ALLEGEDLY stolen tobacco leaf and cigarettes with a value of $50,000 have been found in a car stopped by police in southern New South Wales. Police pulled over the Holden Commodore Holden Commodore on the Hume Highway about 45km north of Goulburn just after 6pm (AEDT) yesterday. Inside were 23kg of compressed tobacco leaf, 70,000 cigarettes, and almost $8000 in Australian and US currency, police say. The tobacco leaf and cigarettes are estimated ... Jump to full article >>

Imperial Tobacco Group Plc (IMT), Europe’s second-biggest tobacco company, expects first-half cigarette volume to fall because buying patterns in the U.K. shifted spending to the second half of the year. Selling quantities for the period ending March 31 will drop about 1 percent, the Bristol, England-based company said today in a statement. Revenue will increase about 2 percent at constant currency-exchange rates and excluding other income gro ... Jump to full article >>

SALEM — Anti-smoking lawmakers clashed with Oregon’s top tobacco lobbyist Thursday over proposals to raise cigarette taxes by as much as $2 a pack. Supporters, including Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, a former health researcher, said the proposed increases are less about raising more money for the state than getting people to quit the habit, or not start. R.J. Reynolds lobbyist Mark Nelson and the head of Plaid Pantry attacked the ... Jump to full article >>

Snapping a six-case plaintiff winning streak, Liggett Group, in a rare appearance as solo defendant in an Engle-progeny trial, prevailed in a case brought on behalf of smoker Betty Blitch. In his closing statement, Wilner Hartley’s Woody Wilner urged the jury, when considering how much fault to assign to Ms. Blitch, to keep in mind that “This was a combined, massive effort to sell cigarettes, that Liggett belonged to, and everybody ... Jump to full article >>

Roque Fabiano da Silveira, a Brazilian cigarette smuggler who lives in Paraguay and was once arrested for smuggling in the United States, was again arrested last week by Paraguayan federal police, according to a report in the newspaper ABC Color. Silveira was featured in a 2009 ICIJ report, “Smuggling Made Easy,” published as part of the Tobacco Underground series on the global trade in illicit cigarettes. The new charges say Silveira and a ... Jump to full article >>

Australia’s Greens will ask lawmakers today to vote to stop the government, which plans some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking laws, from investing in tobacco companies as part of a civil servants’ retirement fund. Greens senator Rachel Siewert will put a motion to the Senate to stop the government’s Future Fund – established in 2006 to cover pension costs of retiring lawmakers, judges and public servants – ... Jump to full article >>

Georgia doctors gathered today at the Capitol to encourage Congress to increase the state tax on cigarettes by one dollar per pack. The physicians spoke at the Capitol on Wednesday on behalf of the Bump It Up A Buck campaign. They delivered one thousand petitions to the Governor’s office arguing for the $1 hike. “Tobacco has no redeeming qualities,” said Dr. Harry Heiman of Morehouse Medical School at the press conference. “There is not ... Jump to full article >>

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese health authorities are renewing a push to ban smoking in indoor public places, adding more venues like hotels and restaurants as of May 1, though still excluding many workplaces. The guidelines given on the Health Ministry’s website are the latest effort to curb tobacco use in the country with the world’s largest number of smokers and where experts say huge revenues from the state-owned tobacco monopoly hinde ... Jump to full article >>

How dissolvable tobacco products are made could determine whether or not they fall under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration. Star Scientific Inc., a maker of dissolvable tobacco lozenges, announced Wednesday that it received an FDA notice saying that two of its products are not subject to regulations in the federal Food Drug & Cosmetic Act. The determination could open the door for other dissolvable tobacco products, such ... Jump to full article >>

FALL RIVER — The ban on selling tobacco products in stores with pharmacies will become city ordinance in 30 days after the City Council’s second 5-4 vote to approve the ban Tuesday night. Once the ordinance becomes law, 17 retail outlets like CVS, Rite Aid and Stop & Shop must remove cigarettes and related products from their shelves or face daily fines. “I’m very happy they passed it tonight. I think it’s one more step in making ... Jump to full article >>