Proof lacking on e-cigarettes' safety, experts warn

By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News

'e-cigarettes' look real, but are battery-powered and typically made of stainless steel

There is a worrying lack of safety data on electronic cigarettes, despite their growing popularity with the public, two leading Greek researchers have warned.

In the British Medical Journal, they say that without more evidence it is impossible to know if such products actually do more harm than good.
Some studies have raised safety fears, but retailers argue e-cigarettes are a healthy alternative to the real thing.
Users can inhale nicotine without tar, tobacco or carbon monoxide.
The Department of Health suggested consumers "exercise caution".

The Department of Health is not aware of any evidence about the long-term safety of e-cigarettes and, as such, would suggest that consumers exercise caution Government spokeswoman

The report authors said consumers should stop using the devices until ongoing safety studies reported back within the next year.
The World Health Organisation is among those to raise concerns about the safety of these new types of cigarette substitute, which deliver a nicotine hit in a fine vapour.
And in the past year, US regulators have detained and blocked numerous shipments of e-cigarettes at borders because the devices are not approved.
In the UK, it is illegal to sell e-cigarettes as a "quit smoking" aid.
But they are widely available to buy as a "cigarette alternative" over the internet and are sold in a number of places, including some bars and clubs.
Andreas Flouris and Dimitris Oikonomou, from the Institute of Human Performance and Rehabilitation in Greece, say there have been three main reports on e-cigarette safety - one by US regulators, one by a publicly-funded Greek research institute, and another by a private company in New Zealand.
Scant data
The US Food and Drug Administration report expressed concern after finding different brands of the battery operated device delivered markedly different amounts of nicotine vapour with each puff.
The FDA also detected traces of powerful cancer-causing chemicals.
The Greek institute Demokritos took a neutral stance on the products and did not find any evidence of chemical contamination.
Private enterprise Health New Zealand did find cancer-causing chemicals in products, but concluded that overall e-cigarettes should be recommended on the basis of the health risks associated with smoking normal cigarettes.
The researchers told the BMJ: "The scarce evidence indicates the existence of various toxic and carcinogenic compounds in e-cigarettes, albeit in possibly much smaller concentrations than in traditional cigarettes."

Smokers' views on e-cigarettes

Callum Reckless, director at Smart Smoker, a company that sells e-cigarettes, said: "I believe that electronic cigarettes are indeed a safer alternative to smoking real cigarettes."
He welcomed more research into the safety of the products.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said it had been working with regulators to test the products and that none of those tested so far complied with product safety regulations.
She said the government was working to ensure e-cigarettes were labelled and sold appropriately.
"The Department of Health is not aware of any evidence about the long-term safety of e-cigarettes and, as such, would suggest that consumers exercise caution.
"E-cigarettes are not promoted by, or available on, the NHS," she said.
Deborah Arnott, of the charity Action on Smoking and Health, said: "We do need better data on safety and appropriate regulation for e-cigarettes, although these products are certain to be significantly less hazardous than cigarettes, which lead to premature death in half all long-term users."
She said there was demand for the products from smokers - UK estimates suggest around one in ten has already tried them.

Former top banker goes to deserted island to quit smoking

Retired senior banker Geoff Spice is to live on a deserted island for a month in a last ditch attempt to quit smoking.

By Simon Johnson

Mr Spice began smoking 43 years ago as a paperboy, when he stole some cigarettes from the shop where he was working.

Mr Spice, 56, from Surrey, will become a castaway on Sgarabhaigh, a 40-acre uninhabited island in the Outer Hebrides.

The former managing director for NM Rothschild, the top London investment bank, will have to camp as there are no houses.

Sgarabhaigh, which means Cormorant Island in Gaelic, also has no electricity or water supply, so he will rely for fires from driftwood and a camp stove and bottled water.

He does not want to fish for food, but the island is also free of rabbits. However, there are plenty of sheep to keep him company.

Mr Spice, who smokes 30 cigarettes per day, said: "I'm a bit apprehensive now that the time is almost here about spending the month on the island by myself but I'm determined to see it through.

"Today I'm going to have one last cigarette and give the rest of the packet to my wife and get on the boat to the island.

"This is my last chance. I've been smoking 30 a day as usual but I think I can crack the habit.

"I am taking plenty of midge repellent though ironically they say that smoking helps keep the insect away."

