We’re all for raising the tax on cigarettes by $1 a pack. In our view, anything that makes cigarettes more expensive accomplishes the goal of keeping people — young people, especially — from taking up the habit. And as cigarettes become more of a drain on their daily finances, more and more smokers decide to give it up. Often, cost is the last straw that pushes longtime smokers to finally accomplish what they had procrastinated doing for m ... Jump to full article >>

New anti-smoking warnings on cigarette packs, to be announced by the federal government Thursday, will feature images of an iconic Canadian cancer victim and cover a full three-quarters of the packages’ surface. The significant increase in the size of the often-stark ads comes after opposition MPs on the House of Commons health committee recently threw their weight behind a long-standing movement to bump up the mandatory ads from the current l ... Jump to full article >>

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Alarming statistics are causing the Palm Beach County health department to warn parents about smokeless tobacco. According to the health department twenty percent of Palm Beach County high school students and seven percent of middle schoolers use tobacco. The reason the health department is so concerned with these smokeless products is that they’re flavored, and they’re sold in ordinary convenience stor ... Jump to full article >>

Health advocates won and health advocates lost Wednesday as the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled that funds set aside a decade ago exclusively for smoking prevention efforts remained state money that could later be diverted to other purposes. “The question whether it is wise to enact legislation is not the same question as whether the legislation is constitutional,” wrote Justice Paul Pfeifer, noting that briefs had been filed from inter ... Jump to full article >>

In 1993, the EPA published a report claiming that secondhand smoke (SHS — also sometimes known as environmental tobacco smoke or ETS) causes three thousand deaths from lung cancer every year. Anyone doubting this result has been subject to attack and depicted as a toady of the tobacco lobby. The attacks have been led by a smear blog called DeSmogBlog, financed by the Canadian PR firm of James Hoggan, and have been taken up with great ent ... Jump to full article >>

BOSTON (AP) — A tobacco company that had tried to hook black children on cigarettes was ordered Thursday to pay $81 million in punitive damages to the estate and son of a Boston woman who started smoking at age 13, in what an attorney said is one of the largest jury awards of its kind in the United States. The verdict came one day after jurors decided Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard Tobacco Co. should pay $71 million in compensatory damages t ... Jump to full article >>

A North Dakota anti-tobacco agency says it’s making progress in helping people to quit smoking. Director Jeanne (JEE’-nee) Prom says the number of North Dakotans who enrolled in a tobacco “quit line” program almost doubled in the last year. More than 2,300 people signed up, and Prom believes it’s because of efforts by local health agencies. Lake Region State College and the Minot Job Corps center have gone tobacco-f ... Jump to full article >>

White House victories are rare these days, but President Obama can claim solid progress in his lonely battle to quit smoking. The president has gone nine months without sneaking a cigarette, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reported Thursday. Every day is a struggle and there’s no guarantee the president won’t light up tomorrow, it seems. Still, for a president who has been trying to quit for years, the nine-month hiatus is ... Jump to full article >>

OTTAWA — Nova Scotia’s chief public health officer blasted Health Canada Thursday for unilaterally suspending a plan to update health warnings on cigarette packages that were scheduled to be rolled out this month. Parliamentarians probing why the Conservative government has to date, failed to follow through on a long-running plan to force tobacco companies to put larger, more graphic health warnings on cigarette packs also heard that Hea ... Jump to full article >>

Dubai: While the UAE has taken major steps to protect people from second-hand smoke, stricter measures to protect children are taking longer because of “obstacles”, a senior health official said. Dr Wedad Al Maidour, head of the national tobacco control committee, said the law prohibiting smoking in a car if a child is aboard is taking time to enforce. The health ministry official was responding to a study in the British medical jour ... Jump to full article >>