They keep blowing the agenda in my face.
Going to take lunch first:
"A different course for struggling Restaurant Week; Dine Out Boston will now offer a range of prices" by Taryn Luna | Globe Correspondent, February 01, 2014
I'm sure she can find a nice place to eat amongst the homeless and hungry.
You can stick a fork in Restaurant Week.
After several years of declining participation and escalating complaints, the long-running Boston culinary event — which featured noted chefs serving up three-course meals at reasonable fixed prices — had become as stale as a day-old dinner roll.
Now organizers hope to whet appetites by rebranding Restaurant Week as Dine Out Boston and addressing a major issue restaurateurs had with the format: High-end establishments said the promotion’s one-price-fits-all rule made it difficult to offer signature dishes without losing money, while less expensive restaurants balked at the mandated $38 dinner tab. And many said the promotional meals were not generating the return business they expected.
“Restaurant Week was a terrible flop for us,” said Jeffrey Gates, a partner in the Aquitaine Group, whose roster of restaurants includes Aquitaine Bar a Vin Bistrot and Gaslight Brasserie du Coin....
The meal sucked?
In response to disenchanted restaurant chefs and owners, the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau — which runs the event — said there will be a range of prices for Dine Out Boston, scheduled for March 16 to 21 and 23 to 28....
That is well over six weeks away at time of publication. That's a long wait for a lunch!
Started in 2001 to boost what was then a budding restaurant scene, the event quickly attracted thousands of customers to dining rooms throughout Boston and surrounding communities, where they could sample gourmet food at a deep discount....
In its former incarnation, Restaurant Week took a hit in 2012 with the defection of well-known chef Michael Leviton. His decision to opt out caused some to rethink the wisdom of Restaurant Week. Leviton, who owns Lumière in Newton, said the local, sustainable, and organic foods he features were worth more than Restaurant Week prices....
See: Michael Leviton on ‘CBS This Morning: Saturday’
I missed it.
Related: Famed chef shutters his Market restaurant
The novelty of Restaurant Week also wore off as websites that offer discounted meals — such as Groupon, Living Social, and Amazon Local — became more popular....
I'm sure my morning newspaper knows how that feels.
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Missed the meal because I had to go take a smoke.
"Tobacco nearing last gasp in US, some say" by Mike Stobbe | Associated Press, February 10, 2014
ATLANTA — Health officials have begun to predict the end of cigarette smoking in America.
They have long wished for a cigarette-free America, but shied away from calling for smoking rates to fall to zero or near zero by any particular year. The power of tobacco companies and popularity of their products made such a goal seem like a pipe dream.
Smoke this: Game For Monday's Globe
But a confluence of changes has recently prompted public health leaders to start throwing around phrases like ‘‘endgame’’ and ‘‘tobacco-free generation.’’
***************
This is not the first time a federal health official has spoken so boldly. In 1984, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop called for a ‘‘smoke-free society’’ by 2000. However, Koop — a bold talker on many issues — didn’t offer specifics on how to achieve such a goal.
Related: Flying the Boston Globe Koop
‘‘What’s different today is that we have policies and programs that have been proven to drive down tobacco use,’’ said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. ‘‘We couldn’t say that in 1984.’’
Among the things that have changed:
■ Cigarette taxes have increased around the country, making smokes more expensive....
Amazing how increased taxes are always a good thing in my agenda-pu$hing ma$$ media mouthpiece -- until it comes to the wealthy.
■ Laws banning smoking in restaurants, bars, and workplaces have popped up all over the country....
■ Polls show that cigarette smoking is no longer considered normal behavior, and is now less popular among teens than marijuana.
Uh-oh!
■ Federal officials are increasingly aggressive about anti-smoking advertising.
The Food and Drug Administration launched a new youth tobacco prevention campaign last week.
I will smoke that butt below.