To fight boredom, he hopes to learn to play the guitar and will take with him an iPod that contains the text of 120 books.

He will take with him a mobile phone and a computer, both powered by a photo voltaic solar cell. It will also have a wind-up handle as a back up to generate electricity.

Dave Hill, the island's owner, has arranged for Mr Spice to be dropped off on Sgarabhaigh and picked up a month later.

"If he rings to say he cannot stand it without a cigarette we will ignore it until it gets to three calls. He must have time to reflect on his decision," said Mr Hill.

Mr Spice began smoking 43 years ago as a paperboy, when he stole some cigarettes from the shop where he was working.

He has previously tried nicotine patches and gum, a self-help book and going cold turkey in an effort to kick the habit, but nothing worked.

The former banker first considered staying on an uninhabited island a decade ago, when he was living in Australia, but was worried about the spiders and snakes there. He found Sgarabhaigh by Googling 'Uninhabited Scottish Islands'.

"I will miss my wife Elena, my children and my family very much but I understand that my mobile phone will work on the island so we can speak that way," Mr Spice said.

"I'm hoping that my plan will work, I'll stop smoking and my month on the island may lead to many years of extra life that I'll be able to spend with them."

Dutch smoking ban is up in the air

Research shows that turnover at small cafes and bars has dropped by thirty percent since the smoking ban. Photo WFA

The appeals court in Den Bosch has ruled in favour of the owners of a Breda cafe who defied a national smoking ban, effectively repealing the smoking ban for small bars and cafes.

The court ruled that the national smoking ban lacks the legal basis to impose the ban on small establishments without hired staff, which is the case for cafe Victoria in Breda. The ruling means that smoking is allowed again in all small cafes and bars where the owners are the only staff.

A ban on smoking in bars in the Netherlands came into effect on July 1, 2008, in line with a European trend to prohibit smoking in public places. The legal reasoning behind the Dutch ban was that employees have to be protected from the health effects of secondhand smoke.

The Dutch law allows cafes to have designated, closed-off smoking areas without service. But cafes too small to create such rooms have since argued that this puts them at an unfair disadvantage. Research has shown that turnover in smaller bars and cafes has dropped by thirty percent since the smoking ban was introduced. A number of cafes, including Victoria in Breda, have openly defied the ban by allowing their customers to light up as before.

Now that the judge in Den Bosch has ruled in favour of Victoria's owners, small cafes around the country can technically allow smoking again.

The health ministry said it was withholding its response until the appeals court in Leeuwarden rules on a similar case in Groningen. A judge in Groningen ruled against the owners of cafe De Kachel, who had also defied the smoking ban. The cafe owners appealed the Groningen verdict with a higher court in Leeuwarden.

The judge in Den Bosh argued that the smoking ban was a specific measure against nuisance from smoking, but that other less radical measures are possible. In April, a lower court in Breda ruled in favour of a collective of the Breda cafe owners, but in that case the ruling was based on the distortion of competition with larger establishments.

The health ministry appealed that verdict, demanding a 1,200 euros fine and the closing of the establishments. But the ministry now says it will not appeal further if it loses in the Leeuwarden court too. "In that case the minister will look into changing the existing law," a spokesperson said

Modified tobacco plant may block HIV

OWENSBORO, Ky., March 31 (UPI) -- A gel derived from a close relative to the tobacco plant is being tested as an affordable preventative measure for HIV, U.S. researchers said.

Kenneth Palmer, a senior scientist in the University of Louisville's Owensboro Cancer Research Program, has published research that suggests growing large quantities of the protein griffithsin found in the transgenic plant Nicotiana benthamiana can prevent human immunodeficiency virus from infecting cells of the immune system, the university's James Graham Brown Cancer Center said in a release.

Palmer said the drug could be manufactured in the form of a microbicide gel or film for topical application, with a selling price comparable to condoms.

They modified the tobacco mosaic virus to incorporate the griffithsin gene and infected more than 9,300 tobacco plants. Scientists were able to extract enough griffithsin to produce about 100,000 HIV microbicide doses from the leaves. The chemical performed identically to griffithsin produced by other methods, the report said.

