Cities with indoor smoking bans have dramatically lower indoor air pollution than cities that allow patrons to light up in bars and restaurants, according to a study released Thursday. Researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo conducted air quality tests in 53 venues in seven major U.S. cities, and found that indoor air pollution was an average of 82 percent lower in smoke-free cities. ...

A bipartisan team of lawmakers opened a new drive on Thursday to grant the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate cigarettes and tobacco -- and got the backing of one major tobacco company. The lawmakers unveiled a revised version of legislation that has foundered in recent years that would give the FDA power to regulate tobacco, including the ability to regulate nicotine, restrict advertising to children and order stronger and larger health warnings on packages. ...

Smoking bans are infiltrating even the haziest corners of tobacco-loving cultures. When Ireland moved to ban cigarettes from pubs last year, the world watched in wonder. The Netherlands, facing its own ban in 2005, has experienced a hullabaloo over the issue. The shivering sidewalk smoker has become a predictable part of the Manhattan winter streetscape. But if public health officials like Mr. Govereau have their way, smoking in the frozen north will someday be as socially objectionable as it is in the most of the rest of Canada. In recent years, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and other cities have enacted sweeping bylaws restricting tobacco use, and Nunavut is following suit ...

Teenagers have long been regarded as the age group most vulnerable to the addictive lure of cigarettes, and a new report compiling five years of studies from a UC Irvine tobacco research program provides details why this is very likely true. ...

British Columbia got a green light from the courts Thursday to proceed with a lawsuit that seeks to recover $10 billion in health-care costs from tobacco companies. The B.C. Court of Appeal, in a unanimous decision, ruled the Liberal government's Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act is constitutionally valid legislation. Attorney General Geoff Plant said the government intends to take on the tobacco companies in the courts and is prepared to take the fight to the Supreme Court of Canada if tobacco companies launch an appeal. ...

Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. and other U.S. cigarette makers must pay more than $590 million to fund quit-smoking programs in Louisiana, a jury in New Orleans decided. The jury, which decided in July to require the companies to help Louisiana smokers quit smoking, ruled today that they must pay the money into a court-administered fund that will finance 12 end-smoking programs for periods of five to 10 years. ...

More than a third of high school students who try cigarettes develop a daily smoking habit before they graduate, the Government said today. In a survey of more than 16,000 students nationwide, nearly 36 percent who had ever smoked said their smoking had escalated to at least a cigarette a day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. ...

The Florida appeals court did not confine itself Wednesday to overturning the class-action $145 billion judgment against the tobacco industry. The court also roasted the plaintiffs' attorney. But his behavior, although contemptible, is congruent with the increasingly cynical government policy of keeping tobacco companies prosperous enough to be worth looting. ...

A senior physician of the Department of Health and Medical Services in Dubai (Dohms) has expressed his apprehension about curbs expected to be placed on the marketing, advertising and sale of tobacco products in the UAE. Doctor Mirza Ali Al Sayegh, Consultant Physician at the Dohms, was reacting to the current meeting being held at the WHO premises in Geneva. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A lawsuit led by attorney Johnnie Cochran targets the tobacco industry anew, accusing companies of violating federal racketeering laws to hook children on cigarettes. ...