At about the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention debuted a third, $60-million round of its successful anti-tobacco ad campaign — this one featuring poignant, deathbed images of a woman featured in earlier ads.
One wonders if that money is just going up in smoke in this time of austerity, etc.
■ Tobacco companies, once considered impervious to legal attack, have suffered huge defeats in court....
You guys should have went into banking because you would never have seen the inside of a courtroom.
■ Retailing of cigarettes is changing, too. CVS Caremark, the nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain, said last week that it will stop selling tobacco products at its more than 7,600 drugstores. The company said it made the decision in a bid to focus more on providing health care, but medical and public health leaders predicted pressure will increase on companies like Walgreen Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to follow suit.
I will stop at CVS below, too.
‘‘I do think, in another few years, that pharmacies selling cigarettes will look as anachronistic’’ as old cigarette ads featuring physician endorsements look today, said the CDC’s director, Dr. Tom Frieden.
These developments have made many in public health dream bigger....
The bigger goal is to reduce US smoking-related deaths to fewer than 10,000, from the current level of 480,000.
That is PER YEAR, people!
But even if smoking rates dropped to zero immediately, it would take decades to see that benefit, since smoking-triggered cancers can take decades to develop.
And then cigarette -- or nuclear power companies -- can claim they are not responsible and doctors can never really know.
But while some advocates are swinging for the fences, others are more pessimistic. They say the key to reaching such goals is not simply more taxes and more smoking bans, but action by the Food and Drug Administration to regulate smoking....
They can't protect the food and drug supply as it is and now they are going to sift through tobacco chafe?
But nearly five years after gaining power over cigarettes, the FDA has yet to propose such regulations. Agency officials say they’re working on it.
Related: Alphabet Agency: FDA Feedbag
Took them thirty years on that one, so why don't you go take a smoke while you wait?
Many believe the FDA’s delay is driven by preparations for an anticipated battery of legal and political challenges.
Or $omething el$e, as in who they really $erve.
A spokesman for Altria Group, the maker of Marlboro, said the company supports the FDA’s exercising its authority over tobacco products. But as a whole, the industry has tended to fight regulation. Some of the nation’s largest tobacco companies — though not Altria — sued to stop FDA-proposed graphic warning labels on cigarette packs. A federal court blocked the ads.
Must have been a smoker judge.
‘‘The industry makes money as long as they can delay regulation,’’ said Kenneth Warner, a University of Michigan public health professor who is a leading authority on smoking and health.
Warner and Michigan colleague David Mendez estimate that, barring any major new tobacco control victories, the adult smoking rate will drop from its current 18 percent only to about 12 percent by 2050. If health officials do make huge strides, the rate could drop as low as 6 percent, they think.
I think.... I'm done with this article.
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(Blog editor exhales, then inhales)
"FDA targets teens with new antismoking ads; Wrinkles, cost, cravings will be highlighted" by Deborah Kotz | Globe Staff, February 05, 2014
WASHINGTON — In an attempt to scare teens away from cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration is launching a $115 million ad campaign that doesn’t mention lung cancer, heart disease, or emphysema, not even once. No body bags will surface and no smoke will rise from a hole in the throat, either — graphic images the agency previously wanted to put on cigarette packages before manufacturers sued to block them.
This time, the FDA has taken a different tack, highlighting the downsides of smoking that teens may have an easier time relating to: It yellows teeth, causes wrinkles, damages skin, empties your wallet, and forces you away from your friends to feed nicotine cravings.
Starting next week, “The Real Cost” ad campaign will run for a year on websites and TV, and in magazines aimed at teens.
FLASHBACK:
"Ad campaigns in many states are courting undecided young adults. In Colorado, a nonprofit group created a series of provocative ‘‘got insurance?’’ ads. One features a blonde standing next to a life-size cut-out of celebrity heartthrob
Ryan Gosling with the caption: ‘‘Hey girl, you’re excited about easy
access to birth control and I’m excited about getting to know you. She
got insurance.’’