New 102% Increase in Tobacco Tax To Take Effect Wednesday

Buy your cigarettes now. Cigarette tax one day away

By Owen Morris

Flickr: Valerie Everett

If you smoke, this post won't be news because you've noticed the price of cigarettes jump in the past two weeks. Tobacco companies are getting ready for the increased federal tobacco tax by raising their own prices. (Can someone explain how tobacco companies raising the price of a pack 80 cents will help consumers "adjust," as the companies have put it? It just seems a way to eek more profit.)

On Wednesday, the federal tax will go from 39 cents per pack to $1.01. All the extra tax money is supposed to help fund the State Children's Health Insurance Plan, or SCHIP. I've written about the new excise tax and SCHIP before and how it relates to cigars. On Wednesday the tax on individual cigars goes up as well, by 40 cents. It's steep but not as bad as the original version of the SCHIP law, which called for an outrageous $10 tax per cigar. Now, that will be the tax on a box of cigars rather than an individual cigar. That hasn't stopped the most popular cigar Web site from selling off inventory in what it's calling "SCHIP Busters."

The biggest losers in the new excise tax are the makers of roll-your-own tobacco.

Loose-leaf tobacco is a more fragmented industry with smaller producers than the monopolized cigarette industry. There are even a couple of family businesses still around, but most likely not for long. Wednesday happens to be April 1 and the new excise tax on roll-your-own tobacco looks an April Fool's joke but it isn't. The tax on RYO tobacco goes from $1.10 per pound to $24.78 per pound. That's more than 2,100 percent! Tuesday, a sack of RYO tobacco will cost $15; Wednesday it will be $40.

If there's a silver lining it's that the "loose-leaf" definition doesn't affect pipe smokers. Loose-leaf pipe tobacco increase more than 150 percent but nothing like RYO tobacco. The new tax goes up on it $1.75 to $2.83 per pound.

All of the above have created the tobacco panic of 2009 as smokers stock up. Others are promising the new taxes will make them quit.

Boston Bans Cigarette Sales In Drug Stores

CBS Evening News: Beantown Widens Its Effort To Get Its Residents To Kick The Habit; Now Taking Aim At Cigar Bars

Boston Toughens Smoking Ban

6 years after Boston, Mass. placed a citywide ban on smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and bars the city's public health commission has decided to outlaw all smoking bars. Randall Pinkston reports.

(CBS) Boston will become the nation’s second city to ban the sale of cigarettes by pharmacies on Monday, as new rules approved by the city’s public health commission take effect.

The regulations passed by the commission two months ago also ban colleges from selling tobacco products on campus and will force smoking bars to shut their doors within a decade, reports CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston.

“In 10 years, all smoking bars in Boston should be gone,” Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the commission’s executive director, tells CBS News.

There are only 11 left, and the city vows not to license any more. Health officials are especially perturbed at the emergence of half a dozen of hookah bars, which cater to college students and young adults.

“Once you get started, quitting is very hard,” Hallet says. “We still have a half a million deaths a year in the country every year that are attributable to the use of tobacco.”

The direct financial impact on pharmacies is expected to be small, as cigarettes account for just one-to-three percent of sales.

At Sullivan's Pharmacy, a family-owned drug store in Boston, owner Gregory Laham worries about diminished foot traffic, but will remove cigarettes from the shelves without protest.

"We know the dangers of smoking, and I support the ban,” Laham, tells CBS News. "As a pharmacist, it's obvious; we shouldn't be selling cigarettes."

The largest number of pharmacies in Boston belong to CVS and Walgreens, and both chains say they will comply with the new rules and are working on new merchandise displays.

San Francisco last year imposed the first municpal ban on cigarette sales by pharmacies, and the Berkeley-based Americans for Non-Smokers Rights foundation hopes a trend is underway.

You shouldn’t be able to buy tobacco products from your health service provider.

Cynthia Hallet, Executive Director of Americans for Non-Smokers Rights

“We’re bound to see other cities follow suit, the foundation's executive director, Cynthia Hallet, tells CBS News.“You shouldn’t be able to buy tobacco products from your health service provider.”

More controversial is the limit on cigar bars.

“Our goal is one of promoting health and safety for workers and for residents,” says Ferrer. “What we are saying is that if you personally smoke, we should reduce the exposure your smoking habit may have on somebody else, in particular on workers.”

But cigar bars bristle at the notion that their employees object to second-hand smoke.

