Report: Cigarette sales down, tax haul up in Minn.

By: Associated Press,
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota’s tax increase on cigarettes has dampened sales since taking effect on July 1, just as tobacco sellers and anti-smoking groups predicted would happen.
Early Department of Revenue figures show a sharp drop in demand for the stamps affixed to each pack of cigarettes, Minnesota Public Radio News reported Thursday. The stamps are proof that state taxes have been paid. Wholesalers and retailers pin the dip on the extra $1.60 per pack tax, especially in border towns.
For July, stamp sales fell more than 35 percent over the same month a year ago. For August, the drop was 12 percent.
The department reports that tax collections are up by more than 56 percent anyway, though that figure slightly lags projections used when lawmakers built the tax increase into their newly enacted state budget. Tax collections on other-than-cigarette tobacco products such as ‘roll-your-own’ tobacco also are up.
Abdul Habit, who works at New Smokes in Maplewood, said customers complain regularly about the tax increase.
“It’s very bad,” Habit said. “It went down, like people (are) cutting back. People who used to buy a carton, now they buy five packs. People who used to buy a pack, now they just ask for single cigarette.”
Minnesota officials knew that demand for cigarettes within the state would fall when the tax went up. They predicted a 30 percent reduction in cigarette consumption.
Anti-smoking groups say the higher cigarette tax is having its intended effect: Getting people to consider quitting.
“It’s pretty striking in terms of the number of web visits of people who are checking out Quitplan.com,” ClearWay Minnesota spokesman Mike Sheldon said. “We’re talking about a 240 percent increase year-over-year. That’s a huge increase and certainly the tax is a big effect of that in making people think about quitting.”
Ross Amundson, co-owner of a candy and tobacco wholesaling company, said his bottom line has taken a hit, too. He thinks the tax has shifted where purchases are made.
“Stores that we sold to along the Wisconsin border have basically lost most of their volume and the larger cigarette stores around the cities here that we sell to, their volume in cigarettes is probably in half,” Amundson said.
In North Dakota, where the per pack tax is $.44 compared to Minnesota’s $2.83, cigarette sales rose by more than 9 percent in August over the same month last year, according to state statistics.
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/274244/group/homepage/

40 AGs urge tight regulation of e-cigarettes

By: Associated Press , INFORUM
BOSTON — Forty attorneys general sent a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday urging the agency to meet its own deadline and regulate electronic cigarettes in the same way it regulates tobacco products.
The letter, co-sponsored by Massachusetts Attorney Martha Coakley and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, says e-cigarettes are being marketed to children through cartoon-like advertising characters and by offering fruit and candy flavors, much like cigarettes were once marketed to hook new smokers.
At the same time, e-cigarettes are becoming more affordable and more widely available as the use of regular cigarettes decline as they become more expensive and less socially acceptable.
“Unlike traditional tobacco products, there are no federal age restrictions that would prevent children from obtaining e-cigarettes, nor are there any advertising restrictions,” DeWine wrote.
Electronic cigarettes are metal or plastic battery-powered devices resembling traditional cigarettes that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. Users get nicotine without the chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes.
E-cigarettes are being advertised during prime-time television hours at a time when many children are watching, according to the letter, which has led a surge in sales and use.
The health effects of e-cigarettes have not been adequately studied and the ingredients are not regulated, the letter said.
“People, especially kids, are being led to believe that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative, but they are highly addictive and can deliver strong doses of nicotine,” Coakley said.
Citing a National Youth Tobacco Surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the attorneys generals said 1.8 million middle and high school students said they had tried e-cigarettes in 2012, mirroring increases in the use of the product by adults.
The letter urges the FDA to meet an Oct. 31 deadline to issue proposed regulations that will address the advertising, ingredients and sale to minors of e-cigarettes. The decision has been delayed in the past.
Tom Kiklas, co-founder and chief financial officer of the industry group, the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, agrees that e-cigarettes should be regulated as tobacco products. The group represents dozens of companies involved in the manufacture and sales of e-cigarettes.
“We’re in agreement with responsible restrictions on the marketing and sales of these products,” including a ban on marketing aimed at children, he said. “What I cringe at is when e-cigarettes get demonized.”
The other states and territories joining the letter to the FDA, according to Coakley’s office, are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Washington, and Wyoming.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/413148/group/homepage/

