You might naively think that menthols would be included in the ban of "flavored" cigarettes, but of course you would be wrong, because banning menthols would be racist, according to white tobacco company executives. So the most popular flavor of cigarette was specifically excluded from this save-the-children ban of flavored cigarettes, and, naturally, while politicians were debating all this, kids have been sucking down more Newports than ever before. The WSJ reports:

In 2008, the rate of smokers 12 to 17 years old using menthol cigarettes rose to 48% from 44% in 2004, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA. Among 18 to 25 year olds, the rate jumped to 41% in 2008 from 34% in 2004.

Teens have learned the important lesson that non-menthol cigarettes aren't Kool.
[Pic via]

• Your Own Apartment: You can't smoke in your own apartment? Get the fuck outta here. You live in a dorm? No? Get the fuck outta here.
• The Sidewalk Outside Your Apartment: They tried to just sneak that in with the apartment ban, as if it wouldn't make people quadruple times as mad.
• Any Other Sidewalk: If someone smoking on a sidewalk bothers you, stop standing directly in front of them and sucking the smoke from the tip of their cigarette into a large hose attached to your mouth. That's bad for you.
• The Park: There is so much fresh air out there. Come on.
• Concerts: Other than, you know, the Symphony Orchestra. Any concert venue without chairs, definitely. Hardcoreness demands it.
• Your Car: Open the windows to be nice.
• Anywhere Else Where There Is No Physical Barrier Between the Tip of Your Cigarette and The Sky: It's all about dispersion.

Here you see a photo of kreteks, the kind of cloves everyone smokes in the USA. See them? They are cigarettes. But Kretek International is now suing the FDA to get them branded "Cigars," because, the WSJ points out, "The wrapper is homogenized leaf, the tobacco air-cured, and the finished product comes in boxes of 12, not 20."

Try this: Take a dozen clove cigarettes and put them in a box. Now look at them again. Have they magically been transformed into cigars? No? Damn it. Well, don't get too upset, hippies. Consider it part of your government-mandated path towards becoming Marlboro addicts. Hey, your lungs will thank you.

Oh. No they won't. But you won't smell like cloves at least.

Well actually you'll smell worse. But you won't be such a hippie.
[Pic via]

Can we simply state the obvious here by saying: Don't cry, kids. "Flavored cigarettes," what the fuck, really? "Camel Exotic Blends by R. J. Reynolds, which had flavors like Twista Lime, Kauai Kolada and Warm Winter Toffee." How many other, more potent drugs did you have to be on for those flavors to sound appealing when mixed with tobacco, and set on fire?

Tobacco is nasty. It's supposed to be nasty. It is not supposed to taste like various flavors of pie. "Flavored tobacco" is for hookah smokers who spend all day lounging around cafes rather than blazing trails and building railroads and slaughtering native populations.

In other words, good old-fashioned unflavored cigarettes helped make this country great. You can smoke them on a horse (obv.) without everyone for the next ten miles downwind wondering where that distinct Kahlua aroma is coming from. And cloves? Don't even start with that. "Cloves." Come on.

The point is, now kids will go straight to the unfiltered Luckies, and save their "flavoring" for the weed, and for mixing with Everclear. Your health is the most important thing, next to maintaining America's badass rep.

They're advertising this "Snus" all over magazines, the NYT reports, because, hey: it's not a cigarette, it's a pouch filled with nasty tobacco that you put in your gums and you don't even have to spit, like a redneck! Does Big Tobacco have any more flavorful additions to our national tobacco consumption repertoire in the pipeline? They're happy you asked!

R. J. Reynolds is also now test-marketing "dissolvables," which include Camel Orbs, finely ground tobacco in the form of small mint pellets like Tic Tacs, and Camel Strips, which resemble Listerine breath-freshening strips and melt on the tongue.

Nasty tobacco mouth pouches and tobacco-flavored breath strips: taste the flavor. Of tobacco.

The NYT sent a trained journalist to stroll amongst the masses out at a park, in New York City. She found that—despite the fact that smokers are nasty baby killers who should just go stand over there (no, farther over there)—people are not so hot on banning citizens from engaging in solitary activities in the park. What's next, masturbation?