“There is second-hand smoke, but we have state of the art humidifiers and smoke eaters," George Gilio, the general manager of Cigar Masters in Boston, says. During our visit, we noticed one bartender there lighting up.

“We have ten years to prove them wrong, and I think we’ll do it,” Gilio says.

“All the people that come to work for me come to work for me because they embrace the lifestyle. They enjoy this business. They’re all smokers," Barry Macdonald, whose family took over Churcill's Lounge in the early 1970s says.

“My position is - it’s legal, if you’re an adult, you can make a rational decision about it,” Macdonald says.

Which echoes the feelings of the bars' clientele.

"It should be a choice," said a Swedish woman visiting Cigar Masters who would only give her first name, Nillo. "Do I want to eat a hamburger today or do I want to eat fish today? Do I want to have a cigarette or do I not want to have a cigarette? And as a human being, am I willing to work in a smoking environment or am I not willing to work in a smoking environment?”

“We’re adults. We have the right to choose. I choose to come into this place,” says Alan Dines, a regular at Cigar Masters. “These are legal products. These are not banned products, and they’re trying to regulate items that are not banned."

The original draft of Boston's new regulation would have withdrawn the cigar bar licenses within five years, but amidst the worsening receccsion, the owners prevailed for a longer reprieve.

“I think it will hurt a very fragile economy,” says Robert Shick, another Cigar Masters patron.

Still, smoke-free laws are becoming commonplace across the country. Already 27 states ban smoking in restaruants, while 22 do so in the workplace, according to Americans for NonSmokers' Rights. Hundreds of colleges have restricted smoking in housing and on campus.

“Smoke-free laws protect people from exposure to a known carcinogen, and this is a way to protect the public health,” sast Hallet.

The Boston health commission points to a study Massachusetts conducted with Harvard University which estimated there were 577 fewer than expected heart attack deaths every year since the state imposed its smoke-free workplace law four years ago.

“If I had my druthers, the tobacco industry would not be able to spend over a billion dollars every year advertising a lethal product,” commission head Ferrer says. “Tobacco kills more people every year than alcohol deaths and murder and suicide combined.”

But it's not that simple for the cigar bar owners facing extinction.

“This is my livelihood. This is what I do. You know, I have two children, a wife, a mortgage, like a lot of other people," Macdonald says. "It wouldn’t be good.”

By Phil Hirschkorn & Randall Pinkston
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

At This Casino, Only the Slots Light Up

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Richard Frank paying a visit to the newly opened Fernley Nugget, that rare Nevada casino where smoking is banned. Mr. Frank is himself a smoker but says he prefers the Nugget’s clean air.

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By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Published: December 26, 2008

FERNLEY, Nev. — A Nevada casino without smoke might seem like the Strip without neon. But in this town off Interstate 80 a half-hour’s drive east of Reno, a new casino invites gamblers to breathe deeply, and not just to soothe nerves before a bet.

The Fernley Nugget, one of only two Nevada casinos that prohibit smoking, and the first built with the ban in mind, may be at the vanguard of what smoking’s opponents hope will be its eventual elimination in casinos, among the few public indoor places where many states still allow it.

“Everybody says smoking and gambling go together, and when you gamble, you do smoke more,” said Jane Magazu, 56, a former smoker playing a video slot machine at the Nugget. “But now I can go home and I don’t have to take a shower to get the smoke smell off of me. Smoke really bothers me.”

Advocates for smoke-free casinos are paying close attention to what happens in Fernley. But Scott Tate, general manager of the Nugget, which with only 10,000 square feet, 174 slots and 2 poker tables is dwarfed by the cavernous palaces of Reno and Las Vegas, makes clear that the ban here is all about business, not necessarily public health.

Marketing research, he says, simply suggested an opening for smoke-free gambling.

“We are not as a company taking a position to be smoke-free facilities going forward,” said Mr. Tate, who also oversees five other casinos in northern Nevada. “But this particular facility, in this particular market, in this particular location, we feel could be successful.”

Fernley, after all, is one of Nevada’s fastest-growing communities, and many new residents come from California and other states where bans on smoking in public places have been the norm for years.

“People say they like a smoke-free environment,” Mr. Tate said. “Well, here is one. Show me.”

So far, he said, they have. Though he declined to release figures, he said the casino, which opened Nov. 5, was meeting financial expectations even in a recession that has arrested one-arm bandits and all but stilled roulette wheels across the country.