Exploding e-cigarette set toddler’s clothes afire, Utah fire marshal says

By Michael McFall | The Salt Lake Tribune
The Provo fire marshal is warning people not to leave their charging e-cigarettes unattended after one exploded and burned a toddler.
A North Dakota woman, staying for a while in Mount Pleasant, was driving through Provo on Friday morning with her 3-year-old son when heated coils shot out of her e-cigarette. The coils bounced off the ceiling and landed in her son’s car seat, setting his clothes on fire, said Provo Fire Marshal Lynn Schofield.
She first tried to pat the flames out, but when that did not work, she tossed her iced coffee on him. That did the trick.
“The e-cigarette had a catastrophic failure,” Schofield said. “… The batteries overcharged and the batteries failed and expelled the coils at the end of the tube.”
The boy suffered first- and second-degree burns, which, though relatively minor, are painful, Schofield said.
The fire marshal said that this is the second time he has investigated an e-cigarette fire. In the other case, a charging e-cigarette shot out its coils into a laundry basket, burning the laundry but causing no injuries, he said.
Schofield, who has heard similar stories from fire marshals around the country, alerted the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates e-cigarettes. He received notification Monday afternoon that the FDA received his report.
The driver had been charging the e-cigarette with the charger that came with the product, though Schofield has heard the device failure also happens with after-market chargers.
“It’s a fairly new product so our data on device failure is pretty limited,” Schofield said. “…This is not a device that I would plug into my wall and leave unattended. We were fortunate, the [boy’s] burns were relatively minor, but it was certainly a wake up call.”
mcfall@sltrib.com
 

5 Things You Need to Know About E-Cigarettes

By  (@lizzyfit)

The electronic cigarette was invented in the 1960s, but it didn’t really take off until a decade ago. Currently, there are more than 250 brands of “e-cigarettes” available in such flavors as watermelon, pink bubble gum and Java, and in more colors than the iPhone 5C.

The Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association estimates about 4 million Americans now use battery powered cigarettes. They project sales of the devices to cross the 1 billion mark by the end of this year. Here, a look at the e-smoke trend, the good, the bad and the unknown.

What are e-cigarettes?

E-cigarettes are battery operated nicotine inhalers that consist of a rechargeable lithium battery, a cartridge called a cartomizer and an LED that lights up at the end when you puff on the e-cigarette to simulate the burn of a tobacco cigarette. The cartomizer is filled with an e-liquid that typically contains the chemical propylene glycol along with nicotine, flavoring and other additives.

The device works much like a miniature version of the smoke machines that operate behind rock bands. When you “vape” — that’s the term for puffing on an e-cig — a heating element boils the e-liquid until it produces a vapor. A device creates the same amount of vapor no matter how hard you puff until the battery or e-liquid runs down.

How much do they cost?

Starter kits usually run between $30 and $100. The estimated cost of replacement cartridges is about $600, compared with the more than $1,000 a year it costs to feed a pack-a-day tobacco cigarette habit, according to the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association. Discount coupons and promotional codes are available online.

Are e-cigarettes regulated?

The decision in a 2011 federal court case gives the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate e-smokes under existing tobacco laws rather than as a medication or medical device, presumably because they deliver nicotine, which is derived from tobacco. The agency has hinted it will begin to regulate e-smokes as soon as this year but so far, the only action the agency has taken is issuing a letter in 2010 to electronic cigarette distributors warning them to cease making various unsubstantiated marketing claims.

For now, the devices remain uncontrolled by any governmental agency, a fact that worries experts like Erika Seward, the assistant vice president of national advocacy for the American Lung Association.

“With e-cigarettes, we see a new product within the same industry — tobacco — using the same old tactics to glamorize their products,” she said. “They use candy and fruit flavors to hook kids, they make implied health claims to encourage smokers to switch to their product instead of quitting all together, and they sponsor research to use that as a front for their claims.”

Thomas Kiklas, co-owner of e-cigarette maker inLife and co-founder of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, countered that the device performs the same essential function as a tobacco cigarette but with far fewer toxins. He said he would welcome any independent study of the products to prove how safe they are compared to traditional smokes.

The number of e-smokers is expected to quadruple in the next few years as smokers move away from the centuries old tobacco cigarette so there is certainly no lack of subjects,” he said.

What are the health risks of vaping?

The jury is out. The phenomenon of vaping is so new that science has barely had a chance to catch up on questions of safety, but some initial small studies have begun to highlight the pros and cons.

The most widely publicized study into the safety of e-cigarettes was done when researchers analyzed two leading brands and concluded the devices did contain trace elements of hazardous compounds, including a chemical which is the main ingredient found in antifreeze. But Kiklas, whose brand of e-cigarettes were not included in the study, pointed out that the FDA report found nine contaminates versus the 11,000 contained in a tobacco cigarette and noted that the level of toxicity was shown to be far lower than those of tobacco cigarettes.

