Forums: Tobacco Smoking

The U.S. federal government collected $20.6 billion in taxes on alcohol, tobacco, firearms and ammunition in fiscal year 2009, up 41 percent from the previous fiscal year, according to the annual report of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Part of the U.S. Treasury Department, the TTB credited most of the $6 billion rise in revenues collected to the increased taxes on the tobacco industry as a result of the Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act passed in February 2009. There was also a spike in tax collection from the sale of guns and ammunition, said the report from...

As we have noted here before, there is a serious issue dealing with conflicts of interest at the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC). This committee advises the FDA on regulations for tobacco products. However, several members of the committee are not independent, thus, regulations that are passed down affect the financial interests of those on the committee. Specifically, committee members Jack Henningfield, Neal Benowitz and Dorothy Hatsukami stand to gain with the regulations that they propose. Henningfield is a consultant for the maker of Nicorrette gum. Benowitz is employed by Pfizer, which produces Chantix, a drug that aids...

The ringleader of a bootleg alcohol gang which produced more than a million litres of illegal vodka costing the taxman £10 million in lost revenue was jailed for 12 years today. Harvey Conroy ran a 'determined and professional' outfit which produced fake vodka and tobacco without paying excise duty or VAT, defrauding the state of millions of pounds. Richard Christie QC, for the prosecution, said Conroy orchestrated the fraud in a bid to make massive profits, with the factories working 24 hours-a-day

This new YouTube video features President Obama chewing his nicotine gum in public - first at the G8 summit, later at the G20 summit in Toronto and finally in front of children in the Oval Office. I feel Obama's pain. I have studied up on addiction and done plenty of work for charities that seek to combat alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (ATODs). One of my first jobs, for example, was with a government program called L.A. Link that was focused on reducing illegal nicotine use among adolescents in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. I remember interviewing a heroin addict...

The ruling temporarily puts on hold the new law that prohibits shipping cigarettes through the U.S. Postal Service. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court refuses to consider a tobacco racketeering appeals. ~~~ Federal District Judge Richard Arcara temporarily ordered a new law that disallows cigarettes to be shipped via the mail to be placed on hold, the Associated Press reports. A Seneca Indian Nation tobacco business owner asked for the restraining order to stop the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act) to take effect yesterday. A July 7 hearing has been scheduled to hear the case. “We are very disappointed in...