One billion people will die of tobacco-related diseases this century unless governments in rich and poor countries alike get serious about preventing smoking, top World Health Organization (WHO) experts said on Monday.
"Tobacco is a defective product. It kills half of its customers," Douglas Bettcher, head of the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative, said at the start of an international conference in Bangkok to draw up a masterplan for the world to kick the habit.
"It kills 5.4 million people per year and half of those deaths are in developing countries. That's like one jumbo jet going down every hour," he said.
With smoking rates in many developing countries on the rise, particularly among teenagers, that annual death toll would rise to 8.3 million within the next 20 years, he added.
However, if governments introduced measures such as aggressive taxation, banning cigarette advertising and making offices and public places totally tobacco-free, smoking rates could halve by 2050, he said.
"It's a completely preventable epidemic," Bettcher said, citing countries such as Singapore, Australia and Thailand where tough anti-smoking laws have helped people to quit.
"If we do that, by 2050 we can save 200 million lives."
Officials from 147 countries are attending the week-long conference, which is likely to agree on binding laws against cross-border tobacco advertising-a move against events such as Formula One-as well as tougher legislation against cigarette smuggling.
Around 600 billion cigarettes were smuggled in 2006-11 percent of the world's consumption-according to the Framework Convention Alliance (FAC), an umbrella group of hundreds of anti-tobacco organizations.
As well as keeping the prices artificially low and thereby stimulating demand, the counterfeit cigarette industry also deprives governments of more than $40 billion in missed taxes, the FCA estimates.
BAN on ADS
In Thailand, smoking rates have fallen from 30 percent in 1992 to around 18 percent, a decline health officials attribute to a ban on all domestic tobacco advertising 15 years ago.
"The most important medicines in tobacco control are: number one, increasing taxation; number two, bans on advertising; and number three, smoke-free public places," said Hatai Chitanondh of the Thailand Health Promotion Institute.
Besides agreeing laws on cross-border advertising and smuggling, the conference is also likely to issue guidelines for countries introducing legislation on "second-hand smoke" and "smoke-free" areas.
Although not legally binding, anti-smoking campaigners are delighted with the explicit wording of the guidelines.
"There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke and notions such as a threshold value for toxicity from second-hand smoke should be rejected as they are contradicted by scientific evidence," a draft copy of the guidelines said.
"Approaches other than 100 percent smoke-free environments, including ventilation, air filtration and use of designated smoking areas have repeatedly been shown to be ineffective."
четверг, 12 июля 2007 г.
Women and Smoking
An Epidemic...
In March 2001, the Office of the US Surgeon General released a long-awaited, detailed report entitled "Women and Smoking," along with the following statement:
"When calling attention to public health problems, we must not misuse the word 'epidemic.' But there is no better word to describe the 600-percent increase since 1950 in women's death rates for lung cancer, a disease primarily caused by cigarette smoking. Clearly, smoking-related disease among women is a full-blown epidemic." -- David Satcher, MD, PhD
Smoking is the most preventable cause of early death in this country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking-related diseases caused the deaths of about 178,000 women in each year from 1995-1999. On average, these women died 14.5 years earlier because they smoked.
The most recent CDC survey (from 2004) showed that about 1 in 5 American women aged 18 years or older (19%) smoked cigarettes. The highest rates were seen among American-Indian and Alaska-Native women (29%), followed by white (20%), African-American (17%), Hispanic (11%), and Asian women (5%). The less education a woman has, the more likely she will smoke. For instance, women with less than a high school education are twice as likely to smoke as college graduates.
Overall, women are less likely to smoke than men, but it is a disturbing trend that smoking is more popular among younger than older women. About 22% of women ages 18 to 44 smoke, but only about 8% of women 65 and over do. As these younger women age and continue to smoke, they will have more smoking-related illness and disability.
Women who smoke typically begin as teenagers -- usually before high school graduation. And the younger a girl is when she starts, the more heavily she is likely to use tobacco as an adult. Teenage girls are just as likely to smoke as are boys. The most recent CDC survey (from 2004) showed that 22% of female high school students and 9% of girls in middle school had smoked at least one cigarette in the past 30 days.
Cancers
Tobacco use accounts for nearly one third of all cancer deaths. Tens of thousands of women will die this year from lung cancer, which has greatly surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among women. More than 90% of these deaths will be due to smoking.
In addition to increasing the risk for lung cancer, smoking is a risk factor for cancers of the cervix, mouth, larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), esophagus, kidney, bladder, pancreas, and stomach. It is also connected to some forms of leukemia.
Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), also known as secondhand smoke, has been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer. The 2006 Surgeon General's report on secondhand smoke concluded the following:
Secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and adults who do not smoke.
Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma.
Exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate negative effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer.
The scientific evidence shows there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Many millions of Americans, both children and adults, are still exposed to secondhand smoke in their home and workplaces even though there has been substantial progress in tobacco control.
Getting rid of smoking in indoor spaces fully protects nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating a building cannot eliminate exposures of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.
Heart Disease and Stroke
Women who smoke greatly increase their risk of heart disease (the leading killer among women) and stroke. Risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked and the length of time smoked. Even though most of the women who die of heart disease are past menopause, smoking increases the risk more in younger women than in older women. Some studies suggest that smoking cigarettes dramatically increases the risk of heart disease among younger women who are also taking birth control pills. Smoking is also linked to peripheral vascular disease, a narrowing and hardening of major blood vessels in the body. These risks can be reversed after 10 to 15 years of quitting smoking.
Lung Function
Smoking damages the airways and small air sacs in the lungs, and is related to chronic coughing and wheezing. About 90% of deaths due to chronic bronchitis and emphysema -- collectively known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) -- are caused by smoking. The risk increases both with the number of cigarettes smoked each day and with the length of time a woman has been smoking. Female smokers aged 35 or older are almost 13 times more likely to die from emphysema or bronchitis. Smoking "low tar" or "light" cigarettes does not seem to reduce these risks, or any of the other health risks of tobacco. Teenage girls who smoke have reduced rates of lung growth and adult women who smoke have an early decline of lung function.
Other Health Problems
Women who smoke, especially after going through menopause, have lower bone density and a higher risk for fracture, including hip fracture, than women who do not smoke. They may also be at higher risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis and cataracts (clouding of the lenses of the eyes).
Your Reproductive Health
Tobacco use can damage a woman's reproductive health. Women who smoke have an increased risk for delayed conception and fertility problems. Smokers are younger at menopause than nonsmokers and may have more unpleasant symptoms while going through menopause.
Smoking can also cause complications during pregnancy that can hurt both mother and baby. Smokers have a higher risk of the placenta growing too close to the opening of the uterus. Smokers are also more likely to have premature membrane ruptures and placentas that separate from the uterus too early. Bleeding, premature delivery, and emergency Caesarean section (C-section) may result from these problems. Smokers are also more likely to have miscarriages and stillbirths.
Your Baby's Health
More than 10% of pregnant women smoke throughout their pregnancies. Smoking is linked to an increased risk of preterm delivery and infant death. Research also suggests that infants of mothers who smoke during and after pregnancy are 2 to 3 times more likely to die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) than babies born to nonsmoking mothers. Even of the women who are able to stop smoking during pregnancy, only one third of those remain quit one year after the delivery. The risk is somewhat less for infants whose mothers stop smoking during pregnancy and resume smoking after delivery. But infants of nonsmoking mothers have the lowest risk of SIDS. As many as 10% of all infant deaths could be prevented if pregnant women did not smoke.
Smoking during pregnancy is responsible for 20% or more of cases of low birth weight infants. Smoking during pregnancy slows fetal growth, often causing babies to have health problems as a result of being born underweight. Quitting smoking during pregnancy reduces this risk.
Some harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke can also be passed on to a baby through breast milk.
Your Children's Health
Almost 3 million children in the United States under the age of 6 breathe secondhand smoke at home at least 4 days per week. Studies show that older children whose parents smoke get sick more often. Their lungs grow less then children who do not live around smokers. They get more bronchitis and pneumonia. They cough and wheeze more. Smoking can also trigger a child's asthma attack. More than 40% of children who go to emergency room for their asthma live with smokers. A severe asthma attack can be life threatening.
Children who live with parents who smoke also get more ear infections. They have fluid in their ears as a result and may have to undergo surgery to have ear tubes placed for drainage.
Parents who smoke are also more likely to have children who smoke.
Kicking the Habit
More than 75% of women say they want to quit smoking completely, and almost half report having tried to quit in the past year. The chance for quitting successfully is about the same for both men and women.
Quitting can help reduce the risk of many of the health effects listed above. The risk of heart disease is greatly reduced just 1 to 2 years after quitting. The risk of stroke returns to normal 10 to 15 years after quitting.
Many women are afraid to quit for fear of gaining weight. Some women who quit smoking do add a few pounds. However, the health benefits of quitting are considerably greater than any problems posed by a small weight gain. On average, a woman gains about 5 pounds after she quits, an amount that can be controlled through diet and exercise.
In March 2001, the Office of the US Surgeon General released a long-awaited, detailed report entitled "Women and Smoking," along with the following statement:
"When calling attention to public health problems, we must not misuse the word 'epidemic.' But there is no better word to describe the 600-percent increase since 1950 in women's death rates for lung cancer, a disease primarily caused by cigarette smoking. Clearly, smoking-related disease among women is a full-blown epidemic." -- David Satcher, MD, PhD
Smoking is the most preventable cause of early death in this country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking-related diseases caused the deaths of about 178,000 women in each year from 1995-1999. On average, these women died 14.5 years earlier because they smoked.
The most recent CDC survey (from 2004) showed that about 1 in 5 American women aged 18 years or older (19%) smoked cigarettes. The highest rates were seen among American-Indian and Alaska-Native women (29%), followed by white (20%), African-American (17%), Hispanic (11%), and Asian women (5%). The less education a woman has, the more likely she will smoke. For instance, women with less than a high school education are twice as likely to smoke as college graduates.
Overall, women are less likely to smoke than men, but it is a disturbing trend that smoking is more popular among younger than older women. About 22% of women ages 18 to 44 smoke, but only about 8% of women 65 and over do. As these younger women age and continue to smoke, they will have more smoking-related illness and disability.
Women who smoke typically begin as teenagers -- usually before high school graduation. And the younger a girl is when she starts, the more heavily she is likely to use tobacco as an adult. Teenage girls are just as likely to smoke as are boys. The most recent CDC survey (from 2004) showed that 22% of female high school students and 9% of girls in middle school had smoked at least one cigarette in the past 30 days.
Cancers
Tobacco use accounts for nearly one third of all cancer deaths. Tens of thousands of women will die this year from lung cancer, which has greatly surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among women. More than 90% of these deaths will be due to smoking.
In addition to increasing the risk for lung cancer, smoking is a risk factor for cancers of the cervix, mouth, larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), esophagus, kidney, bladder, pancreas, and stomach. It is also connected to some forms of leukemia.
Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), also known as secondhand smoke, has been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer. The 2006 Surgeon General's report on secondhand smoke concluded the following:
Secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and adults who do not smoke.
Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma.
Exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate negative effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer.
The scientific evidence shows there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Many millions of Americans, both children and adults, are still exposed to secondhand smoke in their home and workplaces even though there has been substantial progress in tobacco control.
Getting rid of smoking in indoor spaces fully protects nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating a building cannot eliminate exposures of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.
Heart Disease and Stroke
Women who smoke greatly increase their risk of heart disease (the leading killer among women) and stroke. Risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked and the length of time smoked. Even though most of the women who die of heart disease are past menopause, smoking increases the risk more in younger women than in older women. Some studies suggest that smoking cigarettes dramatically increases the risk of heart disease among younger women who are also taking birth control pills. Smoking is also linked to peripheral vascular disease, a narrowing and hardening of major blood vessels in the body. These risks can be reversed after 10 to 15 years of quitting smoking.
Lung Function
Smoking damages the airways and small air sacs in the lungs, and is related to chronic coughing and wheezing. About 90% of deaths due to chronic bronchitis and emphysema -- collectively known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) -- are caused by smoking. The risk increases both with the number of cigarettes smoked each day and with the length of time a woman has been smoking. Female smokers aged 35 or older are almost 13 times more likely to die from emphysema or bronchitis. Smoking "low tar" or "light" cigarettes does not seem to reduce these risks, or any of the other health risks of tobacco. Teenage girls who smoke have reduced rates of lung growth and adult women who smoke have an early decline of lung function.
Other Health Problems
Women who smoke, especially after going through menopause, have lower bone density and a higher risk for fracture, including hip fracture, than women who do not smoke. They may also be at higher risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis and cataracts (clouding of the lenses of the eyes).
Your Reproductive Health
Tobacco use can damage a woman's reproductive health. Women who smoke have an increased risk for delayed conception and fertility problems. Smokers are younger at menopause than nonsmokers and may have more unpleasant symptoms while going through menopause.
Smoking can also cause complications during pregnancy that can hurt both mother and baby. Smokers have a higher risk of the placenta growing too close to the opening of the uterus. Smokers are also more likely to have premature membrane ruptures and placentas that separate from the uterus too early. Bleeding, premature delivery, and emergency Caesarean section (C-section) may result from these problems. Smokers are also more likely to have miscarriages and stillbirths.
Your Baby's Health
More than 10% of pregnant women smoke throughout their pregnancies. Smoking is linked to an increased risk of preterm delivery and infant death. Research also suggests that infants of mothers who smoke during and after pregnancy are 2 to 3 times more likely to die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) than babies born to nonsmoking mothers. Even of the women who are able to stop smoking during pregnancy, only one third of those remain quit one year after the delivery. The risk is somewhat less for infants whose mothers stop smoking during pregnancy and resume smoking after delivery. But infants of nonsmoking mothers have the lowest risk of SIDS. As many as 10% of all infant deaths could be prevented if pregnant women did not smoke.
Smoking during pregnancy is responsible for 20% or more of cases of low birth weight infants. Smoking during pregnancy slows fetal growth, often causing babies to have health problems as a result of being born underweight. Quitting smoking during pregnancy reduces this risk.
Some harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke can also be passed on to a baby through breast milk.
Your Children's Health
Almost 3 million children in the United States under the age of 6 breathe secondhand smoke at home at least 4 days per week. Studies show that older children whose parents smoke get sick more often. Their lungs grow less then children who do not live around smokers. They get more bronchitis and pneumonia. They cough and wheeze more. Smoking can also trigger a child's asthma attack. More than 40% of children who go to emergency room for their asthma live with smokers. A severe asthma attack can be life threatening.
Children who live with parents who smoke also get more ear infections. They have fluid in their ears as a result and may have to undergo surgery to have ear tubes placed for drainage.
Parents who smoke are also more likely to have children who smoke.
Kicking the Habit
More than 75% of women say they want to quit smoking completely, and almost half report having tried to quit in the past year. The chance for quitting successfully is about the same for both men and women.
Quitting can help reduce the risk of many of the health effects listed above. The risk of heart disease is greatly reduced just 1 to 2 years after quitting. The risk of stroke returns to normal 10 to 15 years after quitting.
Many women are afraid to quit for fear of gaining weight. Some women who quit smoking do add a few pounds. However, the health benefits of quitting are considerably greater than any problems posed by a small weight gain. On average, a woman gains about 5 pounds after she quits, an amount that can be controlled through diet and exercise.
Health Effects of Smoking
Health Effects of Smoking
About half of all Americans who continue to smoke will die because of the habit. Each year about 440,000 people die in the United States from illnesses related to cigarette smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined.
Cancer
Cigarette smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths. It is a major cause of cancers of the lung, larynx (voice box), oral cavity, pharynx (throat), esophagus, and bladder, and is a contributing cause in the development of cancers of the pancreas, cervix, kidney, stomach, and also some leukemias.
About 87% of lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, and is one of the most difficult cancers to treat. Fortunately, lung cancer is largely a preventable disease. Groups that promote nonsmoking as part of their religion, such as Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists, have much lower rates of lung cancer and other smoking-related cancers.
Other Health Problems
Cancers account for only about half of the deaths related to smoking. Smoking is also a major cause of heart disease, aneurysms, bronchitis, emphysema, and stroke, and it contributes to the severity of pneumonia and asthma.
Tobacco also has damaging effects on women's reproductive health. It is associated with reduced fertility and a higher risk of miscarriage, early delivery (prematurity), stillbirth, infant death, and is a cause of low birth weight in infants. It has also been linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Smoking has also been linked to a variety of other health problems, including gum disease, cataracts, bone thinning, hip fractures, and peptic ulcers.
Furthermore, the smoke from cigarettes (called secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke) has a harmful health effect on those exposed to it. (Refer to the American Cancer Society documents, "Secondhand Smoke" and "Women and Smoking.")
Effects on Quantity and Quality of Life
Based on data collected from 1995 to 1999, the CDC estimated that adult male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lost 14.5 years of life because of smoking.
But not all of the health problems related to smoking result in deaths. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers in general. In the year 2000, about 8.6 million people were suffering from at least one chronic disease due to current or former smoking, according to the CDC. Many of these people were suffering from more than one smoking-related condition. The diseases occurring most often were chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.
Taking Care of Yourself
Any past or current tobacco use is important information for your health care provider to know so he or she can be sure that you have appropriate preventive health care. It is well known that smoking puts you at risk for certain health-related illnesses, so part of your health care should focus on related screening and preventive measures to help you stay as healthy as possible. For example, you will want to be certain that you regularly check the inside of your mouth for any changes and have an oral exam by your doctor or dentist if you have any changes or problems. The American Cancer Society recommends that periodic checkups should include oral cavity (mouth) exams. By doing this tobacco users may be able to prevent, or detect early, oral changes, leukoplakia (white patches on the mouth membranes), and oral cancer.
You should also be aware of any change in cough, a new cough, coughing up blood, hoarseness, difficulty breathing, wheezing, headaches, chest pain, loss of appetite, weight loss, general fatigue, and repeated respiratory infections. Any of these could be signs of lung cancer or a number of other lung conditions and should be reported to your doctor. While these can be signs of a problem, many lung cancers do not cause any noticeable symptoms until they are advanced and have spread to other parts of the body.
If you have any health concerns that may be related to your tobacco use, please see your health care provider as quickly as possible. Taking care of yourself and getting treatment for small problems will give you the best chance for successful treatment. The best way, though, to take care of yourself and decrease your risk for life-threatening lung problems is to quit smoking.
Ingredients in Tobacco
Cigarettes, cigars, and spit and pipe tobacco are made from dried tobacco leaves, as well as ingredients added for flavor and other properties. More than 4,000 individual chemicals have been identified in tobacco and tobacco smoke. Among these are more than 60 chemicals that are known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents).
There are hundreds of substances added to cigarettes by manufacturers to enhance the flavor or to make the smoking experience more pleasant. Some of the compounds found in tobacco smoke include ammonia, tar, and carbon monoxide. Exactly what effects these substances have on the cigarette consumer's health is unknown, but there is no evidence that lowering the tar content of a cigarette improves the health risk. Manufacturers do not provide the public with information about the precise amount of additives used in cigarettes, so it is hard to accurately gauge the public health risk.