The Nugget remains an oddity for Nevada, whose $11-billion-a-year gambling market towers above that of any other state. Casino executives tend to believe in an affinity between the pleasures of smoking and the allure of gambling, and their informal surveys suggest a correlation between high rollers and heavy smokers. They are also loath to undercut the expectations of tourists from countries where smoking bans are far less common, especially Asians, who account for a growing share of the casinos’ business.

In fact, a nonsmoking casino that operated in Reno in the late 1980s soon closed for lack of business, an outcome that casino operators frequently cite.

So while some casinos have voluntarily set aside parts of the gambling floor for nonsmokers, only one other in Nevada now has a total ban: Bill’s Casino Lake Tahoe, which went smoke-free in January 2007, hoping to capitalize on health-conscious tourists from Northern California. And its operator, Harrah’s, is not contemplating an expansion of the idea.

“Our position is we would be very supportive if everyone were to go in this direction,” said Marybel Batjer, a Harrah’s spokeswoman. “But it is very hard when you are adjacent to another property, a competitor, and they have an offering that you don’t.”

Nevada voters chose two years ago to ban smoking in most public places, but exempted casinos after operators complained.

“Gaming pretty well runs the state of Nevada,” said Tom McCoy, state director of government relations for the American Cancer Society, one of several groups that pushed the ban. “We felt, Let’s take care of the workplace, the day care centers, restaurants, places where families would be meeting.”

Of 23 states with casinos or combined racetrack-casinos, only eight forbid all smoking there, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, an advocacy group based in Berkeley, Calif. Among the eight are Colorado and Illinois, where the bans took effect this year, much to the ire of the owners.

On the other hand, the City Council in Atlantic City voted 5 to 4 in October to suspend a total smoking ban that had been in effect only a couple of weeks. The Council’s vote, which followed casino operators’ complaints that the measure would be particularly damaging in hard economic times, left in place a statute adopted earlier that allows smoking on no more than 25 percent of the gambling floor. Critics call that law inadequate, saying smoke wafts into nonsmoking areas.

The Atlantic City ban was driven by casino employees who cited hazards to their health. Similar concerns have been voiced by casino workers in Las Vegas, where the results of a federal study on secondhand smoke’s effects on a group of them are expected in the next few months.

A 2006 study by the nutrition department at the University of Nevada, Reno, found that only some 21 percent of gamblers smoke, about the same proportion as in the general population. But leaders of the gambling industry say smoking bans have brought a drop in casino revenue where they have been adopted, just as operators of charity bingo, where smoking was once heavy, have reported a decline as a result of smoking bans in several states.

In Illinois, for example, revenue at riverboat casinos has fallen much more sharply in this first year of a smoking ban than in neighboring states where smoking is allowed, said Tom Swoik, executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association.

“We understand the overall economy is having some effect,” Mr. Swoik said, “but when you compare Illinois boats to those right across the river, you can see it is not just the economy. The only difference is the smoking ban.”

Here at the Fernley Nugget, any gamblers who want to light up need only stroll to a smoking patio out back, though on a recent afternoon the ashtrays showed no sign of use.

Mr. Tate, the general manager, said he thought the Nugget would succeed as a fresh-air alternative.

“People would love to be in a gaming environment but choose not to because of the smoking,” he said. “I definitely believe you will see more of this nature, the timeline of which I cannot begin to estimate.”

Todd Marinovich's brother hopes the smoking business goes a little better for him

By Matt Hinton

The partially-bearded young man on the left is Mikhail Marinovich, 20, Syracuse defensive end and younger brother of the infamous Todd Marinovich. On the right, Niko Rechul, 21, native German, economics and finance double major and Syracuse punter. They're enjoying the fruits of their spanking new business venture in the 'Cuse, Hollywood Hookah, which opened Thursday.

It's not only a) The only athlete-owned business of which I'm aware among major college football players (since they put Jimmy Johns out of commission, anyway), but also b) Probably the only college-run venture of any kind to get written up Thursday for The New York Times. With all the hookah-smoking, college football-loving, upstate-traveling Times readers, that's got to be good for business.

