Judging people by the company they keep may not always be fair game, but it is fitting, on the eve of next week’s primary, to take the measure of Leslie Crocker Snyder by examining the dubious donors bankrolling her campaign for Manhattan District Attorney. News stories about bad-boy contributors have lost some of their sting over time (“they all do it” is the common public shrug). But voters may be less tolerant of dirty doll ... Jump to full article >>

Any company selling products that addict and eventually kill 400,000 customers annually might well be reluctant to point out the health dangers. So the federal courts should be mighty skeptical when Big Tobacco screams about its First Amendment rights to keep peddling cigarettes without the oversize health warning labels ordered by Congress this year. With a free-speech lawsuit filed last week, the nation’s largest tobacco companies challe ... Jump to full article >>

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A river brought Anne Landman to Grand Junction. A job allowed her to stay. And a murder is why she left her hometown of Los Angeles. Landman came to the Grand Valley in 1982 for a river trip through Whitewater Canyon — it was a gift to herself after graduating from a respiratory therapist course. While in town she toured St. Mary’s Hospital, who she said offered her a job on the spot. “I didn’t know any ... Jump to full article >>

Tobacco companies jointly filed a lawsuit in Kentucky against the U.S. and the Food and Drug Administration, claiming a law signed by President Obama in June of this year imposes “unprecedented restrictions” on First Amendments Rights. For instance, the law prohibits tobacco companies from jointly marketing their cigarettes with non-tobacco products. Also, they can’t market or describe any products as less harmful than others ... Jump to full article >>

Lexington, KY – Health advocates think Kentucky should follow Oregon’s lead in stamping out electronic cigarettes. Oregon was the first to ban the sale of the new products, also called “e-cigarettes,” but they are still available elsewhere, including in Kentucky. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is fighting a legal challenge from two distributors after the FDA confiscated product shipments in Oregon. The batter ... Jump to full article >>

It didn’t take long for tobacco companies to try to evade tough new restrictions on their ability to market to young people. Less than three months after a landmark federal law granted the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco products, several of the industry’s biggest companies filed suit in tobacco-friendly Kentucky. They contend that the law’s marketing provisions infringe their commercial free-speech rights. For the s ... Jump to full article >>

New research has revealed international tobacco companies feared tobacco controls in Western Australia and closely monitored the state for more than 50 years. In 1998, a legal battle forced four of America’s biggest tobacco companies to release millions of confidential documents. Curtin University in Perth has spent the past two years sifting through more than 50 years of documents. The documents show the companies were deeply concerned a ... Jump to full article >>

CIGARETTES would rise to $20 a packet within three years under the national health plan, bringing Australia into line with other nations such as Britain and Ireland. “Increasing prices is one of the most effective measures that government can take to reduce tobacco consumption,” the Preventative Health Taskforce said. But the Government is yet to endorse the proposal, preferring to wait for a major inquiry into the nation’s tax ... Jump to full article >>

His gloved hands thick with coal dust, the customs guard pulls out a carton of Classics cigarettes and drops it to the floor. Reaching into the coal scuttle, another pack follows and another, until the floor of the carriage is soon a mess of coal and smuggled cigarettes. The guard and his colleagues are searching the train looking for contraband goods, unscrewing ceiling boards and walls, removing curtain rails and searching the coal scuttles a ... Jump to full article >>

Millions of taxpayer dollars are going up in smoke as the Patrick administration moves to buy a pricey high-tech cigarette tax-stamping system despite little evidence of counterfeit butts in the Bay State, lawmakers charged yesterday. Gov. Deval Patrick – who has wrangled with the state’s two major zoos over $4 million in state funding – plans to shell out nearly $5 million over the next three years for the new digital stamper. “ ... Jump to full article >>