Government regulators and their enablers in Congress, always on the prowl to target industries for ever-more oppressive regulations and higher taxes, are now focusing on the venerable “good cigar” eloquently extolled by Rudyard Kipling and many other connoisseurs of a “good smoke.” (more)
House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa said on Friday that he thinks the groundswell in calls for Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation, a topic that most recently took center stage at the GOP debate in Iowa Thursday night, is a sign that changes are needed at the Justice Department. (more)
I’m not a smoker, and I’ve never felt the need to use any tobacco product. Despite this, I’m a strong proponent of letting legal adults make their own decisions as long as their actions don’t directly harm others — which is exactly why Major League Baseball’s latest labor agreement has me shaking my head in bemusement. (more)
The FDA’s new graphic warning labels for tobacco products showing diseased lungs, rotten teeth and dead bodies may violate the First Amendment, a federal judge has ruled. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. senators and health officials are taking on a baseball tradition older than the World Series itself: chewing tobacco on the diamond. (more)
With states looking for ways to meet budget shortfalls and the government pushing to deter Americans from consuming tobacco products, one might expect to see cigarette taxes increase. (more)
The war against smokers continued in full force Tuesday afternoon with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) unveiling nine graphic health warnings that will be required to be on every pack of cigarettes sold in the United States no later than September 2012. (more)
Top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa is subpoenaing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for documents on Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious after the agency missed a Wednesday deadline for producing the documents. (more)
Tobacco displays will have to be kept out of sight in shops in England from April 2012 for large stores and April 2015 for all other shops, the government has announced. (more)
Last year, not long after the Food and Drug Administration got legislative authority to regulate tobacco, “flavored” cigarettes were banned — on behalf of the children. (more)
A potential ban on menthol cigarettes has sparked a debate within the African American community over whether a government ban should be welcomed for health reasons or considered a condescending demonstration of paternalism. (more)
Though some government programs rely on funding from high cigarette taxes, the health risks associated with the habit have lead to government bans and initiatives designed to get people to quit or never start. Some have wondered, however, where the government would make up the lost cigarette tax revenue if anti-smoking advocates succeeded in creating a world without smokers? (more)
Millions of women in developing countries risk disease and early death in the coming decades as their rising economic and political status leads them to smoke more, researchers said on Tuesday. (more)
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others in the anti-tobacco movement are working to turn America into a land without smokers. But what would an America without smokers look like? (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department wants the largest cigarette manufacturers to admit that they lied to the public about the dangers of smoking, forcing the industry to set up and pay for an advertising campaign of self-criticism for past behavior. (more)
Whip out your Marlboros folks, oral sex — not tobacco — could now be the leading cause of throat cancer among people under 50! (more)
Tobacco’s damaging impact on smokers’ lungs and hearts is well established, but ongoing research into its impact on the brain is yielding startling results. New evidence comes from New York City, where the City Council just voted to outlaw smoking in public parks and beaches. (more)
City University students will have to take a hike if they want a nicotine fix. (more)
Recently, Alan, a friend on my Facebook fan page for my book, The War on Smokers and the Rise of the Nanny State, asked me: “…what’s your take on the report from the surgeon general, Thursday, that only one cigarette kills millions of people and causes global warming and makes kittens cry?” Well, my take on that is this: what the new, portly surgeon general, Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, reported, if not as Alan described it, is also absurd, and she thinks people will believe it because she is, after all, a doctor and a government official. Her absurd report is this: even only brief exposure to secondhand smoke causes really bad health problems. (more)
— “It is unlikely that House Republicans will take the vote to repeal the health care law, shrug their shoulders when it doesn’t reach the Senate, and move on,” writes The Daily Caller’s Chris Moody. “We aren’t going to just check the box off and say that we had one vote and we’re going to move on to other topics,” Rep. Michele Bachmann said Tuesday. Rep. Steve King echoed Bachmann’s sentiments, saying, “This is going to be a debate that goes on not just today and tomorrow and next week. It’s going to go on for the next year or two. It’s probably going to go on until we elect a president that will sign a final repeal of Obamacare. So this is an ongoing debate.” The GOP will fight, just like the Spartans fought at Thermopylae, until they are all dead of old age/exasperation, or until Americans return both the legislative branch and the executive branch to the second worst party in the country. In the meantime, House Republicans will build their own health care bill, starting with the key accomplishment of Obamacare: “A measure to restrict insurance companies from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions.” (more)
