The second largest cigarette maker in the world is making some waves in the art market. British American Tobacco (BTI) sold several paintings last night at a Sotheby’s (BID) auction in the Netherlands, picking up $18.5 million last night. This contributed to a record night for the auction firm’s Netherlands office.

Previously known as the Peter Stuyvesant Collection, the BATartventure Collection includes more than 1,400 pieces and doubled the upper end of its presale estimate, yet another sign that strength is returning to the art market this year – after a year and a half of agony.

In Amsterdam, 161 lots went under the gavel, and only four failed to find a home. The highest price of the evening was paid for Martin Kippenberger’s “Dinosaurierei. It was estimated at between 200,000 euros and 300,000 euros. The final price was 1.1 million euros.

In February, another major collection was tapped by Sotheby’s for auction fodder. The Zero collection owned by Gerhard and Anna Lenz was good for 47 pieces at a London auction last month. Forty-six lots sold, bringing in 23.2 million pounds.
For BAT, the auction brought in small cash, but the event is a good sign for Sotheby’s. Following the financial crisis, the art market was dealt one severe blow after another. Now, it looks like we’ve turned the corner.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday named at least two scientists with ties to pharmaceutical companies that market stop-smoking medicine to a scientific panel that will help it regulate the tobacco industry.

Jack Henningfield, a vice president of research and health policy with Pinney Associates, a consulting firm whose clients include GlaxoSmithKline PLC, will be part of a committee of 12 people that will provide advice, information and recommendations to the FDA on a wide range of tobacco issues. Mr. Henningfield will be one of nine voting members. The three nonvoting members, which will come from the tobacco industry, haven’t been named.

At least one other member of the panel has had ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Neal L. Benowitz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, has served as a consultant to GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer Inc. He also will be a voting member of the panel.

The selections raise questions about whether the members would have a conflict of interest on topics such as whether to approve a low-carcinogen smokeless tobacco product as a safer alternative to cigarettes. Such products compete for smokers’ dollars against smoking-cessation aids such as the Nicorette gum marketed in the U.S. by GlaxoSmithKline.

The FDA says on its Web site that it seeks “qualified experts with minimal conflicts of interest.” Kathleen Quinn, a spokeswoman for the agency, said panel choices were made based on the federal statute, which said the nonindustry members of the panel could not have received any salary or payments from any tobacco manufacturer, distributor or retailer in the previous 18 months.

She said board members will be screened for conflicts of interest before each meeting of the tobacco board, “and their participation may be limited based on that screening.”

Mr. Henningfield, 57 years old, said in an interview that he receives most of his income from Pinney Associates and also shares a patent for a potential nicotine-gum delivery system that hasn’t been commercialized. He is an adjunct professor of behavioral biology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Mr. Henningfield said he disclosed his income sources and “real and potential conflicts of interest” as part of the FDA’s review of potential members of the panel.

“If there are any issues that come up that are of concern,” he said, “then my expectation is that I would be recused from either participation or voting.”

Mr. Benowitz said he doesn’t “see a direct conflict of interest” because the board deals with tobacco products, not drugs that are aimed at helping people quit smoking. “Now, if this group gains jurisdiction over drugs as well, I think that would be something different,” he said. Mr. Benowitz said he still consults Pfizer, but not GlaxoSmithKline.

Nicotine-replacement therapies such as Nicorette are regulated by a different part of the FDA.

David Sylvia, a spokesman for Altria Group Inc., which owns leading U.S. cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, declined to comment Monday on the composition of the advisory board. “We think it’s important that [the panel] takes a scientific approach to the issues,” he said. “We look forward to the opportunity to share information as they get up and running.”

Maura Payne, a spokeswoman for Reynolds American Inc., the second-largest cigarette maker in the U.S., said it looks forward to working with the new panel “to help set a scientifically based regulatory structure for the tobacco industry.”

The tobacco panel was created to advise the FDA on how to regulate tobacco products as part of sweeping legislation signed into law last year that gave the agency broad power to regulate tobacco products.

The nine members with voting powers are comprised of health professionals, one member of a state government and a member of the general public.

