December 7, 2012
Sony Pictures Entertainment just announced that is has a policy on smoking in movies (effective December 1, 2012).
The policy states:
December 3, 2012
The Congressional Budget Office just published an important article, “Cigarette Taxes and the Federal Budget — Report from the CBO,” in the New England Journal of Medicine on the health and economic effects of a 50 cent increase in the cigarette tax (which is indexed to increase with inflation). The full report is available from the Congressional Budget Office here. It is the most comprehensive and careful analysis of the long-term fiscal implications of a tobacco control policy I have ever seen.
The CBO prepared a sophisticated demographic analysis that includes people aging into and out of the years that people smoke as well as the effects of quitting smoking on not only health care costs but also time in the workforce when people would be paying taxes as well as effects on living longer.
Key conclusions include:
November 28, 2012
On November 27, 2012 Federal Judge Gladys Kessler took another step in implementing the “remedies” in the landmark case the US Department of Justice brought against the major US cigarette manufacturers under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for creating an illegal “enterprise” to defraud the public about a wide range of issues related to smoking (including secondhand smoke) and health. (Sharon Eubanks, the lawyer who led the DOJ effort through the trial, and I wrote a book, Bad Acts, that gives the political and legal history of the case, which started in 1999 when Bill Clinton was president.) Judge Kessler ordered the tobacco company defendants -- Altria, BATco, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds – to publish “corrective statements” informing the public that the companies lied about the dangers of smoking, secondhand smoke, nicotine addiction, and the fact that “light” and “mild” cigarettes are just as dangerous as “regular” cigarettes and providing truthful information about these issues.
November 25, 2012
November 25, 2012
Eric Crosbie and I just published a paper in Tobacco Control, Tobacco industry argues domestic trademark laws and international treaties preclude cigarette health warning labels, despite consistent legal advice that the argument is invalid. This paper should embolden governments to pursue strong graphic warning labels and plain packaging. The tile speaks for itself.
Here is the abstract: