понедельник, 20 декабря 2010 г.

"The flavor of the tobacco grown here in the Connecticut River Valley is much better than in Honduras, Venezuela or the Dominican Republic."

After a bumper summer tobacco harvest - the first in two years - local broadleaf tobacco, used as cigar wrappers, is cured and ready for sale. All that's missing are the buyers.

Alan Sanderson Jr. of Fairview Farm in Whately said that buyers from the three or four cigar companies that purchase tobacco from Massachusetts and Connecticut growers have not arrived at their usual time this year.

Sanderson said that most of the crop sales are completed by the end of November.


Sanderson said he's not sure why there seems to be a delay this year, although experts cite a number of factors, including substandard crops, high taxation, increased prices and lower demand.

There's no problem with this year's crop, Sanderson said, which avoided the disease and hail of past years and which enjoyed a hot summer. "It's a very nice crop."

Bernie Smiarowski of Teddy Smiarowski Farm in Hatfield said that he and his brothers did sell their tobacco crop a few weeks ago, but felt fortunate to do so.

"They're not buying as much" this year as in past years, he said. Smiarowski and his brothers grew 35 acres of tobacco, down from 60 acres in better times. The family is discussing how much to plant next year, or whether they'll plant at all, he said.

"The flavor of the tobacco grown here in the Connecticut River Valley is much better than in Honduras, Venezuela or the Dominican Republic," he said, "because of the growing conditions, the soil and humidity. But the cost is high. It costs more to grow it here than in countries where labor is cheap."

Because local tobacco has been scarce over the past two years, "You'd think demand would be high this year," Smiarowski said. "I don't know if the tax on tobacco products has something to do with it."

Jon Foster, an independent tobacco leaf buyer for Richmond-based General Cigar Co. and other cigar makers, said that the buying season is a little late this year because of buyer pickiness, increased tariffs and a decrease in demand.

Say no to Big Tobacco money

IT WAS an unprecedented reparation when a Suffolk Superior Court jury this week awarded $152 million in total damages to the family of Marie Evans. The jury decided that Lorillard illegally gave away free Newport cigarettes to children in a black Boston housing project in Roxbury a half-century ago. Evans was one of those children, and she died of lung cancer in 2002 at age 54. The suit was the first of its kind to focus on the free samples to underage youth. Documents showed Lorillard blatantly targeted inner cities and said “the base of our business is the high school student.’’


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The award “can’t bring my mother back, but it was good to see the company held responsible for what they did,’’ Evans’s son Willie said to the Globe yesterday.

But we should not kid ourselves. The tobacco companies are still trying to buy a good image with our kids. This singular victory for the Evans family would mean so much more if leaders stood up and held themselves responsible to hold the line against the death peddlers. But while Willie Evans savors a victory against the exploitation of the inner city by a cigarette company, it is shameful that the most elite of African American organizations continue to wallow in the cash thrown at them by Big Tobacco.

Of course African American organizations are not alone. Big tobacco buys off any organization it can. The 2009 list of charitable contributions by Altria, the corporate cover for Philip Morris USA, includes many Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs and YWCAs, Boy Scout, Girl Scout, 4-H, Junior Achievement, and Camp Fire councils, Big Brothers and Big Sisters chapters, and United Way chapters. The R.J. Reynolds Foundation boasts of similar contributions. The national presidents and CEOs of all those organizations need to say no more to tobacco money.

But the Evans suit, which focused on Lorillard specifically targeting low-income black children, is a riveting reminder that African-Americans are disproportionately likely to develop and die from lung cancer. That makes it incumbent on highly influential organizations to tell Big Tobacco that they will not be exploited anymore. But there is little sign of that, when Lorillard is one of the top political action committee contributors to the Congressional Black Caucus.

Prominent on Altria’s list are the national offices of the CBC, the Urban League, the United Negro College Fund, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. There is a parallel list for Latinos. Among local chapters on Altria’s contribution list is the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.

Local Urban League President and CEO Darnell Williams said in an email that Altria is one of the sponsors of its charity golf tournament. “We use the proceeds from the tournament to fund youth activities in Boston,’’ Williams wrote. “Football teams, basketball teams, youth scholarships to college, and youth civic engagement have all benefited.’’ Williams described Altria as “solid and responsible partners’’ that “we have not hesitated in working with to carry out our mission to empower people and change their lives.’’

It is time to hesitate. Big Tobacco is working to disempower people all over the world, fighting efforts from here to Uruguay to limit or prevent graphic warnings on cigarette packs. No matter how wonderful is the work of civic organizations, and our local Urban League is indeed a vital part of Boston, the goal of empowering people and changing their lives is tragically diminished when organizations take money from forces that steal decades from those lives.

