The Minty Taste of Death: State and Local Options to Regulate Menthol in Tobacco Products

Explaining why the additive menthol in tobacco products creates major public health risks, this article advocates for restricting the addition of menthol in cigarettes as a way to reduce smoking-related disease and death. Author Michael Freiberg describes how the decision to regulate menthol in tobacco products, on a federal level, was historically delegated by Congress to the discretion of the U.S. FDA, outlines the U.S. FDA’s subsequent failure to regulate menthol, and surveys state and local government efforts to regulate menthol in response to the FDA’s inaction. The article proposes additional actions that these state and local governments could take to regulate menthol and analyzes which options are most likely to quickly and sufficiently address the public health problem of menthol tobacco additives. Finally, the article notes the three most effective options: prohibiting or restricting the sale of all flavored tobacco products including menthol cigarettes, raising the age to purchase menthol tobacco products, or requiring tobacco manufacturers to disclose the amount spent on marketing menthol tobacco products

Anticipating an Evil Which May Never Exist: Minnesota\u27s Anachronistic Identifying Mark Statute

In the aftermath of the 2008 senatorial election race in Minnesota, several election laws were scrutinized by state officials and the public. Specifically, Minnesota statute 204C.22 was attacked; this statute voids ballots containing identifying or distinguishing marks made in such a way as to make it evident that the voter intended to identify the ballot . Secretary of State Ritchie proposed narrowing the scope of the identifying mark statutes, and though legislation was introduced in the state legislature, it was not adopted. The existence of these legislative initiatives makes it appropriate to examine the history of statutes prohibiting identifying marks, the policies undergirding them, and how they have been utilized in recent and distant Minnesota history. This article discusses all of these things and concludes by examining whether the Secretary of State’s recommendations are needed, or whether the statutes should simply be repealed. Advances in technology have made the process followed in applying these statutes accessible to an unprecedented extent, and the processes followed in the United States Senate recount will be closely examined

Options for State and Local Governments to Regulate Non-Cigarette Tobacco Products

Most tobacco control laws were written to address the scourge of smoking - particularly smoking cigarettes. As a result, these laws frequently exclude non-cigarette tobacco products, which are becoming more prevalent on the market. These regulatory gaps jeopardize public health by increasing the possibility that these products will be used - particularly by minors and young adults. This article examines gaps in regulation using five products as case studies: dissolvable tobacco products, electronic cigarettes, little cigars, snus, and water pipes. In addition, this article presents policy options that state and local governments can adopt to regulate these products more effectively, including regulations relating to price, flavors, youth access, use in public places, point-of-sale warnings, and marketing. Furthermore, this article contains extensive discussion of the recently adopted federal Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which both limits and expands the power of state and local governments

The Minty Taste of Death: State and Local Options to Regulate Menthol in Tobacco Products

Explaining why the additive menthol in tobacco products creates major public health risks, this article advocates for restricting the addition of menthol in cigarettes as a way to reduce smoking-related disease and death. Author Michael Freiberg describes how the decision to regulate menthol in tobacco products, on a federal level, was historically delegated by Congress to the discretion of the U.S. FDA, outlines the U.S. FDA’s subsequent failure to regulate menthol, and surveys state and local government efforts to regulate menthol in response to the FDA’s inaction. The article proposes additional actions that these state and local governments could take to regulate menthol and analyzes which options are most likely to quickly and sufficiently address the public health problem of menthol tobacco additives. Finally, the article notes the three most effective options: prohibiting or restricting the sale of all flavored tobacco products including menthol cigarettes, raising the age to purchase menthol tobacco products, or requiring tobacco manufacturers to disclose the amount spent on marketing menthol tobacco products

From Fenway Park to the Mall of America: A Multi-Collaborative Approach to Teaching and Learning

Special issue: Articles on legal research and writin

Influence of Static and Dynamic Disorder on the Anisotropy of Emission in the Ring Antenna Subunits of Purple Bacteria Photosynthetic Systems

Using the reduced density matrix formalism the time dependence of the exciton scattering in light-harvesting ring systems of purple bacteria is calculated. In contrast to the work of Kumble and Hochstrasser (J. Chem. Phys. 109 (1998) 855) static disorder (fluctuations of the site energies) as well as dynamic disorder (dissipation) is taken into account. For the description of dissipation we use Redfield theory in exciton eigenstates without secular approximation. This is shown to be equivalent to the Markovian limit of Capek's theory in local states. Circular aggregates with 18 pigments are studied to model the B850 ring of bacteriochlorophyls within LH2 complexes. It can be demonstrated that the dissipation is important for the time-dependent anisotropy of the fluorescence. Smaller values of static disorder are sufficient to produce the same decay rates in the anisotropy in comparison with the results by Kumble and Hochstrasser