Jet captain warned Justin Bieber to stop smoking weed - report

A captain of a private jet which transported Justin Bieber to New Jersey last week (ends02Feb14) warned the star and his entourage to stop smoking marijuana onboard, according to an incident report. The Baby singer flew in to the state from his native Canada on Friday (31Jan14) to attend the Super Bowl football championship game on Sunday (02Feb14), but hit headlines when his private jet was reportedly targeted in a drugs raid after landing. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers and border officials are said to have searched the plane with sniffer dogs, but failed to find any illegal substances. Now it has emerged the captain of the jet warned the pop star and his entourage to stop smoking dope onboard while they were in the air. The revelation was made in an official incident report, obtained by Nbcnews.com, which states, "The captain of the flight stated that he warned the passengers, including Bieber, on several occasions to stop smoking marijuana." The report also suggests that Bieber, 19, and his group were rude to a flight attendant, adding, "The captain also stated he needed to request that the passengers stop their harassing behaviour toward the flight attendant and after several warnings asked the flight attendant to stay with him near the cockpit." The news comes amid mounting legal woes for Bieber, who is facing multiple charges in Florida stemming from a DUI arrest last month (Jan14), as well as assault allegations in Canada relating to a reported attack on a limousine driver.

UAE to propose plain packaging for tobacco

The UAE will propose plain packaging for tobacco products in 2016 for a more forceful impact, said a senior health official, adding that the aim was to make the UAE 100 per cent smoke free in two years.
The proposal will be floated GCC-wide in two years when health officials will be required to revise packaging of all tobacco products.Chesterfield Bronze



The current packaging, introduced in mid-2012, requires manufacturers to cover 50 per cent of the cigarette packet with pictorial warnings both in Arabic and English that are used on a rotation basis to deter smokers.
Dr Wedad Al Maidoor, head of the UAE National Committee for Tobacco Control at the Ministry of Health (MoH), said a proposal to increase the current size of the display pictures from 50 per cent to 70 per cent was also being suggested. “We need a plainer packaging after two years,” she said.
“While we are making this suggestion, we are also going to push for a bigger size for pictures as an alternative,” added Dr Al Maidoor.
She said that by making the pictures cover 70 per cent of the cover and changing them often would make people know more about the dangers of smoking.
Plain cigarette packaging requires removal of all branding (colours, imagery, corporate logos and trademarks), permitting manufacturers to print only the brand name in a mandated size, font and place on the pack, in addition to the health warnings and any other legally mandated information. Appearance of all tobacco packs is standardised, including the colour of the pack.
Currently only a couple of countries in the world, including Australia, have plain packaging on cigarettes.
Various studies carried out by Australia before switching to plainer packs suggest that packaging plays an important role in encouraging young people to try cigarettes. This year, the ministry will be conducting the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) and a deadline of January 21 has been set for reinforcement of the anti-tobacco law, said Dr Al Maidoor.

Cigarette competition

The Sin Tax Reform Law, which restructured the excise tax on alcohol and cigarette products, has opened the market for new players, according to a tobacco executive.

Japan Tobacco Inc. general manager Manos Koukourakis said the sin tax law diversified the market and led to the influx of new foreign brands.

Koukourakis said the influx of foreign brands led consumers to try new brands of cigarettes.

“Because of the influx, consumers have more choices,” he said.

Data from an independent research firm showed consumers started to change cigar brands, following the enactment of the Philippine excise tax bill.

Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. Inc., which used to control at least 90 percent of the market prior to the passage of the law, saw its share shrink to 76.2 percent as of June 2013.

JTI covers about 3.2 percent, while Mighty had a 18.7-percent share. British American Tobacco, maker of Lucky Strike, had less than 2 percent.

Smoking quit

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New study finds social media is more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol

Do you consistently decline getting involved with Facebook, Twitter, or any other other social network scheme? Don't let others make you feel guilty. You may be relieved to know you've made the right decision about refusing more social obligations than are worth handling.

A new study has discovered that social networking or checking social email is more addictive than alcohol and cigarettes. Hard to believe, but that's what was reported. All this "checking out what others are doing no matter how trivial" is a time waster in the long run. But it is cheaper than booze and cigarettes and not as harmful. Dunhill cigarettes.

How the study was conducted

The study was conducted by Chicago University's Booth Business School. Ironically, Wihelm Hofmann and the Chicago research team used BlackBerry devices for checking in frequently with the 205 people participating in Wurtzburg, Germany. The participants' ages ranged widely, from 18 to 85.

They were asked seven times each day for a week what their impulses or desires were at the time and how strong they were. Smoking and drinking didn't rank high at all. Taking leisure time and rest or sleep came in first. But coming in second was the urge to check in on social media, which includes Facebook, Twitter, and plain social emailing.

This social media urge is less damaging or threatening in the long term than many other vices. But it can be a time waster, for sure. That is unless there are business, professional, educational, or intellectual pursuits involved.

But even among the latter more serious pursuits, there is another reason for concerns about using Facebook or Twitter. Socially, watch what you say even if you're kidding around in regards to politically charged topics.

A young British couple was detained and questioned for 12 hours upon arriving in Los Angeles at LAX on suspicions of arriving with criminal intentions. Those suspicions were based on two tweets from Leigh Van Bryan. One of them was "free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?"

