Chicago, Cook County Mull Cigarette Tax Hikes

Faced with a $298-million budget deficit, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has pledged not to raise taxes on homes, gasoline or retail purchases. However, he has not ruled out a cigarette tax hike for the city, according to a report from Medill News Service. Chicago already has the second-highest cigarette taxes in the country, second only to New York City. As of June, the average total cost of a pack of cigarettes in Illinois was $10.25, cheaper than only New York’s $12.50 per pack.

RJR Sues E-Cig Maker

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. has filed a lawsuit against electronic cigarette maker SAS Technologies, accusing the company of infringing on its Camel cigarette and Winston cigarettes , reported The Business Journal. The lawsuit was filed last week in U.S. District Court in North Carolina by Reynolds

Innovations Inc., a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., producer of Camel cigarettes which is itself part of Reynolds American Inc. Reynolds Innovations claims that SaveASmoker.com is selling "E-Liquid" products with names such as "Camell Tobacco" and "Winston" among the different flavors of liquid nicotine products, the report said. According to the lawsuit, Reynolds Innovations believes that the use of the Camel and Winston names and images "is likely to cause confusion, mistake or deception among consumers as to the source, origin or sponsorship of such products."

Eating certain types of processed food is just as dangerous as smoking processed cigarettes

Remember: Cigarettes are essentially processed smokes in the same way that the packaged factory-made food items at the grocery store are processed foods. In fact, some processed foods contain just as many chemical additives as processed cigarettes, yet people don't even think twice about gobbling down a sandwich made from processed bread and extremely toxic processed deli meat made with known cancer-causing chemicals. So why don't you see the FDA releasing graphic labels that have to be placed on bacon, sausage, hot dogs and other processed meats that promote cancer? Because the FDA and the American medical establishment has declared war on tobacco while completely ignoring the health risks associated with toxic chemical additives in the food supply.

Chemotherapy is far more toxic than smoking cigarettes

Smoking toxic chemicals is about as idiotic as injecting them, and yet an entire medical industry now exists around the idea of injecting far deadlier chemicals than what you'll find in cigarette smoke. It's called chemotherapy, and it will kill you even faster than smoking an entire case of cigarettes a day. Notice that the FDA does not require graphic warnings about chemotherapy? People vomiting, their muscles wasting away, their hair falling out and eyes looking hollow... that's the true face of chemo, and those who undergo it and somehow manage to come out alive are actually "chemo survivors" more than "cancer survivors." So why aren't there graphic warnings about chemotherapy?

50% hike in cigarette rates would avoid 40 lakh deaths in India

Increasing the cigarette prices by 50 per cent would help avoid over 40 lakh tobacco related deaths in India, said a report released by multilateral funding agency Asian Development Bank (ADB).

“A 50 per cent price increase in cigarettes avoids about 27 million (or 2.70 crore) tobacco-attributable deaths, most of which are in the two most populous countries in the world.

China would avoid nearly 20 million tobacco deaths, and India over 4 million tobacco deaths,” said the report.

For India, it said, the 50 per cent rise in cigarette prices corresponds to increase of 70-122 per cent rise in tax increase.

Are Electronic Cigarettes Harmful?

Electronic cigarettes, which are sometimes referred to as smokeless cigarettes, are battery-powered devices that use heat or ultrasonics to vaporize a solution of nicotine in propylene glycol. While some of the manufacturers, have been advertising these as a healthier alternative to the conventional tobacco cigarettes, some refer these cigarettes to be a smoking cessation device.