Tobacco Products

Seeking to battle diseases afflicting East Baltimore neighborhoods, a local group has been targeting merchants who sell cigarettes to minors, saying they say are a major part of the problem.In a two-week campaign that ended yesterday, members of Project BLESS (Baltimore Leading Everyone to Stop Smoking) visited more than 125 East Baltimore grocery and convenience stores to get their message across. At each store, they have tried to leave a poster that proclaims: "We don't sell cigarettes to minors.

Those of us who work in the news business are well-accustomed to hearing the lament that it would be nice to see some positive things get a little bit of publicity. We're also a bit sensitive to it not because the lament is well-founded, but because there's never really a shortage of good news, and a fair amount of good news generally finds its way into print. The problem is, unfortunately, bad news is often more useful than good news, and it's generally what we focus on. A deer causes a bad accident.

I was dismayed by the letter written by Brad Rodu minimizing the devastating health consequences caused by using smokeless tobacco products ("All tobacco is not equally harmful," Jan. 24). Dr. Rodu is a dentist and scientist at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center. He receives funding from the tobacco industry and promotes the false virtues of chewing tobacco, snuff and other smokeless tobacco products. A quick Google search reveals he has been carrying the tobacco industry's water for more than 20 years now. Contrary to Dr. Rodu's statements, regular use of smokeless tobacco products can lead to the presence of oral cancer within an alarmingly swift five years.

A tax increase on small cigars and other tobacco products popular with teenagers has resulted in a bump in the prices of these products just as health advocates had hoped. The Maryland Health Care for All! Coalition will release a study today showing that prices have increased since the tax went into affect July 1. For instance, a single Swisher Sweets flavored cigar cost $1.29 before the tax and now costs $1.69.  A 5-pack of Swisher Sweets cost $5.49 before the tax and now costs $7.99.

I was very pleased to read the article about the Community College of Baltimore County's decision to ban tobacco use on its campuses ("CCBC to ban tobacco products on its campuses," June 25). Wouldn't it be nice if smoking was banned all over Maryland! Nick Delambo, Baltimore

In response to the recent letter defending smokeless tobacco use ("All tobacco products are not equally harmful," Jan. 24), the risk of tobacco trumps all others. Fifty cigarettes a day increases the risk of end-stage lung disease and lung cancer 150-fold. This is orders of magnitude worse than other modifiable risk factors like weight, aerobic capacity blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose level. Even if smokeless tobacco is responsible for only 2 percent of tobacco deaths, we cannot accept thousands of deaths instead of over 450,000 deaths a year in America.

WASHINGTON -- Landmark legislation that would give the federal government the power to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products passed an early hurdle yesterday. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill, 38-12. The measure would allow the Food and Drug Administration to review new tobacco products before they could go on sale, limit advertising and restrict sales to youths. It would also enable the agency to regulate levels of tar, nicotine and other ingredients.

WASHINGTON -- Three key congressional tobacco foes announced yesterday that they will attempt to get a quick House vote on legislation that would require the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco, but would forbid the agency from imposing a total ban on cigarettes.Reps. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., Mike Synar, D-Okla., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said that they have asked the Rules Committee to allow the amendment to be attached to the agriculture appropriations bill in order to put the measure on a fast track to a House vote.

Health advocate Vinny DeMarco was thrilled and delighted this week when the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee approved the most important part of his proposal to increase taxes  on tobacco products  other that cigarettes as part its budget package. Now the irrepressible DeMarco wants the rest. The Senate committee agreed to raise the price on small cigars -- a type of tobacco products that has been increasingly appealing to young people as cigarette  taxes have been increased -- from 15 percent to 70 percent.

Over the past decade, Maryland has gradually raised its tax on cigarettes to the current $2 per pack, and the results have been striking. Fewer people smoke cigarettes today than before the tax was implemented, and that's particularly true among high school students. Yet even as lawmakers acted boldly to reduce cigarette use, they foolishly left alone other forms of tobacco, chiefly snuff, chewing tobacco and cigars. So while cigarettes and what's known as "OTP" or Other Tobacco Products were taxed at comparable levels in 1999 (36 cents per pack for cigarettes and 15 percent of wholesale prices for OTP)

A recent article on tobacco use pointed out that although cigarette smoking has gone down nationally, the use of cigars and other non-cigarette tobacco products has gone up over the past few years ("Cigarette use down, other tobacco up, CDC says," Aug. 3). A recent study of Maryland youth tobacco use reported a similar troubling trend - while fewer kids are getting addicted to cigarettes (thanks to our smoke-free air laws and tax increases), more kids are smoking cheap flavored cigars that are just as detrimental to their health.

