Legislation

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The Chicago Tobacco Prevention Project (“CTPP”) is awarding grants to several housing organizations to encourage the adoption of smoke-free policies in apartment and condos in Chicago.  The CTPP represents an effort to create more smoke-free multi-unit residential properties in Chicago as part of the project’s overall effort to reduce smoking rates and exposure to secondhand smoke. The Project is run by the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, in collaboration with City of Chicago’s Department of Public Health.  For more information: www.lungchicago.org/ctpp

Effective July 1, 2011, it is a criminal offense to sell electronic cigarettes (“e-cigarettes”) to minors in the State of Colorado.  Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed the law in March, which is codified at Colorado Revised Statutes, section 18-13-121.  The new law characterizes e-cigarettes as a “tobacco product.”  A person who violates the new law commits a class 2 petty offense, which may be punishable by a fine of two hundred dollars.  The new law also provides that municipalities may impose more stringent requirements than provided in this section of the Colorado Criminal Code.

South Carolina is the latest state to introduce legislation aimed at the filtered cigar industry.  Filtered cigars generally look like cigarettes, except that filtered cigars are wrapped in tobacco or paper containing tobacco.  As a result, the outer wrappings of filtered cigars are brown.  However, filtered cigars are often packaged like cigarettes, in packs of 20, and cartons of 10 packs.

As reported in the Boston Globe, the City of Worcester seems to be among one of the first localities to take advantage of powers provided  by the federal 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.   That Act allows not only states but also localities to impose “specific bans or restrictions on the time, place and manner” of cigarette advertising.  The Worcester City Council, taking advantage of such provisions enacted a local ordinance banning any tobacco brand advertising visible from streets, parks and schools.   The initiative for the City Council action was a mounting campaign by teenagers who had statics regarding not only the health effect of smoking but also how outdoor advertising was concentrated in low-income communities, especially in communities of color.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal this week, the 46 state-signatories to the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement are negotiating a settlement of claims by the signatory-manufacturers that the states have failed to “diligently enforce” escrow requirements applicable to the non-signatory nonparticipating manufacturers.   The signatory-manufacturers are attempting to recoup as much as two billion dollars from the states.

In February, National Tobacco Company, the fourth largest manufacturer and marketer of roll-your-own tobacco products in the United States, filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia seeking a declaration that certain provisions of the Prohibition Against Selling Tobacco Products to Minors Amendment Act of 2009 (the “Act”) are unconstitutional and an injunction prohibiting the District from enforcing the provisions.