The Philly's Tobacco Policy

Officials at the Philadelphia Health Department don't want you to smoke Cigaronne cigarettes online. They do want your opinion on a series of proposals designed to curb tobacco use in the city and protect people from secondhand smoke.

The city is staging community discussions to gauge public opinion on nine ideas. So far, most of the ideas are not official proposals--just conversation starters.
No. 3 on the list is promoting smoke-free homes. For example, the city has the authority to prohibit smoking in public housing.

Cigarette Sale Sparks St. John's Arrest

Police in St. John's believe they solved a gas station break-in and theft quickly early Monday thanks to video surveillance footage and a tip from the public saying a man was trying to sell cigarettes by the carton downtown.

They put that anonymous call together with video from shortly after midnight which showed a couple of people breaking into the Esso station on Kenmount Road and taking a large quantity of Kent cigarettes.

The result: a man, 30, and a woman, 36, were arrested.

Police seized their van and recovered cigarettes, but they're not saying how many cartons were stolen.

The man and woman are facing charges of breaches of court orders and public mischief. Both were scheduled to make a court appearance Monday.

Lowest Smoking Rate in Canada

The 2010 Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey (CTUMS) report is out, and as per the report, British Columbia has again succeeded in counting lowest in the smoking rates all over in Canada. This is for the 12th year in a row that B. C. has topped this list with 14.3 %.

The survey also highlighted that the smoking rate of B. C. in 2009 was 14.9 % but this figure further reduced to 14.3% in 2010. On an average, Canada has 17% smoking rate, out of which B. C. has the lowest with 14.3%, Ontario has the second-lowest at 15% and the highest rate of 21% was noticed in Saskatchewan.

The maximum fall in the B. C’s smoking rate was noticed among the youth aged between 15 - 19 years, which cited a fall of approx 4.1% from 2009 to the figures in 2010, the lowest rate achieved since 1999. Secondly calculated figures were among the current smokers of age group 25 - 44 years, among which the smoking rates decreased from 21% in 2009 to 16% in 2010. The rate for daily L&M cigarettes smokers aged between 25 - 44 years also went down from 18.5 percent in 2009 to 11% in 2010.

Lawmakers Smoking out Tobacco Products

From a lawmaking viewpoint, is it possible to believe that both of those statements are true without becoming horribly conflicted? It’s a complicated question – and it looks as though it will take a lawsuit, and more, to answer it.

In Australia, the quandary has been brought into sharp relief by legal action against the government launched on 27 June by Philip Morris Asia (PMA) – parent company of Philip Morris Ltd, which serves the Australian market. Both companies are divisions of the powerful industry leader, Philip Morris International. In its suit, PMA is aiming to block plans spearheaded by Prime Minister Julia Gillard to enforce plain packaging across all tobacco products and Avalon cigarettes sold in the country: part of a wider drive to boost public health.

However, PMA argues that the government scheme is legally flawed on two counts: i) it flies in the face of time-honoured provisions for trademark protection contained in Australia’s IP laws; and ii) it flouts the terms of a major trade treaty between Australia and Hong Kong that enforces mutual support for all bilateral exports.