It also helps that Rechul and Marinovich are hookah enthusiasts (for tobacco only, of course, fine, flavorful Al Fakher Shisha and nothing else, ever). They conceived the idea in a bowling alley over the summer. Three months and another wayward football season later, the dream of providing flavored tobacco for young adults to suck into their lungs is a reality. Lord knows how he has time, energy or money to pull this off (unless Syracuse has just quit practicing altogether, which would explain a lot, actually), but by owning a business -- any business -- Mikhail automatically assumes the role of "responsible son" among the offspring of ex-USC star Marv Marinovich, whose notorious efforts to engineer Todd into the perfect quarterback sort of, you know, backfired in the form of a half-dozen arrests for possession of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine and another for sexual assault since his senior year at USC in 1991.

Marv seems to have had a lighter tough with Mikhail -- the Daily reports the younger Marinovich has been visiting hookah bars since he was 16, whereas Todd couldn't so much as lay eyes on a grain of sugar -- and I would think holding down a job involving (presumably) legal substances and a title above "anarchist" puts him well above the bar. I mean, there was the arrest for breaking into an equipment room with another teammate back in March, but clearly he's turned a corner, right?

10 Movies That Make Us Wanna Smoke

'Mad Men' is bringing tobacco back to the small screen with its endless cigarettes and liquid lunches, but smoking in the movies just isn't quite the same any more. Here are our favorite big screen nicotine treats.

By Shira Levine

GZA, RZA, and Bill Murray in Coffee and Cigarettes Courtesy of MGM

That primal craving to take a long smooth drag from a cigarette doesn't just come after sex. The need for nicotine can hit after a night of heavy drinking, a hearty meal, a bar brawl, or surviving an accidental drug overdose. If you've been glued to the TV wondering how it is the nostalgia and romance for the tobacco leaf has replaced those pesky fears of cancer, then blame the AMC series Mad Men. Indeed, William Morris has long kept the bigwigs at Philip Morris rich and happy. Here are 10 films that have us feigning so hard for a cig, we had to press pause and take a smoke break.

Coffee and Cigarettes
Jim Jarmusch's black and white film, which is supposedly a tribute to these two vices after the cool NYC director finally gave them up, is a series of vignettes made up of awkward, bizarre, and just plain hilarious conversations over cups of joe and endless cigarettes. The strange pairings include Iggy Pop and Tom Waits, Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina, and two Cate Blanchetts as cousins. The vignette with the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA and GZA and Bill Murray is a gem — as RZA and GZA lecture Bill about the evils of caffeine and tobacco, he gulps his brew straight from the pot, pausing only to puff.

200 Cigarettes
While 1999's 200 Cigarettes didn't exactly garner critical acclaim, we can all relate to the characters' goal to have the best possible time (and get laid or find love) on New Year's Eve. The stellar cast of hip stars, including Christina Ricci, Paul Rudd, Martha Plimpton, Ben and Casey Affleck, Janeane Garofalo, and Dave Chappelle, play an eclectic group of artists, punks, teens, and weirdoes chain-smoking their way to the new year. Not only did the East Village seem much cooler in 1981, cigarettes were also so much cheaper.

Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in Wild at Heart

Wild at Heart
Though we doubt shock-haired auteur David Lynch actually got kickbacks from Marlboro, there's no doubt that Sailor's brand of smokes are as important to him as his snakeskin jacket. Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and his girlfriend Lula (Laura Dern), who are on the run from a variety of wackos hired by Lula's mom to kill her, are constantly smoking (especially after their sweaty hotel romps) — sometimes more than one cigarette at a time. Sailor even tells Lula he began smoking when he was four! Fire and smoking are a recurring theme in this wild and weird love story, as is The Wizard of Oz. But it probably won't make you want to reach for a munchkin.

Gwyneth Paltrow in The Royal Tenenbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums
In what is easily Wes Anderson's best portrait of utter family dysfunction, Gwyneth Paltrow's mopey Margot Tenenbaum has us waiting to exhale. Margot, a playwright prodigy with half a finger missing, spends her days secretly smoking and smoking and smoking — be it in the bathtub, watching TV, or hiding out on the roof. Like the rest of the Tenenbaums (an eccentric group played by Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Gene Hackman, and Anjelica Huston), Margot suffers from repressed desire and unrequited love — two emotions smoking certainly helps to distract from. With her stick straight blond bob pinned back with barrettes, heavily made-up eyes, perpetual frown, and slow drags, Paltrow makes feeling tortured, forgotten, and plain old sad look enchanting.