"Where else are people going to go where they can enjoy themselves because it's free? Except the jail or the park, that's it."

A man can't enjoy himself in the park or in jail these days! Mayor Bloomberg is defending this nannyish notion, but, come on, did you see his speech at his "party" last night? All the speechwriters in town can't hide the fact that you're a nerd, Mayor Mike. A big one.
[Pic via]

See, the government outlawed flavored cigarettes, so Kretek, which makes all the cloves you smoke, is now selling clove cigars. Problem solved!

Lake Isabella, Calif., resident Terry Day, 42 years old, used to drive 240 miles round-trip to buy clove cigarettes when he lived in rural Valentine, Neb. He said he might try the cigars but was dubious about whether he would like them.

That is even farther than most heroin addicts are willing to drive. Fun fact(?) about the origin of the healing powers of cloves:

Studebacher Hoch, a resident of Kudus, Java, created kreteks in the early 1880s as a means to deliver the medicinal eugenol of cloves to the lungs, as it was thought to help asthma. It cured his chest pains and he started to market his invention to the village, but he died of lung cancer before he could mass market it.

[Pic: AP]

Floyd Abrams—probably the most famous First Amendment lawyer in America, father of Dan Abrams, and frequent attorney for the New York Times—is representing the tobacco giant Lorillard in a lawsuit against the new law, which restricts everything from cigarette packaging to sponsorships, and virtually bans the marketing of "light" cigarettes. Also it would seriously fuck with magazine advertising! Wake up, bureaucrats! This law will actually prevent Big Tobacco from saving people's lives:

Combined with the existing ban on advertising on television and radio, and a new ban on outdoor advertising within 1,000 feet of any school of playground, the companies said it would be almost impossible to communicate with adults even about what it claims are "reduced harm" products.

Representing society's most odious institutions just gives Floyd Abrams more street cred.

The president of bluCigs - a company making smokeless, "electronic" cigarettes (we would hazard a guess) could be seen in Dane's Anatomy - has issued a PR statement on his company's, ha ha, disputed involvement in the now infamous ménage a trois of gettin' high and splashin' around. Now, you're the president of a company trying to corner an obscure market of non-smoking smokers that's now maybe involved in a smokin' hot sex tape.

So: did he make the push? Hell yeah, he did.

"Our client records are confidential. We respect the privacy of all our clients, not only high profile ones."

Nicely played, Jason Healy of BluCigs! The non-denial denial that neither rats out your clients nor squashes your product's potential plug. Furthermore, Healy goes servicey on us:

"In response to whether an electronic cigarette such as blu is safe for use in a bathtub, Healy said, "While we would not recommend use in an environment like that, there's no problem if it were dropped in the water. It would have to be dried out sufficiently before using again."

Healy's product is family friendly, as in, he doesn't recommend it for use in drug-binge laden, blue-balling threesomes! Furthermore, this thing is the hotness, and they don't even need the publicity!

"Blu has only been on the market for a few months but the demand has been so overwhelming that we've really been trying to stay out of the news," said Healy. "While I'm not saying it is our product, it would've have been better for us, if not Ms. Gayheart and Mr. Dane as well, if this tape hadn't come out."

Yes! For a publicist with an AOL address, expertly handled: celebrity friendly promotion while basically managing to completely insinuate that, yes, maybe it's their product, and further more, you can use it in splashy sex tapes. Hooray for sex tapes, the economy, and The World's Best Electronic Cigarette©.

According to Closer magazine, via D-Listed, The Three C's and a D Of A Healthy Diet: Coffee, Cigarettes, Champagne, and Vodka. Kosher, yes, but how healthy is a diet of these four things? Are there benefits? Disadvantages, possibly? Let's take a gander. We could use to be a little cuter, a little more rockstar, and maybe, even, a little healthier.

