The bar says smoking is back

Electronic cigarettes that are legal to smoke in public places can now be smoked at a Ware bar.

Electronic cigarettes do not include any carcinogenic substances or lead to passive smoking but give a similar satisfaction to standard cigarettes, which are now banned in public places.

The 58-year-old businessman said: “It’s not exactly the same as a cigarette but it’s as close as you can get. It cuts you back. If you go out and smoke a cigarette you smoke the whole cigarette. With this, I can take it out, have two puffs and put it back in my pocket. It only works when you puff at it.”

The three-part cigarette consists of an atomizer that converts the fluid into vapour, a chargeable battery and a cartridge, which can contain light, medium or no nicotine. Each one has around 350 puffs (about 30 standard cigarettes).

Steve Berg, the importer of this product, said: “Whereas cigarettes are made of 4,000 substances, 69 of which are carcinogenic, e-cigarettes have just nicotine, glycol, which is commonly used in food, and tobacco flavouring. The smoker absorbs the nicotine and releases a vapour, which smells slightly from the non-nicotine products. We’re not claiming it’s healthy. Nicotine is a poison. But it’s ‘healthier’ than a cigarette.”

The device has been launched in Israel, China and Australia. Mr Berg brought it to the UK in June for £34.99 a pack.

Smoker, Louise Glazer, 26, tested it and said: “It was quite heavy, but good. I think it can help your cravings.” A spokeswoman for Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) added: “They don’t produce smoke in the conventional way and therefore don’t pose the same degree of hazard to non-smokers. They are not 100 percent safe for smokers themselves as they are still inhaling nicotine, but they are almost certainly putting themselves at less risk. More research is needed to be clearer on their effect.”

One More Ban will Weaken Cigarettes Sale

A ban on branded cigarette packaging would weaken its sales, a report said. Government said that it will force tobacco firms to sell cigarettes in plain. Government thinks that unbranded packets could be the most powerful tool yet unleashed in the war on smoking.
The tobacco industry has admitted that the new tactic, being pioneered in Britain but likely to be followed elsewhere, will cut profits and inflict enormous damage on cigarette manufacturers.
Tobacco analysts have warned in a leading industry magazine that a ban on branding and logos on packets would lead smokers to abandon well-known brands such as Marlboro and Silk Cut, which cost up to £6 a pack, and switch to cheaper options.
Researchers said that the ban on cigarette packaging will strip cigarettes of their glamorous image then will reduce also the numbers of young people taking up the habit.
The Department of Health considers that logos, colors and graphics on packets are used illegal and require them to be sold in plain packaging.
Adam Spielman, a tobacco analyst at Citigroup, said: "Plain packaging would level the playing field, making premium brands less attractive to smokers, and would lead to a rapid worsening of the falling sales trend which has been going on for years in the UK, far and away the most expensive country in Europe for smokers."
Tobacco companies fear that introducing the plain packaging would prompt many smokers to abandon the premium brands such as Marlboro and Benson and Hedges, and instead switch to much cheaper makes costing £3.50 to £4.
The tobacco industry reported that as cigarette advertising is banned in the UK, packs have become more elaborate as they are the best way manufacturers can promote their brands and distinguish them from rival products.
Recently the Health Department closed its consultation on a raft of measures to reduce the number of smokers even further, which has fallen to 22 percent of the adult population. They include plain packaging, banning cigarettes from public displays in shops, outlawing packs of 10 and getting rid of vending cigarette machines.
In this year it received even more responses than the 55,000 it got before last year's public smoking ban.
Deborah Arnott, director of health campaigning charity Ash, said: "The industry cannot survive without recruiting replacements for the 100,000 UK citizens its products kill each year. Most of these new smokers are children and young people, who our research shows find plain packs much less attractive."
The tobacco industry argued that this move will lead to a rise in cigarette smuggling.

Tobacco Ban

You can find pipes, cigarettes and tobacco for sale at Walgreens pharmacy. The city will issue an order banning sales of smoking products at all pharmacies.

Now Walgreen Co is asking a state court to block the ban complaining the new law is anticompetitive and unconstitutional. Walgreen Co answers prohibitions are not in place at grocery stores and whole clubs like Sam’s and Costco that also have drugstores. All 52 Walgreen chemist’s shops in the city would be affected. The city is also preparing to enact regulations that would ban the sale of tobacco products at college campuses and pharmacies aimed at reducing smoking among youth.

