August 6, 2003 - Thumbs Down For Smoking Ban - A smoking ban for Mount Sterling bars and restaurants, voted down July 28, isn't likely to be brought up again, an official said yesterday. Dr. Kelly Johnson, a Mount Sterling dentist and a member of the Montgomery County Board of Health that voted against the smoking ban, said the vote was 4-3. Five board members did not attend the meeting, while about 20 restaurant officials showed up to protest the ban, Johnson said. One of the four board members who voted against the ban would have to bring the issue up again and that's unlikely, Johnson said. - Lexington Herald-Leader, 8/5/03

We are now informed by Rep. Laura Ruderman (D-45th) of the Washington Legislature that there will be no new tax on cigarettes in the state. We appreciate her timely and forthcoming responses to keep her constituents informed about important issues. 

Coming on the heels of Washington state Senator Rosemary McAuliffe's bill to extend the state smoking ban to taverns and restaurants dying in committee, this final decision by the state legislature to not levy new taxes on cigarettes is welcome. It's been a tough legislative year for tobacco control in Washington: their two principal initiatives, new cigarette taxes and broader smoking bans, have met with well-deserved failure. We wish the folks at tobacco control many more years of the same."

The ruling in Boston by a state appellate judge, Janis Barry, means Marlboro Light smokers in Massachusetts who say Philip Morris, a unit of the Altria Group, lied in advertising about the product's dangers must bring their suits individually. The judge said there were too many differences in individual smoking patterns to bring the case as a class action.

Last week, Philip Morris was among a group of cigarette makers that won reversal of a record $145 billion punitive damage verdict in Florida and decertification of the class that brought the suit. Lawsuits on behalf of large classes often lead to much larger jury awards than individual suits.

"There's been a very significant reduction in the industry's legal risk," said David Adelman, a Morgan Stanley analyst. "It will make it more difficult for these types of cases to go forward."

Philip Morris lost a similar light cigarette case in Illinois in March, when a judge in Madison County, Nicholas Byron, ordered the company to pay $10.1 billion in damages. The judge eventually allowed Philip Morris to post a $6.8 billion bond while appealing the decision, instead of the $12 billion he had originally ordered. - Bloomberg News 5/28/03

February 20, 2003 - The Party's Over - Minnesota's landmark tobacco settlement, hailed five years ago as a great victory for public health, emerged Tuesday as part of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's tonic for an ailing state financial sheet, accounting for nearly one-fourth of his budget-balancing proposal.

Under Pawlenty's plan to fix the $4.2 billion budget deficit for the next two years, more than $1 billion would be transferred from youth prevention and medical school education and training accounts into the general fund.

Gone would be the edgy and provocative Target Market youth antismoking campaign and other community-based programs that former Health Department Commissioner Jan Malcolm credited for a sharp decline in teen smoking.  - Start Tribute, 2/19/03

Mr. Bloomberg views the smoking bill as the most important piece of municipal legislation he has sought since taking office, and he had hoped to have the bill wrapped up by the Great American Smokeout on Nov. 21. But passage is now considered highly unlikely by that date, as the bill will now take a back seat to the intensifying budget negotiations taking place between the mayor's staff and the City Council.  (New York Times, 11/14/02)