1. Coffee! It's made from beans that are often picked by underpaid farm workers in South American countries, but that's okay, because it's a widely accepted practice, now. The beans are ground up, water is put through them, and a drink is made.
Pros: Coffee tastes good, especially when you drink it black. It has lots of antioxidants, which are things that apparently do something good for your cells, like prevent them from aging as fast. It's been proven to reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease, kidney stones, and combat asthma issues. It might be combative against Type-2 diabetes, liver cirrhosis, gall stones, Alzheimer's disease, and other things. It helps contribute to things like mental performance and memory, which are proven! And it's an appetite suppressant. Also, it makes you shit, which is good if you need to be skinny on the fly.
Cons: Well, it makes you go doodie, which isn't good if you're stuck on the beach with Kate Moss and you don't want to go in the water. Also, it's been controversially associated with increasing the likelihood of heart disease, though that hasn't been proven. It definitely ups cholesterol levels, which is funny, because people like coffee with eggs which have lots of cholesterol in them and that's some bad 1-2 shit right there. It can cause irregular heartbeats, but so can these two ladies (SWOON), so it must be especially bad for them because they have to look in the mirror all the time. It has unfavorable consequences on blood pressure, can trigger heartburn, can fuck up your sleeping cycles, and is pretty goddamn addictive. You can develop a pretty harsh dependence on it. Some people put cream and sugar in it, which makes it less great for you. Also, Sweet N' Low used to give rats cancer and it still might. Splenda looks like cocaine, which is neat. Also, it'll stain your teeth, but if you can't afford fake teeth, WTF are you doing drinking coffee?
Feed It To LilyMoss In Mass Quantities? Sure! There are worse things than being talkative and poopie.

2. Champagne A favorite of rappers and the fiscally liberal everywhere, probably for the mere effect of opening it, upon which a piece of cork shoots out with a wonderful noise and foam bubbles over the top of the bottle in a somewhat phallic, metaphorical release of opulence. There are lots of sparkling wines but only The Real McCoy can be called Champagne, because it comes from the Champagne region in France, where - other than the fact that they keep their local economy thriving - locals probably detest most of the people who drink it.
Pros: Bubbly drinks are filling. Drinking booze supposedly has lots of benefits, but the process by which Champers are made - making it bubbly - makes it healthier, I read somewhere. Also, in rats, consumption of Champers led to less damage when they introduced strokes in the rats! Poor rats, but good for strokes? It's a status drink! People drunk on Dom smell way less than people drunk on, say, Bakers bourbon, which will give you the distinct odor of an assy barn of horseshit left out to dry in the hot, blazing, summer sun after a monsoon.
Cons: Plenty of champers tastes like piss, but if you enjoy the taste of piss, then this isn't really a problem. Also, people who drink too much end up in bad places, like the gutter. Too much booze can leave you looking aged, which, compounded with all that coffee, won't help. Also, drinking a lot makes you do ridiculously stupid things, like talking a lot on stage.
Feed It To LilyMoss In Mass Quantities? Maybe! All the bubbles make it hard to drink too much and make you gassy. Also, Champ-hangovers are worse than regular hangovers so it kind of regulates itself. And if they have a stroke, well, shit! They're in luck. Finally, surely there's some kind of nutrient in something that comes from a grape.

3. Cigarettes. Oh, wonderful cigarettes. They're made of tobacco which was once farmed but is now mostly made in a factory. They're paper and synthetic cotton and might actually have some real tobacco in them sometimes, who knows? The idea is to light them on fire and smoke them and get a buzz from them. They come in all different kinds of packages with all different kinds of "flavors" and whatnot but for the most part are all the same.
Pros: Sometimes, they give you a buzz! They don't really taste good but sometimes smokers convince themselves that they do. Cigarettes with recessed filters make for great impromptu hipster coke spoons, like Parliament Lights! Also, appetite suppressant, diuretic, and social accessibility point of entry into possibly otherwise impermeable conversation!
Cons: They give you cancer, they make breathing more difficult, they make you smell, they're addicting, you're giving money to really bad people (as opposed to only kinda bad people with coffee and booze), they make you poo, they turn your teeth yellow and make your breath stank like ass, the give you a nasty cough, have killed at least two people you know or are related to, cost a shitload of cash if you live in New York ($11/pack?!?!), and have a strong social stigma attached to them. Children will give you far meaner looks if you're smoking than if you're drunk or strung out on caffine. And you don't want awful looks from children, do you?
Feed It To LilyMoss In Mass Quantities? Let's try not to. They are smelly enough with the coffee. Also, Kate has kids! Smoking in front of kids is kind of bad if only because they don't have a choice. Not that being drunk isn't bad, but they're going to get drunk one day. They don't have to give their money to Big T like us, who are terribly hooked.

