Twas four nights before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except staffers at the White House. That’s right, at 3 p.m. on Friday, December 21, 2012, the last business day before Christmas, the White House finally released its Unified Agenda and Regulatory Plan, which included coal in the stocking in the form of more regulations for tobacco companies.

On December 18th, 17 states and the manufacturer-signatories to the Master Settlement Agreement announced a settlement of the manufacturers’ claims that the states failed to satisfy their obligations to “diligently enforce” non-signatories’ escrow requirements.

R.J. Reynolds recently filed a federal lawsuit accusing an e-cigarette merchant of trademark infringement. R.J. Reynolds accused the company of unfair competition and dilution under the Lanham Act based on the company’s alleged use of the Camel and Winston cigarette brand names to describe the company’s e-cigarettes. R.J. Reynolds claimed that the competitor advertised “Winston” and “Camell” flavors on its website.

In an apparent response to a recent court ruling that disapproved of FDA’s requirements for graphic warning labels on cigarette packages, FDA recently announced that it will be collecting data geared toward ascertaining the effectiveness of the warning labels, particularly on smoking cessation.

In a recent “Notice to Cigarette Distributors Selling in New Mexico,” the New Mexico Attorney General announced that “effective immediately” all distributors must stop selling any product marked as a “small” or “little” cigar unless the product listed is in the state cigarette directory. Since no little cigars are currently listed in the Attorney General’s directory, the notice is an immediate, de facto ban on the product. The notice also purports to require that all little cigars must bear state excise stamps in the same manner as cigarettes.

In the recent election, Missouri voters narrowly defeated (by a margin of 50.8% to 49.2%) a ballot initiative that would have raised state excise taxes on all tobacco products, would have regulated cigarette rolling machines and would have increased the amount of money that nonparticipating manufacturers are required to place into escrow accounts.