Tobacco: The ruthless killer next door

Today, as I allow my mind to endure the oppressive thought that tobacco still remains the ruthless killer next door, what then shall we call its producers and distributors? The answer can only be simple and straightforward: They are people who prosper at the expense of other people’s lives. They make their billions by ruining other people’s health, and eventually terminating their lives. They should therefore not complain if anyone refers to them as proud, happy, licensed murderers

Packs of Killer Poison
How these people are able to deaden their conscience to go on prospering and sustaining their own lives by producing and marketing a scientifically confirmed poison whose only benefit is its ability to cruelly terminate the lives of their fellow human beings beats me hollow? Tobacco never adds even the tiniest value to life; it only destroys it completely. Without mercy. This is a fact nobody has even attempted to deny.
The Nigerian president should put the concern for the lives of many Nigerians above his often whispered personal tastes and habits and take another look at the massive freedom granted by his predecessor to tobacco companies to fill Nigeria with their neatly wrapped and attractively packaged killer poison called cigarettes. If he cannot immediately ban the production of cigarettes in Nigeria, he should, at least, put in place stricter regulations that would ensure that tobacco manufacturing would automatically become a very unprofitable venture in Nigeria.
I call on Nigerians with lively conscience and genuine friends of Nigeria, to join this clearly winnable battle, to flush these heartless fellows out of Nigeria. The question I have always asked cigarette producers is: can they boldly come out in the open and assure me that the commodity they manufacture and distribute to hapless individuals cannot be rightly classified as poison? Again, they should tell me one single benefit the human body derives from smoking cigarettes. Has it not been convincingly proved everywhere, and publicly admitted even by tobacco producers, that tobacco is a merciless killer, an unrelenting cannibal that devours a man when his life is sweetest to him? If then tobacco is a proven killer, can’t those who manufacture and circulate it in society be classified as murderers? Hasn’t even our own Federal Ministry of Health been shouting and warning us with passion, sense of urgency and alarm that TOBACCO SMOKERS ARE LIABLE TO DIE YOUNG?

Material by: independentngonline.com

среда, 8 декабря 2010 г.

Tobacco Display Legislation Introduced in Parliament

Associate Health Minister, Tariana Turia has said that there is a need to get more serious about the risks of smoking and the harms caused by smoking.

Therefore, legislation was today introduced in the parliament in an attempt to discourage smoking by removing displays of tobacco products in dairies and other retail outlets.

She asserted that the Government was quite serious about the reduction of the harms caused by smoking. She said, "It's harder to quit when you walk into a shop and are confronted with the instant temptation of tobacco on display".

She asserted that most of the smokers wish that there was some way which could help them quit smoking. There is a strong link between displays and young people taking up smoking.

Some evidences have shown that tobacco displays prompt impulse purchasing. A time would come when a person would be able to walk into the local corner shop `without being confronted with images of tobacco enticing customers to take up a habit which is unhealthy, addictive, and costly'.

The Health Select Committee will now be asked for a sanction following which the committee will call for public submissions.

The nation's top doc has a lot on her mind this time of year. U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin talks about an upcoming tobacco study, childhoo

On November 9, 2010, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to amend tobacco control sections of Santa Barbara’s County Code (Chapter 37A). Changes include restricting new retailers from selling tobacco products within 1,000 feet of schools, strengthening requirements and penalties associated with selling tobacco to youth and increasing tobacco retail licensing fees.

These amendments, which will be effective December 9, 2010, will affect tobacco retailers in the unincorporated area of the county. The goal is to encourage responsible tobacco retailing, and discourage the sale or distribution of tobacco products and paraphernalia to minors.

In the past three years, 31% of illegal sales to minors occurred within 1,000 feet of a school. Supervisor Carbajal who sponsored the ordinance said, “This change is needed to protect the health & safety of children and promote public health.”

A significant change to the law is the fact that retailers located in the unincorporated county area who sell to teens will be subject to a 30-day suspension of their ability to sell and advertise tobacco products. Previously the ordinance required a letter of warning for a first violation. Second violations are subject to a 90 day suspension, and third violations will vary based on an outlet’s proximity to schools. Stores outside of the 1,000 foot school buffer zone face a one year tobacco retail license revocation, while those near schools may have it revoked for five years.

Tobacco retailers in the unincorporated county area will be responsible for paying increased license fees as of January 2011. The increased fees will be phased in over three years, costing $250 in 2011 and 2012 and finally going to $435 in 2013. The annual fee for a tobacco retail license has been $30 since 2002; however, a recent fee study determined that it costs $435 per retailer to administer and enforce this program.

Public Health Department staff will conduct educational site visits with each tobacco retailer during the first few months of the new year to assist them with understanding their responsibilities and the potential consequences of non-compliance.

Surgeon General Focuses on Flu, Tobacco, Obesity

The nation's top doc has a lot on her mind this time of year.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin talks about an upcoming tobacco study, childhood obesity and National Influenza Vaccination Week that is now underway.

More than a year after becoming the 18th Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Dr. Regina Benjamin is again tackling flu shots and this year there are new guidelines.

"The biggest thing this year; we are asking everyone over the age of 6 months to get their flu shot," Benjamin says. "If we can get the entire population vaccinated we can avoid any outbreak or epidemic like last year."

Unlike last year though Dr. Benjamin says there are no shortages of the vaccine this flu season.
"This particular vaccine this year already has the H1N1 in it. It also has influenza A and influenza B as well so it is all covered in this shot at one time."

Another issue close the Surgeon General's heart: reduce childhood obesity.
"My goal is to have people be healthy and be fit because they enjoy it they have a good time not because it is something negative to do," Benjamin says.

33 states have childhood obesity rates above 25-percent.
One of Benjamin's favorite phrases is "exercise is medicine". She hosts fitness walks in cities across the nation.

She is also releasing the first Surgeon General's tobacco report this Thursday.
"This report kind of goes into the science of how it really affects your DNA and how certain things at cellular level affect you with one cigarette."