Jessica Biel 'Throws Out Justin Timberlake's Cigarettes' To His Annoyance

It seems Justin Timberlake has been put in a bad mood and it has been reported that he was "ticked off" when Jessica Biel threw his cigarettes and lighters away. Uh ohhh!

The couple tied the knot in a lavish $6.5 million ceremony in Italy in October, and before the nuptials, Justin apparently promised Jessica he would quit smoking once they were hitched.

But despite them being married only a month, it seems Justin is no nearer to ditching the tobacco. This is said to have annoyed Jessica, who took it upon herself to throw away his cigarettes!

A source told the National Enquirer: "He told her there's no way the marriage will last if she takes it upon herself to dig through his stuff rather than ask nicely."

Jessica is reportedly so desperate for Justin to kick the habit that she vowed to not start a family with him until he has been smoke free for at least six months, reports .

Despite their reported disagreement,the newlyweds are said to be very happy now they are married. The couple honeymooned on safari in Tanzania, with Jessica overheard chatting about the getaway to Scarlett Johansson at the recent New York City Hitchcock premiere.

Jessica said: "It was like magic. It was like heaven. It was the most beautiful thing."

Ahhh, well we're glad everything is running smoothly - but Justin, kick the habit! Do you think Jessica was harsh to throw his cigs out?

Switzerland to Increase Cigarette Tax in 2013

 During a recent sitting, the Swiss Federal Council united on plans to increase the tax imposed on cigarettes and on other tobacco products in the Confederation from April 1, 2013.

As a result, the price of a packet of cigarettes is to rise by CHF0.10 and a 50 gram packet of fine cut tobacco will cost CHF0.60 more from April next year.

The planned tobacco tax rise has been deemed necessary for both fiscal and health reasons. The measure is expected to yield additional fiscal revenues for the state of an estimated CHF50m (USD52.9m) annually. The additional revenues will be used to consolidate the budget.

In making its decision, the Federal Council not only considered possible additional revenues, but also evaluated the evolution of cigarette prices both in neighbouring countries and in the European Union as a whole. The Federal Council took into account the percentage of smokers in Switzerland and considered other factors such as black market sales of tobacco products, smuggling, and cigarette sales in border areas.
The Swiss Federal Council had already indicated that the tax on tobacco products would rise back in October, as part of a series of savings measures.

Tobacco tax was last increased in Switzerland at the beginning of 2011. Over the last few years the Federal Council has adopted a “balanced” approach to its tobacco tax policy, involving “small steps”, says Tax-News.
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WHO urges tax hike on tobacco

China's tobacco tax rate is still among the world's lowest, and the government should increase it to help curb a smoking epidemic that afflicts more than 300 million people on the mainland, according to the World Health Organization

About half of Chinese smokers spend 5 yuan (80 US cents) or less on a pack of 20 cigarettes, which is "much, much lower than the average cost in developed countries," said Angela Pratt, technical officer of the Tobacco Free Initiative in the WHO office in China.

Pratt made her remarks at a media briefing to prepare for Friday's launch of the Chinese-language translation of the WHO Technical Manual on Tobacco Tax Administration.

According to the manual, which was first published in 2010, total taxes on cigarettes account for about 50 percent of the average retail price for cigarettes at the global level, with the average price of a packet being $2.53. The lower-middle-income countries have both lower tobacco prices and lower rates of tobacco taxation.

The excise tax rate in China is 36 percent or 56 percent for cigarettes with different factory prices, official statistics show.

WHO has recommended that at least 70 percent of the retail price of cigarettes come from excise taxes to effectively reduce tobacco consumption, yet it says the excise tax accounts for only about 25 percent in tobacco's retail price in China, reports ChinaDaily.

How Fast Can Britney Spears Take a Cigarette Break?