However, Seward said because e-cigarettes remain unregulated, it’s impossible to draw conclusions about all the brands based on an analysis of two.

“To say they are all safe because a few have been shown to contain fewer toxins is troubling,” she said. “We also don’t know how harmful trace levels can be.”

Thomas Glynn, the director of science and trends at the American Cancer Society, said there were always risks when one inhaled anything other than fresh, clean air, but he said there was a great likelihood that e-cigarettes would prove considerably less harmful than traditional smokes, at least in the short term.

“As for long-term effects, we don’t know what happens when you breathe the vapor into the lungs regularly,” Glynn said. “No one knows the answer to that.”

Do e-cigarettes help tobacco smokers quit?

Because they preserve the hand-to-mouth ritual of smoking, Kiklas said e-cigarettes might help transform a smoker’s harmful tobacco habits to a potentially less harmful e-smoking habit. As of yet, though, little evidence exists to support this theory.

In a first of its kind study published last week in the medical journal Lancet, researchers compared e-cigarettes to nicotine patches and other smoking cessation methods and found them statistically comparable in helping smokers quit over a six-month period. For this reason, Glynn said he viewed the devices as promising though probably no magic bullet. For now, FDA regulations forbid e-cigarette marketers from touting their devices as a way to kick the habit.

Seward said many of her worries center on e-cigarettes being a gateway to smoking, given that many popular brands come in flavors and colors that seem designed to appeal to a younger generation of smokers.

“We’re concerned about the potential for kids to start a lifetime of nicotine use by starting with e-cigarettes,” she said.

E-cigarettes can not be sold to minors yet vaping among young people is on the rise.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found nearly 1.8 million young people had tried e-cigarettes and the number of U.S. middle and high school students e-smokers doubled between 2011 and 2012.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/facts-cigarettes/story?id=20345463#

More restrictions for smokers at Ralph Engelstad Arena

By: Jennifer Johnson, Grand Forks Herald
Those who want to take a smoke break during events at Grand Forks’ Ralph Engelstad Arena will be free to leave but they won’t be allowed back in starting Oct. 6, the night of the first UND men’s hockey game, according to arena spokesman Chris Semrau.
This will affect all events at the arena itself and the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.
The arena’s new policy would be consistent with UND’s tobacco policy, and is another step to ensure a healthier workplace for employees on event nights, Semrau said on Monday.
UND became a tobacco-free campus in 2007, but the Ralph was among the places exempted. The arena was able to offer guests an outdoor smoking zone.
Arena officials have considered getting rid of those zones for years, Semrau said. Though he estimates the number of people who smoke at arena events is low, he said tobacco smoke drifting into the building while children were present was enough to trigger complaints. “Most guests and staff said they didn’t want smoking allowed anymore.”
“The community itself has voted to remove smoking from most establishments, and this is another step in that direction,” Semrau said, referring to city laws restricting smoking indoors.
“We thought this was the right next step for the facility,” he said. “With any change, you’ll always have some negative feedback. But we hope to address what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and we believe it will not have a major impact on guests.”
Information about the new policy will be sent to season ticket holders in the next week, he said.
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/273965/

Nine F-M businesses fail tobacco compliance check

By: Forum staff reports, INFORUM
FARGO – The Fargo and West Fargo police departments, with assistance from Fargo Cass Public Health, conducted tobacco compliance checks Wednesday.
In Fargo, 63 businesses were checked and seven failed, and in West Fargo, 11 businesses were checked and two failed.
Business that failed in Fargo were: Petro Serve USA, 2903 Main Ave.; Petro Travel/Fuel Store, 4510 19th Ave. S.; Stop-n-Go, 204 42nd St. S.; West Acres All Stop Amoco, 3441 13th Ave. S.; Fargo South Pointe, 3202 33rd St. S.; Holiday Station Store, 2755 S. Brandt Drive; and Stop-n-Go, 602 23rd St. S.
Business that failed in West Fargo included: Petro Serve USA, 239 Main Ave. W.; and West Fargo Truck Stop, 1021 Main Ave. W.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/412889/group/News/

