Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has filed a legal petition with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting the FTC to halt the unfair and deceptive trade practices surrounding bidi cigarettes. Bidi cigarettes are as serious a health risk as regular cigarettes, but many customers, especially teenagers, purchase them in the mistaken belief that they are safer. ...

LONDON (Reuters Health) - The UK Department of Health confirmed on Monday it is urging tobacco firms to reduce levels of carcinogens and other dangerous chemicals from cigarettes. A spokesman told Reuters Health that government officials had sought advice from experts on the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health on which of the hundreds of chemicals in tobacco should be removed from cigarettes. ...

Even though legislators and regulators have wrestled for years with how to stop children from smoking, candy cigarettes remain staples at the nation's candy counters. Displayed right there with the bubble gum and the baseball cards, the sugary sticks come in rectangular boxes roughly the size of cigarette packs, with names like Kings, Stallion and Victory. Candy versions are white sticks; chocolate and gum versions come wrapped in white paper with a brown end, like a filter. ...

A Pennsylvania plaintiff's argument that the health risks associated with Philip Morris' cigarettes constituted a product defect did not stand up in a South Carolina court because the plaintiff did not show that there was a safer, alternative design. A South Carolina federal judge interpreted Pennsylvania law as requiring that evidence, even though the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has stated otherwise. ...

Is a cigarette still a cigarette if it isn't just tobacco rolled in paper? The tobacco industry said yes and is beginning to carve out a new market niche for "reduced risk" products. By advertising the potential benefits of the new smokes, cigarette makers are hoping to appeal to smokers worried about their health. And last week's $145 billion judgment in a Florida class action over the dangers of traditional cigarettes only adds to the industry's urgency to produce a less risky product. ...

A bill to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight of tobacco, if enacted, would limit the tobacco industry's ability to market all cigarettes and create strict new rules for lower-tar, reduced-risk and sweet-flavored cigarettes. But the legislation, passed Thursday by the Senate, faces obstacles in getting through the House of Representatives. ...

A new requirement in New York for cigarettes less likely to cause accidental fires has spurred initial interest in wildfire-prone Colorado and other states, although tobacco companies have resisted expansion of the program. This month, New York joined Canada in requiring all cigarettes sold to meet tougher fire- safety standards through specially crafted paper "firewalls." The firewalls are placed at intervals through the tobacco to snuff out cigarettes left unattended. ...

(Raleigh)- Over the objections of those who called it corporate welfare and a breach of international law, the state House overwhelmingly agreed yesterday to give R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Philip Morris Inc. $9 million a year in tax breaks for exporting cigarettes. ''This is a welfare payment to big corporations that we ought not be making,'' said Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, an incentive opponent. ...

Despite a constant erosion in the national demand for its cigarettes, the Philip Morris Companies said yesterday that its profits grew 14 percent in the second quarter, primarily because its prices continue to climb and the appetite for American cigarettes remains particularly strong overseas. With the average price of premium-brand cigarettes like Marlboro now at $3.64 a pack, about 31 cents higher than they were at the beginning of last year, Philip Morris has been more than able to make up for the steady decline of smokers in the United States. ...

Anti-smoking groups have long maintained that no global settlement should be entered into with the tobacco industry until the secret documents are released. Now the appeals court in Florida has just upheld the release of 13 of the secret documents considered by Liggett "most likely to prove that the industry engaged in fraudulent activity," according to the Washington Post. NOW IS NOT the TIME for a global settlement,therefore. ...