The committee will have its first meeting at the end of March and will discuss the controversial topic of menthol cigarettes.

The Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington-based anti-smoking organization, praised the FDA’s choice of committee members.

Electronic cigarettes may be more harmful and life threatening for those who choose to smoke them compared to an actual pack of cigarettes, said the wellness and health promotion coordinator at the Health Center.
“Many students don’t know how much nicotine are in these e-cigs, and students don’t know how harmful that can be,” Jennifer Gacutan-Galang said.
What many students also don’t know about the e-cig is that it is not FDA approved, she said.
Of the students Gacutan-Galang sees using tobacco products or who are trying to quit using tobacco products, half know about the e-cig product and a quarter have it or have tried it, she said.
An e-cig is composed of an atomizer, a battery and a mouthpiece. The e-cigarette is powered by a battery and emits vapor rather than chemical smoke, according to e-cigarette national Web site.
There are nicotine cartridges that are put into the atomizer, which is then inhaled, according to the e-cigarette Web site.
“What the e-cig companies don’t tell you is the amount of nicotine in each e-cig,” Gacutan-Galang said. “Even though the e-cig does not have the 4,000 plus chemicals, they contain nicotine, which is the chemical that makes cigarettes addictive.”
Gacutan-Galang said a student brought in an e-cig starter kit he had purchased from Valley Fair Mall and nowhere on the box or the pamphlet of the $120 product was the amount of nicotine printed.
Some students who come to sessions with Gacutan-Galang and want to quit smoking noticed a change in the number of cigarettes they smoked she said.
“They went from a pack to half-a-pack a day, but the problem with that is since it is not known how much nicotine is in each e-cig, they could potentially be smoking two packs worth of nicotine,” she said.
“They taste better than normal cigarettes, and you don’t smell like you have just had one,” said sophomore chemistry major Jade Lopez.
The reason these e-cigs have been referred to as the “cigarette you can smoke anywhere” is because there is no secondhand smoke from it, Gacutan-Galang said.”You’re not burning them, so there is no secondhand smoke and this is what people get offended by,” she said. “But they are still harming themselves.”
“It would be a little weird and throw me off seeing someone smoke in a building,” said freshman nursing major Karina Nettie.
Linda Steadman, a sophomore radio, television and film major, said she favors the benefits of the e-cig.
“It is pretty cool, since you can smoke inside buildings and not have to go outside,” she said.
Since the e-cig can range in price from $70 to $150, this is money students may not be willing to spend.
“The fact that they are so expensive does not make it appealing to me,” said Monica Gallyot, a senior social science major who has been smoking for 15 years.
Students who have tried the e-cig have told Gacutan-Galang they didn’t like it because after they would smoke the e-cig and would still crave an actual cigarette, she said.
“No college student can afford that price, but five dollars for a pack is easier to get, and even then can be a struggle sometimes,” said Steadman, a smoker for one year.
Lopez said the e-cigs are expensive at the moment, but if more brands started coming out with them, the price might lower.

3 per cent increase in 15-19 age group, StatsCan reports
More teenagers in Quebec are turning to smoking - a troubling new development that raises questions about whether the provincial government has gone far enough to curb tobacco use among youth, experts say.
The latest survey on smoking by Statistics Canada shows that in Quebec, one in five teens age 15 to 19 lit up last year - an increase of three per cent from 2008.
By comparison, the national smoking rate for that age group declined to 14 per cent from 15 per cent.
What’s more, 11 per cent of Quebec children up to the age of 11 said that they were exposed to second-hand smoke at home, compared with five per cent for the whole country.
“Something is attracting teenagers to smoking,” said Marc Drolet, a spokesperson for the Quebec division of the Canadian Cancer Society.
“There was a downward trend for the past 10 years, and now for some reason, the trend has probably reversed. Unfortunately, we are now the Canadian champions in that (smoking age) category.”
Drolet conceded that the government has taken some strong anti-smoking measures to date, like banning it in bars and restaurants. But he urged Quebec to do more to curb subtle marketing campaigns by tobacco companies aimed at youth.
Karine Rivard, press attaché to Health Minister Yves Bolduc, defended the government’s anti-smoking initiatives and said that more were planned for this year.
She noted that Quebec has banned the sale of single cigarillos with grape and other flavours that had been popular with some teens.
“The government intends to continue to intensify the fight against tobacco,” Rivard said. She declined to describe some of the proposed anti-smoking measures.
The survey did contain some good news, however. The prevalence of tobacco use in an older age group of Quebecers - 20 to 24 - dropped to 25 per cent last year from 31 per cent for the corresponding period in 2008.
Smoking is considered the main cause of avoidable cancer globally, killing more than 5 million people each year.
Tobacco use has been linked to 85 per cent of cases of lung cancer and is responsible for 30 per cent of all cancers, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. In Quebec, 7,400 Quebecers received a diagnosis of lung cancer last year and 6,500 died from that illness.
The Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey is carried out semi-annually and is based on a survey of more than 9,000 respondents. The latest survey was for the months of February to June 2009.

