The Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA) evicted 13 people for bringing in and selling the much-hyped e-cigarette, local media reported on Wednesday. Among the 13 individuals investigated are four local suppliers who set up websites to hawk the product. The other nine ordered the device online from overseas suppliers, local newspaper The Straits Times reported. Touted as a “healthy” way to beat rising cigarette prices and a widening ban on smoking here, the electronic cigarette comprises a cartridge of liquid nicotine inserted into a battery-operated steel tube. A heat ... Jump to full article >>

Beginning January 1, 2010 only fire safe cigarettes can be sold in Tennessee and Arkansas. The cigarettes self extinguish if not being used. Supporters say they are safer than regular cigarettes because they are less likely to catch on fire. They may be safer but some smokers don’t like them. Judy Geller works at a Memphis cigarette shop. Geller says customers have been complaining about the new smokes. Geller says “They don’t like them. They taste different.” Geller says people have been trying to return the cigarettes, thinking they are stale. Fire safe cigarettes will be marked FSC ... Jump to full article >>

A Chinese tobacco company has been given permission to market their product and create a new generation of smokers at an elementary school, state media reported. Built in the wake of last year’s deadly earthquake in Sichuan province, the Sichuan Tobacco Project Hope Primary School is funded by China Tobacco Company, the Beijing Daily reported. Young students are exposed to banners throughout the campus such as “Work hard for society! Tobacco can help you become an achiever!” Tobacco is a leading cause of cancer and effects of the marketing messages will mislead students into thinking tha ... Jump to full article >>

It’s widely believed that tobacco companies are good plays during a recession. And there’s plenty of history to back that up. But we may not be in a recession anymore. There are encouraging economic signs, but we won’t know definitively until well after the fact. Lorillard (LO) is a tobacco firm that offers investors an attractive 5% dividend yield. Despite signs of a turnaround, analysts seem to be predicting a slower recovery with lingering difficulties for consumers. That translates well for Lorillard. Tough times are generally kind to tobacco companies because of the prod ... Jump to full article >>

Days after the employees of Premier Tobacco Company (PTC) protested against unhealthy working conditions, the Managing Director of the firm, Assinapol Rwigara, has reacted by dismissing their complaints. Employees of PTC have previously claimed that the company does not avail adequate facilities like facial masks to protect them from contracting tobacco-related illnesses while on duty. During a press conference that was held Friday at the company’s headquarters in Gikondo, Rwigara, the proprietor said that the employees’ idea to make such claims through the media was a carefully planned sc ... Jump to full article >>

The former owner of a Longview tobacco wholesaler was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle for his involvement in a scheme to sell millions of dollars in cigarettes without paying taxes on them. Robert Stuber, 60, of Reno, Nev., received a sentence of nine months in prison, two years of supervised release and nearly $20.7 million in restitution for conspiracy to traffic in contraband cigarettes and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. He pleaded guilty Feb. 18. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Stuber admitted that between January 2005 and May 2007, his busine ... Jump to full article >>

New York City has accused several cigarette dealers on a Long Island Indian reservation of secretly defying a court shut-down order. The charge is the latest in a legal battle between Mayor Bloomberg and smoke shops on the Poospatuck Indian Reservation over the sale of millions of dollars in untaxed cigarettes. In August, a federal judge ordered most of the largest shops on the reservation to stop selling untaxed packs to the general public, saying such sales were illegal. Publicly, the shops promised to abide by the ruling, but in a motion filed in federal court on Wednesday, lawyers for the ... Jump to full article >>

The Indonesian government plans to limit domestic cigarette production as of 2015 to total only around 260 billion pieces in line with its 2007-2020 Tobacco Product Industry (IHT) roadmap, an official said. “The growth of cigarette production will be flat or up a bit at around three to five billion cigarettes a year,” the director of tobacco and beverage industries of the industry ministry, Warsono, said here on Monday. He said cigarette production in 2008 reached 240 billion and is expected to total 245 billion cigarettes in 2009. Based on the roadmap, he said, the industry would ... Jump to full article >>

Municipal government rebates paid to tobacco retailers aimed at increasing the municipality’s tobacco tax revenue look set to be banned after the Tax Commission on Monday moved to outlaw the practice as part of its fiscal 2010 tax reforms, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. As local municipalities benefit from the tax levied on cigarette sales, which is about 3.3 yen per cigarette, some are rewarding tobacco retailers with cash payments for selling cigarettes in their areas. One tobacco retailer based in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, is said to have submitted an altered official document to ... Jump to full article >>

British American Tobacco South Africa (Batsa) has attacked the National Council Against Smoking for issuing a statement that was “deliberately mischievous, provocative and misleading” regarding a constitutional challenge launched by the company against certain provisions of the recently promulgated Tobacco Products Control Amendment Act. Batsa has filed an application before the North Gauteng High Court to have the legislation amended to allow one-to-one communication with its consenting adult smokers. The ban came into operation last August. The company said: “This is a matt ... Jump to full article >>

National Cigarette and Health Committee (SSUK) legal advisor Turgut Kazan has announced that tobacco manufacturers PhilSA, Philip MorrisSA and British American Tobacco (BAT) have filed a lawsuit with the Council of State to shrink the mandatory size of new graphic images which will be obligatory to print on cigarette packages starting on Jan. 1, 2010. The companies complain that the requirement of putting images on the front of cigarette packages in an attempt to reduce tobacco consumption by exposing the adverse consequences of smoking will prevent competition in the sector. The images necess ... Jump to full article >>