Maryland's seizures of contraband tobacco quadrupled between 2010 and 2012, Comptroller Peter Franchot said Wednesday, attributing the increase in part to lax penalties that fail to deter cigarette smugglers from a highly profitable enterprise. Flanked by piles of confiscated tobacco and alcohol products, Franchot announced that his field enforcement agents and other police agencies had seized 325,851 packs of illegally trafficked cigarettes valued at $2 million in the 12 months that ended June 30. The confiscations represent a near-doubling of the previous year's total of 184,498 and are more than four times the total posted in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010.

I was very pleased to read the article about the Community College of Baltimore County's decision to ban tobacco use on its campuses ("CCBC to ban tobacco products on its campuses," June 25). Wouldn't it be nice if smoking was banned all over Maryland! Nick Delambo, Baltimore

Health advocate Vinny DeMarco was thrilled and delighted this week when the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee approved the most important part of his proposal to increase taxes  on tobacco products  other that cigarettes as part its budget package. Now the irrepressible DeMarco wants the rest. The Senate committee agreed to raise the price on small cigars -- a type of tobacco products that has been increasingly appealing to young people as cigarette  taxes have been increased -- from 15 percent to 70 percent.

I was dismayed by the letter written by Brad Rodu minimizing the devastating health consequences caused by using smokeless tobacco products ("All tobacco is not equally harmful," Jan. 24). Dr. Rodu is a dentist and scientist at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center. He receives funding from the tobacco industry and promotes the false virtues of chewing tobacco, snuff and other smokeless tobacco products. A quick Google search reveals he has been carrying the tobacco industry's water for more than 20 years now. Contrary to Dr. Rodu's statements, regular use of smokeless tobacco products can lead to the presence of oral cancer within an alarmingly swift five years.

In response to the recent letter defending smokeless tobacco use ("All tobacco products are not equally harmful," Jan. 24), the risk of tobacco trumps all others. Fifty cigarettes a day increases the risk of end-stage lung disease and lung cancer 150-fold. This is orders of magnitude worse than other modifiable risk factors like weight, aerobic capacity blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose level. Even if smokeless tobacco is responsible for only 2 percent of tobacco deaths, we cannot accept thousands of deaths instead of over 450,000 deaths a year in America.

A tax increase on small cigars and other tobacco products popular with teenagers has resulted in a bump in the prices of these products just as health advocates had hoped. The Maryland Health Care for All! Coalition will release a study today showing that prices have increased since the tax went into affect July 1. For instance, a single Swisher Sweets flavored cigar cost $1.29 before the tax and now costs $1.69.  A 5-pack of Swisher Sweets cost $5.49 before the tax and now costs $7.99.

WASHINGTON -- Taking on a struggle that is likely to determine the fate of the tobacco industry, the Supreme Court agreed yesterday to rule on the Clinton administration's sweeping plan to control how cigarettes and chewing tobacco are made and sold.Under that plan, aimed mainly at protecting youths, the Food and Drug Administration would restrict minors' access to tobacco items and control the marketing of those products.In the future, the agency could regulate the ingredients of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, probably to reduce or eliminate nicotine.

Over the past decade, Maryland has gradually raised its tax on cigarettes to the current $2 per pack, and the results have been striking. Fewer people smoke cigarettes today than before the tax was implemented, and that's particularly true among high school students. Yet even as lawmakers acted boldly to reduce cigarette use, they foolishly left alone other forms of tobacco, chiefly snuff, chewing tobacco and cigars. So while cigarettes and what's known as "OTP" or Other Tobacco Products were taxed at comparable levels in 1999 (36 cents per pack for cigarettes and 15 percent of wholesale prices for OTP)

Harford County government says it plans to impose a complete smoking ban on its properties, owned or leased, including all indoor and outdoor parks and recreation facilities that are used by hundreds of thousands of people annually. The proposed ban will involve all tobacco products, not just smoking materials, and will include garages, parking lots and roads, according to the proposed rule and regulation the county circulated Monday. County-owned or leased vehicles will also be subject to the ban. The Harford County Department of Administration will conduct a public hearing on Dec. 5 at 2 p.m. in the second-floor conference room of the Harford County Government Administration Building at 220 S. Main St. in Bel Air on the proposed rule and regulation requiring county government property to be tobacco-free.