????? If you get Obummercare you might get laid? WTF is wrong with people in advertising?
Another touting ‘‘Brosurance’’ encourages men doing a keg stand not to tap into their beer money to cover medical bills.
Gonna need it to cover the STD treatments.
When the exchange launched, models wearing nothing but underwear and ‘‘Get Covered’’ signs passed out fliers in downtown Denver.
I'll bet they made their points out in that cold!
So SEX and BOOZE are a GOOD SELLING POINT in Colorado, 'eh?
Bunch of stoners out there from what little I could see through that Globe smoke.
Have you seen any of those offen$ive ads yet?
“We’re reaching kids on the cusp,” FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said during a press briefing Tuesday. “They’re one party away from trying their first cigarette or have already experimented,” she said, but they haven’t yet been hooked.
Isn't hamburg also bad for health?
Previous research suggests that teens aren’t really frightened off from smoking by the possibility of getting lung cancer or heart disease down the road. “They’re not thinking about tomorrow,” said FDA tobacco education director Kathy Crosby. “They don’t believe they’ll ever get addicted.” But, added Hamburg, 700 American teens do on a daily basis.
Tobacco indu$try has to like those numbers.
Whether the same cutting-edge campaign [with] marketing techniques that the tobacco industry has long used will keep teens from lighting up remains anyone’s guess.
Or gue$$.
**************
The new campaign doesn’t shy away from in-your-face images. One ad features a teenage girl who places money on the counter to buy a pack of cigarettes. The cashier says, “You need a little more, honey.” The girl proceeds to peel off a section of skin from her face, making the point that cigarettes cost smooth skin as well as money. In another ad, a teen boy is forced to remove a tooth with a pair of pliers when he purchases his pack.
Other ads make cigarettes into bullies:
***************
“I’m surprised the FDA would do this kind of messaging,” said Dr. Gregory Connolly, a tobacco control expert at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Young people are smart and you never want to do messaging that insults their intelligence like someone pulling skin off their face.”
Shows you how out-of-touch this rank and rotten government is on all levels.
When Connolly directed smoking prevention efforts at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health 15 years ago, he launched an ad campaign featuring Pam Laffin, a twentysomething mother who started smoking at age 11 and was dying of emphysema. “Teen girls told us in surveys that they could relate to her,” Connolly said. “Her story was believable but not over the top.”
The FDA showed the new commercials focusing on bullying and beauty to 1,600 teens in their target audience, who reported that they were “memorable, understandable, and engaging,” said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA Center for Tobacco Products. The agency also surveyed 8,000 adolescents from around the country on their attitudes about smoking and will continue to follow them through the ad campaign to see whether their attitudes change after they are presumably exposed to the ads repeatedly over the next 12 months.
Much progress has already been made to reduce teen smoking — fewer than 9 percent of teens under 18 are regular smokers, compared with 13 percent back in the 1990s. But the decline has slowed, according to Hamburg, and the agency hopes this initiative will speed it up.
“I really commend the FDA if they’re going to be studying the effect of these ads, so we can see if they can indeed help,” said Dr. Nancy Rigotti, director of tobacco research and treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It will be a great experiment; hopefully it will work.”
Yeah, I $ure hope so!
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Time to stop at the CVS for a new pack of cigs:
"CVS takes a stand, halts tobacco sales" by Deirdre Fernandes and Deborah Kotz | Globe Staff, February 05, 2014
CVS Caremark on Wednesday announced it would stop selling cigarettes in its stores, winning praise from health advocates, lawmakers, and the nation’s former smoker-in-chief, even though the move is expected to have much greater symbolic impact than practical effect.
Oh, no, more $ymbolism.
Even as President Obama and public health officials called on other pharmacy chains to follow CVS, analysts noted that tobacco products are a small and shrinking share of sales for the Woonsocket, R.I., company and its competitors. Tobacco sales represent less than 2 percent of CVS Caremark Corp.'s annual revenues, and are likely to decline further as more communities across the country ban tobacco sales in drug stores.
