California: The Bullock case. A Los Angeles court is rehearing a claim for punitive damages in light of a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in an Oregon case against Philip Morris (the Williams case) that held punitive damages can’t be calculated based on harm to people who aren’t parties to a lawsuit.
The Whiteley case. Philip Morris is appealing a 2007 verdict that a smoker’s illnesses the company caused resulted in $2.5 million of financial loss to the smoker. In 2007, a jury ruled the smoker was not entitled to punitive damages.

She started smoking Marlboro cigarettes in 1955, the year Philip Morris relaunched the brand. Forty-five years later, Betty Bullock had a two-pack-a-day habit and a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. Bullock was among the roughly four in 10 smokers who succeeded in getting a case against Henrico County-based Philip Morris USA into court and winning. Most lose on appeal, but Bullock’s case still has legs, though not as the $28 billion case it once was.

Federal health officials said yesterday that they have found cancer-causing ingredients in electronic cigarettes, despite manufacturers’ claims the products are safer than tobacco cigarettes. The Food and Drug Administration said testing of products from two leading electronic cigarette makers turned up several toxic chemicals, including a key ingredient in antifreeze.

The colors are green-on-dark green, but the iconic chevron still is there as Philip Morris USA launches yet another version of Marlboro. The nation’s biggest cigarette maker’s newest Marlboro variety—its 15th—is called Blend No. 54, a menthol-flavored cigarette with a tobacco blend that Philip Morris spokesman Bill Phelps described as having a richer, bolder taste. The green-on-green boxes have been showing up in stores in recent weeks.

It took more than a decade for Congress to grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products. Now that the FDA has been given that job, the agency must set up a new regulatory office.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking public comments through Sept. 29 on how it should implement the regulation of tobacco products. The agency said in a federal register notice that it is particularly interested in approaches and actions it should consider to reduce tobacco use and protect public health. Comments can be submitted to the agency online at http://www.regulations.gov, or by mail to the Division of Dockets Management [HFA-305], Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061, Rockville, MD 20852. Comments should be identified with the docket number, FDA-2009-N-0294.

Here are some of the effective dates for FDA regulations of tobacco products:
  July 22, 2009: Use of descriptors such as “light” and “mild” prohibited for newly introduced cigarettes.
  Sept. 20, 2009: Artificial flavors other than menthol banned from cigarettes.
  Oct. 1, 2009: Start of fee collections from tobacco companies to fund the new FDA tobacco center.

Some of the newer smokeless products that tobacco companies are betting on may not be as good at helping smokers quit as the industry hopes, a new federally funded study by Virginia Commonwealth University shows. And that means they may not be the kind of reduced-harm product that is the industry’s latest hope, now that tobacco is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Winning FDA designation as a “potential reduced-exposure product” could be worth billions of dollars, and a key element of that could be whether an item keeps smokers from lighting up.

The U.S. government’s new tobacco regulations spell out the words, size and color of new cigarette warning labels—but despite much publicity about tough new warnings, don’t expect to see any for three years.

Philip Morris USA has put some of its South Richmond and Chesterfield County properties up for sale as the tobacco company cuts costs and consolidates its operations in a smaller U.S. cigarette market. The Henrico County-based company is seeking to sell more than 570,000 square feet of office, laboratory, warehouse and manufacturing space just off Bells Road, on property adjacent to its cigarette plant off Interstate 95.

Petersburg-based Star Scientific Inc. has asked a judge to throw out a June jury verdict that its patents for reducing carcinogens in cigarettes were invalid. Star Scientific, a small company that makes smokeless tobacco products, said yesterday that it is seeking a new trial after the federal jury in Baltimore also said Reynolds American Inc. didn’t infringe Star’s patented method for curing tobacco to reduce cancer-causing agents called nitrosamines. Star shares fell 73 percent the day after the verdict.

Canada’s House of Commons last week unanimously passed a bill that U.S. tobacco observers say could eliminate the Canadian market for U.S.-grown burley tobacco.

Under new regulations, snuff and cigars will have to go behind store counters, where cigarettes are now kept. How the different products share that space will be a challenge for tobacco companies.

The new law would allow the FDA to reduce nicotine in tobacco products, ban candy flavorings and block labels such “low tar” and “light.“ Tobacco companies also will be required to cover their cartons with large graphic warnings.

After years of wrangling, tobacco is officially becoming an FDA-regulated industry. All in all, we believe the Food and Drug Administration’s new oversight will probably prove to be the year’s least injurious intrusion of federal power into private affairs. Cigarettes, after all, rank already among the most highly taxed and regulated products in the country. The new FDA role should remove some uncertainty from the business and could facilitate more honest communications about the relative risks of various types of tobacco products. It might even create modest public health benefits by opening the door for less dangerous ways to partake of the golden leaf—and by amplifying the well-known risks associated with all tobacco consumption. (Sunday’s Commentary section will feature columns from two tobacco companies with strong local ties—and different perspectives on the regulation bill.)