Nicotine Addiction
Addiction is characterized by the repeated, compulsive seeking or use of a substance despite harmful consequences. Addiction is often accompanied by physical and psychological dependence on the substance. Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco. Regular use of tobacco products leads to addiction in a high proportion of users.
In 1988, the US Surgeon General concluded the following:
Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting.
Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction.
The pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
Nicotine is found in substantial amounts in all forms of tobacco. It is absorbed readily from tobacco smoke in the lungs and from oral tobacco in the mouth or nose. It rapidly spreads throughout the body.
Tobacco companies are required by law to report nicotine levels in cigarettes to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but in most states they are not required to show the amount of nicotine on the cigarette brand labeling. The actual amount of nicotine available to the smoker in a given brand of cigarettes may be different from the level reported to the FTC. In one regular cigarette, the amount of nicotine ranges between about 1 mg and 2 mg.
Although 70% of smokers want to quit and 35% attempt to quit each year, fewer than 5% succeed. This is because smokers not only become physically addicted to nicotine; there is a strong psychological aspect and they often link smoking with many social activities. All of these factors make smoking a hard habit to break.
About half of all Americans who continue to smoke will die because of the habit. Each year about 440,000 people die in the United States from illnesses related to cigarette smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined.
Cancer
Cigarette smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths. It is a major cause of cancers of the lung, larynx (voice box), oral cavity, pharynx (throat), esophagus, and bladder, and is a contributing cause in the development of cancers of the pancreas, cervix, kidney, stomach, and also some leukemias.
About 87% of lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, and is one of the most difficult cancers to treat. Fortunately, lung cancer is largely a preventable disease. Groups that promote nonsmoking as part of their religion, such as Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists, have much lower rates of lung cancer and other smoking-related cancers.
Other Health Problems
Cancers account for only about half of the deaths related to smoking. Smoking is also a major cause of heart disease, aneurysms, bronchitis, emphysema, and stroke, and it contributes to the severity of pneumonia and asthma.
Tobacco also has damaging effects on women's reproductive health. It is associated with reduced fertility and a higher risk of miscarriage, early delivery (prematurity), stillbirth, infant death, and is a cause of low birth weight in infants. It has also been linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Smoking has also been linked to a variety of other health problems, including gum disease, cataracts, bone thinning, hip fractures, and peptic ulcers.
Furthermore, the smoke from cigarettes (called secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke) has a harmful health effect on those exposed to it. (Refer to the American Cancer Society documents, "Secondhand Smoke" and "Women and Smoking.")
Effects on Quantity and Quality of Life
Based on data collected from 1995 to 1999, the CDC estimated that adult male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lost 14.5 years of life because of smoking.
But not all of the health problems related to smoking result in deaths. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers in general. In the year 2000, about 8.6 million people were suffering from at least one chronic disease due to current or former smoking, according to the CDC. Many of these people were suffering from more than one smoking-related condition. The diseases occurring most often were chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.
Taking Care of Yourself
Any past or current tobacco use is important information for your health care provider to know so he or she can be sure that you have appropriate preventive health care. It is well known that smoking puts you at risk for certain health-related illnesses, so part of your health care should focus on related screening and preventive measures to help you stay as healthy as possible. For example, you will want to be certain that you regularly check the inside of your mouth for any changes and have an oral exam by your doctor or dentist if you have any changes or problems. The American Cancer Society recommends that periodic checkups should include oral cavity (mouth) exams. By doing this tobacco users may be able to prevent, or detect early, oral changes, leukoplakia (white patches on the mouth membranes), and oral cancer.
You should also be aware of any change in cough, a new cough, coughing up blood, hoarseness, difficulty breathing, wheezing, headaches, chest pain, loss of appetite, weight loss, general fatigue, and repeated respiratory infections. Any of these could be signs of lung cancer or a number of other lung conditions and should be reported to your doctor. While these can be signs of a problem, many lung cancers do not cause any noticeable symptoms until they are advanced and have spread to other parts of the body.
If you have any health concerns that may be related to your tobacco use, please see your health care provider as quickly as possible. Taking care of yourself and getting treatment for small problems will give you the best chance for successful treatment. The best way, though, to take care of yourself and decrease your risk for life-threatening lung problems is to quit smoking.
Ingredients in Tobacco
Cigarettes, cigars, and spit and pipe tobacco are made from dried tobacco leaves, as well as ingredients added for flavor and other properties. More than 4,000 individual chemicals have been identified in tobacco and tobacco smoke. Among these are more than 60 chemicals that are known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents).
There are hundreds of substances added to cigarettes by manufacturers to enhance the flavor or to make the smoking experience more pleasant. Some of the compounds found in tobacco smoke include ammonia, tar, and carbon monoxide. Exactly what effects these substances have on the cigarette consumer's health is unknown, but there is no evidence that lowering the tar content of a cigarette improves the health risk. Manufacturers do not provide the public with information about the precise amount of additives used in cigarettes, so it is hard to accurately gauge the public health risk.
Nicotine Addiction
Addiction is characterized by the repeated, compulsive seeking or use of a substance despite harmful consequences. Addiction is often accompanied by physical and psychological dependence on the substance. Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco. Regular use of tobacco products leads to addiction in a high proportion of users.
In 1988, the US Surgeon General concluded the following:
Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting.
Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction.
The pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
Nicotine is found in substantial amounts in all forms of tobacco. It is absorbed readily from tobacco smoke in the lungs and from oral tobacco in the mouth or nose. It rapidly spreads throughout the body.
Tobacco companies are required by law to report nicotine levels in cigarettes to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but in most states they are not required to show the amount of nicotine on the cigarette brand labeling. The actual amount of nicotine available to the smoker in a given brand of cigarettes may be different from the level reported to the FTC. In one regular cigarette, the amount of nicotine ranges between about 1 mg and 2 mg.
Although 70% of smokers want to quit and 35% attempt to quit each year, fewer than 5% succeed. This is because smokers not only become physically addicted to nicotine; there is a strong psychological aspect and they often link smoking with many social activities. All of these factors make smoking a hard habit to break.
Cigarette Smoking
Introduction
The 1982 Surgeon General's Report stated that "Cigarette smoking is the major single cause of cancer mortality in the United States." This statement is as true today as it was in 1982.
Smoking is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the United States. Because cigarette smoking and tobacco use are acquired behaviors -- activities that individuals choose to do -- smoking is the most preventable cause of premature death in our society.
The purpose of this document is to provide a brief overview of cigarette smoking: who smokes, how it affects health, what makes it so hard to quit, and what some of the many benefits of quitting are. For more information about quitting smoking, see the American Cancer Society document, "Guide to Quitting Smoking."
Who Smokes?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 44.5 million US adults were current smokers in 2004 (the most recent year for which numbers are available). This is 20.9% of all adults (23.4% of men, 18.5% of women) -- more than 1 out of 5 people.
When broken down by race/ethnicity, the numbers were as follows:
Whites 22.2%
African Americans 20.2%
Hispanics 15.0%
merican Indians/Alaska Natives 33.4%
Asian Americans 11.3%
The numbers were higher in younger age groups. Almost 24% of those 18 to 44 years old were current smokers, compared to less than 9% in those aged 65 or older.
Nationwide, 22.3% of high school students and 8.1% of middle school students were current smokers in 2004. White and Hispanic students were among the highest in terms of cigarette use. (For more information, see the American Cancer Society document, "Child and Teen Tobacco Use.")
The 1982 Surgeon General's Report stated that "Cigarette smoking is the major single cause of cancer mortality in the United States." This statement is as true today as it was in 1982.
Smoking is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the United States. Because cigarette smoking and tobacco use are acquired behaviors -- activities that individuals choose to do -- smoking is the most preventable cause of premature death in our society.
The purpose of this document is to provide a brief overview of cigarette smoking: who smokes, how it affects health, what makes it so hard to quit, and what some of the many benefits of quitting are. For more information about quitting smoking, see the American Cancer Society document, "Guide to Quitting Smoking."
Who Smokes?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 44.5 million US adults were current smokers in 2004 (the most recent year for which numbers are available). This is 20.9% of all adults (23.4% of men, 18.5% of women) -- more than 1 out of 5 people.
When broken down by race/ethnicity, the numbers were as follows:
Whites 22.2%
African Americans 20.2%
Hispanics 15.0%
merican Indians/Alaska Natives 33.4%
Asian Americans 11.3%
The numbers were higher in younger age groups. Almost 24% of those 18 to 44 years old were current smokers, compared to less than 9% in those aged 65 or older.
Nationwide, 22.3% of high school students and 8.1% of middle school students were current smokers in 2004. White and Hispanic students were among the highest in terms of cigarette use. (For more information, see the American Cancer Society document, "Child and Teen Tobacco Use.")
CURRENT CONDITIONS
Value Line reported that industry sales, which totaled $141.1 billion in 2000, fell sharply to $102.5 billion in 2001. Sales were estimated to reach $130.0 billion in 2002 and $165.0 billion in 2003. Net profits, which totaled $10.9 billion in 2000, fell to $9.5 billion in 2001. However, this figure was expected to reach $11.5 billion in 2002 and $12.5 billion in 2003. In 2002, Philip Morris remained the industry leader, with more than 49 percent of the market, followed by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (23 percent), BAT/Brown & Williamson (10 percent), and Liggett & Myers (2 percent). Approximately 7 percent of the market was controlled by a handful of smaller industry players.
According to data from Management Science Associates and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., in 2002 manufacturers shipped more than 391 billion cigarettes in the United States, down from 406 billion in 2001 and 420 billion in 2000. Some 73 percent of this total was attributable to full-price or name-brand cigarettes. Manufacturers shipped cigarettes via a distribution chain that involved almost 40 warehouses, 770 wholesalers, and more than 280,000 retailers that marketed to an estimated 44 million U.S. smokers. On the retail front, more than 71 percent of cigarettes were sold via so-called "pack outlets," which included gas stations, convenience stores, drug stores, and liquor stores. More than 12 percent were sold at discount stores and supermarkets, and cigarette outlets accounted for almost 17 percent of retail sales.
Cigarette prices have increased significantly since the late 1990s, according to data from IRI/Capstone and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. From an average of $2.69 per pack in 1999, cigarette prices increased to $2.98 in 2000, $3.23 in 2001, and $3.47 in 2002. In the wake of a sluggish economy, many states increased taxes on cigarettes in an effort to improve their budgets. In its August 2002 issue, National Petroleum News reported that in the first half of 2002 alone, nine states "enacted a cigarette/tobacco tax increase as part of their budgetary process, while as many as another 21 states have some type of tax increase still simmering." In July of 2002, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised his city's tax from 8 cents per pack to $1.50 per pack. This increase made New York City's cigarette tax the nation's highest and pushed prices as high as $7.00 per pack. New York City's tax came on top of New York State's tax of $1.50 per pack-then the nation's highest state cigarette tax.
In recent years, ways to mitigate tobacco taxes-some with questionable legality-have gained attention. E-commerce has emerged as one way to beat high state taxes. When the tobacco store is based in a low-tax state or on a Native American reservation, shoppers anywhere in the country can purchase cigarettes over the Internet with little or no tax added. In high-tax states the savings could add up to more than 40 percent off local prices. However, in some states cigarette buyers are required to report their purchases from out-of-state sources and pay tax accordingly. Another cost-cutting strategy on the rise is to import cigarettes that were previously exported for foreign sale. Known as gray marketing, and often considered illegal, this practice does not circumvent all taxes but provides cigarettes at significant mark-down compared to normal domestic prices.
INDUSTRY LEADERS
Philip Morris USA, Inc. Philip Morris' ascension to the number-one position in the cigarette industry began shortly after the 1911 decree intended to dilute the staggering power of the American Tobacco Co. Although Philip Morris' initial magnitude paled in comparison to the industry's Big Four-the American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, and Liggett & Meyers-its rise stands as a remarkable achievement. Beginning as the U.S. operations of a British manufacturer named Philip Morris Company, the manufacturing facilities were purchased by U.S. financier George J. Whelan, who acquired several of the small manufacturing concerns left for sale after the break up of American Tobacco. Formed as a U.S. company in 1919 and renamed Philip Morris & Company Ltd., Inc., the company introduced the brand of cigarette that would eventually catapult the fledgling manufacturing concern toward the top of its market in 1925. That brand, Marlboro, did not begin its meteoric rise until the ubiquitous Marlboro Man, the rough-hewn American cowboy, first appeared on cigarette packages in 1955. In the interim, Philip Morris slowly climbed the industry's ladder through effective marketing and a strong relationship with cigarette jobbers on the East Coast, ensuring that the company's products received preferential treatment during the all-important journey from manufacturing site to retail stores.
By 1936, Philip Morris maintained a firm grip on the industry's fourth position through its widely popular English Blend cigarettes introduced three years earlier. Following World War II, several poor management decisions, including an overestimation of the nation's consumption capacity and a belated entry into the filter segment of the industry, sent the company's sales spiraling downward. By 1960, Philip Morris had fallen to sixth place in the U.S. cigarette market-last among the major U.S. manufacturers.
The introduction of the Marlboro Man in 1955, however, strengthened Philip Morris' domestic sales, while an early move into foreign markets underpinned the company's domestic resurgence. By 1973, Marlboro cigarettes were the second most popular brand in the United States, ranking only behind RJR's Winston brand. Three years later, Marlboro eclipsed Winston, and Philip Morris became the second-largest seller of tobacco in the world. As Marlboro became the nation's preferred cigarette, Philip Morris branched into the production of low-tar cigarettes with its Merit brand, then intensified its efforts toward overseas expansion. As a result of these two marketing strategies, plus the growing popularity of Marlboro cigarettes, Philip Morris surpassed RJR in 1983 to become the world's largest cigarette manufacturer. In the 1990s the company consolidated its lead, with a market share just shy of 50 percent during the late 1990s. By 2002, Philip Morris held about 49 percent of the market. That year, it recorded revenues of $18.9 billion, down almost 24 percent from the previous year.
R.J. Reynolds. Incorporated in 1879 as R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, RJR garnered initial success through the efforts of the company's founder, Richard Joshua Reynolds, and by virtue of its association with the American Tobacco Co. during the lucrative "trust years" in the tobacco industry. Operating as a subsidiary of American Tobacco from 1899 until the dissolution decree of 1911, Reynolds' company thrived, earning a majority of its profits through the sale of chewing and smoking tobacco under the respective Schnapps and Prince Albert brands. The company did not manufacture cigarettes until 1913-shortly after Reynolds had resumed control of the company following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling-but once it did, the company's success came quickly with its widely popular Camel brand of cigarettes.
For the next 20 years, the company's success was primarily predicated on the popularity of Camel cigarettes, but by the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s, the company's exponential growth began to slow due to labor problems, antitrust suits, and one particular product flop, Cavalier cigarettes. By the 1950s, however, R.J. Reynolds began to effect a turnaround by selling its new filter tip brand of cigarettes, Winston, which first appeared in 1954. Two years later, the company introduced its Salem brand, the industry's first king-size filter-tipped menthol cigarette. This, combined with the continuing success of the Camel and Winston brands, elevated the company's standing in the market above all others.
When Philip Morris' Marlboro surpassed Winston in 1976, the company countered with the introduction of a "back-to-nature" brand of cigarettes called Real, but the effort failed miserably and the product was discontinued in 1980. In that same year, the company's management sought to ameliorate its position by expanding overseas, leading to an agreement with China to manufacture and sell cigarettes there, the first U.S. company to reach an accord with that country.
However, this historic move abroad was not enough to stop the company's slide to the industry's number-two position three years later, when Philip Morris ascended to the industry's number-one position. In 1985, to stave off further losses, R.J. Reynolds purchased Nabisco Brands, Inc. for $4.9 billion (the same year in which Philip Morris acquired General Foods Corporation). Three years after the Nabisco purchase, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., an investment firm, purchased RJR Nabisco for $24.88 billion in what was then the biggest leveraged buyout in U.S. history.
However, this historic move abroad was not enough to stop the company's slide to the industry's number-two position three years later, when Philip Morris ascended to the industry's number-one position. In 1985, to stave off further losses, R.J. Reynolds purchased Nabisco Brands, Inc. for $4.9 billion (the same year in which Philip Morris acquired General Foods Corporation). Three years after the Nabisco purchase, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., an investment firm, purchased RJR Nabisco for $24.88 billion in what was then the biggest leveraged buyout in U.S. history.
According to data from Management Science Associates and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., in 2002 manufacturers shipped more than 391 billion cigarettes in the United States, down from 406 billion in 2001 and 420 billion in 2000. Some 73 percent of this total was attributable to full-price or name-brand cigarettes. Manufacturers shipped cigarettes via a distribution chain that involved almost 40 warehouses, 770 wholesalers, and more than 280,000 retailers that marketed to an estimated 44 million U.S. smokers. On the retail front, more than 71 percent of cigarettes were sold via so-called "pack outlets," which included gas stations, convenience stores, drug stores, and liquor stores. More than 12 percent were sold at discount stores and supermarkets, and cigarette outlets accounted for almost 17 percent of retail sales.
Cigarette prices have increased significantly since the late 1990s, according to data from IRI/Capstone and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. From an average of $2.69 per pack in 1999, cigarette prices increased to $2.98 in 2000, $3.23 in 2001, and $3.47 in 2002. In the wake of a sluggish economy, many states increased taxes on cigarettes in an effort to improve their budgets. In its August 2002 issue, National Petroleum News reported that in the first half of 2002 alone, nine states "enacted a cigarette/tobacco tax increase as part of their budgetary process, while as many as another 21 states have some type of tax increase still simmering." In July of 2002, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised his city's tax from 8 cents per pack to $1.50 per pack. This increase made New York City's cigarette tax the nation's highest and pushed prices as high as $7.00 per pack. New York City's tax came on top of New York State's tax of $1.50 per pack-then the nation's highest state cigarette tax.
In recent years, ways to mitigate tobacco taxes-some with questionable legality-have gained attention. E-commerce has emerged as one way to beat high state taxes. When the tobacco store is based in a low-tax state or on a Native American reservation, shoppers anywhere in the country can purchase cigarettes over the Internet with little or no tax added. In high-tax states the savings could add up to more than 40 percent off local prices. However, in some states cigarette buyers are required to report their purchases from out-of-state sources and pay tax accordingly. Another cost-cutting strategy on the rise is to import cigarettes that were previously exported for foreign sale. Known as gray marketing, and often considered illegal, this practice does not circumvent all taxes but provides cigarettes at significant mark-down compared to normal domestic prices.
INDUSTRY LEADERS
Philip Morris USA, Inc. Philip Morris' ascension to the number-one position in the cigarette industry began shortly after the 1911 decree intended to dilute the staggering power of the American Tobacco Co. Although Philip Morris' initial magnitude paled in comparison to the industry's Big Four-the American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, and Liggett & Meyers-its rise stands as a remarkable achievement. Beginning as the U.S. operations of a British manufacturer named Philip Morris Company, the manufacturing facilities were purchased by U.S. financier George J. Whelan, who acquired several of the small manufacturing concerns left for sale after the break up of American Tobacco. Formed as a U.S. company in 1919 and renamed Philip Morris & Company Ltd., Inc., the company introduced the brand of cigarette that would eventually catapult the fledgling manufacturing concern toward the top of its market in 1925. That brand, Marlboro, did not begin its meteoric rise until the ubiquitous Marlboro Man, the rough-hewn American cowboy, first appeared on cigarette packages in 1955. In the interim, Philip Morris slowly climbed the industry's ladder through effective marketing and a strong relationship with cigarette jobbers on the East Coast, ensuring that the company's products received preferential treatment during the all-important journey from manufacturing site to retail stores.
