Man nabbed over fake cigarettes

A man was arrested after police found fake cigarettes in his bakkie in East London on Monday morning, said Eastern Cape police.

The fake cigarettes had an estimated street value of R72 000, said Captain Ernest Sigobe.

The 35-year-old man was arrested at about 6am after being pulled over by police.

“The suspect is due in the East London Magistrate's Court soon on charges of dealing in fake cigarettes,” said Sigobe.

Two arrested for stealing $700 in cigarettes

Kentucky State Police say two women stole $700 worth of cigarettes from a Union County smoke shop. It happened Monday around 8:00 p.m. at "Smoking Joes" near Sturgis. Troopers say they were watching for traffic violations when they saw two women go inside the store.

They say one of them stayed inside while the other made several trips back and forth to a vehicle carrying cartons of cigarettes. When the women left, troopers say they pulled the vehicle over for a minor traffic violation and could not find any receipts for the cartons.

Patsy Hansbrough, 42, of Sturgis and 44-year-old Jacqueline Fox of Hopkinsville were taken to jail. The cigarettes were returned to the store.

Cigarettes main cause of fires in İstanbul, official figures say

The official figures of the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality Fire Department say some 12,500 of the total number of fires that occurred in İstanbul in the first 11 months of 2011 were caused by cigarettes.
According to the figures, firefighters intervened in 24,691 fires in İstanbul. Among the causes of these fires, cigarettes come first, followed by short circuits with 4,298 incidents. Children playing with fire is listed as the third most frequent cause of fires, followed by the improper use of electrical equipment such as electric stoves and an iron. The number of fires that was caused by children playing with fire stood at 1,487 while the number for incidents caused by the improper use of electrical equipment was 1,037.

The other causes for fires include -- but are not limited to -- the improper use of candles, and gas explosions.

The official data say most fire incidents took place in the months of July, August and September.

The most fires occurred in İstanbul's Pendik district, with 1,320 recorded incidents.

Fires most commonly took place between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., mostly during weekends and public holidays. The number of false reports came in at 3,364.

Fairfax medical marijuana dispensary closes and vacates premises on schedule

The Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, the oldest dispensary of its kind in the state, quietly shut down over the weekend, the victim of a federal crackdown.

"They moved out of the premises just before 2 a.m. on Sunday morning," said Peter Goldstone, a Santa Rosa attorney who has represented the Alliance, and its operator, Lynnette Shaw, in an eviction proceeding that was brought by the Alliance's landlord. Shaw could not be reached for comment.

The landlord, Farshid Ezazi of Orinda, initiated the eviction proceeding after Melinda Haag, the San Francisco-based U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, threatened to confiscate the building in which the Alliance operated at 6 School St. in Fairfax. The Fairfax dispensary is among dozens statewide that federal prosecutors say they have targeted due to the dispensaries' proximity to parks, schools and other facilities used by children.

The Marin Wellness Center, a medical marijuana dispensary at 1100 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Kentfield, is also being forced to close by Jan. 1 due to pressure applied to its landlord by federal authorities. A third dispensary, the Green Door Wellness Education Center at 7586 Redwood Blvd. Suite C in Novato, is battling an eviction proceeding brought by its landlord and is awaiting a Marin Superior Court judge's decision after a one-day trial on the eviction last week.

Shaw had previously said that she would seek to continue storing thousands of patients' medical records at the School Street site. She said she had nowhere else to put them. But Goldstone said the records have been removed.
"My understanding is that it is what they call broom-clean, and they've turned over the keys," Goldstone said.

The federal government began the process of confiscating the School Street building on Nov. 18, even though Ezazi had already initiated court action to evict the Marin Alliance. Robert Weems, Ezazi's attorney, said his client filed court papers last week formally acknowledging ownership of the 6 School St. property, a step he had to take if he hopes to retain ownership. Weems said the Marin Alliance's closure should strengthen Ezazi's case.

"We think it is significant that possession has been returned to us," Weems said. Ezazi can now file a motion to dismiss the forfeiture proceeding or opt for a trial, Weems said.

Shaw, who has always shared information freely about the Alliance's long-standing legal battles, stopped responding to questions from the press earlier this month, saying that she was "in great danger" and had to end her relationship with the Alliance, which she helped found.

A message on the Alliance's website announcing the closure states, "We are very sorry to announce that we have shut our doors until we can resolve certain legal issues. The battle is not over, but we must await further court action that will allow us to reopen, hopefully within a month or two. Unfortunately, our owner and director, Lynnette Shaw, finds it best to sever her relationship with Marin Alliance."

