Folklore says that vampires, the most frightening of all Halloween monsters, gradually enslave people by biting their necks, and eventually cause them to suffer a lingering death. ...

Tobacco company executives who market their cigarettes in Israel as "lite," "low tar," "mild," or "low nicotine" could face a prison sentence of one to two years. This is the prescribed but little used punishment for violation of the 1981 Consumer Protection Law, which is the basis for a criminal investigation just launched by the ministry of commerce and industry against cigarette manufacturers and importers. They are suspected of misleading the public into believing that this form of tobacco is "safer" than ordinary cigarettes. ...

Billboards across Germany recently carried a cigarette advertisement with a bizarre slogan. Next to a large embossed silver packet of Benson & Hedges Lights cigarettes ran the words "Imagine Life Without Silver." Why stress the color? ...

Nonsmokers everywhere are mourning the passing of Steve Allen, a multi-talented entertainer who died yesterday at age 78. ...

Seemingly insubstantial increases in the number of cigarettes kids smoke translate into big increases in the probability of habitual smoking by late adolescence, according to a report today in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. ...

The Vermont Senate on Thursday concurred with a House-passed bill banning smoking in bars and private clubs, only changing the effective date from July to September. Preliminary approval came on a 22-6 roll call vote, and from there the Senate proceeded to final approval on a voice vote. ...

A Florida appeals court on Wednesday threw out a record-setting $145 billion verdict for thousands of Florida smokers against the tobacco industry, saying the case should not have been tried as a class-action lawsuit. The 67-page order by the 3rd District Court of Appeals said smokers could not group themselves together in a single lawsuit against the nation's five biggest cigarette makers. ...

A local landowners group pressured Oneida County Friday to take action against smoking at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino. In a lawsuit filed in Oneida County Court, Upstate Citizens for Equality, a group long critical of the Oneida Indian Nation's tax and codes exemptions, took the county's Health Department to task for not enforcing the two-year-old state smoking ban on Nation property. ...

Take a seat at Red Door Tavern in downtown Naperville, and you can inhale comfort food and draft beer, but not cigarettes or cigars. Bryan Gamble opened his 70-seat tavern about a year ago with a smoke-free policy. He shared his philosophy during a recent DuPage Coalition Against Tobacco program at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton. ...

Laurent Huber is Director of International Programs at Action on Smoking and Health and also serves as director of the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), an international coalition of over 200 members from over 100 countries, which has been instrumental in the drafting, approval and recent entry in force of the tobacco treaty. It is the first treaty negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO) and has the potential to save millions of people from the death and disease caused by tobacco use and addiction. ...