May 1st, 2011
CRE Note: The following article comes to the same conclusion that CRE reached in a number of reports it submitted to TPSAC. FDA has a statutory charge to examine the impact a menthol ban would have on public health; the following article demonstrates that a menthol ban is detrimental to public health.
SMOKERS are being warned that smuggled cigarettes could contain a “seriously unhealthy” cocktail of chemicals – much worse than a normal cigarette.
Illicit cigarettes, thousands of which have been unearthed by customs officers on the shelves of shops in Peterborough, are hard to spot as they are “expertly packaged” by criminals.
April 27th, 2011
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to oversee electronic cigarettes marketed for non-therapeutic use as tobacco products after a court ruled the products can’t be regulated as drugs or medical devices.
The FDA will propose subjecting e-cigarette companies to rules that already cover the makers of regular cigarettes, such as providing the government with lists of product ingredients, the agency said today in a letter on its website.
April 24th, 2011
Editors Note: Obviously the extensive information base developed at the national level regarding the impact that a menthol ban has on contraband has not filtered down to the local governmental level.
Oakland Tribune
LAST MONTH, the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee released its report on menthol in cigarettes.
TPSAC reviewed scientific evidence and found
that menthol cigarettes increases experimentation and regular smoking, decreases smoking cessation success in African Americans, and there is a causal relationship between the availability of menthol cigarettes and regular smoking among youth.
April 20th, 2011
An Alberta aboriginal chief is among four people facing charges after the seizure of what authorities are calling the province’s largest haul yet of contraband tobacco.
But the seizure is proving controversial and is setting up a legal battle between the aboriginal interests from Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, on one side, and the Alberta’s liquor and gaming authority, on the other.
Chief Carolyn Buffalo’s Montana First Nation -in Hobbema, Alta., south of Edmonton -and an aboriginal tobacco company based out of Kahnawake, a Mohawk community outside Montreal, are fighting the charges, which have been laid under the Tobacco Tax Act.
