nov 15: 

A 50 per cent rise in cigarette prices (corresponding to a tax increase of 70-122 per cent) would avoid over four million tobacco-related deaths in India.

This has been highlighted in a new Asian Development Bank (ADB) report titled ‘Tobacco taxes: A win-win measure for fiscal space and health’.

This report aims to assess how changes in cigarette taxes can reduce consumption and save lives in the high-burden countries in Asia. 

Two-thirds of the world’s tobacco users live in just 15 countries, and five of these high-burden countries (People’s Republic of China, India, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) are in Asia.

Electronic Cigarette Health Risks

Tobacco is consumed worldwide in many different forms like, cigarettes, chews, snuff and dips. The origin of crude cigarettes has been traced back to the ninth century Central America, where tobacco was used in the form of smoking tubes and reeds. Crude forms of cigarettes were used during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Now, we have cigarettes in various flavors with different tobacco blends. However, cigarette smoking is linked to many different health problems.