ASHCROFT ONLY INTERESTED IN PACIFYING BIG TOBACCO, Atlanta Constitution [06/22/01] It's like waving a white flag before yelling, "Charge!" Determined to scuttle a federal lawsuit against Big Tobacco without publicly acknowledging as much, Attorney General John Ashcroft has signaled that the Justice Department would like to settle, out of fear that it might lose at trial. ...

Two UAB researchers who have been promoting smokeless tobacco as an alternative to cigarettes are facing concerns that their work may lead to a proliferation of products that are gateways to smoking for youth. "It could undermine all the good public health policy we've achieved in recent years," said Dr. David Connolly, who heads the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program. ...

A study showing that genetics may contribute to nicotine addiction is only a tiny first step towards a possible treatment; one which may still be far away even if the initial research is verified by others. In the meantime, don't use "my genes make me do it" as an excuse to attempt quitting using existing methods; don't put off trying to quit because it may be easier if a therapy is developed; and don't start if you aren't a smoker, suggests Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a national antismoking group. ...

A middle-aged woman stares straight into the camera and in a gravelly voice states: "I had my first cigarette when I was 13." "Debi" tried to quit smoking but couldn't, she says in the TV commercial. "They say nicotine isn't addictive. How can they say that?" she asks. Then the camera pans back to show her puffing on a cigarette - from a hole in her throat. ...

Research on "safe cigarettes" that was suppressed by tobacco companies more than 30 years ago is being revived by a start-up company. Quest Research Group of East Falmouth, Massachusetts, is reviving research done in 1969 by the Council for Tobacco Research, an organisation funded by the tobacco industry. The studies investigated the effects of cigarette smoke on the lungs, and particularly how it led to the lung disease emphysema. ...

After the Attorney General of Massachusetts (Attorney General) promulgated comprehensive regulations governing the advertising and sale of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco , and cigars, petitioners, a group of tobacco manufacturers and retailers, filed this suit asserting, among other things, the Supremacy Clause claim that the cigarette advertising regulations are pre-empted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (FCLAA), which prescribes mandatory health warnings for cigarette packaging and advertising, 15 U. S. C. §1333, and pre-empts similar state regulations, §1334(b); and a claim that the regulations violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. In large measure, the District Court upheld the regulations. ...

A growing number of anti-smoking researchers and public-health advocates are adopting a tack that not long ago would have been considered heresy: suggesting that hard-core smokers who can't kick the habit would be better off switching to new smokeless tobacco products. With slogans such as "Spit-free" and "For when you can't smoke," these products differ markedly from the messy snuff and chewing-tobacco stereotypes associated with your granddaddy's spittoon or certain pro baseball players' stuffed cheeks. ...

For 55 years, Clarence Heidemann couldn't imagine life without cigarettes. Then in 1991 he kicked the habit with the help of nicotine gum, which his doctor told him would help him over the biggest hurdle: the crucial first weeks when the vast majority of would-be quitters relapse. Seven years after he traded two or three packs of cigarettes each day for a dozen pieces of the gum called Nicorette, the retired paper mill manager finds himself saddled with another habit he'd like to break. "I don't think I'm addicted to it," said Heidemann, who chomps on the bitter, dun-colored gum every day. "But it's certainly become a habit." ...

Three years after the Legislature required that cigarettes sold in New York be manufactured so they would cause fewer fires, the Pataki administration has yet to issue regulations to put the law into effect, partly because of heavy lobbying by the tobacco industry, opponents of smoking said today. Last week, the administration published a notice that it would not meet the law's July 1 deadline for putting the regulations in force, postponing the action until at least Dec. 31 and perhaps longer. ...

A ban on cigarette smoking goes into effect today at Maryland's 25 state prisons, and some correctional officers and inmates are worried about potential violence from the more than 11,000 inmates who smoke and are being forced to quit. But William W. Sondervan, commissioner of correction for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said he doesn't expect that the extra enforcement will be needed. ...