Two police officers were arrested for allegedly stealing cigarettes from Somali tuck shop owners in Milnerton, Cape Town, Western Cape police said.The constables were arrested following a tip-off, Senior Superintendent Billy Jones said in a statement.
They were arrested in their homes in Mitchells Plain and Somerset West and cigarettes worth R3500 seized.
The pair allegedly stole the cigarettes and R1000 cash from two Somali-owned shops in Milnerton while on duty on Tuesday night around 9pm.
The cash had not been recovered yet.
The two would appear in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Internal disciplinary steps were being instituted.

Police in one northwestern Pennsylvania township say someone tried to pass a counterfeit cigarette coupon at a convenience store.
Vernon Township police say a 20-year-old man tried to use a phony coupon for $4 off a pack of Marlboro cigarettes at a Sheetz store near Meadville on Sunday.
Police say the coupons are made to appear as though they are from a company called Smartsource, which offers coupons online and in mailed circulars.
But police say the coupons are bogus and that the computerized bar codes on the coupons can not be read by cash registers.
Police haven’t charged the man in Sunday’s attempt, but are investigating leads that suggest the coupons were produced locally. Vernon Township is about 85 miles north of Pittsburgh.

New laws to end the open display of tobacco in shops in Scotland have been passed by MSPs.
The Tobacco and Primary Medical Services Bill will also ban cigarette vending machines and introduce a registration scheme for retailers.
Ministers said the legislation would make cigarettes less attractive to children and young people.
But shopkeepers and manufacturers said the measures were unjustified and would be costly to bring in.
Large retailers have until 2011 to implement the ban, while smaller shops have been given a 2013 deadline.
Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon, whose party opposed the bill, failed in an attempt to kill it off, while a move by Labour’s Dr Richard Simpson to further restrict sales of tobacco-related products was also thrown out.
MSPs passed the bill by 108 votes to 15.Public Health Minister Shona Robison said: “We’ve already made great strides, notably by banning smoking in public places and raising the age for buying cigarettes to 18.
“This Bill goes further by introducing measures designed to stop children from starting to smoke in the first place.”
Anti-smoking body Ash Scotland backed the government’s position that the move would reduce the 15,000 youngsters in Scotland who started smoking every year.
“This legislation means Scotland remains a world leader in tobacco control,” said the organisation’s Sheila Duffy.
But Christopher Ogden, chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, said there was “no credible evidence” to show the legislation would tackle the issue. Westminster support
“The last thing we need in the midst of challenging economic times is further regulation that will facilitate illicit trade in tobacco products and impact adversely on thousands of small retailers and the communities they serve,” he said.
And John Drummond, of the Scottish Grocers’ Federation, said it was still unclear how tobacco would have to be stored to comply with a display ban, adding: “The evidence that this will actually stop young people smoking just isn’t there.”
Other measures in the bill bring in fixed penalty notices for retailers who sell cigarettes to under-18s and measures which would exclude certain individuals or private firms from entering into contracts with health boards to provide GP services.
At Westminster, MPs last year supported a backbench amendment to outlaw cigarette vending machines in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as part of the UK government’s Health Bill.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Food and Drug Administration to stop blocking the importation of electronic cigarettes from China and indicated that the devices should be regulated as tobacco products rather than drug or medical devices.