By 1936, Philip Morris maintained a firm grip on the industry's fourth position through its widely popular English Blend cigarettes introduced three years earlier. Following World War II, several poor management decisions, including an overestimation of the nation's consumption capacity and a belated entry into the filter segment of the industry, sent the company's sales spiraling downward. By 1960, Philip Morris had fallen to sixth place in the U.S. cigarette market-last among the major U.S. manufacturers.
The introduction of the Marlboro Man in 1955, however, strengthened Philip Morris' domestic sales, while an early move into foreign markets underpinned the company's domestic resurgence. By 1973, Marlboro cigarettes were the second most popular brand in the United States, ranking only behind RJR's Winston brand. Three years later, Marlboro eclipsed Winston, and Philip Morris became the second-largest seller of tobacco in the world. As Marlboro became the nation's preferred cigarette, Philip Morris branched into the production of low-tar cigarettes with its Merit brand, then intensified its efforts toward overseas expansion. As a result of these two marketing strategies, plus the growing popularity of Marlboro cigarettes, Philip Morris surpassed RJR in 1983 to become the world's largest cigarette manufacturer. In the 1990s the company consolidated its lead, with a market share just shy of 50 percent during the late 1990s. By 2002, Philip Morris held about 49 percent of the market. That year, it recorded revenues of $18.9 billion, down almost 24 percent from the previous year.
R.J. Reynolds. Incorporated in 1879 as R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, RJR garnered initial success through the efforts of the company's founder, Richard Joshua Reynolds, and by virtue of its association with the American Tobacco Co. during the lucrative "trust years" in the tobacco industry. Operating as a subsidiary of American Tobacco from 1899 until the dissolution decree of 1911, Reynolds' company thrived, earning a majority of its profits through the sale of chewing and smoking tobacco under the respective Schnapps and Prince Albert brands. The company did not manufacture cigarettes until 1913-shortly after Reynolds had resumed control of the company following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling-but once it did, the company's success came quickly with its widely popular Camel brand of cigarettes.
For the next 20 years, the company's success was primarily predicated on the popularity of Camel cigarettes, but by the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s, the company's exponential growth began to slow due to labor problems, antitrust suits, and one particular product flop, Cavalier cigarettes. By the 1950s, however, R.J. Reynolds began to effect a turnaround by selling its new filter tip brand of cigarettes, Winston, which first appeared in 1954. Two years later, the company introduced its Salem brand, the industry's first king-size filter-tipped menthol cigarette. This, combined with the continuing success of the Camel and Winston brands, elevated the company's standing in the market above all others.
When Philip Morris' Marlboro surpassed Winston in 1976, the company countered with the introduction of a "back-to-nature" brand of cigarettes called Real, but the effort failed miserably and the product was discontinued in 1980. In that same year, the company's management sought to ameliorate its position by expanding overseas, leading to an agreement with China to manufacture and sell cigarettes there, the first U.S. company to reach an accord with that country.
However, this historic move abroad was not enough to stop the company's slide to the industry's number-two position three years later, when Philip Morris ascended to the industry's number-one position. In 1985, to stave off further losses, R.J. Reynolds purchased Nabisco Brands, Inc. for $4.9 billion (the same year in which Philip Morris acquired General Foods Corporation). Three years after the Nabisco purchase, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., an investment firm, purchased RJR Nabisco for $24.88 billion in what was then the biggest leveraged buyout in U.S. history.
However, this historic move abroad was not enough to stop the company's slide to the industry's number-two position three years later, when Philip Morris ascended to the industry's number-one position. In 1985, to stave off further losses, R.J. Reynolds purchased Nabisco Brands, Inc. for $4.9 billion (the same year in which Philip Morris acquired General Foods Corporation). Three years after the Nabisco purchase, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., an investment firm, purchased RJR Nabisco for $24.88 billion in what was then the biggest leveraged buyout in U.S. history.
INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT
Battered by multibillion-dollar lawsuits and anti-smoking campaigns, the U.S. tobacco industry confronts a shrinking yet resilient market at home and widening demand abroad. In recent years, cigarette shipments fell as tax-induced price hikes and antismoking sentiment cut into demand. Although price increases have helped to prop up sales and profits, a weak economic climate coupled with cigarette tax increases were affecting the industry's profitability in the early 2000s. At this time, continued price increases were helping discount brand cigarettes to gain popularity with cost-conscious consumers.
Tobacco companies have been so besieged with lawsuits that investment reports on the industry, once flush with statistics and commentary on short-term profits, have found it necessary to delve into arguments, proceedings, and other minutia of individual cases at trial. The biggest legal initiative, brought collectively by the attorneys general of 46 states, resulted in a massive 25-year, $206-billion settlement by cigarette manufacturers. Hundreds of other lawsuits, most from private individuals, have inundated tobacco companies as well. By the end of 2002, the industry had lost five lawsuits on the West Coast since the late 1990s. In December of that year, a California Superior Court judge reduced a record $28 billion judgment against Philip Morris-which a jury awarded to a 64-year-old terminal lung cancer patient-to $28 million, calling the initial amount "legally excessive," according to Forbes. Cases such as these have allowed lawyers to collectively take in hundreds of millions of dollars a year-and they will continue to do so for decades to come.
The industry remains highly concentrated. The top three cigarette makers-Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and BAT/Brown & Williamson-controlled about 82 percent of the U.S. market as of 2002. Indeed, Census Bureau reports show that in recent years, only nine cigarette companies operated in the United States. Market share evidence suggests that the larger producers, especially Philip Morris, which alone makes up half of all U.S. production, could continue to crowd out smaller producers.
ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE
From the industry's nascence in the mid-nineteenth century, when many cigarette manufacturers began as tobacco farmers, to the early 2000s, the number of participants has been limited. Early cigarette producers were located in proximity to the tobacco fields of the southern United States, typically operating in the same region as their competition. Nearly a century and a half later, the cigarette industry still consisted of a small, almost fraternal group of manufacturers, several of whom had been in competition with one another since the nineteenth century.
Cigarette manufacturers are still clustered in just a few southeastern states. Production of cigarettes is confined to the four-state region of North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Kentucky. The bulk of these manufacturing facilities are located in North Carolina.
BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT
The origins of tobacco in the United States date back to before the formation of the nation itself, and the growth and sale of this product represented one of the key agricultural crops that spurred the country's growth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The use of tobacco to produce cigarettes in any widespread fashion did not occur, however, until the dawn of the twentieth century. Other uses for tobacco precluded the popularity of cigarettes, as Americans in the early nineteenth century enjoyed plug and twist tobacco, then smoking tobacco, and finally cigars, all of which overshadowed cigarette production in terms of volume for most of the century. Even in the mid-1800s, the use of tobacco had its detractors, and cigarette smokers, many of whom were women, suffered from a somewhat ignoble image. As a social commentator in 1854 wrote in reference to New York: "Some of the ladies of this refined and fashion-forming metropolis are aping the silly ways of some pseudo-accomplished foreigners in smoking Tobacco through a weaker and more feminine article which has been most delicately denominated cigarette."
A decade later, however, the production volume of cigarettes had increased enough to become the object of special federal taxation, which, according to the Internal Revenue Law promulgated in June 1864, levied one dollar per one hundred packages not exceeding five dollars in aggregate value. The following year, 19.7 million cigarettes were produced, and manufacturers were buffeted by a series of tax hikes, first to two dollars per thousand and then to five dollars per thousand. This arrested the growth of the industry just as sales were beginning to elevate cigarette manufacturers' importance in the tobacco industry. In 1868 tax rates were cut back to $1.50 per thousand and growth resumed, marking the beginning of 20-year period that would witness the most rapid percentage growth rate in the production of cigarettes in the history of the industry.
Cigarette production reached 500 million in 1880 and eclipsed the 1 billion mark five years later. By the 1880s, there were five principal manufacturers of cigarettes: Washington Duke Sons & Co., Allen & Ginter, Kinney Tobacco Co., William S. Kimball & Co., and Goodwin & Co. Together these companies produced 2.18 billion cigarettes annually by the end of the decade, 91.7 percent of the national output of 2.41 billion. These companies, referred to as the "Tobacco Trust," essentially controlled the cigarette market, enjoying a virtually unassailable lead over other, smaller manufacturers. This monopolistic trait would characterize the industry throughout much of its existence.
The ability of these companies to secure such a wide advantage over their competition was partly due to significant technological innovations achieved during the 1880s that ended the time-consuming chore of rolling cigarettes by hand. On a good day, a skilled laborer could roll 3,000 cigarettes during a ten-hour workday-a production rate that threatened to place a ceiling on the industry's growth. But beginning in 1872, the age of mechanization in the cigarette industry was initiated. The first cigarette manufacturing machine, patented by Albert H. Hook, earned a modicum of success but did not prove to be commercially viable. By 1881, however, significant improvements had been made in a design patented by James A. Bonsack. This machine could churn out 200 to 220 cigarettes per minute, accomplishing in 15 minutes what it took an experienced production worker 10 hours to complete.
Bolstered by the ability to produce more cigarettes with lower labor costs, the five companies that occupied the industry's leading positions grew quickly by moving into untapped markets and securing their overwhelming lead in the U.S. market. In 1890 the composition of the industry's manufacturers became more homogeneous when the five leading companies, at the urging of James Duke of Washington Duke & Sons Co., merged to form the American Tobacco Co., which initially focused primarily on the production of cigarettes. Over the next 20 years, the American Tobacco Co. acquired an interest in roughly 250 companies. This cigarette giant expanded into other tobacco products, securing commanding leads in every product branch of the tobacco industry with the exception of cigars. In the manufacture of cigarettes, plug, smoking tobacco, fine cut tobacco, snuff, and little cigars, the conglomerate's production output in the first decade of the twentieth century represented no less than 76 percent of the country's total volume, giving smaller manufacturers little hope of wresting market share away from the industry's predominant leader.
If the five leading manufacturers in the 1880s justly earned the moniker "Tobacco Trust" when operating as separate companies, then their union certainly deserved the same label. The U.S. Supreme Court said as much in May 1911, when it found the American Tobacco Co. in violation of the Sherman Act. Six months after the ruling, the court issued a decree stipulating that the enormously powerful tobacco company be divided into 16 independent corporations, none of which could wield monopolistic control over any one product branch within the tobacco industry.
Post-Breakup Growth. Although certainly a significant chapter in the history of the cigarette industry, the parceling of the American Tobacco Co.'s sundry divisions and subsidiaries did not affect the cigarette industry as greatly as the cigar industry, primarily because cigarettes still did not represent a major branch of the tobacco industry. The cigarette industry was burgeoning, however, and stood on the brink of catapulting past all other branches of the tobacco industry. The first step toward this end came six years after the restructuring of the industry, when the United States entered World War I and cigarettes were issued to soldiers in the U.S. Army and Navy.
Once the habit of smoking cigarettes had extended to women, thereby doubling the potential customer base, sales began to mushroom, and the cigarette branch of the industry at last overtook all other branches. Over the ensuing 20 years, during which time many of the widely popular brands-Chesterfield, Lucky Strike, Old Gold, Camel, Raleigh, and Marlboro-emerged, the consumption of cigarettes grew rapidly. Domestic tobacco leaf consumption increased 42.5 percent between 1910 and 1930, while the production of cigarettes increased from 8.64 billion to 125.20 billion, a 1,339 percent increase. In these first two decades following the dissolution decree, there were approximately 15 to 20 manufacturers deriving the bulk of their revenue from the production of cigarettes. Only four of these manufacturers, commonly referred to as the "Big Four," held any appreciable share of the market. Indeed, these manufacturers-the restructured American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., P. Lorillard Co., and Liggett & Meyers Tobacco Co.-held as firm a grip on the U.S. cigarette market as American Tobacco had before the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling; they controlled more than 95 percent of the market.
Clearly, the dissolution of American Tobacco had not produced the U.S. Supreme Court's intended effects; a monarchy had merely been replaced with an oligarchy. Smaller, independent cigarette manufacturers were able to record enviable profits during this period, largely because of the bountiful market itself, but none could challenge the Big Four in magnitude. Accordingly, as the cigarette industry continued to grow, these powerful manufacturers became more formidable, further widening the gulf separating the industry's upper echelon and the rest of the competition.
The next two decades of business brought continued success to the industry's four largest manufacturers and witnessed the rise of an additional member to the industry's elite, Philip Morris & Company Ltd., Inc. Philip Morris introduced its mainstay Marlboro brand in 1925, which reached an annual production total of approximately 500 million cigarettes. But the industry's leading brands during these years, Camel and Lucky Strike, each sold 25 billion cigarettes a year, by far outpacing Philip Morris's production volume and providing little room for the future ascension of the smaller, formerly British-based manufacturer. Instead, Philip Morris was able to climb the industry's ranking list due to a strong relationship with cigarette jobbers throughout its distribution network and by virtue of prudent management. By the end of the 1940s, after Philip Morris had already unseated Lorillard to occupy the industry's fourth place position, the "Tobacco Trust" now included five members, generating an aggregate sales total of $357.3 million.
Postwar Unease. The 1950s heralded a new era for cigarette manufacturers, one in which it became necessary to defend growing criticism of the product being sold. Since the industry's emergence, anti-cigarette and anti-tobacco factions from both the federal and consumer sector had railed against the sale and use of tobacco. Manufacturers had fared fairly well, effectively beating back the rising tide of protest against their business. While industry manufacturers had suffered run-ins with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) concerning misleading advertising, the federal government had subsidized a large portion of the industry before World War II, which helped to allay the fears of manufacturers.
During the 1950s, however, medical reports linking health problems to smoking began to surface. In 1953 the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute's report showed a relation between cancer and tobacco, and manufacturers consequently found themselves fighting an entirely new and much more formidable foe-scientific evidence.
In 1964 the U.S. Surgeon General issued a landmark report linking smoking with lung cancer and heart disease. A year later, the U.S. Congress promulgated the Cigarette Advertising and Labeling Act, which stipulated that health warnings be placed on each cigarette package. In 1971 cigarette advertisements on radio and television were banned. Although these announcements and restrictions did not cause the industry to collapse, the rate of smoking in the United States began to spiral downward.
Cigarette manufacturers had already begun creating different types of cigarettes-filter tips during the 1950s, then low-tar cigarettes during the 1960s and 1970s-and marketed these products not to create more customers but to capture their competitor's customers. By the 1970s, however, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds had gained considerable ground on their competition, making the industry essentially a battle between the two behemoths. Philip Morris gained the upper hand in 1976 when its Marlboro brand passed R.J. Reynolds' Winston.
During the 1980s, lower-priced, discount cigarettes began to enter the market with increasing frequency. This enabled smaller cigarette manufacturers to thrive for a short time, until the industry's preeminent leaders dropped their own prices and set about capturing the lowend market. By this time, the reams of medical reports delineating the hazardous effects of smoking had firmly grabbed the attention of the American populace, transforming anti-tobacco factions into a powerful nationwide movement. Cigarette taxation doubled in 1983 and continued to rise, particularly during the late 1980s, increasing the popularity of lower-priced cigarettes. Consequently, cigarette manufacturers diversified their operations with unprecedented fervor, while casting an eye to international business opportunities.
Decade of Legal Skirmishes. As the U.S. economy recovered from recession in the early 1990s, cigarette makers were saddled with much larger problems. These difficulties had always confronted the industry, but they intensified in the early and mid-1990s.
In June 1992 the Supreme Court reversed an appeals court ruling concerning the product liability of cigarette manufacturers. Earlier, two lower courts had ruled that the family of a woman who had died of lung cancer could not sue cigarette manufacturers on the grounds they had withheld information about potential health dangers. The Court's reversal sent cigarette manufacturers' stock prices cascading downward, as industry participants braced for a rash of lawsuits.
Around the same period, cigarette manufacturers suffered diminishing influence over federal lawmakers. In the past, through the combined efforts of the tobacco lobby and elected representatives from tobacco-growing states, manufacturers had been able to slow the rate of federally imposed cigarette taxes and to mitigate federal legislation aimed at curbing cigarette use. Tobacco companies' diminished clout left them ever more vulnerable to legal attacks.
Restrictions on smoking in public areas grew increasingly common as well. This was in part a result of a 1993 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report that classified environmental tobacco smoke as a class-A carcinogen and alleged that 3,000 nonsmokers die annually from second-hand smoke. Many communities instituted strict rules regarding cigarette use, and even the U.S. Department of Defense issued restrictions that banned smoking in all military work spaces, including military bases. Businesses, too, banned smoking in response to state laws and public outcry.
Another threat to the cigarette industry was repeated attempts at regulatory oversight under the Clinton administration, particularly the zealous efforts of Commissioner David Kessler, head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In a campaign that was part politics and part science, Kessler testified before Congress that he believed nicotine was a highly addictive drug being manipulated by tobacco companies. He argued that if tobacco functioned as a drug, it should be regulated as one too, pleading the case for FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products. Ultimately this controversial assertion was heard in 1999 before the Supreme Court, and the Court decided in March 2000 that tobacco does not fall under the FDA's purview as defined by Congress.
In the meantime, a flood of lawsuits deluged tobacco companies. Emanating from the Supreme Court's 1992 ruling, the suits were brought by individuals and groups who sought damages from cigarette manufacturers for smoking-related illnesses and by government agencies that wished to recover the costs to the public health system for treating such ailments. In total, according to one report, more than 800 individual and class-action suits were brought against tobacco companies between 1990 and mid-1998. However, only a handful made it to trial, and even fewer produced verdicts against the industry.
Government Settlements. In early 1997 the anti-tobacco forces gained new ground. They successfully split the tobacco companies' united front by pressuring the Liggett Company to settle a class-action lawsuit. Liggett's move was not entirely unexpected-with only a 2 percent share of the U.S. market, the company lacked the resources to fight an extended court battle. Liggett broke with long-established industry policy and admitted that cigarettes cause cancer and that nicotine is addictive.
By 1997 tobacco companies were in extended negotiations with state attorneys general and began to test the waters for a large national settlement that would spare the industry some or all of the seemingly endless litigation before it. In a mammoth $370-billion proposal, the companies even contemplated submitting to limited FDA regulation as well as significant measures to curb underage smoking. In return, they hoped to gain at least partial immunity from the barrage of litigation coming at them.
Some attorneys general were receptive, but the focus shifted to Congress and a plan to pass the settlement and immunity framework as federal law rather than as agreements approved separately by each state. In Washington, however, the settlement became mired in politics and competing proposals. A number of lawmakers called for a steeper payout, as much as $500 billion, and debated the merits and legality of the proposed immunity. Meanwhile, the Clinton administration, deeply divided over the matter, was slow to weigh in on what terms it would support.