It turned out there was confusion over the use of the British slang "destroy," used to indicate excessive partying or "trashing" a place. This was not a prolonged email or series of emails. Simply one tweet on Twitter. So how did the TSA know?

Homeland Security or the CIA had to have caught that tweeted phrase as part of monitoring what everyone is up to, who they are, and where they're going. It has been rumored that intelligence agencies are using social networks as an inexpensive, convenient technique for tracking many 24/7.

It's not necessary to read everything for every email or tweet sent on the Internet by everyone on the planet. Intel agencies have software to identify certain keywords or phrases. Then it's a snap to zoom in on the profile, especially with Facebook, or IP address of whoever sent out those words or phrases.

David Cameron 'U-Turn' Over Cigarette Packaging

David Cameron has been accused of a humiliating U-turn after ministers dramatically revived the prospect of plain packaging for cigarettes.

Public Health Minister Jane Ellison announced that the eminent paediatrician Sir Cyril Chantler has been asked to carry out a rapid review of the evidence, which will be completed by March.
At the same time, changes will be made to the Children and Families Bill currently going through Parliament so that a ban on branded cigarette packets can be imposed "without delay" if the review concludes it is the right course.
The move was warmly welcomed by health campaigners, but the tobacco companies said a ban would have no impact on legal smoking levels and would simply lead to an increase in smuggling and counterfeit products.
In the Commons, Ms Ellison said the Government had ordered the review in response to evidence emerging from Australia which last year became the first country to introduce plain packaging.
But for Labour, shadow health minister Luciana Berger said ministers had been forced to act in the face of a "humiliating" defeat in the House of Lords on an amendment to the Children and Families Bill tabled by a cross-party group of peers.
"Only a Government as shambolic as this one could now be U-turning on a U-turn. The minister says we need another review but the Government have already had a review and the evidence is clear for all to see," she said.
"Standardised packaging makes cigarettes less attractive to young people. We should be legislating now, not delaying."
Ms Ellison insisted that the Government had made clear last July that it was simply taking a "pause", following a public consultation in 2012, to consider the evidence from Australia.
At the time the announcement was widely seen as killing off any prospect of legislation before the election in 2015, with critics blaming the Tories' controversial election strategist, Lynton Crosby.
There was an outcry when it later emerged that his firm, Crosby Textor had been advising Philip Morris Ltd as it lobbied the Government against plain packaging.
Ms Ellison said: "We will introduce standardised tobacco packaging if, following the review and consideration of the wider issues raised, we are satisfied there are sufficient grounds to proceed.
"We have to do this in a measured step-by-step way to make sure that when and if a decision is made it is robust and will withdraw all the inevitable challenges that might come its way."
However, there was anger among some Conservative MPs who accused the Government of caving in to the "nanny state brigade".

NYC officials raise smoking age to 21

Young New Yorkers who want to light up will soon have to wait for their 21st birthdays before they can buy a pack of smokes after lawmakers in the nation's most populous city voted overwhelmingly to raise the tobacco-purchasing age from 18 to 21.

The City Council's vote Wednesday makes New York the biggest city to bar cigarette sales to 19- and 20-year-olds, and one of only a few places throughout the United States that have tried to stymie smoking among young people by raising the purchasing age. The council also approved a bill that sets a minimum $10.50-a-pack price for tobacco cigarettes and steps up law enforcement on illegal tobacco sales.

"We know that tobacco dependence can begin very soon after a young person first tries smoking so it's critical that we stop young people from smoking before they ever start," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement after the council's vote.

Bloomberg, a strong supporter of tough smoking restrictions, has 30 days to sign the bills into law. The minimum age bill will take effect 180 days after enactment. Bomond cigarettes.

The city's current age limit is 18, a federal minimum that's standard in many places. Smoking in city parks and beaches already is prohibited as it is in restaurants.

Advocates say higher age limits help prevent, or at least delay, young people from taking up a habit that remains the leading cause of preventable deaths nationwide.

But cigarette manufacturers have suggested young adult smokers may just turn to black-market merchants. And some smokers say it's unfair and patronizing to tell people considered mature enough to vote and serve in the military that they're not old enough to decide whether to smoke.

"New York City already has the highest cigarette tax rate and the highest cigarette smuggling rate in the country," said Bryan D. Hatchell , a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which makes Camel and other brands. "Those go hand in hand and this new law will only make the problem worse."

Another anti-smoking initiative pushed by the Bloomberg administration was previously shelved ahead of Wednesday's vote: forcing stores to keep cigarettes out of public view until a customer asks for them.

Newsstand clerk Ali Hassen, who sells cigarettes daily to a steady stream of customers from nearby office buildings, said he didn't know if the new age restrictions would do any good.

While he wouldn't stop vigilantly checking identification to verify customers' age, Hassen doubted the new rules would thwart determined smokers.

"If somebody wants to smoke, they're going to smoke," he said.

Similar legislation to raise the purchasing age is expected to come to a vote in Hawaii this December. The tobacco-buying age is 21 in Needham, Mass., and is poised to rise to 21 in January in nearby Canton, Mass. The state of New Jersey also is considering a similar proposal.

"It just makes it harder for young people to smoke," said Stephen McGorry, 25, who started smoking at 19. He added that had the age been 21 when he took up the habit, "I guarantee I wouldn't be smoking today."