The Departed
The stress Leonardo DiCaprio's character Billy Costigan endures throughout The Departed as an undercover cop, and the two-and-a-half hours of epic violence and double-crossing, warrants an entire pack of smokes. Don't know who to trust? Smoke a cigarette. Nearly die? Smoke a cigarette. About to die? Smoke a cigarette. Witness almost every character in the film murdered in cold blood? Smoke a cigarette. Cops, crime, and gangsters are solid formula for a successful smoking flick. This is Scorsese's return to form. Wanna go through a carton? Watch Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas too. Tough guys smoking and hanging around in murky neighborhood bars are just doing what badasses who you don't want to mess with do.

Pulp Fiction
We all remember the Royale with cheese, Jules Winnfield's wallet, and "Bring out the gimp!" but Uma Thurman as mob wife Mia Wallace dominated the ad campaign, the DVD cover, and posters on countless college walls across the nation. The nonlinear story telling, motor mouth dialogue, and gratuitous violence mixed with black humor and pop culture references got Tarantino where he is today. In one of the movie's most memorable scenes, Mia is at a '50s style restaurant called Jack Rabbit Slim's with her husband's go-to guy Vincent Vega (John Travolta). Before they participate in a tripped-out Twist contest, she asks him to roll her a cigarette. Vega, who was told to entertain his boss's wife for the evening, is mesmerized by her long, pale fingers casually holding the cigarette to her crimson mouth. And even after Mia is revived from a drug overdose thanks to a shot of adrenaline to the heart, she keeps her cool by lighting up again.

Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

Casablanca
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman were icons of the Golden Age of cinema, when stars were allegedly paid big money by tobacco companies to help perpetuate the myth of smoking as the cool thing to do. The witty and tender Casablanca seems that much more romantic and tragic thanks to that little cancer stick; you would be hard pressed to find a scene where Bogart is without one. Critics and even scholars have been fascinated by Casablanca's use of cigarettes and its effects on culture, but all we know is that lost love has never seemed so glamorous.

Kalifornia
Juliette Lewis' Adele is forbidden to smoke by her serial-killin' boyfriend Early (played with red-necked glee by Brad Pitt); in fact, she confides to the black-clad Carrie, he beats her when she does. However, Carrie, played by Michelle Forbes, smokes like a chimney in nearly a dozen scenes and even gets Adele to indulge. With a cigarette dangling from her lips, Carrie's inhaling and exhaling is audible to the audience. This don't make Early too happy.

Thank You For Smoking
Even though sardonic Smoking is all about one Big Tobacco spinmeister's moral dilemma and the evils of the cigarette industry, all this talk of smoking... makes us want to smoke.

Reality Bites
Ben Stiller's directorial debut succeeds with the following classic formula: anxiety + sex + creative ambitions + hipsters = smoking. Winona Ryder's Lelaina and Ethan Hawke's Troy chain-smoke through the entire film, whether they're walking, talking, or kissing. Themes like breaking free from parents and being recognized as an adult in the adult world are smoke-worthy issues! Camel wasn't the only brand being touted by the crew; 7-Eleven was also one of the many product placement coups; Lelaina explains in one scene that the Big Gulp is "the most profound invention of my generation."

Joel Murray and Jon Hamm in Mad Men Photo by Carin Baer/Courtesy of AMC

Honorable mentions:

Mad Men
Ahhh, the safety of cable television. It's a long time since we've been able to see Mad Men's level of wanton smoking on our boob tubes. The characters are constantly lighting up in the office, at home, in cars, and on trains. There is no after-dinner smoke in Mad Men because people smoke before, during, and after meals. One character even smokes in a psychiatrist's office! Rumor has it that while some of the cast used to smoke cigarettes, no one in real life calls them a smoker anyone. Those actors are inhaling herbal cigarettes — chemical- and nicotine-free.

No Cure For Cancer
Denis Leary's televised standup act No Cure For Cancer shows the foul-mouthed comedian with a cigarette practically stapled to his lips. "The filter's the best part. That's where they put the heroin!" shouts Leary. Anyone who says they covet a tracheotomy in order to inhale two cigarettes at once is truly a man who wants a lot of bang for his buck. And on the sitcom "Rescue Me," Leary played a fire fighter who saw nothing wrong with lighting up next to a fire truck and a raging blaze.