The San Francisco city board of supervisors in two 8-3 votes, made the city the first in the country to stop the sale of cigarettes at drugstores. The legislation is modeled on the ban already in place in eight Canadian provinces and is supported by the California Medical Association and the American Cancer Society. The legislators felt that sick people getting prescriptions filled should not be faced with health destroying tobacco products at the drugstore. Besides Boston, expect Illinois, New York, Rhode Island and Tennessee to consider tobacco-sale prohibitions this year.

The authority hopes to reduce premature death, smoking-related illnesses and the cost to public health caused by tobacco, which kills more than 1.4 million every year according to the WHO (World Health Organization).

Stop Selling Tobacco Products to Minors

Scientists investigated Lompoc and Solvang because they suspected that in these cities tobacco products are selling to minors. In Santa Barbara County officials have released the results of the annual secret "tobacco buy" operations. The results indicate that sales to minors are down from last year in Goleta and the unincorporated areas of Santa Barbara County, and that no sales to minors occurred from undercover buys in Lompoc or Solvang. The Public Health Department collaborated with the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department for to conduct annual undercover buys in which youths, ages 15 or 16, act as undercover operatives and try to purchase tobacco products.

Results from the recent buys show that the unincorporated area’s rates are down to 10 percent this year from 15 percent last year. Researchers also found in the city of Goleta a decrease to 13 percent this year from 19 percent last year. The city of Santa Barbara had an 18 percent rate this year, up slightly from last year’s rate of 16 percent.

Tobacco licensing laws exist in Santa Barbara and Goleta and in the unincorporated areas of the county too. Licensing laws require businesses that sell tobacco products to obtain an annual permit and wait by all tobacco related laws, especially those concerning sales to minors. Public Health and Sheriff Department officials attribute the results to the licensing laws and consistent enforcement over time. Undercover tobacco buys were also conducted in other states too such as Carpentaria, resulting in a 24 percent illegal sales rate, Buellton with a 17 percent illegal sales rate, Guadalupe, where rates were 14 percent and Santa Maria at 13 percent.

After a full investigation researchers found that none of the tobacco retailers in Solvang and Lompoc sold tobacco products to the teen decoy during the annual checks. Also was found that in each of the communities, 84 percent to 100 percent of all tobacco retail outlets were shopped, with the exception of Santa Barbara, where 33 percent of the stores were visited. Sales of tobacco products to minors are monitored through routine unannounced enforcement operations. As a result of these local buys, five merchants face a potential 30-day suspension of the license.

The aim of anti-tobacco researchers is to stop selling tobacco products to minors.

Are Cigarettes a Major Source of Radiation Exposure?

In 40 years Tobacco Companies have found that cigarette smoke contains a dangerous radioactive substance that exposes heavy smokers to the radiation equivalent of having 300 chest X-rays a year.

Researchers showed in a study that cigarette manufacturers knew that tobacco contained polonium-210 but avoided drawing public attention to the fact for fear of "waking a sleeping giant".

Polonium-210 is a very dangerous because it emits alpha radiation which can cause about 11,700 lung cancer deaths each year worldwide. In 2006 Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian writer, died after being poisoned with polonium-210.

The polonium-210 in tobacco plants comes from high-phosphate fertilizers used on crops. The fertilizer is manufactured from rocks that contain radioisotopes such as poloniu-m-210.

Researchers found that the radioactive substance is absorbed through the plant's roots and deposited on its leaves.

People who smoke one and a half packets of cigarettes a day are exposed to as much radiation as they would receive from 300 chest X-rays a year, according to research. Australian tobacco companies were not legally obliged to reveal the levels of chemicals contained in cigarettes.

This made it difficult to know exactly how damaging PO-210 was and meant it was impossible to know what effect it had on other poisons contained in cigarettes. Researchers are sure that PO-210 is obviously highly toxic and they will approve any efforts to publicize it danger.

They added: "But the industry needs to be better regulated before we can support specific warnings."
Researchers found a lot of arguments for to proof that PO-210 is very dangerous for people’s health. After an inhalation tests they have shown that PO-210 is a cause of lung cancer in animals.

It has also been estimated to be responsible for 1% of all US lung cancers, or 1600 deaths a year. The US authors analyzed 1500 internal tobacco company documents, finding that tobacco companies conducted scientific studies on removing polonium-210 from cigarettes but were unable to do so.

Philip Morris even decided not to publish internal research on polonium-210 which was more favorable to the tobacco industry than previous studies for fear of heightening public awareness of PO-210.

Urging his boss not to publish the results, one scientist wrote: "It has the potential of waking a sleeping giant." Tobacco company lawyers played a key role in suppressing information about the research to protect the companies from litigation.