Drunk man took girlfriend's car to buy cigarettes

A Mount Olive resident was arrested at the community pool on a variety of charges, including drunken driving, after the man took his girlfriend’s car without permission because he wanted cigarettes, police said.

Police were called to the pool at 3:01 p.m. Monday about a vehicle that was taken without the owner’s consent.

The subsequent investigation determined that Steven Brennan, 51, of the Budd Lake section of Mount Olive, had asked his girlfriend for cigarettes, but she said that she didn’t have any and wasn’t going to buy any, police said.

Brennan then took his girlfriend’s car without her consent to go buy cigarettes. Police were called to the pool and while the officers were on the scene, Brennan returned to the pool parking lot, police said.

While talking to Brennan, an officer detected the odor of an alcoholic beverage so they gave him a field sobriety test, which he failed. Brennan then was taken to police headquarters where he refused to take the Alcotest, police said.

Charges filed
Brennan was charged with taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent, disorderly conduct, driving while intoxicated, refusal to submit to the Alcotest, careless driving, driving with a suspended license and driving while intoxicated in a school zone.

Brennan also was wanted on a $1,293 Mount Olive Municipal Court criminal warrant and a $1,040 Irvington Municipal Court criminal warrant.

Brennan was unable to post bail on the warrants and was turned over to Mount Olive police. He was then held in the Morris County Jail on the Mount Olive warrant

'Fake' cigarettes seized in Gloucestershire raids

fMore than 30,000 cigarettes have been seized in an anti-counterfeiting operation in Gloucestershire.

During the raid two shops were visited and a vehicle, found to contain 26,400 cigarettes, was confiscated.

All the tobacco recovered is being held on suspicion of breaches of labelling and trademark offences and some is believed to be counterfeit.

A Gloucestershire Police spokesman said a 26-year-old man from Gloucester had been arrested on suspicion of fraud.

He has been released on police bail until 15 September.

A trading standards spokesman said the operation also involved members of Gloucestershire Police and HM Revenue and Customs.

He added the raids were a result of months of intelligence gathering and surveillance.

Man stabbed by girlfriend over cigarette

As if we needed any more proof that nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs on the planet and turns people bats**t crazy when they are forced to go without it, there's this story from the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader about a woman who stabbed her boyfriend in the arm when he refused to get out of bed to get her a cigarette.
From the Times Leader story:
(Kenneth Joseph) Pahler told police he was awakened by (Denise Marie) Cusate yelling at him and asking for a cigarette at about 11:50 p.m. Pahler claimed Cusate became more enraged when he refused to get out of bed to get her a cigarette. Police said in the criminal complaints that Pahler reported Cusate got a kitchen knife and attacked him. Pahler ran out of their apartment after he was allegedly stabbed. Cusate told police Pahler was hitting her and she stabbed him in self defense, the criminal complaint says. Police said Cusate had injuries to her arm, neck and hand.
Seems to me cigarettes might be just one of many issues plaguing this couple, no?

Plain silly: why changing cigarette packets won't alter smoking rates

The public health establishment disseminates many "truths" about health, disease and lifestyle, but sadly, junk science is often the driving force behind these regulatory assaults on drinkers, smokers, gamblers and the overweight.

Exhibit A is the belief that tobacco advertising and promotion are the major reasons young people begin to smoke, and calls for the plain packaging of cigarettes in Australia and New Zealand.

Packaging, it is claimed, is merely an extension of advertising, and because advertising increases tobacco consumption, it is necessary to require all tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging.

Unfortunately, neither this belief nor this policy meets the standards of evidence-based policymaking, which requires decisions based on rigorous, systematic reviews of best practice - that is, interventions that work the best in reducing harm. Evidence alone, not theory or tradition, must drive policy.

The empirical record about tobacco advertising's effect on young people is decidedly mixed.

Large, independent studies have failed to find a statistically significant connection between tobacco advertising, consumption and youth smoking.