In March 1998 Senate leaders tried to revive the federal tobacco settlement with a bipartisan bill negotiated by Senator John McCain. Tougher on the industry than the companies' own proposal, the bill was supported by President Clinton and a diverse mix of senators. The legislation was to include annual liability caps for punitive damages paid by tobacco companies. However, after weeks of bruising debate and a fistful of conflicting amendments put forth, in June the Republican leadership withdrew its support for the bill, and it never went before the full Senate. The House failed to produce anything even close to viable, and the federal initiative lost nearly all of its steam.
Meanwhile, state attorneys general renewed their attack, aided in some states by specially crafted laws that made it easier for them to prove their cases and collect damages. Settlement talks also restarted in June after the McCain bill died. The companies appeared more hesitant now, and some may have sensed rising political clout with Congress's failure to act. But the attorneys general, led by Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire, pressed ahead with negotiations, attempting to unite their conflicting demands and reach a consensus the industry was likely to accept.
In November 1998 both sides finally reached an agreement. Ultimately 46 states and the country's five largest cigarette makers were party to a deal that would pay states $206 billion over 25 years, funded by new cigarette taxes. What's more, the settlement was somewhat more lenient on tobacco companies than the defunct 1997 proposal. It required less money for the states, fewer restrictions on marketing and advertising, and no stipulation that the industry be regulated by the FDA. The remaining four states, Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Texas, had previously obtained settlements worth $40 billion.
Just as government litigation seemed to be winding down, however, the Clinton Justice Department in 1999 announced its intentions to sue tobacco companies on similar grounds to the state suits. Preliminary hearings on the federal suit began in 2000. Separately, in 2000 a pair of cigarette wholesalers filed suit in federal court accusing major cigarette makers of price fixing.
Rising tobacco taxes and widening antismoking policies have resulted in a diminished U.S. market for cigarettes. The industry raised cigarette prices by 45 cents in 1998 and by another 22 cents in 1999 in order to finance the state settlements. In 1999 U.S. tobacco companies shipped 419.3 billion cigarettes, a 9 percent drop from a year earlier and 13.5 percent below 1997's 485 billion. Totaling about 76 packs of cigarettes for every person in the United States, industry shipments in 1999 were valued at $52 billion. In 2000 between 45 million and 50 million U.S. adults were smokers, equal to an adult smoking rate of about 23 percent.
In 1999, Philip Morris continued to lead the industry by a huge margin. That year, it supplied 49.6 percent of all U.S. cigarette shipments. This was up slightly from the year before in part because Philip Morris acquired three minor brands from Liggett. The company's market-leading Marlboro brand alone represented 36.4 percent of shipments. R.J. Reynolds was second, with a 23.2 percent share in 1999, followed by Brown & Williamson (13.5 percent), Lorillard (9.3 percent), and Liggett (1.2 percent).
Although discount cigarettes had for years eroded market share of the premium brands, in the late 1990s premium labels regained ground. As of 1999, premium brands accounted for 73.4 percent of all domestic cigarette sales by volume, up slightly from the year before. Earlier in the decade, premium volume had sunk as low as 68.6 percent due to the popularity of discount brands, which gained favor rapidly during the 1980s. Interestingly, premium's share rebounded just as tax increases and litigation caused cigarette prices to soar.
In another surprising trend, as cigarette prices rose, according to some research, smokers tended to consume fewer but stronger cigarettes. With young smokers, this pattern can actually increase a smoker's intake of tar and nicotine.
The industry regularly develops new products, many targeted at special niches of the cigarette market. One area under active development by several companies during the late 1990s involved cigarettes made from lownitrosamine tobacco. By altering the tobacco-curing process, manufacturers are able to reduce or even eliminate nitrosamines, chemicals that some scientists have identified as a key carcinogen in tobacco products. Lownitrosamine tobacco could be used in a special line of products for health-conscious smokers or could one day become the standard in all cigarettes. Test marketing of a few products was expected to begin in 2000. The link between nitrosamines and cancer was far from certain, though, and some observers questioned the benefits of low-nitrosamine tobacco. Smoking has been linked to lung cancer, heart disease, chronic lung disease, and a wide number of other cancers and disorders.
Tobacco companies have been so besieged with lawsuits that investment reports on the industry, once flush with statistics and commentary on short-term profits, have found it necessary to delve into arguments, proceedings, and other minutia of individual cases at trial. The biggest legal initiative, brought collectively by the attorneys general of 46 states, resulted in a massive 25-year, $206-billion settlement by cigarette manufacturers. Hundreds of other lawsuits, most from private individuals, have inundated tobacco companies as well. By the end of 2002, the industry had lost five lawsuits on the West Coast since the late 1990s. In December of that year, a California Superior Court judge reduced a record $28 billion judgment against Philip Morris-which a jury awarded to a 64-year-old terminal lung cancer patient-to $28 million, calling the initial amount "legally excessive," according to Forbes. Cases such as these have allowed lawyers to collectively take in hundreds of millions of dollars a year-and they will continue to do so for decades to come.
The industry remains highly concentrated. The top three cigarette makers-Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and BAT/Brown & Williamson-controlled about 82 percent of the U.S. market as of 2002. Indeed, Census Bureau reports show that in recent years, only nine cigarette companies operated in the United States. Market share evidence suggests that the larger producers, especially Philip Morris, which alone makes up half of all U.S. production, could continue to crowd out smaller producers.
ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE
From the industry's nascence in the mid-nineteenth century, when many cigarette manufacturers began as tobacco farmers, to the early 2000s, the number of participants has been limited. Early cigarette producers were located in proximity to the tobacco fields of the southern United States, typically operating in the same region as their competition. Nearly a century and a half later, the cigarette industry still consisted of a small, almost fraternal group of manufacturers, several of whom had been in competition with one another since the nineteenth century.
Cigarette manufacturers are still clustered in just a few southeastern states. Production of cigarettes is confined to the four-state region of North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Kentucky. The bulk of these manufacturing facilities are located in North Carolina.
BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT
The origins of tobacco in the United States date back to before the formation of the nation itself, and the growth and sale of this product represented one of the key agricultural crops that spurred the country's growth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The use of tobacco to produce cigarettes in any widespread fashion did not occur, however, until the dawn of the twentieth century. Other uses for tobacco precluded the popularity of cigarettes, as Americans in the early nineteenth century enjoyed plug and twist tobacco, then smoking tobacco, and finally cigars, all of which overshadowed cigarette production in terms of volume for most of the century. Even in the mid-1800s, the use of tobacco had its detractors, and cigarette smokers, many of whom were women, suffered from a somewhat ignoble image. As a social commentator in 1854 wrote in reference to New York: "Some of the ladies of this refined and fashion-forming metropolis are aping the silly ways of some pseudo-accomplished foreigners in smoking Tobacco through a weaker and more feminine article which has been most delicately denominated cigarette."
A decade later, however, the production volume of cigarettes had increased enough to become the object of special federal taxation, which, according to the Internal Revenue Law promulgated in June 1864, levied one dollar per one hundred packages not exceeding five dollars in aggregate value. The following year, 19.7 million cigarettes were produced, and manufacturers were buffeted by a series of tax hikes, first to two dollars per thousand and then to five dollars per thousand. This arrested the growth of the industry just as sales were beginning to elevate cigarette manufacturers' importance in the tobacco industry. In 1868 tax rates were cut back to $1.50 per thousand and growth resumed, marking the beginning of 20-year period that would witness the most rapid percentage growth rate in the production of cigarettes in the history of the industry.
Cigarette production reached 500 million in 1880 and eclipsed the 1 billion mark five years later. By the 1880s, there were five principal manufacturers of cigarettes: Washington Duke Sons & Co., Allen & Ginter, Kinney Tobacco Co., William S. Kimball & Co., and Goodwin & Co. Together these companies produced 2.18 billion cigarettes annually by the end of the decade, 91.7 percent of the national output of 2.41 billion. These companies, referred to as the "Tobacco Trust," essentially controlled the cigarette market, enjoying a virtually unassailable lead over other, smaller manufacturers. This monopolistic trait would characterize the industry throughout much of its existence.
The ability of these companies to secure such a wide advantage over their competition was partly due to significant technological innovations achieved during the 1880s that ended the time-consuming chore of rolling cigarettes by hand. On a good day, a skilled laborer could roll 3,000 cigarettes during a ten-hour workday-a production rate that threatened to place a ceiling on the industry's growth. But beginning in 1872, the age of mechanization in the cigarette industry was initiated. The first cigarette manufacturing machine, patented by Albert H. Hook, earned a modicum of success but did not prove to be commercially viable. By 1881, however, significant improvements had been made in a design patented by James A. Bonsack. This machine could churn out 200 to 220 cigarettes per minute, accomplishing in 15 minutes what it took an experienced production worker 10 hours to complete.
Bolstered by the ability to produce more cigarettes with lower labor costs, the five companies that occupied the industry's leading positions grew quickly by moving into untapped markets and securing their overwhelming lead in the U.S. market. In 1890 the composition of the industry's manufacturers became more homogeneous when the five leading companies, at the urging of James Duke of Washington Duke & Sons Co., merged to form the American Tobacco Co., which initially focused primarily on the production of cigarettes. Over the next 20 years, the American Tobacco Co. acquired an interest in roughly 250 companies. This cigarette giant expanded into other tobacco products, securing commanding leads in every product branch of the tobacco industry with the exception of cigars. In the manufacture of cigarettes, plug, smoking tobacco, fine cut tobacco, snuff, and little cigars, the conglomerate's production output in the first decade of the twentieth century represented no less than 76 percent of the country's total volume, giving smaller manufacturers little hope of wresting market share away from the industry's predominant leader.
If the five leading manufacturers in the 1880s justly earned the moniker "Tobacco Trust" when operating as separate companies, then their union certainly deserved the same label. The U.S. Supreme Court said as much in May 1911, when it found the American Tobacco Co. in violation of the Sherman Act. Six months after the ruling, the court issued a decree stipulating that the enormously powerful tobacco company be divided into 16 independent corporations, none of which could wield monopolistic control over any one product branch within the tobacco industry.
Post-Breakup Growth. Although certainly a significant chapter in the history of the cigarette industry, the parceling of the American Tobacco Co.'s sundry divisions and subsidiaries did not affect the cigarette industry as greatly as the cigar industry, primarily because cigarettes still did not represent a major branch of the tobacco industry. The cigarette industry was burgeoning, however, and stood on the brink of catapulting past all other branches of the tobacco industry. The first step toward this end came six years after the restructuring of the industry, when the United States entered World War I and cigarettes were issued to soldiers in the U.S. Army and Navy.
Once the habit of smoking cigarettes had extended to women, thereby doubling the potential customer base, sales began to mushroom, and the cigarette branch of the industry at last overtook all other branches. Over the ensuing 20 years, during which time many of the widely popular brands-Chesterfield, Lucky Strike, Old Gold, Camel, Raleigh, and Marlboro-emerged, the consumption of cigarettes grew rapidly. Domestic tobacco leaf consumption increased 42.5 percent between 1910 and 1930, while the production of cigarettes increased from 8.64 billion to 125.20 billion, a 1,339 percent increase. In these first two decades following the dissolution decree, there were approximately 15 to 20 manufacturers deriving the bulk of their revenue from the production of cigarettes. Only four of these manufacturers, commonly referred to as the "Big Four," held any appreciable share of the market. Indeed, these manufacturers-the restructured American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., P. Lorillard Co., and Liggett & Meyers Tobacco Co.-held as firm a grip on the U.S. cigarette market as American Tobacco had before the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling; they controlled more than 95 percent of the market.
Clearly, the dissolution of American Tobacco had not produced the U.S. Supreme Court's intended effects; a monarchy had merely been replaced with an oligarchy. Smaller, independent cigarette manufacturers were able to record enviable profits during this period, largely because of the bountiful market itself, but none could challenge the Big Four in magnitude. Accordingly, as the cigarette industry continued to grow, these powerful manufacturers became more formidable, further widening the gulf separating the industry's upper echelon and the rest of the competition.
The next two decades of business brought continued success to the industry's four largest manufacturers and witnessed the rise of an additional member to the industry's elite, Philip Morris & Company Ltd., Inc. Philip Morris introduced its mainstay Marlboro brand in 1925, which reached an annual production total of approximately 500 million cigarettes. But the industry's leading brands during these years, Camel and Lucky Strike, each sold 25 billion cigarettes a year, by far outpacing Philip Morris's production volume and providing little room for the future ascension of the smaller, formerly British-based manufacturer. Instead, Philip Morris was able to climb the industry's ranking list due to a strong relationship with cigarette jobbers throughout its distribution network and by virtue of prudent management. By the end of the 1940s, after Philip Morris had already unseated Lorillard to occupy the industry's fourth place position, the "Tobacco Trust" now included five members, generating an aggregate sales total of $357.3 million.
Postwar Unease. The 1950s heralded a new era for cigarette manufacturers, one in which it became necessary to defend growing criticism of the product being sold. Since the industry's emergence, anti-cigarette and anti-tobacco factions from both the federal and consumer sector had railed against the sale and use of tobacco. Manufacturers had fared fairly well, effectively beating back the rising tide of protest against their business. While industry manufacturers had suffered run-ins with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) concerning misleading advertising, the federal government had subsidized a large portion of the industry before World War II, which helped to allay the fears of manufacturers.
During the 1950s, however, medical reports linking health problems to smoking began to surface. In 1953 the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute's report showed a relation between cancer and tobacco, and manufacturers consequently found themselves fighting an entirely new and much more formidable foe-scientific evidence.
In 1964 the U.S. Surgeon General issued a landmark report linking smoking with lung cancer and heart disease. A year later, the U.S. Congress promulgated the Cigarette Advertising and Labeling Act, which stipulated that health warnings be placed on each cigarette package. In 1971 cigarette advertisements on radio and television were banned. Although these announcements and restrictions did not cause the industry to collapse, the rate of smoking in the United States began to spiral downward.
Cigarette manufacturers had already begun creating different types of cigarettes-filter tips during the 1950s, then low-tar cigarettes during the 1960s and 1970s-and marketed these products not to create more customers but to capture their competitor's customers. By the 1970s, however, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds had gained considerable ground on their competition, making the industry essentially a battle between the two behemoths. Philip Morris gained the upper hand in 1976 when its Marlboro brand passed R.J. Reynolds' Winston.
During the 1980s, lower-priced, discount cigarettes began to enter the market with increasing frequency. This enabled smaller cigarette manufacturers to thrive for a short time, until the industry's preeminent leaders dropped their own prices and set about capturing the lowend market. By this time, the reams of medical reports delineating the hazardous effects of smoking had firmly grabbed the attention of the American populace, transforming anti-tobacco factions into a powerful nationwide movement. Cigarette taxation doubled in 1983 and continued to rise, particularly during the late 1980s, increasing the popularity of lower-priced cigarettes. Consequently, cigarette manufacturers diversified their operations with unprecedented fervor, while casting an eye to international business opportunities.
Decade of Legal Skirmishes. As the U.S. economy recovered from recession in the early 1990s, cigarette makers were saddled with much larger problems. These difficulties had always confronted the industry, but they intensified in the early and mid-1990s.
In June 1992 the Supreme Court reversed an appeals court ruling concerning the product liability of cigarette manufacturers. Earlier, two lower courts had ruled that the family of a woman who had died of lung cancer could not sue cigarette manufacturers on the grounds they had withheld information about potential health dangers. The Court's reversal sent cigarette manufacturers' stock prices cascading downward, as industry participants braced for a rash of lawsuits.
Around the same period, cigarette manufacturers suffered diminishing influence over federal lawmakers. In the past, through the combined efforts of the tobacco lobby and elected representatives from tobacco-growing states, manufacturers had been able to slow the rate of federally imposed cigarette taxes and to mitigate federal legislation aimed at curbing cigarette use. Tobacco companies' diminished clout left them ever more vulnerable to legal attacks.
Restrictions on smoking in public areas grew increasingly common as well. This was in part a result of a 1993 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report that classified environmental tobacco smoke as a class-A carcinogen and alleged that 3,000 nonsmokers die annually from second-hand smoke. Many communities instituted strict rules regarding cigarette use, and even the U.S. Department of Defense issued restrictions that banned smoking in all military work spaces, including military bases. Businesses, too, banned smoking in response to state laws and public outcry.
Another threat to the cigarette industry was repeated attempts at regulatory oversight under the Clinton administration, particularly the zealous efforts of Commissioner David Kessler, head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In a campaign that was part politics and part science, Kessler testified before Congress that he believed nicotine was a highly addictive drug being manipulated by tobacco companies. He argued that if tobacco functioned as a drug, it should be regulated as one too, pleading the case for FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products. Ultimately this controversial assertion was heard in 1999 before the Supreme Court, and the Court decided in March 2000 that tobacco does not fall under the FDA's purview as defined by Congress.
In the meantime, a flood of lawsuits deluged tobacco companies. Emanating from the Supreme Court's 1992 ruling, the suits were brought by individuals and groups who sought damages from cigarette manufacturers for smoking-related illnesses and by government agencies that wished to recover the costs to the public health system for treating such ailments. In total, according to one report, more than 800 individual and class-action suits were brought against tobacco companies between 1990 and mid-1998. However, only a handful made it to trial, and even fewer produced verdicts against the industry.
Government Settlements. In early 1997 the anti-tobacco forces gained new ground. They successfully split the tobacco companies' united front by pressuring the Liggett Company to settle a class-action lawsuit. Liggett's move was not entirely unexpected-with only a 2 percent share of the U.S. market, the company lacked the resources to fight an extended court battle. Liggett broke with long-established industry policy and admitted that cigarettes cause cancer and that nicotine is addictive.
By 1997 tobacco companies were in extended negotiations with state attorneys general and began to test the waters for a large national settlement that would spare the industry some or all of the seemingly endless litigation before it. In a mammoth $370-billion proposal, the companies even contemplated submitting to limited FDA regulation as well as significant measures to curb underage smoking. In return, they hoped to gain at least partial immunity from the barrage of litigation coming at them.
Some attorneys general were receptive, but the focus shifted to Congress and a plan to pass the settlement and immunity framework as federal law rather than as agreements approved separately by each state. In Washington, however, the settlement became mired in politics and competing proposals. A number of lawmakers called for a steeper payout, as much as $500 billion, and debated the merits and legality of the proposed immunity. Meanwhile, the Clinton administration, deeply divided over the matter, was slow to weigh in on what terms it would support.
In March 1998 Senate leaders tried to revive the federal tobacco settlement with a bipartisan bill negotiated by Senator John McCain. Tougher on the industry than the companies' own proposal, the bill was supported by President Clinton and a diverse mix of senators. The legislation was to include annual liability caps for punitive damages paid by tobacco companies. However, after weeks of bruising debate and a fistful of conflicting amendments put forth, in June the Republican leadership withdrew its support for the bill, and it never went before the full Senate. The House failed to produce anything even close to viable, and the federal initiative lost nearly all of its steam.
Meanwhile, state attorneys general renewed their attack, aided in some states by specially crafted laws that made it easier for them to prove their cases and collect damages. Settlement talks also restarted in June after the McCain bill died. The companies appeared more hesitant now, and some may have sensed rising political clout with Congress's failure to act. But the attorneys general, led by Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire, pressed ahead with negotiations, attempting to unite their conflicting demands and reach a consensus the industry was likely to accept.