Imperial Tobacco joins Australia packaging fight

Global giant Imperial Tobacco has launched a legal challenge against Australia's plain packaging for cigarettes, officials said Wednesday, becoming the third company to contest the plan.
"Imperial Tobacco has filed a challenge which has some similarities to the British American Tobacco (BAT) challenge," a spokeswoman for Australia's High Court told AFP.
Imperial said its challenge, filed Tuesday, would claim that laws passed last month mandating plain packets for tobacco products from December 2012 breached Australia's constitution by infringing intellectual property rights.
Centred on its Peter Stuyvesant brand, Imperial's case will seek a High Court ruling to protect all of its tobacco products, which it says are worth "billions of dollars".
"The High Court of Australia will now determine claims which include the validity of these unprecedented laws," Imperial Tobacco Australia (ITA) manager Melvin Ruigrok said in a statement.
"Unchallenged, the Australian government would otherwise be able to simply take the intellectual property of legal entities."
BAT has filed a similar constitutional challenge but it was not clear whether they would be heard together, the High Court spokeswoman said.
Philip Morris is also suing Canberra over the plan, which will see cigarettes in drab packets with large, graphic health warnings showing diseased body parts and sick babies, while brand imagery and promotional text will be banned.
Ruigrok said Australians were fully aware of smoking's health risks and described the packets as "anything but plain", with official messages to cover at least 75 percent of packet fronts and 90 percent of the back.
"ITA supports tobacco regulation that is reasonable, proportionate and evidence-based," he said, warning of billions of dollars in compensation and legal costs.
"Unfortunately, the Australian government?s plain packaging legislation is none of these things."
Canberra says that tobacco use costs the country more than Aus$30 billion (US$30.8 billion) a year in healthcare and lost productivity and has vowed not to be deterred by the tobacco companies' legal campaigns.
Australia would be the first country to mandate plain packaging, although New Zealand, Canada and Britain have considered a similar approach and are watching developments.

Man pleads guilty to putting lit marijuana pipe to toddler's mouth

A Vermont man who was accused of putting a lit marijuana pipe into a toddler's mouth has been ordered to serve 60 days on a prison work crew.

The Burlington Free Press reports (http://bfpne.ws/sLl0jw) 25-year-old Jonathan Fuller of Concord was scheduled for a jury trial but opted to plead guilty to a felony charge of delivering drugs to a minor and a misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child.
Essex County State's Attorney Vince Illuzzi said Fuller received an overall sentence of one to three years in prison, all suspended but the six months on the work crew and four months of home confinement.

Fuller was accused of putting the pipe to his 2-year-old-daughter's mouth in 2009. Police had received a video recording of the alleged incident.

Cigarette maker tenders unconditional apology

A cigarette manufacturer has placed an unconditional apology to the Tobacco Control Cell for printing attractive advertisements of its cigarette brands in print media and magazines with the commitment to avoid serious violation of the 'The Prohibition of Smoking in Enclosed Places and Protection of Non Smokers' in future.

Sources told Business Recorder here on Wednesday that on November 22, 2011 the Executive Director, Health Services Academy, and in-charge of Federal Tobacco Control Cell ultimately decided to take some enforcement actions against the violators.

The Executive Director issued a formal detailed show-cause notice to the company to explain, within seven days of the receipt of the notice, why they were advertising cigarettes in violation of anti-tobacco rules.
According to sources in Tobacco Control Cell, the company has now submitted its reply to the said show-cause notice to the Cabinet Division and the Health Services Academy.

The said tobacco company has accepted patent illegality and violation of government rules and guidelines, and has also tendered an unconditional apology and given a guarantee that such print media campaigns will not be repeated.
Sources said that the civil society has urged the government to implement the Ordinance 'The Prohibition of Smoking in Enclosed Places and Protection of Non Smokers', and asked to take legal action against the cigarette manufacturer for publishing promotional advertisements in the media.
Sources said that the recent promotional blitz launched by a company by placing attractive advertisements for its cigarette brands in some sections of the print media and magazines has been termed illegal by Tobacco Control Cell working under health services academy.

According to tobacco advertisement guidelines issued by the government, cigarettes ads in the press should not exceed one square inch with 20 percent of its dedicated to health warning, virtually prohibiting such print advertisements.
In spite of the fact that these advertisements ran for two weeks in complete disregard of the law, the relevant authorities had failed to take any action on their own.

It were civil society organisations that brought the relevant authorities out of their slumber and demanded action by the authorities, even threatening taking the matter to the higher courts, if the authorities failed to stop such illegal activities.
Now the civil society awaits the action taken by the Health Services Academy over this illegal promotional campaign and admitted illegality by the multinational tobacco company.

Sources close to the affairs said that the units try to use influence over the Health Services Academy for not taking any action against them.

Efforts are underway to create some form of situation where the matter will be hushed up and forgotten altogether.

This just shows that the relevant authorities do not feel the courage to take any action when a multinational is involved.
Dr Javed Khan, Head of Pulmonary Medicine, Aga Khan Medical College Karachi, and Chairman of National Alliance for Tobacco Control, when contacted, stated that the illegality must not be allowed to be settled by a mere apology, even if unconditional, but strict legal action under the law must be initiated against the management of tobacco companies for such illegal advertisement campaigns which attract the youth.