House Dems call for cigar, e-cigarette regulations over 'kid-friendly' products

By Julian Hattem
A group of House Democrats is calling on the Obama administration to issue new rules for cigars and electronic cigarettes.
In a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday, the lawmakers asked regulators “to act quickly” with new rules for the products, over which the federal government currently has little oversight.
“Manufacturers of e-cigarettes are taking advantage of this regulatory loophole to target children,” wrote Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.). “As a result, some e-cigarette makers are producing products with kid-friendly flavors such as ‘Cherry Crush’ and ‘Cookies & Cream Milkshake.’ ”
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 1.78 million middle- and high-school students have used e-cigarettes, which vaporize nicotine without producing smoke.
“With over a million youth now using e-cigarettes, FDA needs to act without further delay to protect public health,” the lawmakers added.
The group of legislators also sent a separate letter to Republican leaders on the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which Waxman is the top Democrat, requesting a hearing on the health risks posed by the tobacco products and the FDA’s authority to impose new rules.
The FDA, which oversees cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, has been working on regulations to expand its oversight to e-cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco, which are currently exempt from its rules.
Those rules have been under development at the FDA for years.
Bringing the tobacco products under the agency’s jurisdiction could subject them to new fees and restrictions, which some tobacco companies have worried could unfairly single them out with overly restrictive rules.
Health organizations and some tobacco giants have backed the FDA’s efforts, arguing that new regulations would protect the public health and level the playing field for tobacco companies.
According to the Obama administration’s spring roadmap for new regulations, a proposal to expand the FDA’s oversight could be released in October.
Earlier in September, Senate Democrats used the CDC’s findings to encourage the FDA to “redouble” its efforts.
http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/pending-regs/322519-house-dems-call-for-cigar-e-cigarette-regulations#ixzz2fBmaZlYm

Top New York chefs want to ban 'tacky and intrusive' e-cigarettes from their restaurants

By MARGOT PEPPERS
As electronic cigarettes become more and more widely used, restaurant owners and chefs are having to take a definitive stance on the use of them in their own establishments.
While some fine dining eateries allow the glowing cylinders, others have banned them for various reasons, like the notion that they bother other patrons, their likeness to actual cigarettes, and even simply because they appear tacky.
Eric Ripert, for instance, chef and co-owner of Le Bernadin in Times Square, told Business Week that he personally disapproves of the electronic cigarettes because ‘I don’t find it elegant. It’s weird to see someone smoking with a plastic cigarette.’
While Mr Ripert dislikes the way e-cigarettes look, he does admit that he recently allowed a patron to smoke one at the table, mostly because it is still a new phenomenon, and therefore a rare occurrence.
Do or Dine chef and owner Justin Warner has a similar take on the battery-powered cigarettes.
He explained that while he lets his diners light up electronically at the table, he, too, has an issue with how the cigarettes look – especially the blue lights on the ends, which are ‘very tacky-looking’.
‘They look like a prop I would’ve had in my raver days,’ the chef added.
Labelled as a ‘healthy’ alternative to smoking and promoted by celebrities like Jennie McCarthy and  Stephen Dorff, electronic cigarettes have seen a tenfold rise in sales in the last year alone.
But just because they are more common now than ever doesn’t necessarily mean they will become a fixture in restaurants any time soon.
Carlo Mirarchi, who owns Williamsburg restaurant Blanca, says despite what the e-cigarette companies claim, they do have a ‘kind of odor’ to them.
As such, he says he wouldn’t allow them during meal time, but he wouldn’t be averse to customers lighting up at the very end of the night.
Gabriel Stulman, the owner of restaurants including Fedora and Jeffrey’s Grocery, has a stronger opinion and stipulates that no customer smoke cigarettes – electronic or not – indoors or outdoors.
According to the Virginia native, the practice is just as intrusive and distracting as someone playing music out loud from their iPhone.
‘Anyone smoking an e-cigarette is forcing their desires and interests on others in a manner with which the other party may not enjoy it,’ he says.
Sue Chan, a spokesman for Momofuku, explained that staff at their restaurants ask that guests don’t smoke electronic cigarettes because they are ‘disruptive’ to the other diners.
For Alex Stupak, however, who owns Mexican restaurants Empellon Cocina and Empellon Taqueria, the newness of e-cigarettes means his establishments have yet to come up with an official policy.
He added that because of their supposed odorlessness, it may prove difficult to ask patrons not to smoke them, which he says would be akin to asking them to get rid of a toothpick.
And Drew Nieporent, owner of the Myriad Restaurant Group, with establishments that include Nobu and Tribeca Grill, said that when it comes to e-cigarettes in his restaurants, it depends on the situation.
While he admits that his gut reaction would be to see it as just another form of smoking, he adds that he would only say anything if another guest were to complain.
Indeed, a large number of restaurateurs are of the belief that e-cigarette smoking is acceptable so long as it is not a bother to fellow customers.
Said the management at the Elm in Williamsburg: ‘We don’t mind them. We actually have had a few guests “light up” in the dining room.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2422651/Theyre-distracting-intrusive-customers—look-tacky-Why-New-York-chefs-want-ban-e-cigarette-fine-dining-restaurants.html#ixzz2fBktEMZz

