Author Archive: speccomm

Tobacco travel ban

Passengers are to be frisked at Metro stations in Lucknow, India, to prevent them from taking tobacco products on to trains.

WHO calls for more bans

A tax increase that almost doubled the price of cigarettes in South Korea at the start of 2015 was apparently not enough to satisfy the World Health Organization.

Smokers have rights too

Restrictions on where people may smoke in the Philippines are not well understood by some of those charged with enforcing those restrictions.

Bigger is better in Taiwan

A proposal that bigger health warnings should be introduced in Taiwan seems to be based on flawed reasoning, but that won’t stop their introduction.

Smoking down in Ukraine

While there has been a 20 percent reduction over seven years in the incidence of smoking in Ukraine, there has been no significant reduction in smoking among women.

Natural selection end-game

Human evolution might be eradicating the genetic variation linked to heavy smoking, but this is always going to be the longest ‘end-game’ imaginable.

E-cigarettes are “fun”

Electronic cigarettes are fun and effective at getting people to quit smoking. So what’s not to like? Well, according to one observer, it’s the fun bit.

Vaping provides no gateway

Regular electronic-cigarette use among never smokers is ‘very rare’, according to the findings of a major new study in the UK.

A positive role for nicotine

Scientists in the US are studying whether nicotine can provide a better, more tolerable option than is currently available for treating the ‘tricky’ lung disease sarcoidosis.

Risk continuum quantified

The relative cancer risks associated with nicotine delivery systems are, according to one study at least, largely in line with what common sense would indicate they would be.

Vuse is boycott target

Vuse, the top-selling US electronic cigarette, is being targeted by a farmworker labor group unhappy with Reynolds American Inc’s attitude to tobacco-farmworker conditions of employment.

Don’t panic!

If we didn’t know it previously, we certainly know now that, beyond the contents of very simple statements, there are few facts, only interpretations of data and observations.

Bans counter-productive

It seems that India could be edging toward a ban on electronic cigarettes without examining all the evidence.

E-cigarettes are “fun”

Electronic cigarettes are fun and effective at getting people to quit smoking. So what’s not to like? Well, according to one observer, it’s the fun bit.

Vaping provides no gateway

Regular electronic-cigarette use among never smokers is ‘very rare’, according to the findings of a major new study in the UK.

PMI supports FDA proposal

Andre Calantzopoulos, the chief executive of Philip Morris International, says that recent proposals by the US Food and Drug Administration invite dialogue rather than litigation.

Litigation launched in China

What is said to be China’s first private litigation over tobacco smoking in public places has been launched by a woman who allegedly suffered anguish on board a smoky train.

‘Smoking fee’ ruled out

A ‘smoking-cessation tax’ that would have raised about $225 million, but only $1 million of which would have been spent on smoking cessation, has been ruled unconstitutional in the US.

Boost for ban challenge

The Swedish government’s decision not to provide observations in relation to a case being brought to overturn an EU ban on the sale of snus is seen as a boost to that challenge.

FDA on shaky ground

Just seven days after the US Food and Drug Administration announced its new tobacco and nicotine agenda, there is speculation about court challenges.