4. Vodka. It's fermented grain booze often made with potatoes, and it's the reason the Russians can't ever get anything right besides getting totally krunk with the komrades. Vodka can be mixed with pretty much anything but by the end of the night as long as you have something to chase it with, you could mix it with Pedialite and be fine (note to self: try this sometime). Vodka tastes like rubbing alcohol with a nice bottom note of "ouch."
Pros: Gets you really drunk, really quickly. Some Moscovite doctor once noted that Vodka in small quantities will help prevent atherosclerosis, which sounds like something you'd want to prevent. Also, Vodka's pretty filling as a booze. If you drink too much of it, you don't have to work hard to "pull the trigger" because puking up vodka's a relatively simply, effortless process.
Cons: It's vodka. What isn't bad about it? Anything but vodka, please. Seriously. Malibu and Milk. Peach Schnapps. Bottom shelf tequila. Whatever. People don't realize how truly awful vodka is. Vodka is the worst. Vodka's like those older kids you first meet in high school who you think are so cool, and they take you out and you drink and smoke with them and then a year later, they're working at the Gap and doing lots of Acid, and you're like, woah, what the fuck? I thought you were cool. And they were like, so did we. And then you do everything you can to get out of town and never see these people again.
Feed It To LilyMoss In Mass Quantities? Sure. Whatever, they're going to do it anyway. Besides which, who are we to judge? Just look at them. Hotness in motion. Someone, somewhere has said that fame and beauty take sacrifice. In which case, color me hot. I know how I'm getting into shape this season.

Chantix and Zyban can help you stop smoking, by ending your life:

Federal drug regulators warned Wednesday that patients taking two popular drugs to stop smoking should be watched closely for signs of serious mental illness, as reports mount of suicides among the drugs' users.

And you'll get a nice hearty chuckle out of this: Zyban is also sold as Wellbutrin as an antidepressant, with one small flaw: "suicidal thoughts by patients who use it for depression." Uh huh.

Science: totally worthless.
[Pic via]

Last year, tobacco companies spent $78.4 million on ads in the U.S., with $69.3 million of that in magazines, mostly male-oriented publications including Maxim, Playboy, Men's Journal and Field & Stream

And therefore?

The ad industry opposes the legislation, arguing that it violates free speech.

Tobacco companies would only be allowed to run text-only, black-and-white ads, which lack that smoky tobaccozazz that gets the kids excited. Sure, the advertising and tobacco industries would love for kids to be healthy and all, but can we please be rationally for a moment and consider the impact this could have on Field & Stream? Is a world without Maxim a world worth living in, for a 17 year-old smoker?

Mostly this is just your daily reminder that the ad industry is just as morally bankrupt as the tobacco industry. Now, time to gobble some delicious Snus.
[WSJ]

Parliament Lights
Sometimes referred to as p-funks or p-fags, these recessed-filter cig'ruts were the chosen brand of the hipster gentry. There's something classic yet silly about them—the associations they once had with "white trash" are long lost memories, as they've been co-opted by young people wearing western shirts. Basically they were the Pabst Blue Ribbon of the smoking set. Also popular in the gay world for their sleek design and easily-matchable pack colors, Parliament Lights were both hip and sorta lame. They became cliches long before they got banned.