Woman in graphic anti-smoking ad dies from cancer

Associated Press – CBS News
A North Carolina woman featured prominently in a graphic government ad campaign to get people to stop smoking died Monday of cancer.
Terrie Hall died at a hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C., federal officials said. She was 53.
“She was a public health hero,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the campaign. “She may well have saved more lives than most doctors do.”
A former smoker whose voice box was removed years ago, Hall took a leading role in the campaign that showed how smoking-related cancer ravages the body. Officials believe the “Tips from Former Smokers” campaign led as many as 100,000 Americans smokers to quit.
Hall’s oral and throat cancer was caused by the cigarette smoking she began in high school, CDC officials said. This summer, the cancer spread to her brain.
Hall’s first ad showed her putting on a wig, putting in false teeth and covering a hole in her throat with a scarf. It was the campaign’s most popular spot by far, receiving more than 2.8 million views on YouTube.
It was the federal public health agency’s largest and starkest anti-smoking push, and its first national advertising effort.
In another ad, the Lexington resident addressed the camera in the buzzing sound of her artificial voice box. She advised smokers to make a video of themselves reading a children’s book or singing a lullaby. “I wish I had. The only voice my grandson’s ever heard is this one,” her electric voice growled.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57603199/woman-in-graphic-anti-smoking-ad-dies-from-cancer/

Study: Kids of smokers are more likely to smoke

Written by:  HealthDay

Teens of a parent who smoked — even if the mother or father quit before the teen was born — are more likely to smoke than those whose parents are nonsmokers, a new study finds.
Having an older brother or sister who smokes also raises the odds that a teen will pick up the habit, the researchers report.
“These findings imply that any amount of smoking could have important influences on the next generation,” said lead researcher Mike Vuolo, an assistant professor of sociology at Purdue University. “Given the influence on the oldest siblings, this is especially the case in heavy-smoking households.”
Vuolo and co-author Jeremy Staff, an associate professor of sociology at Pennsylvania State University, analyzed data from a multigenerational study that has followed participants since 1988, when they were freshmen in high school, to 2011. They focused on 214 now-parents and 314 of their children aged 11 and older.
Annual survey results uncovered four patterns of smoking: teens who were persistent heavy smokers, teens who were light smokers who quit or reduced use, teens who started smoking later and nonsmokers.
Their children were then surveyed in 2011.
“Surprisingly, we found similar odds of smoking among the children for the three smoking groups (23 percent to 29 percent) compared with children of nonsmokers (8 percent),” Vuolo said.
In homes with a persistent heavy-smoking parent, the oldest sibling is influenced to smoke, which in turn increases the chances that younger siblings will smoke by six times, he added.
“We should educate young people that smoking at any time in their lives could have influences on their children. Also, preventative efforts should target heavy-smoking households, trying to break the cycle of influence on the oldest siblings,” Vuolo said.
The report was published online Aug. 5 and in the September print issue of Pediatrics.
Dr. John Spangler, a professor of family and community medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, said there may well be a genetic component to these findings.
“This study confirms what we have already sensed, that there is a family history of tobacco use among many smokers,” Spangler said. “We know that people are more likely to uses substances like alcohol based on family history, the same holds true for tobacco use.”
This may point to a genetic predisposition to metabolize nicotine or dopamine differently, he said.
“We should encourage doctors to ask about a family history of smoking, because if there is a family history of smoking then that individual is more likely to be a smoker in the future,” Spangler said.
Parents who were former smokers should realize their child is more likely to become a smoker. These parents may want to discuss smoking with their children with an eye toward preventing it.
“This may also be a good way for physicians to counsel parents about and children about tobacco use — that there is this risk factor,” Spangler said.
Another expert agreed that parents who smoke should make every effort to quit, but said that further measures are needed.
“Even parents who are unable to quit should make their cars and homes smoke-free, send clear messages to their children about not smoking and support policies and programs like increased tobacco taxes, smoke-free laws and comprehensive prevention and cessation programs that are proven to reduce smoking among kids and adults,,” said Danny McGoldrick, vice president for research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
http://www.guampdn.com/article/20130916/LIFESTYLE/309160023/Study-Kids-smokers-more-likely-smoke