Judge Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court in Washington issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by two distributors of the so-called e-cigarettes, which are battery-powered tubes that heat liquid nicotine into an inhalable vapor and are meant to simulate the taste of tobacco.
The distributors say the vapor contains virtually none of the cancer-causing chemicals of traditional cigarettes, but the F.D.A. says it has not been proved safe.“This case appears to be yet another example of F.D.A.’s aggressive efforts to regulate recreational tobacco products as drugs or devices,” Judge Leon wrote.
With the passage of landmark tobacco legislation last year, he added, the Food and Drug Administration’s new tobacco division will be able to regulate the contents and marketing claims of e-cigarettes in the same way it is about to begin regulating traditional tobacco products. But the agency’s drug division cannot ban the devices, the judge ruled.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a brief statement: “The public health issues surrounding electronic cigarettes are of serious concern to the F.D.A. The agency is reviewing Judge Leon’s opinion and will decide the appropriate action to take.”
Ray Story, vice president of Smoking Everywhere, a Florida company that filed the suit, said the ruling was a victory for smokers who want a safer cigarette.
“The public will have a much less harmful alternative to tobacco products,” Mr. Story said. “Wherever they’re sold, we are going to be sold.”
Jack Leadbeater, chief executive of Sottera, an Arizona company that joined the suit, said border authorities would have to stop blocking and seizing imports and would have to release thousands of impounded e-cigarettes and millions of nicotine cartridges.
Mr. Leadbeater, chairman of the Electronic Cigarette Association, estimated that the products were a $100 million business nationwide.
Matthew L. Myers, president of the antismoking advocacy group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the ruling opened “a gaping loophole” in the F.D.A.’s ability to regulate non-tobacco products containing nicotine.
He said the judge’s decision “ignores the common sense distinction” the F.D.A. has long drawn between traditional tobacco products like cigarettes and cigars and “a host of non-tobacco products, ranging from toothpaste to lollipops to water, in which manufacturers have added nicotine, a highly addictive substance.”
Mr. Myers’ organization and other health groups had promoted legislation to give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products. But he said the law, signed by President Obama last June, was intended for traditional tobacco products, not electronic ones where nicotine levels and flavors could be easily adjusted.
Mr. Myers said e-cigarettes posed several potential serious risks to public health, including lack of controls on potency, a means to discourage current smokers from quitting by providing an alternative in smoke-free spaces and the possibility “these products could serve as a pathway to nicotine addiction for children.”
Judge Leon argued that the devices should be regulated in the same way as cigarettes. The judge also agreed with the distributors that e-cigarettes were not marketed as medical devices to help smokers quit, as the Food and Drug Administration had argued, but rather as safer substitutes to give users “the nicotine hit that smokers crave.”
The plastic tubes, shaped like cigarettes, have a heating element to vaporize a refillable liquid nicotine mixture. They have electronics to monitor air flow so that when a user inhales, the device delivers a vapor with a taste and feel that the distributors say simulates cigarette smoke.
Traditional cigarette makers have not been involved in the fledgling industry.