This lack of evidence is confirmed by the fact that countries that have had advertising bans for a quarter of a century or more have not experienced statistically large declines in youth smoking.

Consumption and prevalence data from 145 countries finds little evidence that the entire range of tobacco control measures, including advertising restrictions and bans, has a statistically significant effect on smoking prevalence in any nation.

Yet, Australia pushes ahead with draconian restrictions on tobacco brand promotion through legislation to require cigarettes be sold in plain packaging, and New Zealand's associate minister of health wants to follow its lead.

The evidence in support of plain packaging, just as for tobacco display bans, is embarrassingly thin. Most studies show that plain packaging will have no statistically significant effect on youth smoking. None of the so-called evidence about plain packaging provides compelling behavioural evidence that any young person started smoking after seeing conventional displays of cigarette products.

Other nations have rejected plain packaging. For example, Canada briefly considered plain packaging in 1994, but eventually took no action.

More recently, Britain seriously examined the concept in 2008 and 2009, but the then-Labour government concluded that there was insufficient evidence to justify legislation.

Man charged in beer, cigarette thefts from two stores

A Richburg man has been charged in two store break-ins that happened minutes apart.
Chester County Sheriff Richard Smith said a man stole beer and cigarettes from the IGA in Richburg and Campbell's Truck Stop in Chester Wednesday morning.
After an investigation, deputies arrested 19-year-old Travis Lee Lowe. He has been charged with two counts of burglary and two counts of petty larceny, a release from Smith states.

Deputies were first called at 6:56 a.m. to the IGA store on Commerce Drive. An employee reported the glass door had been broken. Surveillance video captured a man identified as Lowe making several trips into the store and leaving with beer and cigarettes.
About 10 minutes later, deputies were called to the Saluda Road truck stop. An employee told officers both doors had been busted out, Smith said. Beer and cigarettes were also taken from this store.
Lowe was in jail Monday on $34,000 bond.

Crackdown on illegal cigarettes in Blackpool

A new operation targeting people who sell counterfeit cigarettes to young people, is under way in Blackpool.

Officers are stopping young people around the town and asking them where they bought their Prefect cigarettes as part of Operation Smokescreen.

About 15,000 counterfeit cigarettes were seized during raids in Blackpool earlier this month.

Officials say they pose a massive health risk sometimes containing 30 times the lead levels of real tobacco.

Lancashire police say counterfeit cigarettes may seem cheap but they can pose a serious danger to health and the proceeds from them are often used to fund other crime.

The crackdown is a joint operation with the local council and the primary care trust.

'Potentially lethal'
The police say test purchases will be carried out at local retailers to identify shopkeepers guilty of supplying counterfeit goods.

Councillor Gary Coleman, said: "From a health point of view all cigarettes are dangerous, but the counterfeit ones are potentially lethal.

"We want members of the public to know if they suspect illegal activity they can report it and we will investigate.

Jane Roberts, Head of Tobacco Control, NHS Blackpool said: "Over-exposure to cadmium can cause irreversible damage to the liver, kidneys and brain.

"Children are attracted to the low price of counterfeit tobacco and the earlier they become regular smokers the greater the risk of developing lung cancer or heart disease."

Danger Of Cigarettes Greater In Women Than Men

When compared with men, women have a significant 25% increase in risk for coronary heart disease caused by cigarettes, according to a large meta-analysis published in the Lancet.

Rachel Huxley and Mark Woodward analyzed data from 2.4 million participants in studies that adjusted for cardiovascular risk factors and found that the female-to-male relative risk ratio (RRR) of smoking compared to not smoking was 1.25 (CI 1.12-1.39, p<0.0001).For every additional year of followup the researchers found an additional 2% increase in the RRR for women (p=0.03).
The authors speculate that their analysis might have underestimated the true difference in relative risk between the sexes, since in many regions women have only started to smoke in large numbers in recent years. “It will be some years before the full effect of smoking on coronary heart disease risk is known in women,” they write. In addition, women smokers tend to consume fewer cigarettes than men and may be more likely to underreport their smoking habit.