Tobacco in The News

Up in Smoke
Employers score victory as workers face reduced compensation benefits
Smokers beware. There is yet another reason to quit. Employers recently scored a major victory when the Connecticut Supreme Court’s eight-justice panel ruled that an individual’s lifestyle choices can be taken into account when determining liability for a work-related illness.

Growth Market For Death
With U.S. sales in decline, tobacco firms push their product in developing countries, particularly in Asia
In 1964, when the U.S. surgeon general's office published the famed report that officially confirmed the link between smoking and cancer, nearly half of American adults smoked. To understand just how smoky life was back then, watch any episode of Mad Men, the TV series set on Madison Avenue in the early 1960s. Without a second thought, almost every character lights up regularly, at the office, at home, in restaurants, bars, cars, even at the dinner table in front of the kids.

Smoking Threatens Millions in China
Tens of millions of Chinese will die of lung diseases over the next 25 years unless the government takes action to combat smoking and the indoor burning of fuel, scientists have warned. The study, published on Saturday in the British journal, The Lancet, said chronic respiratory illness would kill 53.3 million, while lung cancer would leave another 13.5 million dead.