A Lehman Brothers employee who, for now, has kept his job with new owner Barclays, is smoking "20, 30% more," in part because "we don’t really have much work to do these days, so we just sit around and talk to people."

Nearby, a woman named Liz, who has been let go from Lehman along with her boss, says that stress at the company in the past six months led her to start smoking for the first time in her life—at the age of 61.

"Everybody could tell that Lehman was falling apart the end of last year," she says. "I was under a tremendous amount of pressure, so I picked up a cigarette." It didn’t help matters that she lived with her daughter and her daughter’s fiancé, both of whom smoke.

[Health.com]

The current bill in Congress would ban "flavored" cigarettes, but exempt menthols. The Black Caucus is an important player because they stand for the black community—the most enthusiastic consumers of menthols—and they've been wooed big time by tobacco companies.

Philip Morris over the years has been one of the biggest contributors to the caucus’s nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. That financial support, in some years exceeding $250,000, and lesser amounts at times from other cigarette makers, has been the reason some critics perceived an alliance between big tobacco and African-American members of Congress, some of whom were willing to help fend off antitobacco efforts.

Among them, some critics have said, was Charles B. Rangel of New York. Although he supported some antitobacco initiatives, until the last few years Mr. Rangel staunchly opposed federal tobacco tax increases. He has said his stand was based on the disproportionate effect of excise taxes on the poor, not the thousands of dollars he received in tobacco industry political action committee donations.

Way to use logic in order to help your constituents into an early grave, Charlie Rangel! But a lot of CBC members are in fact in favor of banning menthol, many because of the fact that it disproportionately kills black people. Tobacco companies that currently support the bill, though, would probably oppose it if menthols got added.

It looks like menthols will stay legal, for now. Awesome for the black community as well as race car drivers!

[NYT]

"This city's famed marijuana bars have weathered many challenges over the years and are still smoking. But now they face an unwelcome blast of fresh air: On July 1, the Netherlands will be one of the last European countries to ban smoking in bars and restaurants in compliance with EU law.

"The Health Ministry says the ban will apply to cafes that sell marijuana, known as coffee shops. But this being Holland, which for centuries has experimented with social liberalism, there's a loophole: The ban covers tobacco but not marijuana, which is technically illegal anyway.

"But that still leaves coffee shops and their customers in a bind. Dutch and other European marijuana users traditionally smoke pot in fat, cone-shaped joints mixed with tobacco. 'It's the world upside down: In other countries they look for the marijuana in the cigarette. Here they look for the cigarette in the marijuana,' said Jason den Enting, manager of coffee shop Dampkring.

"Shops are scrambling to adapt. One alternative is 'vaporizer' machines, which incinerate weed smokelessly. Another is to replace tobacco with herbs like coltsfoot, a common plant that looks like a dandelion and that smokers describe as tasting a bit like oregano.

"But most shops are just planning to increase their sales of hash brownies and pure weed - and are hoping the law isn't enforced." [AP]

"My recollection is that we were able to eliminate the use of flavored cigarettes, strawberry, mocha, and all this stuff that is clearly targeted at young kids and to start them smoking tobacco," Mike DeWine, the former Ohio senator [said].

It's about time we got rid of those mocha cigarettes that all the kids are smoking these days. Of course, we'll still have this problem:

Scientists who study smoking have identified various disparities in the health of black and white smokers. National Cancer Institute data shows that African-American men get lung cancer at a rate 50 percent higher than white men — a gap that most scientists say cannot be fully explained by historically higher rates of smoking by black men.

One theory suggests that menthol in cigarettes, by providing an additional pleasurable sensory cue, reinforces addiction.

[NYT]

But let's be fair, those crying racial discrimination in advertising: how do you explain THIS?

The profit margins for cigarette smugglers are staggering. In New York City, where cartons must sell for a minimum of $70, a smuggler can make more than $50,000 on a 1,500-carton load. A well-organized ring can generate $200,000 to $300,000 a week.

Sweet! But wait:

Many cigarette-smuggling rings are now sending their profits to overseas terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Hezbollah. The report identifies three recent cases where cigarette smugglers had ties to such groups. In one case, convicted butt-smuggler Mohamad Hammoud made more than $8 million from 2000 to 2002 - and funneled at least $100,000 to Hezbollah. Officials estimate that these smugglers are sending millions a year to overseas terror networks...

The $50,000-plus from just one contraband load would be enough to fund as many as 10 USS Cole bombings. In just several weeks of butt-smuggling, a motivated terrorist cell could generate enough to fund another 9/11-style attack (estimated operational cost: $500,000).

Their neighbor agreed to install air filters and use a smokeless ashtray. The Selbin's suit did not even allege that the smoke was coming into their apartment, just the common hallway in the building. Once publicity about the suit got out, a company called Aerus donated the air filters for free.

Attorney, plaintiff, and terrible rat bastard Jonathan Selbin hopes that this messy affair doesn't make him look bad:

Mr. Selbin indicated on Monday that the publicity surrounding the lawsuit had not been pleasant. "I am confident you will find a way to make us look like terrible people all over again for insisting on such an onerous thing," he said in the e-mail message.

Megan Lane, 17, called it "ridiculous" and vowed to find ways to avoid paying the tax rather than quit.

"If you're a true smoker, you'll pay anything. I'll never quit. Never," said the East Quogue, L.I., teen, who was chain-smoking Parliaments outside Madison Square Garden as she waited with her dad for an autograph from Rangers forward Sean Avery.

"Nine dollars is stupid," she said. "I'm going to go to the Indian reservation and get them for $3. They don't check ID."

[pic via Gotham Gazette; quote via NYDN]