In November 1998 both sides finally reached an agreement. Ultimately 46 states and the country's five largest cigarette makers were party to a deal that would pay states $206 billion over 25 years, funded by new cigarette taxes. What's more, the settlement was somewhat more lenient on tobacco companies than the defunct 1997 proposal. It required less money for the states, fewer restrictions on marketing and advertising, and no stipulation that the industry be regulated by the FDA. The remaining four states, Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Texas, had previously obtained settlements worth $40 billion.
Just as government litigation seemed to be winding down, however, the Clinton Justice Department in 1999 announced its intentions to sue tobacco companies on similar grounds to the state suits. Preliminary hearings on the federal suit began in 2000. Separately, in 2000 a pair of cigarette wholesalers filed suit in federal court accusing major cigarette makers of price fixing.
Rising tobacco taxes and widening antismoking policies have resulted in a diminished U.S. market for cigarettes. The industry raised cigarette prices by 45 cents in 1998 and by another 22 cents in 1999 in order to finance the state settlements. In 1999 U.S. tobacco companies shipped 419.3 billion cigarettes, a 9 percent drop from a year earlier and 13.5 percent below 1997's 485 billion. Totaling about 76 packs of cigarettes for every person in the United States, industry shipments in 1999 were valued at $52 billion. In 2000 between 45 million and 50 million U.S. adults were smokers, equal to an adult smoking rate of about 23 percent.
In 1999, Philip Morris continued to lead the industry by a huge margin. That year, it supplied 49.6 percent of all U.S. cigarette shipments. This was up slightly from the year before in part because Philip Morris acquired three minor brands from Liggett. The company's market-leading Marlboro brand alone represented 36.4 percent of shipments. R.J. Reynolds was second, with a 23.2 percent share in 1999, followed by Brown & Williamson (13.5 percent), Lorillard (9.3 percent), and Liggett (1.2 percent).
Although discount cigarettes had for years eroded market share of the premium brands, in the late 1990s premium labels regained ground. As of 1999, premium brands accounted for 73.4 percent of all domestic cigarette sales by volume, up slightly from the year before. Earlier in the decade, premium volume had sunk as low as 68.6 percent due to the popularity of discount brands, which gained favor rapidly during the 1980s. Interestingly, premium's share rebounded just as tax increases and litigation caused cigarette prices to soar.
In another surprising trend, as cigarette prices rose, according to some research, smokers tended to consume fewer but stronger cigarettes. With young smokers, this pattern can actually increase a smoker's intake of tar and nicotine.
The industry regularly develops new products, many targeted at special niches of the cigarette market. One area under active development by several companies during the late 1990s involved cigarettes made from lownitrosamine tobacco. By altering the tobacco-curing process, manufacturers are able to reduce or even eliminate nitrosamines, chemicals that some scientists have identified as a key carcinogen in tobacco products. Lownitrosamine tobacco could be used in a special line of products for health-conscious smokers or could one day become the standard in all cigarettes. Test marketing of a few products was expected to begin in 2000. The link between nitrosamines and cancer was far from certain, though, and some observers questioned the benefits of low-nitrosamine tobacco. Smoking has been linked to lung cancer, heart disease, chronic lung disease, and a wide number of other cancers and disorders.
Ireland to ban sale of cigarettes in 10-packs
Ireland will ban the sale of cigarettes in packs of less than 20 from May 31 in a bid to discourage children from smoking, the government said on Friday. The preference by youngsters for 10-packs has been shown internationally to be linked to price, the health and children ministry said.
"I believe the removal of packs of 10 will be a clear disincentive to young people to start the habit and continue smoking," Sean Power, minister of state at the ministry, said.
The sale of confectioneries that resemble tobacco products will also be prohibited from the same date.
Ireland imposed the world's first nationwide ban on smoking in the workplace-including pubs and restaurants-in 2004. Unveiling his 2007 budget this week, the finance minister added 50 cents to the price of 20 cigarettes, bringing the cost of a pack to around 7 euros ($9.30).
10 Pack Cigarette Ban
In a bizarre attempt to discourage people from smoking the Irish government has decided to ban the sale of 10 packs of cigarettes from October.
In one of the most irrational in a long line of measures to reduce the prevalence of smoking the Irish Government is to ban the sale of cigarettes in packs of ten from a proposed date of October the 2nd. Instead of choosing to buy cigarettes in packs of ten smokers will now be forced to buy cigarettes in quantities of twenty. How this will help reduce smoking is not clear, but is another anti-smoker measure introduced by the government at the behest of ASH
ASH Chairman, Luke Clancy seems to believe that forcing people to buy more cigarettes than they would choose were they to have a choice will somehow help prevent people from smoking. Ignoring the fact it is illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18 he says "the main incentive is to stop children from buying cigarettes before they become smokers."
The people most likely to suffer as a result of this measure will be those on low incomes and the elderly who make do with ten packs. Also people trying to reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke by only buying ten at a time will now be forced to purchase in quantities of twenty increasing the chances they will smoke more. However this seems to be of no matter to ASH and the anti smoking lobby who "welcomed" the measure delighted at yet another ban imposed on smokers by the government at their request.
"I believe the removal of packs of 10 will be a clear disincentive to young people to start the habit and continue smoking," Sean Power, minister of state at the ministry, said.
The sale of confectioneries that resemble tobacco products will also be prohibited from the same date.
Ireland imposed the world's first nationwide ban on smoking in the workplace-including pubs and restaurants-in 2004. Unveiling his 2007 budget this week, the finance minister added 50 cents to the price of 20 cigarettes, bringing the cost of a pack to around 7 euros ($9.30).
10 Pack Cigarette Ban
In a bizarre attempt to discourage people from smoking the Irish government has decided to ban the sale of 10 packs of cigarettes from October.
In one of the most irrational in a long line of measures to reduce the prevalence of smoking the Irish Government is to ban the sale of cigarettes in packs of ten from a proposed date of October the 2nd. Instead of choosing to buy cigarettes in packs of ten smokers will now be forced to buy cigarettes in quantities of twenty. How this will help reduce smoking is not clear, but is another anti-smoker measure introduced by the government at the behest of ASH
ASH Chairman, Luke Clancy seems to believe that forcing people to buy more cigarettes than they would choose were they to have a choice will somehow help prevent people from smoking. Ignoring the fact it is illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18 he says "the main incentive is to stop children from buying cigarettes before they become smokers."
The people most likely to suffer as a result of this measure will be those on low incomes and the elderly who make do with ten packs. Also people trying to reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke by only buying ten at a time will now be forced to purchase in quantities of twenty increasing the chances they will smoke more. However this seems to be of no matter to ASH and the anti smoking lobby who "welcomed" the measure delighted at yet another ban imposed on smokers by the government at their request.
Cigarette Smoking Impairs Ligament Healing
The list of reasons you shouldn't smoke has gotten longer. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are reporting that smoking interferes with ligament healing.
Studying mice with knee ligament injuries, the team discovered cigarette smoking impairs the recruitment of cells to the injury site and delays healing following ligament-repair surgery. They reported their findings in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research.
The researchers looked at the mouse medial collateral ligament (MCL), a ligament that supports the knee joint in both mice and people. Each year in the United States there are more than 20 million reported ligament injuries, and MCL injuries are the most common. They also are the most common injuries seen in competitive and recreational sports. It's not clear exactly how many MCL injuries occur annually because many go unreported.
"A lot of MCL injuries never make it to an emergency room because patients will have a sore knee but don't seek treatment," says Rick W. Wright, M.D., associate professor of orthopaedic surgery and a senior investigator on the MCL study.
Previous studies have demonstrated that the mouse provides a good paradigm for what happens in injured human knees.
"This is a good model for knee ligament injury, but it could be a model for ligament injuries anywhere in the body," says co-investigator Linda J. Sandell, Ph.D., professor of orthopaedic surgery. "It's likely the biology is transferable to other knee ligaments, elbow ligaments, shoulder ligaments, you name it."
To look at the effects of smoking, Sandell, Wright and their colleagues used a system developed at the School of Medicine in which mice are placed inside smoking chambers six days per week. The mice don't actually have cigarettes in their mouths, but they get enough passive fumes to "smoke" two cigarettes daily, the equivalent of a person smoking about four packs per day. Mice were placed in the smoking chambers for two months prior to MCL surgery and then again after surgery to mimic the behavior of humans who continue to smoke following an injury.
The researchers say athletes who smoke should keep these findings in mind before driving for a lay-up, sliding into second base or lacing up a pair of ice skates.
The soft tissue healing that occurs following ligament injuries occurs in stages. There is an immediate pooling of blood near the injury, the sort of hemorrhaging that will cause swelling right away. This initial response is followed by several days of inflammation, in which cells called macrophages flock to the injury site and secrete substances called cytokines and chemokines. Those, in turn, recruit more cells to assist in healing. That process of cellular proliferation and synthesis lasts for several days to several weeks. The final stage of healing involves remodeling of the tissue and can continue for months and even years.
An earlier study found an increase in cell density and in gene activity to produce type I collagen in the first week following MCL injury, so in this study the researchers paid close attention to cell density, biomechanical function and gene expression during the first week after MCL repair. In mice exposed to cigarette smoke, cell density was lower and type I collagen gene expression was reduced.
"Our studies also have shown a decreased macrophage response that may help explain why we see this delayed or decreased healing response," Wright says.
Between 20 and 25 percent of the U.S. population smokes. Wright and Sandell say that although the prevalence of smoking among athletes is slightly lower, a significant percentage of recreational and even professional athletes continue to smoke. Many others use chewing tobacco, which may cause some of the same effects. But that's not yet clear since the mice in this study were exposed to smoke rather than to nicotine only.
"There are two ways to do smoking studies in animal models," Sandell explains. "One looks only at a single component, like nicotine. The other way is to use a method like the one we employed that includes all of the toxins found in smoke. We think exposing the mice to cigarette smoke itself is most relevant because when people smoke, they don't get individual components. They get everything."
Sandell and Wright say their findings point to yet another reason smokers would do well to quit.
"Many patients don't want to hear it, but these results suggest that smoking affects anyone who needs ligament-repair surgery." Wright says. "I counsel surgery patients to at least try to decrease smoking because, if nothing else, that will improve the healing of their surgical incisions. Quitting smoking is good health management regardless, but in patients having this kind of surgery, there are extra advantages."
Wright and Sandell are conducting more studies. Currently they are comparing mice exposed to smoke before MCL surgery to those exposed both before and after surgery to see whether ending smoking might assist ligament healing.
"Because ligament injuries usually occur suddenly, it's unlikely people will stop smoking until after their injury," Sandell says. "So we want to learn whether smoking cessation near the time of surgery might help reverse the healing delays we saw in this study."
Gill CS, Sandell LJ, El-Zawawy HB, Wright RW. Effects of cigarette smoking on early medial collateral ligament healing in a mouse model. Journal of Orthopaedic Research, vol. 24, pp. 2141-2149. Dec. 2006.
This research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and by the National Football League Charities.
Washington University School of Medicine's full-time and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
Studying mice with knee ligament injuries, the team discovered cigarette smoking impairs the recruitment of cells to the injury site and delays healing following ligament-repair surgery. They reported their findings in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research.
The researchers looked at the mouse medial collateral ligament (MCL), a ligament that supports the knee joint in both mice and people. Each year in the United States there are more than 20 million reported ligament injuries, and MCL injuries are the most common. They also are the most common injuries seen in competitive and recreational sports. It's not clear exactly how many MCL injuries occur annually because many go unreported.
"A lot of MCL injuries never make it to an emergency room because patients will have a sore knee but don't seek treatment," says Rick W. Wright, M.D., associate professor of orthopaedic surgery and a senior investigator on the MCL study.
Previous studies have demonstrated that the mouse provides a good paradigm for what happens in injured human knees.
"This is a good model for knee ligament injury, but it could be a model for ligament injuries anywhere in the body," says co-investigator Linda J. Sandell, Ph.D., professor of orthopaedic surgery. "It's likely the biology is transferable to other knee ligaments, elbow ligaments, shoulder ligaments, you name it."
To look at the effects of smoking, Sandell, Wright and their colleagues used a system developed at the School of Medicine in which mice are placed inside smoking chambers six days per week. The mice don't actually have cigarettes in their mouths, but they get enough passive fumes to "smoke" two cigarettes daily, the equivalent of a person smoking about four packs per day. Mice were placed in the smoking chambers for two months prior to MCL surgery and then again after surgery to mimic the behavior of humans who continue to smoke following an injury.
The researchers say athletes who smoke should keep these findings in mind before driving for a lay-up, sliding into second base or lacing up a pair of ice skates.
The soft tissue healing that occurs following ligament injuries occurs in stages. There is an immediate pooling of blood near the injury, the sort of hemorrhaging that will cause swelling right away. This initial response is followed by several days of inflammation, in which cells called macrophages flock to the injury site and secrete substances called cytokines and chemokines. Those, in turn, recruit more cells to assist in healing. That process of cellular proliferation and synthesis lasts for several days to several weeks. The final stage of healing involves remodeling of the tissue and can continue for months and even years.
An earlier study found an increase in cell density and in gene activity to produce type I collagen in the first week following MCL injury, so in this study the researchers paid close attention to cell density, biomechanical function and gene expression during the first week after MCL repair. In mice exposed to cigarette smoke, cell density was lower and type I collagen gene expression was reduced.
"Our studies also have shown a decreased macrophage response that may help explain why we see this delayed or decreased healing response," Wright says.
Between 20 and 25 percent of the U.S. population smokes. Wright and Sandell say that although the prevalence of smoking among athletes is slightly lower, a significant percentage of recreational and even professional athletes continue to smoke. Many others use chewing tobacco, which may cause some of the same effects. But that's not yet clear since the mice in this study were exposed to smoke rather than to nicotine only.
"There are two ways to do smoking studies in animal models," Sandell explains. "One looks only at a single component, like nicotine. The other way is to use a method like the one we employed that includes all of the toxins found in smoke. We think exposing the mice to cigarette smoke itself is most relevant because when people smoke, they don't get individual components. They get everything."
Sandell and Wright say their findings point to yet another reason smokers would do well to quit.
"Many patients don't want to hear it, but these results suggest that smoking affects anyone who needs ligament-repair surgery." Wright says. "I counsel surgery patients to at least try to decrease smoking because, if nothing else, that will improve the healing of their surgical incisions. Quitting smoking is good health management regardless, but in patients having this kind of surgery, there are extra advantages."
Wright and Sandell are conducting more studies. Currently they are comparing mice exposed to smoke before MCL surgery to those exposed both before and after surgery to see whether ending smoking might assist ligament healing.
"Because ligament injuries usually occur suddenly, it's unlikely people will stop smoking until after their injury," Sandell says. "So we want to learn whether smoking cessation near the time of surgery might help reverse the healing delays we saw in this study."
Gill CS, Sandell LJ, El-Zawawy HB, Wright RW. Effects of cigarette smoking on early medial collateral ligament healing in a mouse model. Journal of Orthopaedic Research, vol. 24, pp. 2141-2149. Dec. 2006.
This research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and by the National Football League Charities.
Washington University School of Medicine's full-time and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
Inhaling from just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction
A new study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine shows that 10 percent of youth who become hooked on cigarettes are addicted within two days of first inhaling from a cigarette, and 25 percent are addicted within a month. The study found that adolescents who smoke even just a few cigarettes per month suffer withdrawal symptoms when deprived of nicotine, a startling finding that is contrary to long-held beliefs that only people with established smoking habits of at least five cigarettes per day experience such symptoms.
The study monitored 1,246 sixth-grade students in six Massachusetts communities over four years. Students were interviewed frequently about smoking and symptoms of addiction, such as difficulty quitting, strong urges to smoke, or nicotine withdrawal symptoms such as cravings, restlessness, irritability, and trouble concentrating. Of those who were hooked, half were already addicted by the time they were smoking seven cigarettes per month. As amazing as it may seem, some youth find they are unable to quit smoking after just a few cigarettes. This confirms an earlier study by the same researchers.
Recent research has revealed that the nicotine from one cigarette is enough to saturate the nicotine receptors in the human brain. "Laboratory experiments confirm that nicotine alters the structure and function of the brain within a day of the very first dose. In humans, nicotine-induced alterations in the brain can trigger addiction with the first cigarette," commented Joseph R. DiFranza, MD, professor of family medicine & community health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and leader of the UMMS research team. "Nobody expects to get addicted from smoking one cigarette." Many smokers struggle for a lifetime trying to overcome nicotine addiction. The National Institutes of Health estimates that as many as 6.4 million children who are living today will die prematurely as adults because they began to smoke cigarettes during adolescence.
"While smoking one cigarette will keep withdrawal symptoms away for less than an hour in long-time smokers, novice smokers find that one cigarette suppresses withdrawal for weeks at a time," explained Dr. DiFranza. "One dose of nicotine affects brain function long after the nicotine is gone from the body. The important lesson here is that youth have all the same symptoms of nicotine addiction as adults do, even though they may be smoking only a few cigarettes per month."
Symptoms of nicotine addiction can appear when youth are smoking as little as one cigarette per month. At first, one cigarette will relieve the craving produced by nicotine withdrawal for weeks, but as tolerance to nicotine builds, the smoker finds that he or she must smoke ever more frequently to cope with withdrawal.
According to DiFranza, the addiction-related changes in the brain caused by nicotine are permanent and remain years after a smoker has quit. This explains why one cigarette can trigger an immediate relapse in an ex-smoker. It also explains why an ex-smoker who relapses after many years of abstinence cannot keep the craving away by smoking one cigarette per month. Unlike the newly addicted novice smoker, a newly relapsed smoker must smoke several cigarettes each day to cope with the craving.
The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and appears in the July issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. According to the National Institutes of Health, smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, accounting for approximately 440,000 deaths annually.
DiFranza worked on this study with UMMS colleagues Judith K. Ockene, PhD, Judith A. Savageau, MPH, Kenneth Fletcher, PhD, Lori Pbert, PhD, Jennifer Hazelton, BA, Karen Friedman, BA, Gretchen Dussault, BA, and Connie Wood, MSW; Jennifer O'Loughlin, PhD, of McGill University; Ann D. McNeill, PhD, of St. George's Hospital Medical School at the University of London; and Robert J. Wellman of both UMMS and Fitchburg State College.
About the University of Massachusetts Medical School
The University of Massachusetts Medical School is one of five campuses of the University system and one of the fastest growing academic health centers in the country, attracting more than $174 million in research funding annually. It encompasses the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Graduate School of Nursing, a thriving research enterprise and an innovative public service initiative, and perennially listed among the top ten percent in the annual US News & World Report ranking of primary care medical schools. The mission of UMass Medical School is to serve the people of the Commonwealth through national distinction in health sciences education, research and public service.
The study monitored 1,246 sixth-grade students in six Massachusetts communities over four years. Students were interviewed frequently about smoking and symptoms of addiction, such as difficulty quitting, strong urges to smoke, or nicotine withdrawal symptoms such as cravings, restlessness, irritability, and trouble concentrating. Of those who were hooked, half were already addicted by the time they were smoking seven cigarettes per month. As amazing as it may seem, some youth find they are unable to quit smoking after just a few cigarettes. This confirms an earlier study by the same researchers.
