cigarettes online

Living in America, we all know that smoking cigarettes is probably the worst sin you can possibly take part in. I’m actually a long time smoker myself, but hopefully I’ll quit in the next month or so. The Japanese recently modified the Kool cigarette to help out smokers who simply aren’t getting enough flavor with every draw. The modification is a simple one where a tiny ball inside the filter can be squeezed to shoot extra flavor into the smoke you are inhaling. At first I thought it was a joke, but then I remembered that the Japanes introduce really odd things like this on a daily basis. The Kool “Boosts” were originally designed in 2007.

Two tobacco companies are battling it out at Competition Commission Tribunal hearings.

At issue is access to retail channels.

The tribunal’s ruling is likely to affect the cigarette brands that are immediately visible to consumers at retail outlets.

Japan Tobacco International South Africa (JTISA) has accused British American Tobacco South Africa (Batsa) of being involved in conduct aimed at denying its competitors access to various retail channels.

These include hotels, restaurants and cafes.

JTISA manufactures brands that include Winston, Camel and Benson & Hedges.

Batsa’s flagship brands include Peter Stuyvesant, Dunhill and Kent.

JTISA lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission in 2003, saying Batsa was the dominant cigarette manufacturer in the country.

It just got harder to buy cigarettes in Ontario. Thanks to a law enacted this week, Ontario now joins the ranks of Quebec, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan by banning the display of tobacco products in stores. Retailers have been forced to cover so-called "power walls" — the large displays of cigarette brands found behind the cash register at the local convenience store, gas station or supermarket — and customers must now pay for their smokes before they can legally touch them. Smokers are even prohibited from holding more than one pack of cigarettes at any given moment. This strikes us as a futile exercise. There is no doubt that smoking is extremely detrimental to health. The links between cigarettes and a litany of diseases, many of them fatal, is unquestionable: Lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, impotence and even cataracts are all caused by smoking. Cigarette smoke leaves a trail of collateral damage, too: Research shows that secondhand smoking can lead to the same kind of health problems as smoking. Non-smokers who live with partners who smoke inside the home have up to a 30% increased risk of developing lung cancer, and those exposed to cigarette smoke in the workplace have an increased risk of up to 20%. But we do not believe that these real risks counsel for the absurd notion of diligently protecting customers’ delicate senses from perceiving tobacco products … until they’ve laid out some cash. Ontario’s government has reasoned that the new law will convince people to quit smoking, leaving fewer stroke victims and lung cancer patients taking up hospital beds. This argument fails to take into account the savings smokers create by not lingering into old age, when health care costs typically zoom into the stratosphere. But even setting the cold cost calculus aside, it is very hard to believe that keeping cigarettes behind a black curtain will do anything to dissuade people from buying them. If that were all it took to kick a nicotine habit, smokers would be flocking to drapery stores, instead of buying nicotine gum and patches. The Ontario government has succeeded in adding a financial and practical burden to retailers. But when it comes to reducing tobacco consumption, it is just blowing smoke.