Experts are calling for cigarette packets to carry a warning that smoking can cause blindness. The move comes as new evidence suggests smoking – and passive smoking – can cause age-related macular degeneration – the UK’s leading cause of blindness. The, as yet, unpublished European Eye Study of 5,000 AMD patients in the EU found [...]

Tennessee lawmakers approved a bill Saturday that would ban smoking in all buildings owned or operated by the state. Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen, who describes himself as an avid nonsmoker, has not yet said whether he will sign bill. The House voted 80-5 to ban smoking in Tennessee’s 528 buildings — 172 state-owned and 356 [...]

Cotinine is a metabolite (byproduct) of nicotine as it is “processed” by the human body. It is an indicator that nicotine has been inhaled or otherwise introduced into the body. Cotinine is a chemical that is made by the body from nicotine, which is found in cigarette smoke. Since cotinine can be made only from [...]

Mike Davenport spent the afternoon of his 50th birthday last Wednesday the same way he’s spent many, many afternoons over the past five years. Enclosed in a glassed-off little room in the Piazza Manna restaurant at the foot of Bay St., Davenport was bellied up to a bar and puffing contentedly on a series of [...]

Marijuana smoking does not increase a person’s risk of developing lung cancer, according to the findings of a new study at the University of California Los Angeles that surprised even the researchers. They had expected to find that a history of heavy marijuana use, like cigarette smoking, would increase the risk of cancer. Instead, the [...]