Recent research has revealed that the nicotine from one cigarette is enough to saturate the nicotine receptors in the human brain. "Laboratory experiments confirm that nicotine alters the structure and function of the brain within a day of the very first dose. In humans, nicotine-induced alterations in the brain can trigger addiction with the first cigarette," commented Joseph R. DiFranza, MD, professor of family medicine & community health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and leader of the UMMS research team. "Nobody expects to get addicted from smoking one cigarette." Many smokers struggle for a lifetime trying to overcome nicotine addiction. The National Institutes of Health estimates that as many as 6.4 million children who are living today will die prematurely as adults because they began to smoke cigarettes during adolescence.
"While smoking one cigarette will keep withdrawal symptoms away for less than an hour in long-time smokers, novice smokers find that one cigarette suppresses withdrawal for weeks at a time," explained Dr. DiFranza. "One dose of nicotine affects brain function long after the nicotine is gone from the body. The important lesson here is that youth have all the same symptoms of nicotine addiction as adults do, even though they may be smoking only a few cigarettes per month."
Symptoms of nicotine addiction can appear when youth are smoking as little as one cigarette per month. At first, one cigarette will relieve the craving produced by nicotine withdrawal for weeks, but as tolerance to nicotine builds, the smoker finds that he or she must smoke ever more frequently to cope with withdrawal.
According to DiFranza, the addiction-related changes in the brain caused by nicotine are permanent and remain years after a smoker has quit. This explains why one cigarette can trigger an immediate relapse in an ex-smoker. It also explains why an ex-smoker who relapses after many years of abstinence cannot keep the craving away by smoking one cigarette per month. Unlike the newly addicted novice smoker, a newly relapsed smoker must smoke several cigarettes each day to cope with the craving.
The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and appears in the July issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. According to the National Institutes of Health, smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, accounting for approximately 440,000 deaths annually.
DiFranza worked on this study with UMMS colleagues Judith K. Ockene, PhD, Judith A. Savageau, MPH, Kenneth Fletcher, PhD, Lori Pbert, PhD, Jennifer Hazelton, BA, Karen Friedman, BA, Gretchen Dussault, BA, and Connie Wood, MSW; Jennifer O'Loughlin, PhD, of McGill University; Ann D. McNeill, PhD, of St. George's Hospital Medical School at the University of London; and Robert J. Wellman of both UMMS and Fitchburg State College.
About the University of Massachusetts Medical School
The University of Massachusetts Medical School is one of five campuses of the University system and one of the fastest growing academic health centers in the country, attracting more than $174 million in research funding annually. It encompasses the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Graduate School of Nursing, a thriving research enterprise and an innovative public service initiative, and perennially listed among the top ten percent in the annual US News & World Report ranking of primary care medical schools. The mission of UMass Medical School is to serve the people of the Commonwealth through national distinction in health sciences education, research and public service.
Brussels plans safer cigarettes across EU
The European Commissions is expected to propose before the end of this year that all cigarettes sold across the EU should be self-extinguishing to help prevent smoke-related domestic fires that kill around 2,000 Europeans each year.
The commission is set to ban traditional cigarettes by 2009-10, according to UK daily the Guardian, forcing smokers to only use "fire-safe" cigarettes. These will stop burning automatically if they are not regularly puffed on with small gaps in the cigarette paper cutting the circulation of oxygen.
Numbers received from most of the EU member states show that about 2,000 people across Europe are killed every year in house fires caused by cigarettes and a further 7,500 injured.
Several accidents happen when smokers fall asleep on the sofa with a lit cigarette or when smoking in bed.
"There have already been discussions with the various stakeholders such as the fire-safety authorities, the tobacco industry and consumer groups. There is general support across the board," one commission official told the Reuters news agency.
An product safety committee met last month and is expected to then vote at its next meeting, in November, to ask CEN - the European Committee for Standardization which regulates the quality of all consumer products sold in Europe - to devise an EU-wide standard for "fire-safe" cigarettes.
New York State in the US was the first place to legislate on fire-safe cigarettes, while Canada and eight other US states have already followed suit. Australia is considering passing a similar law.
Menthol Cigarette Smokers May Have More Difficulty Quitting Smoking
Menthol and non-menthol cigarettes appear to be equally harmful to the arteries and to lung function, but smokers of menthols may be less likely to attempt or succeed at quitting, according to a report in the September 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Cigarette smoking causes about 440,000 deaths in the United States each year, according to background information in the article. African Americans tend to smoke less than European Americans, but have disproportionately high rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and other smoking-related illnesses. "For a variety of historical and cultural reasons, including targeted advertising by the tobacco industry, African American smokers are much more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than European American smokers (approximately 70 percent vs. 30 percent)," the authors write. Menthol is a mint-flavored compound derived from peppermint oil that could potentially increase the harm caused by cigarettes through a variety of biological mechanisms. "If menthol cigarettes were more harmful than non-menthol cigarettes, the higher exposure to menthol cigarette smoke among African American smokers could help explain racial/ethnic disparities in disease rates."
Mark J. Pletcher, M.D., M.P.H., University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues examined this hypothesis in 1,535 smokers who were part of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. The researchers measured the association between exposure to menthol cigarettes and smoking cessation (quitting); coronary calcification, or a build-up of calcium in the arteries leading to the heart that is a sign of coronary artery disease; and change in pulmonary (lung) function over a 10-year period. Participants were women and men age 18 to 30 at the beginning of the study, in 1985. Each underwent a medical examination and answered questions about demographics and smoking habits in 1985 and again two, five, seven, 10 and 15 years later.
Among the smokers, 808 were women and 727 men. In 1985, 972 (63 percent) preferred menthol cigarettes and 563 (36 percent) preferred non-menthol cigarettes; 89 percent of African Americans, compared with 29 percent of European Americans, smoked menthol cigarettes. Menthol smokers were also more likely to be younger, female and unemployed, to have a lower level of education and a higher body mass index, and to drink less alcohol and smoke fewer cigarettes per day.
Those who smoked menthol cigarettes in 1985 were more likely to still be smoking at follow-up examinations - in 2000, for example, 69 percent were still smokers vs. 54 percent of non-menthol smokers. However, once the researchers factored in other social and demographic variables, most of this difference was explained by the fact that African Americans were both more likely to smoke menthols and less likely to quit smoking. "Among smokers who tried to quit, menthol seemed unrelated to quitting, but menthol was associated with a lower likelihood of trying to quit in the first place," the authors write. Analyzing the data over time, they found that menthol smokers were almost twice as likely to relapse after quitting and also were less likely to stop for a sustained period of time. Both coronary calcification and a decline in lung function over 10 years were associated with the number of cigarettes smoked, but whether the cigarettes were menthol or not did not appear to make a difference.
"Mentholation of cigarettes does not seem to explain disparities in ischemic heart disease and obstructive pulmonary disease between African Americans and European Americans in the United States but may partially explain lower rates of smoking cessation among African American smokers," the authors conclude. "It is possible, therefore, that switching from menthol cigarettes to non-menthol cigarettes might facilitate subsequent smoking cessation, especially in African Americans, and thereby reduce tobacco-related health disparities."
The commission is set to ban traditional cigarettes by 2009-10, according to UK daily the Guardian, forcing smokers to only use "fire-safe" cigarettes. These will stop burning automatically if they are not regularly puffed on with small gaps in the cigarette paper cutting the circulation of oxygen.
Numbers received from most of the EU member states show that about 2,000 people across Europe are killed every year in house fires caused by cigarettes and a further 7,500 injured.
Several accidents happen when smokers fall asleep on the sofa with a lit cigarette or when smoking in bed.
"There have already been discussions with the various stakeholders such as the fire-safety authorities, the tobacco industry and consumer groups. There is general support across the board," one commission official told the Reuters news agency.
An product safety committee met last month and is expected to then vote at its next meeting, in November, to ask CEN - the European Committee for Standardization which regulates the quality of all consumer products sold in Europe - to devise an EU-wide standard for "fire-safe" cigarettes.
New York State in the US was the first place to legislate on fire-safe cigarettes, while Canada and eight other US states have already followed suit. Australia is considering passing a similar law.
Menthol Cigarette Smokers May Have More Difficulty Quitting Smoking
Menthol and non-menthol cigarettes appear to be equally harmful to the arteries and to lung function, but smokers of menthols may be less likely to attempt or succeed at quitting, according to a report in the September 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Cigarette smoking causes about 440,000 deaths in the United States each year, according to background information in the article. African Americans tend to smoke less than European Americans, but have disproportionately high rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and other smoking-related illnesses. "For a variety of historical and cultural reasons, including targeted advertising by the tobacco industry, African American smokers are much more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than European American smokers (approximately 70 percent vs. 30 percent)," the authors write. Menthol is a mint-flavored compound derived from peppermint oil that could potentially increase the harm caused by cigarettes through a variety of biological mechanisms. "If menthol cigarettes were more harmful than non-menthol cigarettes, the higher exposure to menthol cigarette smoke among African American smokers could help explain racial/ethnic disparities in disease rates."
Mark J. Pletcher, M.D., M.P.H., University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues examined this hypothesis in 1,535 smokers who were part of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. The researchers measured the association between exposure to menthol cigarettes and smoking cessation (quitting); coronary calcification, or a build-up of calcium in the arteries leading to the heart that is a sign of coronary artery disease; and change in pulmonary (lung) function over a 10-year period. Participants were women and men age 18 to 30 at the beginning of the study, in 1985. Each underwent a medical examination and answered questions about demographics and smoking habits in 1985 and again two, five, seven, 10 and 15 years later.
Among the smokers, 808 were women and 727 men. In 1985, 972 (63 percent) preferred menthol cigarettes and 563 (36 percent) preferred non-menthol cigarettes; 89 percent of African Americans, compared with 29 percent of European Americans, smoked menthol cigarettes. Menthol smokers were also more likely to be younger, female and unemployed, to have a lower level of education and a higher body mass index, and to drink less alcohol and smoke fewer cigarettes per day.
Those who smoked menthol cigarettes in 1985 were more likely to still be smoking at follow-up examinations - in 2000, for example, 69 percent were still smokers vs. 54 percent of non-menthol smokers. However, once the researchers factored in other social and demographic variables, most of this difference was explained by the fact that African Americans were both more likely to smoke menthols and less likely to quit smoking. "Among smokers who tried to quit, menthol seemed unrelated to quitting, but menthol was associated with a lower likelihood of trying to quit in the first place," the authors write. Analyzing the data over time, they found that menthol smokers were almost twice as likely to relapse after quitting and also were less likely to stop for a sustained period of time. Both coronary calcification and a decline in lung function over 10 years were associated with the number of cigarettes smoked, but whether the cigarettes were menthol or not did not appear to make a difference.
"Mentholation of cigarettes does not seem to explain disparities in ischemic heart disease and obstructive pulmonary disease between African Americans and European Americans in the United States but may partially explain lower rates of smoking cessation among African American smokers," the authors conclude. "It is possible, therefore, that switching from menthol cigarettes to non-menthol cigarettes might facilitate subsequent smoking cessation, especially in African Americans, and thereby reduce tobacco-related health disparities."
Smokers turn to lasers to quit
Laser therapy seen as alternative to pills
In the past 40 years, Jerry Sandvig has smoked nearly 300,000 cigarettes. In the past week, she has smoked zero, and she doesn't miss them at all.
"I have no craving for cigarettes," she said. "It's like a miracle for me."
Before, Sandvig has felt cravings when trying to quit.
She felt them when using the nicotine patch. She felt them with the nicotine gum. She was nauseous and sick all day, as about 30 percent are, when she tried Pfizer's drug Chantix.
She couldn't quit for a day on those treatments, unlike the one she received last week.
The 68-year-old couldn't even quit last year after her brother, 64, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Doctors also have diagnosed her with the disease, and she's struggled breathing. About 80 to 90 percent of deaths from the disease are caused by smoking, according to the American Lung Association.
In the end, Sandvig turned to lasers after her two children, Sean and Jackie, begged her to get the treatment from Derek Vest, CEO of Laser Solutions. They even paid for the procedure.
Vest was 34 when he sold a respiratory care business which had placed him in direct contact with the health effects of smoking.
"I took care of thousands of patients ... once you are on oxygen, you are on it for the rest of your life," Vest said of his former clients. "Stopping people from smoking is great."
Dealing with "insane boredom" after selling his business, Vest began searching for a new venture. Three years later, he learned of the laser therapy that helped four of his sisters' friends kick the habit.
"I said, 'you know, if it's real this would be the greatest business in the world,'" said Vest, whose sister, a nonsmoker, acted as a guinea pig to determine whether the therapy was real.
The therapy, which has been around for three decades in Canada and Europe, involves shooting painless Food and Drug Administration-approved lasers at 23 points on the body. Researchers believe this causes the brain to release chemicals in a way similar to when someone smokes a cigarette.
"She came out and she called me and she sounded just trashed," Vest said of his sister after the treatment. "I said, 'Oh my God, it works.' I was like, 'Wow, a real physiological response.'"
Today, the year-old company has six offices, including locations in Fort Myers and Naples.
The therapy is a "medical procedure in the state of Florida," according to Vest.
That means it is overseen by a medical doctor who has analyzed and approved every part of the therapy, from when patients enter the door to when they leave cigarette-free.
Several hundred physicians recommend patients to the company, said Vest, and two hospitals with smoke-free campuses offer the service to their employees.
"Well, from no locations a year ago to six, that's no record, but, hey, it's good," Vest said. "I'd say we're off to a very good start."
The word, "success" often isn't heard among smoking cessation professionals, but Vest believes laser therapy is the exception.
He shared a survey conducted by the Valor Laser Institute of 248 laser therapy patients randomly selected from a group of 2,480. After 90 days of treatment, 61 percent reported they still weren't smoking.
Chantix, a drug developed by Pfizer Inc., works by blocking nicotine receptors in the brain. It must be taken every day, costs hundreds of dollars, causes nausea in 30 percent of users and has another unusual side effect: abnormal dreams.
"The most vivid, horrific nightmares you could ever imagine," Vest said.
Pfizer conducted a clinical study of its drug and a competing drug known as Zyban, also known as Welbutrin.
After 12 weeks, 40 percent of users still had quit with Chantix and 30 percent with Zyban. Clinical studies of the nicotine patch have found 24th-week success rates of between 8 and 27 percent.
Dr. Mitchell Petusevsky of Medical Surgical Specialists in Naples, a board certified pulmonary and critical care specialist, doesn't recommend laser therapy to his patients that smoke because there are no published, clinical studies reporting more success with the treatment than the sugar pill.
"There is no indication that that form of therapy is any more beneficial than placebo," Petusevsky said. "As a specialist who deals with patients who smoke all the time, for me, anything that works, anything that gets a patient off cigarettes is great. So, if that particular technique works for a particular patient, that's fine."
Sandvig and the many others who smoke experience withdrawal symptoms when they quit that are muted for up to four weeks with the therapy, Vest said.
Sandvig said that, without the laser therapy, she would get "mean" and "nervous" when quitting.
The cost for the therapy, including up to three one-hour treatments, is $295. Patients usually only require one of the three treatments provided in the basic package.
A one-year follow up plan, which includes behavior consultations and additional treatments as needed is $99. Vest said none of his patients have requested a second round of treatment.
Despite relegating the therapy to the realms of alternative medicine where other treatments such as accupuncture, chiropractic care and herbal supplements reside, Petusevsky was encouraging to those who, irregardless of the medical literature, choose the therapy.
"Anything that we can do to try and get patients off this terrible habit, which is the single most important preventative cause of death and disability around the world today, I think is great" said Petusevsky, adding that it is estimated a billion people will die from smoking-related illness this century.
In the past 40 years, Jerry Sandvig has smoked nearly 300,000 cigarettes. In the past week, she has smoked zero, and she doesn't miss them at all.
"I have no craving for cigarettes," she said. "It's like a miracle for me."
Before, Sandvig has felt cravings when trying to quit.
She felt them when using the nicotine patch. She felt them with the nicotine gum. She was nauseous and sick all day, as about 30 percent are, when she tried Pfizer's drug Chantix.
She couldn't quit for a day on those treatments, unlike the one she received last week.
The 68-year-old couldn't even quit last year after her brother, 64, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Doctors also have diagnosed her with the disease, and she's struggled breathing. About 80 to 90 percent of deaths from the disease are caused by smoking, according to the American Lung Association.
In the end, Sandvig turned to lasers after her two children, Sean and Jackie, begged her to get the treatment from Derek Vest, CEO of Laser Solutions. They even paid for the procedure.
Vest was 34 when he sold a respiratory care business which had placed him in direct contact with the health effects of smoking.
"I took care of thousands of patients ... once you are on oxygen, you are on it for the rest of your life," Vest said of his former clients. "Stopping people from smoking is great."
Dealing with "insane boredom" after selling his business, Vest began searching for a new venture. Three years later, he learned of the laser therapy that helped four of his sisters' friends kick the habit.
"I said, 'you know, if it's real this would be the greatest business in the world,'" said Vest, whose sister, a nonsmoker, acted as a guinea pig to determine whether the therapy was real.
The therapy, which has been around for three decades in Canada and Europe, involves shooting painless Food and Drug Administration-approved lasers at 23 points on the body. Researchers believe this causes the brain to release chemicals in a way similar to when someone smokes a cigarette.
"She came out and she called me and she sounded just trashed," Vest said of his sister after the treatment. "I said, 'Oh my God, it works.' I was like, 'Wow, a real physiological response.'"
Today, the year-old company has six offices, including locations in Fort Myers and Naples.
The therapy is a "medical procedure in the state of Florida," according to Vest.
That means it is overseen by a medical doctor who has analyzed and approved every part of the therapy, from when patients enter the door to when they leave cigarette-free.
Several hundred physicians recommend patients to the company, said Vest, and two hospitals with smoke-free campuses offer the service to their employees.
"Well, from no locations a year ago to six, that's no record, but, hey, it's good," Vest said. "I'd say we're off to a very good start."
The word, "success" often isn't heard among smoking cessation professionals, but Vest believes laser therapy is the exception.
He shared a survey conducted by the Valor Laser Institute of 248 laser therapy patients randomly selected from a group of 2,480. After 90 days of treatment, 61 percent reported they still weren't smoking.
Chantix, a drug developed by Pfizer Inc., works by blocking nicotine receptors in the brain. It must be taken every day, costs hundreds of dollars, causes nausea in 30 percent of users and has another unusual side effect: abnormal dreams.
"The most vivid, horrific nightmares you could ever imagine," Vest said.
Pfizer conducted a clinical study of its drug and a competing drug known as Zyban, also known as Welbutrin.
After 12 weeks, 40 percent of users still had quit with Chantix and 30 percent with Zyban. Clinical studies of the nicotine patch have found 24th-week success rates of between 8 and 27 percent.
Dr. Mitchell Petusevsky of Medical Surgical Specialists in Naples, a board certified pulmonary and critical care specialist, doesn't recommend laser therapy to his patients that smoke because there are no published, clinical studies reporting more success with the treatment than the sugar pill.
