Cigarettes – another reason to be glad Bush is gone

A bill giving the Food and Drug Administration not just the authority but even the direct charge to regulate cigarettes could make its way into law this year. That alone would be a notable healthcare measure.

How much will Big Tobacco fight this one?

Want to quit drinking in 2009? Address quitting smoking, too

New studies show a synergistic effect between the two addictions. They also show that cigarette-smoking alcoholics smoke more than non-alcoholic smokers. And, while I'm not in Big Pharma's pocket, and don't normally tout particular products, it appears Chantix can help on the smoking side.

Third-hand smoke?

Some scientists and health professionals worry a health hazard could lurk in all the smoking-caused pollutants that stick to walls, curtains, etc. in homes, etc. primariliy frequented by smokers.

According to the story, among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, butane, toluene - used in paint thinners, arsenic, lead, carbon monoxide, and even the radioactive polonium-210.

Read the full story and make your own judgments.

Want a safer cig?

Texas is one of five new states requriring safe-burning cigarettes. But, don't just avoid being one of the 800 people a year who die from cigarette-caused fires. Instead, avoid being one of the 44,000 a year who die from smoking caused illness.

That is the real safe cigarette.

What Philip Morris won’t tell – keep smoking to go bald or gray

The evidence is becoming stronger by the day of a statistical connection; even Asians, who rarely go bald, are more likely to lose their hair if they smoke.

Funny how you don’t see bald men and gray-haired women in Marlboro and other commercials, isn’t it?

Does the government want blacks to smoke more?

It sure looks that way. Menthol, found most prominently in “urban-friendly” brands such as Kool and Newport, is getting kid-glove treatment?

A Congressional bill to give the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate cigarettes bans most flavored cigarettes, including clove and cinnamon ones.

Menthol?

Not a peep. (Nearly 75 percent of black smokers use menthol brands, compared with only about one in four white smokers.)

As the Times notes:

The reason menthol is seen as politically off limits, despite those concerns, is that mentholated brands are so crucial to the American cigarette industry. They make up more than one-fourth of the $70 billion American cigarette market and are becoming increasingly important to the industry leader, Philip Morris USA, without whose lobbying support the legislation might have no chance of passage.

Whenever Congress is in bed with Philip Morris, you know bad things are bound to happen.

Here’s the fallout that will happen. Many blacks will rightly think whites care less about them. Some will even raise the old conspiracy theory flag.

Supporters of the bill, even African-Americans, argue there’s no other way to pass it:

“I would have been in favor of banning menthol,” said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, who supports the bill. “But as a practical matter that simply wasn’t doable.”

Even the head of the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network, a nonprofit group that has been adamantly against menthol, acknowledges that the ingredient needed to be off the bargaining table — for now — because he does not want to imperil the bill’s chances.

“The bottom line is we want the legislation,” said William S. Robinson, the group’s executive director. “But we want to reserve the right to address this issue at some critical point because of the percentage of people of African descent who use mentholated products.”

Fine. Pull the bill. Don’t postpone “someday” into an undefined future.

And, there’s other fallout. First, Philip Morris is lying about menthol. Congress, do you really want to go down the road of partnering with a brazen liar on this issue?

And, there’s other issues. Beyond the fact that menthol does make it easier to smoke, there’s concerns about menthol in cigs as a health issue:

Concerns about menthol have circulated since at least 1998, when the C.D.C. reported that menthol “may increase the absorption of harmful smoking constituents.”

Also, the taste of menthol may increase psychological dependence.

News briefs –secrecy, tobacco druggery, Obama surge

Who’s paying for those milblogs? Your tax dollars?

That’s because the U.S. military is being advised to secretly recruit bloggers.

FDA may finally regulate tobacco as drug

All three presidential candidates support the Senate version of a bill to give the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco as a drug.

Of course, this is really half power. While the FDA could regulate advertising by tobacco companies and outside additives, i.e., ammonia, formaldehyde, etc., to tobacco, it would not get the power to regulate nicotine itself as a drug.

Obama closes gap in Pennsylvania

Barack Obama is now within 5 percentage points of Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, just two weeks after the discussion was how big of a win Clinton would have to get a political bounce by beating expectations.

Hmm, looks like she might have to “just win, baby,” to quote Al Davis.

And, what’s backfiring the most? Her cozying up with Dick Scaife? The clownish, Fox-suck-ups of Ed Rendell? Her own past history on NAFTA? Lies about Bosnia? A mix?