For weeks now X Factor audiences have witnessed something entirely unexpected: judge Britney Spears composed, present, and engaged in the show, and entirely breakdown-free. These shows, however, have been built around previously taped material, with the moments featured cherry-picked from weeks of shooting at audition cities around the nation — and tonight the rubber hits the road with Spears' first live show. For two unscripted hours, America's most speculated-upon starlet of modern times will appear live before millions, marking her first major live TV appearance since the ill-fated VMA's performance in 2007, which capped the era of her public meltdown.

And according to sources on the set, the pressure point tonight will come in the most unexpected of places: the question of whether Britney makes it back from her cigarette breaks on time. Of all the woes a member of a reality show cast faces, perhaps none is more harrowing than squeezing in a quick cigarette during the brief commercial breaks.

The X Factor judges' desk sits a good 40 seconds from the nearest driveway where one can safely light up. During the roughly three-minute commercial breaks, judge Simon Cowell — first on American Idol and then on X Factor — has made a tradition of taking a brisk walk across the set when the cameras stop, through the giant sliding elephant doors next to the sound stage, through the makeup area and out into the driveway, where he would take a very small number of very deep drags before stamping his cigarette out and returning to the desk by the time lights went up.

According to sources on the junior levels of the production team, during the auditions, Spears paused frequently to step out of the arenas for a smoke, on some days between every act, often stepping away for 10 to 20 minutes at a time, BuzzFeed reports. During these prerecorded episodes, the production could and would pause and wait for the star to return. However, X Factor will be able to afford her no such luxury when cameras roll tonight.

It’s Time to Stop Bogarting Cigarette Stocks

You know you have reached a certain level of immortality when your name becomes a verb, and I can think of no better example than the American actor Humphrey Bogart, perhaps best known for his role in that all-time classic Casablanca. "To Bogart" a cigarette is to leave it dangling sloppily in your mouth, even when speaking, rather than engaging in proper smoking etiquette by giving it a few puffs at a time and then removing it. Over the years, the word has also come to mean to greedily hog something. Today, I would say both meanings of the word are accurate descriptions of investors in tobacco stocks.

Investors are "Bogarting" cigarette stocks by continuing to hold them at current prices. First, a little disclosure is needed. I have been a major fan of sin stocks in general and cigarette stocks in particular for years (see "Not All Sin Stocks are Created Equal" and "Delightfully Sinful Dividend Stocks" as recent examples. But my enthusiasm for Big Tobacco rested on two big assumptions: They are largely despised by both individual and institutional investors due to their pariah status as politically incorrect merchants of death-making them perpetual contrarian value investments. They pay high and growing dividends that are significantly better than what can be found elsewhere among mainstream large-cap stocks.

Unfortunately, I cannot credibly say that either of these conditions still hold. Cigarette stocks have become downright trendy of late as investors have taken to chasing yield in a low-interest-rate world. Let's take a look at Philip Morris International (NYSE:$ PM) , the seller of the iconic Marlboro brand among many others. For years Philip Morris appeared to be the perfect stock. It had access to emerging market growth (roughly half its sales) while benefitting from an American listing and top-notch management. It also paid a dividend far higher than the norm among stable U.S. blue-chip stocks, and that dividend was growing every year.

There's one little problem here: Philip Morris International is still a tobacco company . Its sales may be enjoying a multi-year boost as emerging market smokers trade up from cheaper local competitors to premium Western cigarettes, but worldwide demand for their products is shrinking, and fast. In its most recent quarterly release, Philip Morris International saw its profits fall 6% on lower volume sales. And perhaps worse, the regulatory noose continues to be tightened. Consider Australia's new plain packaging law. All cigarette boxes for all brands now look identical in Australia. Cigarettes must now be sold in logo-free boxes featuring nothing more than graphic pictures of people dying of smoke-related illness.

It's hard to enjoy taking a drag on that cigarette when you're looking at a picture of a gangrenous foot on the package. This does not at all bode well for premium brands like Marlboro. Given that tobacco companies are all but prohibited from advertising, how can a premium brand differentiate itself from the cheaper competition when it sells its cigarettes in an identical box? Australia has adopted the most aggressively anti-tobacco regime in the world in taking this approach, but other countries are catching up in a hurry. Russia, the world's second-largest tobacco market after China, is starting to take tobacco's health risks seriously.

 Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev recently said that a ban on public smoking and cigarette advertising t were "just the beginning" of his efforts to stamp out cigarette smoking in his country. Several countries in Latin America have joined this bandwagon as well. Meanwhile, Philip Morris International's dividend yield, now 3.9%, is not the great selling point it used to be. It's lower than that of the 4.2% offered by blue chip semiconductor maker Intel (Nasdaq:$ INTC) and significantly lower than that of most telecom stocks, MLPs and REITs.

Volunteers clean up cigarette butts

Fifty-five volunteers showed up Saturday at Luke Jensen Sports Park in Hazel Dell and cleaned up a record 25 pounds of cigarette butts, organizers said. The cleanup was part of the national “Make a Difference Day,” and put on by the city of Vancouver, Clark County Public Works and Clark County Public Health. Saturday morning, the volunteers met in Hazel Dell and then went in groups to 10 parks throughout Vancouver and Clark County.

In addition to the 25 pounds of butts, volunteers also collected 12 bags of litter, said Karen Llewellyn, volunteer coordinator with Clark County Public Works. Member of the Sherwood Neighborhood Association also picked up 20 bags of garbage. Organizers were fearful that the rain would deter volunteers from coming out.

But Saturday’s event surpassed last year’s effort in terms of volunteers and pounds of cigarettes collected. Last year, the first year the county has organized a cigarette-butt cleanup, 50 volunteers picked up 15 pounds of butts, Llewellyn said. “Despite the weather, I was really impressed with our turnout,” she said.

Smoking apps promote cigarettes to kids, say researchers

Magic Smoke. Puff Puff Pass. iRoll Up. Smartphone smoking-simulation apps like these exist by the dozens in the iTunes Store and Android Market. Researchers at the University of Sydney have cataloged at least 107 apps that they say contain a pro-smoking message and can entice kids into thinking that smoking is cool. The researchers, whose work was published Oct. 22 in the journal Tobacco Control, say the apps — which have been downloaded millions of times — are a violation of the World Health Organization's ban on outdoor smoking advertisements.

In addition to apps that allow users to simulate smoking or to blow smoke rings, there are also apps that teach how to roll cigarettes or that act as games where a cigar or cigarette is passed around from friend to friend. One game, Puff Puff Pass, bills itself as "addictive gameplay, almost as addictive as smoking for real." As the researchers write in their paper, "Smartphones are ideal marketing targets as consumers can be reached anytime, anywhere."

The authors found that the smartphone app market lacks consistent regulation regarding what content can be sold to what age groups. Some of the smoking apps in the iTunes store are restricted for sale to people 17 years or older. At least one app, iSmoke with puff rings, is labeled for users over the age of 12 but does not appear to have any actual age-related downloading restrictions. The authors say these age restrictions are not present in the Android Market. Lead author Nasser F. Bin Dihm told AAP News, which is published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that at least three of the apps carried ads for cigarettes sold by Philip Morris.

He said that most of the apps are published anonymously or under nicknames, so the companies behind them can't be easily traced. He called this "suspicious." Barbara Loken, a consumer psychologist at the University of Minnesota who was not involved with the study, told NPR that the apps "increase the involvement or engagement of the participant, even more than advertisements" and they can "normalize smoking" at a point when kids are determining their identities. At least one critic said the apps aren't the problem.

"If someone is enough of an idiot to download an app called 'Puff Puff Pass,' where the only point of the game is to smoke and pass along a cigarette, they are probably going to smoke either way — or already do," Charlie Osborne wrote for ZDNet's iGeneration blog. The authors of the new paper look at some country-specific laws and regulations that could be used to control what they call "harmful content" in other countries and suggest that app stores have a "legal responsibility" to make sure that they are complying with the World Health Organization's rules regarding tobacco advertising.