The Food and Drug Administration wants to get schooled in cigarette making. The federal agency’s 2-year-old Center for Tobacco Products is asking tobacco companies to invite it to tour farms and factories that grow or process tobacco. It says the visits are meant to help the agency better understand how each step in the process — from field to package — could influence the final product. The FDA wants to tour large and small cigarette factories, a smokeless-tobacco plant, tobacco farms, a rolling-paper factory and a tobacco warehouse. The agency won the authority to regulate tobacco ... Jump to full article >>

The U.S. government said on Monday it plans to regulate electronic cigarettes as tobacco products. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s announcement came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a decision which said that electronic cigarettes are not drugs or devices unless they are marketed for therapeutic purposes. In 2009, the FDA was given the authority to regulate tobacco products that are not drugs or devices. Electronic cigarettes, marketed under names such as NJOY, mimic the act of smoking and include nicotine, but do not emit the same type of odour or as ... Jump to full article >>

Smokers of menthol cigarettes are no more likely to develop lung cancer than people who smoke regular cigarettes, a new U.S. study suggests. The findings in Wednesday’s online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute come as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration weighs a ban on menthol cigarettes. For the study, William Blot of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tenn. and his co-authors analyzed data on people in 12 southern states. They compared 440 people with lung cancer to 2,213 others of the same race, age and sex who did not have the disease. The researc ... Jump to full article >>

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel urged a ban on menthol cigarettes because they believe a ban would be beneficial to public health. Research done by the Tobacco Product Scientific Advisory Committee over the past year has concluded that menthol makes cigarettes more enticing for youths and African Americans, thus making it harder for these groups to quit smoking. Menthol is an active pharmaceutical ingredient that can be found in throat lozenges and cold and cough medicines. The amount of menthol in medicine is regulated by the FDA, but before this study the amount of menthol in ... Jump to full article >>

Lorillard Inc. put volume reached a record after a draft Food and Drug Administration advisory panel report said smokers don’t face more risks of tobacco-related disease from menthol cigarettes than unflavored ones. More than 38,500 puts to sell the stock changed hands today, 5.5 times the four-week average and 5.5 times the number of calls to buy. The most-active contracts were the April $65 puts, which accounted for almost three-tenths of all put volume and gained 7.1 percent to $1.96. The contracts had an open interest of 2,341 before today. The Greensboro, North Carolina- based company d ... Jump to full article >>

Tobacco companies should admit in product warnings that they deceived the public about the dangers of smoking and manipulated their products to increase addiction, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The department, in the final phase of a long-running court case against leading tobacco companies, released a series of statements that it wants cigarette makers to publish about the dangers of their products. “We manipulated cigarettes to make them more addictive,” one proposed statement would say, while another offers this: “We control nicotine delivery to create and sustain ... Jump to full article >>

Lorillard Inc and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co have filed a lawsuit against the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) saying there were conflicts of interest and bias among members of an advisory panel which may recommend banning menthol cigarettes. The FDA advisory panel’s recommendations are not binding, however the agency usually goes along with its advice. Panel members are expected to put forward their recommendations regarding menthol-flavored cigarettes on 23rd March this year. Nearly 1 in every 3 cigarettes sold in the USA is mentholated. R. J. Reynolds sells a menthol Camel version as ... Jump to full article >>

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has lost another round in its battle to regulate electronic cigarettes as drug-delivery devices rather than as tobacco products. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat cartridges of liquid containing nicotine to create a mist that users inhale. The FDA classifies them as drug-delivery devices like nicotine patches and gums – products that it must approve before they can be marketed. In December, a three-judge appeals panel in the District of Columbia (D.C.) disagreed with the FDA’s position. The panel ruled that the FDA could only reg ... Jump to full article >>

The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) staff faced problems on Monday in penalising the violators on day one of the week-long special drive in absence of policemen. The drive has been kicked off in the district for the implementation of the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, under which those found smoking in public places and selling cigarette or tobacco products to those below 18 years would be penalised. Moreover, vendors selling such items within 100 yards of educational institutions would also be fined. The FDA officials faced resistance from violators who refused to pay fin ... Jump to full article >>

The Pune division of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is all set to crack the whip on the vendors selling tobacco products within 100 yards of educational institutions. The move follows a missive from the Union ministry of health and family welfare to the state government on the issue. Under the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, selling of cigarette and other tobacco products within 100 yards of schools and colleges are prohibited. And the ministry now wants the state government to enforce it vigorously and accordingly the latter has directed the concerned department to enf ... Jump to full article >>

For all the polemics surrounding FDA’s jurisdiction over tobacco, it is precisely last week’s move by Star Scientific Inc. that buoys tobacco manufacturers about the future of their business but also stokes their starkest concern. Star Scientific, best known for its Stonewall products, will submit an application of approval under the Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco Control Act of 2009 to market Stonewall Moist-BDL as a modified-risk tobacco product. (Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage.) The terms are technical, but the impact is great for those banking their ... Jump to full article >>