The American Lung Association in California recently graded Santa Clara County cities on their toughness on tobacco, and Los Altos and Los Altos Hills each received an F. But the study isn’t perfect, and Los Altos Hills officials aren’t happy with their town’s failing grade.
“This survey is outrageously incorrect,” Los Altos Hills City Manager Carl Cahill said. “We actually should have gotten an A grade in two of the three categories since we completely prohibit the types of establishments where one might smoke or purchase tobacco products.”
The Jan. 12 report, “The State of Tobacco Control,” which examined tobacco ordinances in place Jan. 2 in 373 cities, awarded zero points to the town from a rubric of 15 items in three categories. The report examined cities’ municipal codes for laws banning tobacco stores and smoking in places like recreation areas, sidewalks and homes. The report assigned Fs to 67 percent of the included cities.
“In the first category (Smokefree Outdoor Air Grade, which studied prohibition in various outdoor areas), we should have gotten at least a B grade since, by ordinance, we prohibit smoking at Byrne Preserve and the Westwind Barn by virtue of the fact that they are in high fire danger areas,” Cahill said.
Serena Chan, an 18-year employee of the American Lung Association, admitted the report is flawed in that it’s not tailored for small, rural towns like Los Altos Hills.
“The only thing we’re able to do is look through cities’ municipal codes and if we can’t find smoking ordinances in the code, we can’t give a grade for it,” Chan said.
The Los Altos Hills municipal code states, “No person shall light, ignite or otherwise set fire to or smoke any tobacco, cigarette, pipe or cigar in or upon any hazardous fire area.”
Chan said if she were to regrade the town, she would probably give them two out of four points in the “Smokefree Outdoor Air Grade” category, because the code doesn’t completely ban smoking in recreation areas – just where it’s a fire hazard. The town could have received an A overall with a specificaly tailored report, she said.
“A lot of times folks feel wrongly graded,” Chan said. “It’s not a perfect study.”
Ideally, she said, the rubric would exclude certain categories that wouldn’t apply to Los Altos Hills. There are no restaurants in the town, for instance, so instead of receiving zero for that category, it wouldn’t be factored in.
Chan said the purpose of the report is to generate awareness to secondhand smoke.
As for Los Altos’ F, Mayor David Casas said the report was beneficial in generating awareness, but was lacking in providing solutions.
He said Los Altos could be tougher on smoking ordinances if residents perceived it as more of a problem. Los Altos’ code doesn’t permit smoking in all public indoor areas, but it doesn’t address most outdoor areas, including parks.
“I think we have a good balance between personal rights and enjoyment of your property,” Casas said. “Prohibition of smoking has not been brought up” at any council meetings for consideration.
Albany, Calabasas, Richmond and Glendale were the only cities to earn As.

Most legislation in Olympia is proposed, discussed, killed or passed without any mention in the media whatsoever. I was reminded of this Thursday while sitting through hearings on several bills I knew nothing about. One struck me as the ultimate in narrow subjects: changing the law concerning pipe tobacco.
There is already a law, RCW 70.155.140, banning residents of Washington from buying tobacco by mail-order without a tobacco dealer’s license. This was passed either to protect the people’s health or the state’s revenue—you can decide about that. It exempts one category of tobacco: large cigars.
Why large cigars? I don’t know; I imagine it’s because the companies that sell cigars by mail order have some supporters in the Legislature. Anyway, the bill I’m getting to, SB 6447, sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, would also exempt pipe tobacco.
Testifying in the Senate Labor, Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee (chaired, not coincidentally, by the same Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles) in support of the bill were three members of the Seattle Pipe Club. I’d never heard of the Seattle Pipe Club, but look on the Internet, and here it is. One of its members, Gary Schrier, has even written a book about it, Confessions of a Pipeman, and he was there to testify. “I’m a pipeman,” he declared.
What was their argument? The tobacconists are going out of business, only a few places sell pipe tobacco any longer, and the really good stuff is available only by mail-order. Indeed, the Seattle Pipe Club has three special blends, Plum Pudding, Mississippi River and Seattle Evening, available only by mail-order. The pipemen argued that they should be able to get their leaf, and that underage users aren’t a problem because teenagers don’t like to smoke pipes.

Next up was Mary Selecky, secretary of health, who argued that teenagers will smoke pipes, and that the state’s job is to keep all tobacco away from them. After Selecky came a fellow from the state attorney general’s office. He argued that if pipe tobacco is again made lawful to receive by mail, that it will be a loophole used by customers of roll-your-own cigarette tobacco, possibly by companies slyly relabeling their R-Y-O product as “pipe tobacco.”
I think the state should let adults smoke if they want to smoke, and stop trying to manage them. Tax them, OK. Manage them, no. That puts me on the side of the pipeman. If a handful of teenagers get some pipe tobacco by mail-order, it is no big deal. The more we bind adults with rules for children, the more the adult citizen becomes like a child in relation to the state–and we are not children of the state.