The Czechs resist -Smoking ban

Irish Minister of Health James Reilly has an extraordinarily personal motivation for his mission. First, his father, who went blind after a heart attack, lay bedridden for years before he died. Then, his brother, a doctor who had tried in vain for years to stop smoking, died recently of lung cancer. “This is not a bad habit; it’s an insidious disease, and what is propagating it must be fought,” is what Reilly tells reporters. It’s the same argument he used, last spring, to persuade all of Ireland to introduce plain packaging illustrated with up-close photos of lungs ravaged by smoking for all cigarette “brands” – the second country in the world after Australia to do so.
Reilly and his government colleagues made the fight against tobacco a central theme of their recently-concluded six-month presidency of the EU [which ended June 30]. The result has been extraordinary. European health ministers decided in June that a regulation similar to Ireland’s should be in force across Europe within three years. New legislation must now be ratified by the European Parliament.

National Asthma Council Australia welcomes tobacco tax hike

The National Asthma Council Australia has backed the Pharmacy Guild of Australia in supporting the Federal Government’s proposed increase in tobacco excise. Stephen Hughes, National Asthma Council Australia Director, and a community pharmacist representing the PSA on the Council’s Board, said that raising the tobacco tax was an important initiative not only to give people with asthma a better chance of achieving good asthma control but to improve health outcomes for all Australians. As reported in Pharmacy News, last Thursday, the Government announced that it will introduce a $5.25 tax hike on a 20 pack of cigarettes. Kos Sclavos, Guild national president, welcomed the tobacco tax rise, but called for “a small fraction” of the estimated $5.3 billion the tax will create...

Thousands of fake cigarettes seized in Lincoln raids

Lincolnshire Police and Lincolnshire Trading Standards have seized over 20,000 illegal and fake cigarettes in Lincoln.
In July, the teams raided a number of shops across the city, with the help of Indie, a tobacco detection dog.
The dog helped officers find counterfeit cigarettes in secret, concealed compartments in four city shops, which were not named by Trading Standards.

Emma Milligan, Senior Trading Standards Officer, said: “We are urging people to lookout for fake goods, such as cigarettes and tobacco as these may pose a more significant health risk than genuine cigarettes.
“Jin Lings, which were one of the brands found at one of the shops, are illegal in the EU.
“This brand is particularly worrying to us, as it is not made to the correct legislative standards.
“As well as this, we believe that this type of cigarette caused a local house fire in Spalding in which one person died, and during the course of the inquest the Coroner raised serious concerns about the sale of illegal cigarettes in the area, hence why we have been cracking down on sales of this product.”
“As well as the potential health and safety concerns, local businesses are also suffering as they unable to compete with the cheaper prices of these illicit products.”

Now six years into his smoke-saturated labor of love, Honcho Gregory has only fueled the fire toward his culinary goals for the Twin Cities. The organizer of the Smokin Eagles International BBQ Festival appears well on his way to his dreams of making the Tonawandas the barbecue capital of the northern United States. The festival continues to gain attention. It was recently recognized by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a New York state championship barbecue event. The Kansas City and New England barbecue societies have sanctioned event during the three-day festival, as well. Gregory appreciated the support. Last year saw an attendance downturn due to inclement weather, but he expects to easily surpass the roughly 28,000 people who attended the festival in 2011. “This will probably double our size,” he said. That would be a big step for the festival, which began in 2008 at The Summit in Wheatfield. Gregory started the festival thinking it would be along the lines of the Taste of Buffalo, except devoted solely to barbecue. The event moved to Gateway Harbor in 2010 and has happily delighted canal-goers with savory barbecue smoke ever since. But Gregory doesn’t want the festivals growth to outpace its capacity. He maintains a strict cap on the number of vendors who can take part. “We’re happy where it’s at,” he said. “If it goes too big too fast, it’ll grow out of control.” There’s also been growth barbecue’s popularity as a food genre in the past few years locally — something Gregory thinks is due at least in small part to Smoking Eagles. Barbecue mainstays like Suzy-Q’s Bar-B-Que Shack in the Town of Tonawanda, One-Eyed Jack’s in Lockport and the Brickyard Pub and BBQ in the Village of Lewiston are among the top draws in their communities among diners. And Buffalo will welcome one of the Northeast’s foremost barbecue chains in October. Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is set to move into the Entertainment District, and developer Mark Croce feels the restaurant can become the biggest draw in the city and one of the highest-grossing restaurants in all of Western New York. Good barbecue can be a great tourism draw, Gregory said. That’s what he’s counting on with the festival. “It’s great for the commerce in the city,” he said. “People, on the way home, they say, ‘Oh, there’s that place we heard of.’ And they come back the next weekend.”