"There is no indication that that form of therapy is any more beneficial than placebo," Petusevsky said. "As a specialist who deals with patients who smoke all the time, for me, anything that works, anything that gets a patient off cigarettes is great. So, if that particular technique works for a particular patient, that's fine."
Sandvig and the many others who smoke experience withdrawal symptoms when they quit that are muted for up to four weeks with the therapy, Vest said.
Sandvig said that, without the laser therapy, she would get "mean" and "nervous" when quitting.
The cost for the therapy, including up to three one-hour treatments, is $295. Patients usually only require one of the three treatments provided in the basic package.
A one-year follow up plan, which includes behavior consultations and additional treatments as needed is $99. Vest said none of his patients have requested a second round of treatment.
Despite relegating the therapy to the realms of alternative medicine where other treatments such as accupuncture, chiropractic care and herbal supplements reside, Petusevsky was encouraging to those who, irregardless of the medical literature, choose the therapy.
"Anything that we can do to try and get patients off this terrible habit, which is the single most important preventative cause of death and disability around the world today, I think is great" said Petusevsky, adding that it is estimated a billion people will die from smoking-related illness this century.
Information about Discount Cigarettes
Cigarettes in today"s life play a very important role. Cigarettes have their own History, Culture, Industry, and they will always have customers, this is something without what people can"t live.Tobacco is used by million of people allover the world. Now Tobacco industry is very developed, a lot of the country have their own Tobacco industry, culture. In today"s life people can get cigarettes without a hitch, you can buy it from internet, and they will bring it right to your home. But how it was on the beginning?
Native Americans used tobacco before Europeans arrived in North & South America, and early European settlers in North & South America learned to smoke and brought the practice back to Europe, where it became hugely popular. In 1609, John Rolfe arrived at the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia. He is credited as the first man to successfully raise tobacco for commercial use at Jamestown.
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in genus Nicotine. It is commercially available in dried and cured forms and is often smoked.
The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any warm, moist environment, which means it is farmed on all continents except Antarctica.
Tobacco is a commodity product similar in economic terms to foodstuffs in that the price is set by the fact that crop yields vary depending on local weather conditions. The price varies by specific species grown, the total quantity on the market ready for sale, the area where it was grown, the health of the plants, and other characteristics individual to product quality.
Now in the world are millions of cigarettes company, but most popular are the Cheapest one, the price is perfect and the quality is not worse that expensive cigarettes.
This industry is heavily dominated by giant firms and state-owned tobacco monopolies.
Since the introduction of tobacco to the world at large in the 1500s, a smoking culture has built around it, and is evident in many parts of the world to this day.
Some people have an attraction to the glamorous aspect of smoking, and there are those who believe that done in moderation, smoking can enhance their allure. Historically considered a masculine habit, the feminization of smoking occurred with the advent of fashion brands or premium brands of cigarettes specifically marketed to appeal to women, who might see the use of these brands as a way to increase their sexual appeal. Most often this effort is focused on young fashion-conscious professional ladies who are the target demographic for these brands, which are differentiated by slimness, added length, and occasionally color, over traditional brands of cigarettes. As smoking was once a fairly integral part of society, this attraction cannot in all senses be considered a fetish or perihelia.
The cigarettes have also avail, like:
1) Cigarettes take off the stress, pressure, tension
2) If you remark most of the photo model, fashion people smoke, cigarettes also fight with your weight.
Buying cheap discount cigarettes is no more a taboo following recent hikes in taxes hitting all that who smokes. Regardless of brand of cigarettes, it sure must have burnt a hole in your pocket, making everyone wish those tax free days were back.
Online sale of Cheap Cigarettes at discount price has come to rescue smokers so much that despite selling at cheap prices the websites are still making profits in millions. The usual reservations about the freshness of cigarettes, privacy of your personal details have long been overwhelmed by the genuineness of crisp packs that are delivered to you. Adherence to privacy, tax and age related legalities by online cheap cigarette sellers in addition to secure transaction are what made them popular for buying cigarettes cheap.
Nowadays it is possible to
Native Americans used tobacco before Europeans arrived in North & South America, and early European settlers in North & South America learned to smoke and brought the practice back to Europe, where it became hugely popular. In 1609, John Rolfe arrived at the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia. He is credited as the first man to successfully raise tobacco for commercial use at Jamestown.
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in genus Nicotine. It is commercially available in dried and cured forms and is often smoked.
The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any warm, moist environment, which means it is farmed on all continents except Antarctica.
Tobacco is a commodity product similar in economic terms to foodstuffs in that the price is set by the fact that crop yields vary depending on local weather conditions. The price varies by specific species grown, the total quantity on the market ready for sale, the area where it was grown, the health of the plants, and other characteristics individual to product quality.
Now in the world are millions of cigarettes company, but most popular are the Cheapest one, the price is perfect and the quality is not worse that expensive cigarettes.
This industry is heavily dominated by giant firms and state-owned tobacco monopolies.
Since the introduction of tobacco to the world at large in the 1500s, a smoking culture has built around it, and is evident in many parts of the world to this day.
Some people have an attraction to the glamorous aspect of smoking, and there are those who believe that done in moderation, smoking can enhance their allure. Historically considered a masculine habit, the feminization of smoking occurred with the advent of fashion brands or premium brands of cigarettes specifically marketed to appeal to women, who might see the use of these brands as a way to increase their sexual appeal. Most often this effort is focused on young fashion-conscious professional ladies who are the target demographic for these brands, which are differentiated by slimness, added length, and occasionally color, over traditional brands of cigarettes. As smoking was once a fairly integral part of society, this attraction cannot in all senses be considered a fetish or perihelia.
The cigarettes have also avail, like:
1) Cigarettes take off the stress, pressure, tension
2) If you remark most of the photo model, fashion people smoke, cigarettes also fight with your weight.
Buying cheap discount cigarettes is no more a taboo following recent hikes in taxes hitting all that who smokes. Regardless of brand of cigarettes, it sure must have burnt a hole in your pocket, making everyone wish those tax free days were back.
Online sale of Cheap Cigarettes at discount price has come to rescue smokers so much that despite selling at cheap prices the websites are still making profits in millions. The usual reservations about the freshness of cigarettes, privacy of your personal details have long been overwhelmed by the genuineness of crisp packs that are delivered to you. Adherence to privacy, tax and age related legalities by online cheap cigarette sellers in addition to secure transaction are what made them popular for buying cigarettes cheap.
Nowadays it is possible to
Glossary of Cigar Terms
Band- The ring of paper with the name of the cigar brand, wrapped near the closed head of the cigar and usually held on with a vegetable based glue.
Binder- The portion of a tobacco leaf that is rolled around the filler to hold it together.
Blend- A mixture of different types of cigar leaf tobacco, including up to four types of filler leaves, a binder and an outer wrapper.
Bloom- A fine white powder that forms on the wrapper of the cigar caused by the oils that exude from the tobacco. It can be gently brushed off with a small camel hairbrush, though there is no need to do this. Bloom indicates the cigar is alive, maturing as it should inside a well-maintained humidor. Bloom should not be confused with mold. Mold is a bluish-green and stains the wrapper. Mold usually indicates a humidor is too warm or has excessive levels of humidity.
Blue mold- Blue mold is a damaging fungus that forms on the tobacco leaf and can ruin the crop. Blue mold is a big problem when there's a lot of dampness or rain.
Bunch- The mix of filler and binder leaves before they are rolled into a wrapper.
Bundle- A method of packaging cigars using cellophane as opposed to a box. A bundle usually contains from 25 to 50 cigars and are less expensive than boxed cigars. Bundled cigars usually contain the seconds from premium brands.
Cap- A circular piece of wrapper leaf cigar tobacco that is placed at the head of the cigar to secure the wrapper. Cuban cigar caps have a distinctive three to four-layer circular look that distinguishes them from cheaper counterfeit look-a-likes.
Cutter- An instrument with a razor sharp blade used to remove the cap or flag from both machine made and hand made cigars.
Draw- The amount of air that gets pulled through a lighted cigar. It can be too easy (hot) or too tight (plugged).
Filler- The leaves of tobacco at the core of the cigar that provide a significant portion of its taste.
Flag- An alternative to a cap that involves shaping the wrapper leaf at the head of the cigar so that it secures the wrapper in place. Sometimes a flag can be tied off in a pigtail or curly head.
Foot- The open end of the cigar you light.
Hand-rolled- A cigar made entirely by hand, usually constructed with a high quality wrapper and long filler and binder as opposed to cut filler used in machine made and cigar seconds.
Head- the closed end of the cigar, or the end you cut and smoke.
Humidor- An entire room, or a box, that's designed to preserve and promote the proper storing of fragile cigars. An optimum humidity and temperature level in a humidor is 70/70, or 70 percent humidity and 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius).
Ligero- One of the three basic types of filler tobacco. The name means "light" in Spanish.
Long filler- A term used to designate filler tobacco that runs the length of the body of the cigar, as opposed chopped up pieces know as "cut-filler".
Machine made- A term that refers to cigars made entirely by machine and less expensive cigar tobacco.
Mold- The wooden form used by cigar rollers to give shape to a finished bunch of cigar tobacco.
Ring gauge- A standard industry measurement for the diameter of a cigar in 64ths of an inch. A 50-ring gauge cigar is 50/64ths of an inch thick.
Seco- One of three basic types of filler tobacco. The name means "dry" in Spanish.
Shade grown- Prime tobacco leaf grown under cheesecloth tenting called a "tapado" to produce a thin, elastic tobacco leaf that is most often used in premium cigars.
Binder- The portion of a tobacco leaf that is rolled around the filler to hold it together.
Blend- A mixture of different types of cigar leaf tobacco, including up to four types of filler leaves, a binder and an outer wrapper.
Bloom- A fine white powder that forms on the wrapper of the cigar caused by the oils that exude from the tobacco. It can be gently brushed off with a small camel hairbrush, though there is no need to do this. Bloom indicates the cigar is alive, maturing as it should inside a well-maintained humidor. Bloom should not be confused with mold. Mold is a bluish-green and stains the wrapper. Mold usually indicates a humidor is too warm or has excessive levels of humidity.
Blue mold- Blue mold is a damaging fungus that forms on the tobacco leaf and can ruin the crop. Blue mold is a big problem when there's a lot of dampness or rain.
Bunch- The mix of filler and binder leaves before they are rolled into a wrapper.
Bundle- A method of packaging cigars using cellophane as opposed to a box. A bundle usually contains from 25 to 50 cigars and are less expensive than boxed cigars. Bundled cigars usually contain the seconds from premium brands.
Cap- A circular piece of wrapper leaf cigar tobacco that is placed at the head of the cigar to secure the wrapper. Cuban cigar caps have a distinctive three to four-layer circular look that distinguishes them from cheaper counterfeit look-a-likes.
Cutter- An instrument with a razor sharp blade used to remove the cap or flag from both machine made and hand made cigars.
Draw- The amount of air that gets pulled through a lighted cigar. It can be too easy (hot) or too tight (plugged).
Filler- The leaves of tobacco at the core of the cigar that provide a significant portion of its taste.
Flag- An alternative to a cap that involves shaping the wrapper leaf at the head of the cigar so that it secures the wrapper in place. Sometimes a flag can be tied off in a pigtail or curly head.
Foot- The open end of the cigar you light.
Hand-rolled- A cigar made entirely by hand, usually constructed with a high quality wrapper and long filler and binder as opposed to cut filler used in machine made and cigar seconds.
Head- the closed end of the cigar, or the end you cut and smoke.
Humidor- An entire room, or a box, that's designed to preserve and promote the proper storing of fragile cigars. An optimum humidity and temperature level in a humidor is 70/70, or 70 percent humidity and 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius).
Ligero- One of the three basic types of filler tobacco. The name means "light" in Spanish.
Long filler- A term used to designate filler tobacco that runs the length of the body of the cigar, as opposed chopped up pieces know as "cut-filler".
Machine made- A term that refers to cigars made entirely by machine and less expensive cigar tobacco.
Mold- The wooden form used by cigar rollers to give shape to a finished bunch of cigar tobacco.
Ring gauge- A standard industry measurement for the diameter of a cigar in 64ths of an inch. A 50-ring gauge cigar is 50/64ths of an inch thick.
Seco- One of three basic types of filler tobacco. The name means "dry" in Spanish.
Shade grown- Prime tobacco leaf grown under cheesecloth tenting called a "tapado" to produce a thin, elastic tobacco leaf that is most often used in premium cigars.
Premium Cigars
Almirante
The value of this cigar becomes quite apparent once you try it. The rich Dominican filler is instantly recognized in this medium bodied blend. The hand made construction results in a cool, slow smoke that burns evenly throughout. Several sizes are also available in self humidified "multi-paks" that customers find to be very convenient. These keep the cigars fresh out of a humidor until you open the package and are ready to smoke them.
Arturo Fuente
A-Fuente Gran Reserva is more that just the finest smoking enjoyment a cigar lover can experience, it represents Four Generations of family tradition, that include love, pride, and personal sacrifices. Every A-Fuente cigar carries the personal family touch that makes it one of the world's finest.
Ashton
Ashton began as the house brand of the famous Philadelphia cigar merchant. The brand is made by the Fuente factory, and gets it rich, complex flavor from a blend of 6 different tobaccos.
Avo
The exquisite AVO cigars...
The exquisite AVO cigars are made from selected tobaccos,kept in store until they are fully mature. These contain a large proportion of a specially fermented, matured Piloto Cubano tobacco from the Dominican Republic.
C.A.O.
All of CAO's lines have received countless accolades and top notch ratings in all reviews. Their dedication to creating the perfect cigar has led them to release numerous, yet distinctly unique, lines of cigars along with special one-time limited releases. No matter which series you choose, you are assured of getting the best long filler and expert craftsmanship available in the Caribbean.
Carlos Torano
In 1916 Don Santiago Torano emigrated from Spain to Cuba. Santiago became involved in tobacco as a broker of leaf tobacco. Over the years he was blessed with having three sons, Jaime, Jose and Carlos. All of them became involved in the tobacco business. Over the years, the Torano family became one of the biggest and most well known growers of Cuban tobacco leaf. By the time of the revolution in 1959, the Torano family owned and operated approximately 17 farms throughout Cuba. Today, they are the only family cigar business to own and operate 3 cigar factories in each of the leading cigar producing countries: Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic
Cohiba
As Early as 1496, the word Cohiba(R) was used by the natives of Hispanolia (part of the Dominican Republic) to describe the cured leaves of tobacco they smoked for pleasure. While sailing with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage, Romanus Pane, a spanish monk, wrote of his incident and gave us the name cohiba. The fertile soil and ideal climate of the Dominican Republic, Cohiba was first smoked, over 500 years ago, makes it an ideal source for fine tobaccos.
Davidoff Cigars
Davidoff epitomizes uncompromised quality and workmanship.
Dunhill
Recognized throughout the world as one of the finest cigars available. Their creamy, mellow flavor is due to a blend of Dominican and Brazilian filler leaves, and a Connecticut shade grown wrapper.
Excalibur
An extremely well-crafted cigar, Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur is a superb example of Villazon craftsmanship. Lighter in color than a Cuban cigar as a result of its fine Connecticut Shade wrapper, the cigar's rich Honduran blend is very much in the Cuban tradition. In keeping with the quality of Excalibur, the cigars are packed in boюД? nature boxes crafted of Spanish cedar.
Gurkha
The Gurkha Master Select series is genuine Cuban look alike (and "taste-alike"). The Cuban-seed, Dominican-grown long filler tobaccos,rival the leaf from the esteemed Cuban Vuelta Abajo. The five year-old Connecticut Shade wrapper provides an added dimension to this complex blend.
The cigars are packaged in high quality mahogany boxes of 25. A true top of the line product that will result in one wondering what all the fuss is about Cubans.
H.Upmann
The name recalls distinguished quality and the finest flavor of old Havana premium cigars. For more than a century and a half, H . Upmann has come readily to the lips of cigar connoisseurs. Today, the legend lives on in the rich, smooth satisfaction of hand made-made cigars that are unmistakably H. Upmann.
Henri Winterman
Henri Winterman's Cafe Creme are by far the most requested flavored cigar in the world...and for good reason. The smooth, mild cream flavoring is sure to please.
Hoyo De Monterrey
A full-bodied cigar in every way, the Honduran Hoyo de Monterrey is, in the judgment of many, more Cuban in character than the Cuban Hoyo. An authentic Honduran cigar from its head to its tuck, Hoyo de Monterrey is crafted with Cuban-seed tobacco carefully cultivated in the richest Honduran soil. And, mysteriously enough, the original seed was smuggled from Cuba in the secrecy of a diplomatic pouch.
Island Flavored Collection
The Island Collection is a series of handrolled cigars that combine exotic natural flavors and carefully aged tobaccos from all around the globe. Available in Rum, Mint, Amaretto and Vanilla.
La Gloria Cubana
La Gloria Cubana is the flagship mark of the El Credito factory. This brand is an excellent smoke. Its medium body yields delicate flavors of chocolate and cedar. This cigar is loved by beginners and experts alike.
Macanudo
La Gloria Cubana is the flagship mark of the El Credito factory. This brand is an excellent smoke. Its medium body yields delicate flavors of chocolate and cedar. This cigar is loved by beginners and experts alike.
Macanudo Vintage
In an occasional year, a Macanudo harvest of Connecticut Shade tobacco includes a small quantity of extraordinary leaves. Since such leaves surpass the highest premium standards, they are set aside to be cured and aged for super-premium Macanudo Vintage Cabinet Selections. A Macanudo Vintage Cabinet Selection cigar is the ultimate in mellowness and smoothness in two distinct ways. First, the wrapper is the rarest of all Connecticut Shade tobacco leaves. Second, all of the tobaccos used in crafting these extraordinary cigars are aged more gradually than any others.
Mike Ditka
Let me introduce you to the most exciting product I have seen in ages. The inspiration comes from a man who needs very little introduction from where I'm from. And everyone around here knows that Coach Ditka is always right
He is a world renowned athlete, celebrity spokesman, and restaurant proprietor. But his most famous contribution to date has been his crowning achievement of bringing the Chicago Bears an NFL Superbowl Championship. As a head coach, Mike Ditka always insisted on his players being the best they can be, bringing their best efforts to the game.
So, as a successful restaurant host, "Coach" knows that he has to bring the best foods and service to his customers. And Mike is no stranger to fine cigars. For years, he's been selling his own personal blend in his "Iron Mike" steakhouse. This custom blend was carefully chosen by Coach in order to provide the exact characteristics that he wants in a cigar, and judging by its success at the restaurant, he must be doing something right. But sadly, the only way to try one of these cigars was to procure them directly at Iron Mikes, in Chicago. The cigar is constructed from a blend of Nicaraguan and Dominican long filler leaf, and finished with a silky, shiny Claro wrapper. The result is a very sophisticated blend, that is complex, yet never overpowering. Many of the regulars at Iron Mikes have said that this has become their regular cigar, and they routinely stop in just to pick up more. But all that's changed, because I told Mike that everyones got to try one of his cigars. So Mike drafted me as QB to bring'em to you. Now you no longer have to travel all the way to Chicago to enjoy this unique cigar.
These cigars are packaged in an brass hinged cabinet, constructed from heavy duty cedar. The presentation is extremely elegant, and makes avery attractive gift.