Oh, CVS was getting out of the bu$ine$$ because it's a lo$$ leader! And I was told it was for health rea$ons! I gue$$ it was at that!
Already, Boston and 79 other Massachusetts communities, accounting for about half the state’s population, have passed such bans.
Still, as both CVS executives and industry analysts noted Wednesday, the move will make it easier for the company to form partnerships with doctors, hospitals, and insurers and allow the chain to expand its brand as a health care provider — a business expected to become more lucrative as the population ages and the new federal health care law increases demand for basic services such as checkups.
It's all $elf-$erving $lop to ingratiate themselves with the FDA and insurance indu$try!
CVS already offers medical clinics, flu shots, and other immunizations in many of its 7,600 stores nationwide and could further develop such services in partnerships with hospitals, analysts said. It also operates a large business managing drug benefits plans for private companies.
Yeah, they make big bucks of the vaccination programs.
“CVS has aligned its business to the pharmacy,” said Scott Mushkin, an analyst with Wolfe Research in New York. Tobacco, he added, is, “an ancillary business, it’s not the reason why most people go to CVS.”
In other words, they are going to promote certain legal drugs over other certain legal drugs.
CVS, the nation’s second largest drug store chain after Walgreen Co., said it would end tobacco sales in a taped message Wednesday morning from chief executive Larry Merlo that was posted on its website.
Merlo was out taking a smoke.
Merlo said the company will remove all tobacco products from its stores by Oct. 1, and launch a smoking cessation campaign this spring and could potentially expand its products to help customers stop smoking, CVS officials said.
“Tobacco products have no place in a setting where health care is delivered,” Merlo said. “Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose.”
I wonder how many other potentially poisonous products they are going to dump.
How about all the co$metics that are tested on animals? They next to go?
Obama hailed the decision “as a powerful example” that would help efforts to, “reduce tobacco-related deaths, cancer, and heart disease, as well as bring down health care costs.”
Yeah, that's his main concern after the website flop.
Kathleen Sebelius, US secretary of health and human services, and other public health advocates called on other pharmacy chains to follow CVS’s example.
“CVS made a very compelling argument today that if you’re in the business of health care, you shouldn’t be in the business of selling tobacco products,” said Vince Willmore, spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “We’ll be taking that argument to every store with a pharmacy to make sure this is a catalyst for them.”
Except that isn't why CVS did it.
But CVS's competitors said they weren’t quite ready to kick the habit. Walgreen spokesman James W. Graham said in an e-mail that the drugstore chain Walgreens has evaluated the sale of tobacco for some time to “balance the choices our customers expect from us, with their ongoing health needs.” He said the company will continue its evaluations while offering products to help people quit smoking.
Rite Aid, which ranks third behind CVS Caremark in sales, said it sells tobacco products in accordance to federal and state laws, but it is constantly reviewing its product mix to meet customer demand.
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, also operates pharmacies in its stores. The company declined to comment.
Walmart not out in front on this?
The US tobacco market has been shrinking for decades, and today, fewer than 1 in 5 adults smoke, down from nearly half in 1965.
Still a lot of money to be made there!
But tobacco is still responsible for more than 400,000 deaths a year in the United States, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Why was the year part left out of the article below?
Whether the CVS decision to stop selling tobacco will result in fewer smokers remains unknown, said Margaret Reid, who directs tobacco control efforts at the Boston Public Health Commission. But it will certainly make tobacco products less readily available to smokers....
That's it!
‘‘Enough is enough,’’ cough, cough!
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Related: CVS: Getting on the anti-smoking bandwagon
No surprise they are getting on it.
CVS tobacco ban just the start. Next: soda
Yeah, some addictions are not con$idered unhealthy.
The big que$tion now is will CVS sell pot?