Marlboro Lights
Oh the drama! Marbs were the chosen cigarette of handbag-crazed skinnygirls and other fabulous, star-obsessed youngs. They sort of reached the peak of their cultural relevance in the late 90s, when fashionable stars like Gwyneth Paltrow were spotted puffing away, clutching that classy-lookin' gold and white box. Marlboro Lights were the cigarettes that people who "don't smoke" smoked, as they almost seemed like nothing—like air or tissue paper. And, that's exactly what the manufacturers wanted you to think. We're not quite sure what happened to the Marlboro Light—why it lost its cultural capital—but we suppose it's moot now.

Camel Lights
Camel Lights are perhaps the most versatile of any of the big light brands. Smoked by theater kids and soulful poet street toughs (you know who you are) alike, the dense, tar-filled sticks lent an air of devil-may-care coolness to any who set them aflame. Camel Lights smokers were some of the most aggressively defensive (that's a thing...) in all of smokedom, claiming superiority to anyone who dares impugn the Turkish carcinogens. These were the cigarettes kids smoked when they first started— and either they got too heavy and they downgraded to Parlies or Marlboros, or they stuck it out and they're still doing it to this day, those lung-hacking badasses. Well, not for long.

Winston Lights
The cigarette smoked by the kids who'd likely grow up to be the old guys who sit outside the corner spa, cranking butts and telling weird, mumbly stories. Though they come from the same stock, these cigs were more potent and old timey dignified than the cheap, mass-market Marlboros. While the soulful poet-thugs mighta been sucking down Camels, the regular-poets-with-chips-on-their-shoulders boys were standing back behind school pensively puffing on a Winston. How they get from that artful, lovely bent to the hunched-over grizzled townie is one of life's great mysteries. One that now, it seems, will go forever unanswered.

Newport Lights
If you grew up in Boston, Newport Lights meant pretty much one thing: Southie. Which is to say that while menthol cigarettes have a gnarled and unsavory past with African Americans (they were passed off by cigarette manufacturers as "a brand for the blacks!", and of course they're the worst kind of cigarettes you can buy), there were a whole lotta white kid menaces (and their gaggles of wannabe followers) who were also stuffing fiberglass down their throats. Basically, no matter who you were—white, black, whatever—Newport Lights were the cigarettes for the people (mostly young women) who just firmly didn't give a fuck. What will they turn to now?

Of course, these cigarettes will still exist. They'll just be called something else. But still it feels like some chapter is closing. Some awful, black-lunged, hideous chapter. But a chapter nonetheless.

Top image via Getty

• Yesterday: Coffee is great for you unless you smoke.
• And they tell us cigarettes are racist!
• Today: San Francisco imposes a 33 cents per pack tax on cigarettes to pay for the cost of cleaning up the butts. That's the part we don't want, why are you making us pay?
• The new head of the CDC wants to shut down smoke shops on Indian reservations. But cigarettes are cheaper there!
• Oh and not only are cigarettes racist, they are also sexist, against women.

Scientists used to think that coffee was bad for you, but now they say, woops, that was just because so many people who drink coffee are smokers, too. It was the cigarettes, not the coffee! Which is no great comfort for you, our intoxicated target demographic. But this is:

Coffee seems to protect the liver against cirrhosis, especially that caused by alcoholism. It's not clear, either for cancer or cirrhosis, whether it's coffee or caffeine that may be protective.

So just to be safe, drink lots of coffee and take a few handfuls of Vivarin whenever you're "out on the town"—or just sitting home alone in your darkened apartment draining the last of a bottle of Popov Discount Vodka! But don't smoke cigarettes. But your medical marijuana's still safe!
[LAT]

Edwina Pearce, a spokeswoman for the Cancer Council Victoria, which produced the ad in Australia, said the boy, whom she identified only as Alexander, shed real tears.

"We didn't do anything dastardly to make him cry. He did get upset, but it was about a 10-second period that he was upset for and then his mother came back and gave him a big cuddle and everything was happy again."

Sure, the anti-smoking forces say the "ends justify the means," but what if smacking the kid around would stop 100 people from smoking, or barbecuing the kid on a spit would stop 1000 people from smoking? Let's just leave the kids out of the fight altogether, shall we?

The real problem is there aren't even any cigarettes in the ad. Idea: Kid forced to smoke a whole carton of Marlboros, live on tape? [NYDN]