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• Scotland is UK’s lung cancer capital thanks to cigarettes  

• Cigarettes may have to be sold in plain packets following public consultation  

Cigarette packets could be stripped of all branding following a consultation beginning on Monday, the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has revealed.

The minister told the Times that he was "open minded" about putting the idea of plain cigarette packaging to the public, but added: "We don't work in partnership with the tobacco companies because we are trying to arrive at a point where they have no business in this country."

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the campaigning charity Action on Smoking and Health, said on Thursday night: "The consultation is just the first step, putting us in pole position to be the first European nation to put tobacco in plain, standardised packs.

"Cigarettes are not like sweets or toys and should not be sold in fancy, colourful packaging which makes them appealing to children. Cigarettes are full of toxins and cause fatal diseases: plain, standardised packaging makes this explicit."

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Wanaque fire investigators point to probable carelessness with smoking materials  

Though no lives were lost, Monday's fire on Ringwood Avenue took a devastating toll on families uprooted by the blaze.

Borough police and the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office now consider it likely that the careless disposal of smoking materials is what caused a six-alarm fire on Monday morning, gutting two buildings and ousting about 20 individuals.

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Smoking Associated with Hip and Knee Replacement Failure  

• Ex-tobacco exec denies firm targeted teens 

- A retired executive with Imperial Tobacco testified in Quebec Superior Court Thursday that his company never aimed its advertising at teens but rather toward “young adults.”

“Our advertising was directed to adult smokers because this (is) an adult project,” said Anthony Kalhok, who served as vice-president of marketing for Montreal-based Imperial in the 1970s.

“We only marketed to the young adult population,” he added in response to another question by lawyer Bruce Johnston. “We did not market to teens.”

However, lawyers for plaintiffs in a $27-billion class-action against Imperial and two other tobacco companies have deposited as evidence in court, a study that Imperial commissioned in 1977 on the smoking habits of teens and their perceptions toward cigarette advertising.

Imperial had hired a Montreal firm, Kwechansky Marketing Research Inc., to carry out surveys of teen smokers in Toronto and Peterborough. The report was entitled “Project 16.”

“Since how the beginning smoker feels today has implications for the future of the industry, it follows that a study of this area would be of much interest,” says the introduction to the 97-page report.

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• VIDEO: Tobacco suit: Imperial had no credibility when it denied cancer link, ex-spokesman says 

Despite mounting evidence in the 1960s that smoking tobacco was killing more than 30,000 people in Canada every year, Canada's largest tobacco company made no effort to inform the public about the dangers of its products, a former Imperial Tobacco executive testified Tuesday in the $27-billion class-action lawsuit against the nation's three largest tobacco companies.

Michel Descoteaux, who for years served as Imperial's official spokesman, said the company's policy was to claim that there was no scientific evidence linking smoking to disease.

He said that because of this policy the company had "no credibility" with the general public.

"The reputation of the company was very bad," he said. "Public opinion was that cigarettes were causing all kinds of diseases."

He added that the company "had no credibility even among smokers."

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Menthol smokers have more strokes: study | Reuters 

FDA considering menthol cigarette ban  

Above The Law Kiefer? Sutherland Puffs Away Despite Santa Monica Smoking Ban 

Chatsworth Smoking Ban Dependent on ‘Honour System’ 

STEINKE: Blowing smoke: China's economic savior?  

For comparison sake, let's say the health-care rates are the same in the United States as they are in China, and assume the Chinese don't want their elderly rotting away in cellars. If 1,000,000 people (or 0.07 percent of their population) died of lung cancer at 65 instead of something else 20 years later, with the health-maintenance costs of 10 years and five years, respectively, that would save the nation of China $208 billion in health-care costs.

Just as I don't wish death to anyone, I wouldn't recommend smoking to anyone. But it's conceivably possible that promoting cigarette-smoking in China would translate to a long-term greater good in both China and, as globalization goes, the rest of the world.

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• Lung cancer cases rise in women 

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Authorities Investigating 3 Fires Sparked By Cigarettes 

Anti-smoking crusaders  

Altria Just Hit a 52-Week High: Can It Head Higher? (MO)