Montecristo
The world's most famous cigar trademark. Originated in Cuba, our Montecristo, now distributed in the U.S., is manufactured by hand in the Dominican Republic. Considered one of the finest cigars on the market, the Montecristo is blended for the true connoisseur. It is a medium to full bodied cigar with a sweet aroma and impeccable
Montecristo Millenium
Back in the middle of 1999, the folks at the Montecristo factory wanted to release a special cigar to commemorate the new millennium. So they produced a one-time run of a bold blend of special cigars wrapped with their prized habana2000 wrapper. This limited production cigar was only made in one a special size (7 x 50). They also decided to package these cigars in individual glass tubes, and placed them in a very special, hand lacquered box of 12. The box is adorned with a specially commissioned painting by the esteemed artist, Michel Delacroix. They even included a double blade cigar cutter with their emblem to complete the package.
We believe that our limited inventory of these special cigars are all that is left from the unique production run. Just like a fine wine, they are designated with the year of production, hence they were called the millennium cigar. Here is an opportunity to acquire finely aged premium cigars, at an affordable price. If you have been an aficionado for some time, you will remember other great vintage releases in the industry. Remember the Dunhill 1989's, the Macanudo 84 and 93's, and the Partagas 150's? which are selling today for more than 10 times their original list prices (if you can find them). Just like those other esteemed marks, the Montecristo 2000's will soon be gone forever.
Don't miss out on this great opportunity to put away a few boxes of this collector's item. They come in black, blue, and burgundy boxes, so choose the one you like the most, or get all 3 and save $200.
Can't decide which one to buy? Collect all three colors (Black, Burgandy, and Navy Blue) of this limited production run. Each one is a beauty.
Morocho
Morocho - the Mild-Blend Estate Grown Premium Morocho is the latest creation from Tabacalera Ovalle y Alba. It is constructed from a special blend of long-filler leaf that was grown within a mile of the factory, on a private plantation owned by the factory's founder, Bernardo Ovalle. The crop is then aged in a barn adjacent to the farm, and then brought over to the factory after the necessary aging and curing has been completed. It is finished with a Claro wrapper grown in Ecuador, providing a silky texture and aroma. The result is a cigar that achieves exactly what Bernardo Ovalles set out to do:a blend that is extremely mild, yet full of complexity and charm. If you enjoy mild cigars, we are sure that Morocho will become one of your favorites. And here's the best part: because the factory is able to grow the filler on its own fields, they do not have to purchase raw tobacco on the open market, and hence, are able to provide a very inexpensive package. We are proud to pass this savings on to you:a long filler, natural wrapper Dominican beauty for way under 2 bucks/stick!!!!!
Onyx
Onyx Reserve is a rich, full bodied, box-pressed maduro with a lovely aroma and beautifully packaged in an elegant cabinet-style hinged box.
Padron
Jose Padron is one of the most trusted names in the business. We'll let him tell you about his cigars: "We began manufacturing cigars in Miami in 1964. Our cigars are 100% handmade. We use only the best tobacco, grown from Cuban seeds in the carefully chosen valleys of Central America, for our wrapper, filler, and binder."
Partagas
The secret of today's rich Partagas cigars lies in their wrapper leaves. Grown in Cameroon, the Central West African country where the steaming, sub-tropical climate unique to the fourth parallel is ideal for growing superb wrapper leaves, the Cameroon wrapper has no equal for rich flavor.
Players Club
Hand-made in the Dominican Republic with a full-bodied Brazilian wrapper, surrounding a Dominican binder and a special blend of Dominican and Brazilian tobaccos, the new Players Club by Don Diego was made to satisfy the sophisticated smoker looking for a deep, stronger flavored cigar
Private Stock by Davidoff
The Private Stock Cigars are the factory seconds of Tabacos Dominicanos SA, the world-famous factory that produces Davidoff. The creamy,complex flavor that exudes from this cigar is cedary with a touch of white pepper. It's even burn produces a dark ash and the aroma is light and very enticing. Although it's considered a medium-bodied smoke, these are so mellow, you can smoke one early in the day.
Punch
Produced in Honduras for Villazon Company under the direction of a great Cuban cigar maker, Frank Llaneza, Punch has been a leading premium brand ever since it was first exported to the United States in 1969. Punch cigars live up to their name with a bold, full-bodied taste that appeals to those who put a premium on flavor. The filler is a rich blend of Honduran, Nicaraguan and Dominican tobaccos, the wrapper is a full-flavored leaf grown in Ecuador.
Romeo Y Julieta
This cigar's beautiful Indonesian wrapper surrounds a classic Dominican color binder and fillers. It burns with a characteristic white ash,providing a smooth, mellow taste with medium body. This cigar is for the experienced smoker who will find his ideal fit from among the complete selection of sizes and shapes.
The brand is also available in a special, Reserve Maduro series. With its dark, rich Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, Romeo y Julieta Reserve Maduros are the perfect complement to our world famous Romeo y Julieta line of cigars. A tasty Nicaraguan binder and a bold blend of Nicaraguan, Peruvian and Dominican long fillers finish out the cigar making for a deep, fuller bodied smoke boasting a lovely aroma and taste.
Romeo Y Julieta Vintage
A beautifully packaged selection of cigars in six shapes, each neatly nestled in a lacquered wooden box equipped with its own humidification device. A premium Connecticut wrapper and a Costa Rican binder contain a smooth blend of Dominican fillers. The discerning smoker will never tire of this superlative cigar.
Suarez Gran Reserve
A Blend of 5 tobaccos give this long filler Dominican cigar a smooth, complex, and yet mild blend. This cigar is recognized nationally and has received outstanding reviews in SMOKE magazine, comparing it to such prestigious lines as Romeo Y Julieta and Dunhill in a blind taste test. The elements for this unique blend were crafted decades ago, all the way back to 1945. These cigars are aged for at least 12 months before they are boxed up at their factory and shipped into customs. This incredibly patient process results in the tobacco being perfectly married. These "Gran Reserves" are ready to smoke and will provide the discriminating cigar buyer with one of the best values out there.
Te Amo Aniversario
The leaf for Te Amo is cultivated in Mexico's San Andres Valley, where the soil and climate of Cuba are nearly duplicated. For over 120 years, a family tradition of excellence has ensured it to be the country's finest offering.
The value of this cigar becomes quite apparent once you try it. The rich Dominican filler is instantly recognized in this medium bodied blend. The hand made construction results in a cool, slow smoke that burns evenly throughout. Several sizes are also available in self humidified "multi-paks" that customers find to be very convenient. These keep the cigars fresh out of a humidor until you open the package and are ready to smoke them.
Arturo Fuente
A-Fuente Gran Reserva is more that just the finest smoking enjoyment a cigar lover can experience, it represents Four Generations of family tradition, that include love, pride, and personal sacrifices. Every A-Fuente cigar carries the personal family touch that makes it one of the world's finest.
Ashton
Ashton began as the house brand of the famous Philadelphia cigar merchant. The brand is made by the Fuente factory, and gets it rich, complex flavor from a blend of 6 different tobaccos.
Avo
The exquisite AVO cigars...
The exquisite AVO cigars are made from selected tobaccos,kept in store until they are fully mature. These contain a large proportion of a specially fermented, matured Piloto Cubano tobacco from the Dominican Republic.
C.A.O.
All of CAO's lines have received countless accolades and top notch ratings in all reviews. Their dedication to creating the perfect cigar has led them to release numerous, yet distinctly unique, lines of cigars along with special one-time limited releases. No matter which series you choose, you are assured of getting the best long filler and expert craftsmanship available in the Caribbean.
Carlos Torano
In 1916 Don Santiago Torano emigrated from Spain to Cuba. Santiago became involved in tobacco as a broker of leaf tobacco. Over the years he was blessed with having three sons, Jaime, Jose and Carlos. All of them became involved in the tobacco business. Over the years, the Torano family became one of the biggest and most well known growers of Cuban tobacco leaf. By the time of the revolution in 1959, the Torano family owned and operated approximately 17 farms throughout Cuba. Today, they are the only family cigar business to own and operate 3 cigar factories in each of the leading cigar producing countries: Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic
Cohiba
As Early as 1496, the word Cohiba(R) was used by the natives of Hispanolia (part of the Dominican Republic) to describe the cured leaves of tobacco they smoked for pleasure. While sailing with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage, Romanus Pane, a spanish monk, wrote of his incident and gave us the name cohiba. The fertile soil and ideal climate of the Dominican Republic, Cohiba was first smoked, over 500 years ago, makes it an ideal source for fine tobaccos.
Davidoff Cigars
Davidoff epitomizes uncompromised quality and workmanship.
Dunhill
Recognized throughout the world as one of the finest cigars available. Their creamy, mellow flavor is due to a blend of Dominican and Brazilian filler leaves, and a Connecticut shade grown wrapper.
Excalibur
An extremely well-crafted cigar, Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur is a superb example of Villazon craftsmanship. Lighter in color than a Cuban cigar as a result of its fine Connecticut Shade wrapper, the cigar's rich Honduran blend is very much in the Cuban tradition. In keeping with the quality of Excalibur, the cigars are packed in boюД? nature boxes crafted of Spanish cedar.
Gurkha
The Gurkha Master Select series is genuine Cuban look alike (and "taste-alike"). The Cuban-seed, Dominican-grown long filler tobaccos,rival the leaf from the esteemed Cuban Vuelta Abajo. The five year-old Connecticut Shade wrapper provides an added dimension to this complex blend.
The cigars are packaged in high quality mahogany boxes of 25. A true top of the line product that will result in one wondering what all the fuss is about Cubans.
H.Upmann
The name recalls distinguished quality and the finest flavor of old Havana premium cigars. For more than a century and a half, H . Upmann has come readily to the lips of cigar connoisseurs. Today, the legend lives on in the rich, smooth satisfaction of hand made-made cigars that are unmistakably H. Upmann.
Henri Winterman
Henri Winterman's Cafe Creme are by far the most requested flavored cigar in the world...and for good reason. The smooth, mild cream flavoring is sure to please.
Hoyo De Monterrey
A full-bodied cigar in every way, the Honduran Hoyo de Monterrey is, in the judgment of many, more Cuban in character than the Cuban Hoyo. An authentic Honduran cigar from its head to its tuck, Hoyo de Monterrey is crafted with Cuban-seed tobacco carefully cultivated in the richest Honduran soil. And, mysteriously enough, the original seed was smuggled from Cuba in the secrecy of a diplomatic pouch.
Island Flavored Collection
The Island Collection is a series of handrolled cigars that combine exotic natural flavors and carefully aged tobaccos from all around the globe. Available in Rum, Mint, Amaretto and Vanilla.
La Gloria Cubana
La Gloria Cubana is the flagship mark of the El Credito factory. This brand is an excellent smoke. Its medium body yields delicate flavors of chocolate and cedar. This cigar is loved by beginners and experts alike.
Macanudo
La Gloria Cubana is the flagship mark of the El Credito factory. This brand is an excellent smoke. Its medium body yields delicate flavors of chocolate and cedar. This cigar is loved by beginners and experts alike.
Macanudo Vintage
In an occasional year, a Macanudo harvest of Connecticut Shade tobacco includes a small quantity of extraordinary leaves. Since such leaves surpass the highest premium standards, they are set aside to be cured and aged for super-premium Macanudo Vintage Cabinet Selections. A Macanudo Vintage Cabinet Selection cigar is the ultimate in mellowness and smoothness in two distinct ways. First, the wrapper is the rarest of all Connecticut Shade tobacco leaves. Second, all of the tobaccos used in crafting these extraordinary cigars are aged more gradually than any others.
Mike Ditka
Let me introduce you to the most exciting product I have seen in ages. The inspiration comes from a man who needs very little introduction from where I'm from. And everyone around here knows that Coach Ditka is always right
He is a world renowned athlete, celebrity spokesman, and restaurant proprietor. But his most famous contribution to date has been his crowning achievement of bringing the Chicago Bears an NFL Superbowl Championship. As a head coach, Mike Ditka always insisted on his players being the best they can be, bringing their best efforts to the game.
So, as a successful restaurant host, "Coach" knows that he has to bring the best foods and service to his customers. And Mike is no stranger to fine cigars. For years, he's been selling his own personal blend in his "Iron Mike" steakhouse. This custom blend was carefully chosen by Coach in order to provide the exact characteristics that he wants in a cigar, and judging by its success at the restaurant, he must be doing something right. But sadly, the only way to try one of these cigars was to procure them directly at Iron Mikes, in Chicago. The cigar is constructed from a blend of Nicaraguan and Dominican long filler leaf, and finished with a silky, shiny Claro wrapper. The result is a very sophisticated blend, that is complex, yet never overpowering. Many of the regulars at Iron Mikes have said that this has become their regular cigar, and they routinely stop in just to pick up more. But all that's changed, because I told Mike that everyones got to try one of his cigars. So Mike drafted me as QB to bring'em to you. Now you no longer have to travel all the way to Chicago to enjoy this unique cigar.
These cigars are packaged in an brass hinged cabinet, constructed from heavy duty cedar. The presentation is extremely elegant, and makes avery attractive gift.
Montecristo
The world's most famous cigar trademark. Originated in Cuba, our Montecristo, now distributed in the U.S., is manufactured by hand in the Dominican Republic. Considered one of the finest cigars on the market, the Montecristo is blended for the true connoisseur. It is a medium to full bodied cigar with a sweet aroma and impeccable
Montecristo Millenium
Back in the middle of 1999, the folks at the Montecristo factory wanted to release a special cigar to commemorate the new millennium. So they produced a one-time run of a bold blend of special cigars wrapped with their prized habana2000 wrapper. This limited production cigar was only made in one a special size (7 x 50). They also decided to package these cigars in individual glass tubes, and placed them in a very special, hand lacquered box of 12. The box is adorned with a specially commissioned painting by the esteemed artist, Michel Delacroix. They even included a double blade cigar cutter with their emblem to complete the package.
We believe that our limited inventory of these special cigars are all that is left from the unique production run. Just like a fine wine, they are designated with the year of production, hence they were called the millennium cigar. Here is an opportunity to acquire finely aged premium cigars, at an affordable price. If you have been an aficionado for some time, you will remember other great vintage releases in the industry. Remember the Dunhill 1989's, the Macanudo 84 and 93's, and the Partagas 150's? which are selling today for more than 10 times their original list prices (if you can find them). Just like those other esteemed marks, the Montecristo 2000's will soon be gone forever.
Don't miss out on this great opportunity to put away a few boxes of this collector's item. They come in black, blue, and burgundy boxes, so choose the one you like the most, or get all 3 and save $200.
Can't decide which one to buy? Collect all three colors (Black, Burgandy, and Navy Blue) of this limited production run. Each one is a beauty.
Morocho
Morocho - the Mild-Blend Estate Grown Premium Morocho is the latest creation from Tabacalera Ovalle y Alba. It is constructed from a special blend of long-filler leaf that was grown within a mile of the factory, on a private plantation owned by the factory's founder, Bernardo Ovalle. The crop is then aged in a barn adjacent to the farm, and then brought over to the factory after the necessary aging and curing has been completed. It is finished with a Claro wrapper grown in Ecuador, providing a silky texture and aroma. The result is a cigar that achieves exactly what Bernardo Ovalles set out to do:a blend that is extremely mild, yet full of complexity and charm. If you enjoy mild cigars, we are sure that Morocho will become one of your favorites. And here's the best part: because the factory is able to grow the filler on its own fields, they do not have to purchase raw tobacco on the open market, and hence, are able to provide a very inexpensive package. We are proud to pass this savings on to you:a long filler, natural wrapper Dominican beauty for way under 2 bucks/stick!!!!!
Onyx
Onyx Reserve is a rich, full bodied, box-pressed maduro with a lovely aroma and beautifully packaged in an elegant cabinet-style hinged box.
Padron
Jose Padron is one of the most trusted names in the business. We'll let him tell you about his cigars: "We began manufacturing cigars in Miami in 1964. Our cigars are 100% handmade. We use only the best tobacco, grown from Cuban seeds in the carefully chosen valleys of Central America, for our wrapper, filler, and binder."
Partagas
The secret of today's rich Partagas cigars lies in their wrapper leaves. Grown in Cameroon, the Central West African country where the steaming, sub-tropical climate unique to the fourth parallel is ideal for growing superb wrapper leaves, the Cameroon wrapper has no equal for rich flavor.
Players Club
Hand-made in the Dominican Republic with a full-bodied Brazilian wrapper, surrounding a Dominican binder and a special blend of Dominican and Brazilian tobaccos, the new Players Club by Don Diego was made to satisfy the sophisticated smoker looking for a deep, stronger flavored cigar
Private Stock by Davidoff
The Private Stock Cigars are the factory seconds of Tabacos Dominicanos SA, the world-famous factory that produces Davidoff. The creamy,complex flavor that exudes from this cigar is cedary with a touch of white pepper. It's even burn produces a dark ash and the aroma is light and very enticing. Although it's considered a medium-bodied smoke, these are so mellow, you can smoke one early in the day.
Punch
Produced in Honduras for Villazon Company under the direction of a great Cuban cigar maker, Frank Llaneza, Punch has been a leading premium brand ever since it was first exported to the United States in 1969. Punch cigars live up to their name with a bold, full-bodied taste that appeals to those who put a premium on flavor. The filler is a rich blend of Honduran, Nicaraguan and Dominican tobaccos, the wrapper is a full-flavored leaf grown in Ecuador.
Romeo Y Julieta
This cigar's beautiful Indonesian wrapper surrounds a classic Dominican color binder and fillers. It burns with a characteristic white ash,providing a smooth, mellow taste with medium body. This cigar is for the experienced smoker who will find his ideal fit from among the complete selection of sizes and shapes.
The brand is also available in a special, Reserve Maduro series. With its dark, rich Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, Romeo y Julieta Reserve Maduros are the perfect complement to our world famous Romeo y Julieta line of cigars. A tasty Nicaraguan binder and a bold blend of Nicaraguan, Peruvian and Dominican long fillers finish out the cigar making for a deep, fuller bodied smoke boasting a lovely aroma and taste.
Romeo Y Julieta Vintage
A beautifully packaged selection of cigars in six shapes, each neatly nestled in a lacquered wooden box equipped with its own humidification device. A premium Connecticut wrapper and a Costa Rican binder contain a smooth blend of Dominican fillers. The discerning smoker will never tire of this superlative cigar.
Suarez Gran Reserve
A Blend of 5 tobaccos give this long filler Dominican cigar a smooth, complex, and yet mild blend. This cigar is recognized nationally and has received outstanding reviews in SMOKE magazine, comparing it to such prestigious lines as Romeo Y Julieta and Dunhill in a blind taste test. The elements for this unique blend were crafted decades ago, all the way back to 1945. These cigars are aged for at least 12 months before they are boxed up at their factory and shipped into customs. This incredibly patient process results in the tobacco being perfectly married. These "Gran Reserves" are ready to smoke and will provide the discriminating cigar buyer with one of the best values out there.
Te Amo Aniversario
The leaf for Te Amo is cultivated in Mexico's San Andres Valley, where the soil and climate of Cuba are nearly duplicated. For over 120 years, a family tradition of excellence has ensured it to be the country's finest offering.
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