Anti-smoking groups, frustrated by federal inaction on restricting menthol cigarettes, are taking matters into their own hands. In recent months, cities ranging from Oakland and Los Gatos, Calif., to Minneapolis and St. Paul have passed laws limiting the availability of menthol cigarettes, which health advocates say have a particular appeal to beginning smokers. St. Paul is the latest, voting this month to restrict sales to adult-only tobacco and liquor stores.

Starting Nov. 26, the major U.S. tobacco companies must run court-ordered newspaper and television advertisements that tell the American public the truth about the deadly consequences of smoking and secondhand smoke, as well as the companies’ intentional design of cigarettes to make them more addictive. The ads are the culmination of a long-running lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice filed against the tobacco companies in 1999.

Small- to mid-size employers participating in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) program increased their investment in evidence-based interventions to improve worker health, according to a study in the July Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may undermine its own recently released “deeming rule” with an exception – one which has the American Heart Association (AHA) warning about loopholes.

“The nutrition and tobacco riders tucked into this bill are a serious setback to the strong progress we’ve made on these issues to benefit the health of the public. This legislation fails everyone when it comes to nutrition."

A study by chemists at the University of Connecticut offers new evidence that electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are potentially as harmful as tobacco cigarettes. Using a new low-cost, 3-D printed testing device, UConn researchers found that e-cigarettes loaded with a nicotine-based liquid are potentially as harmful as unfiltered cigarettes when it comes to causing DNA damage.

Not only will stamping out tobacco use help prevent illness and death, it will also – according to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO) -- reduce large-scale environmental degradation.

Smokers who received frequent, tailored emails with quitting tips, motivational messages, and social support had cessation rates rivaling that of the most effective medication available for cessation, according to a new American Cancer Society (ACS) study. The study appears in Tobacco Control.

A pair of leading health organizations have partnered on an ambitious goal: to make U.S. college campuses smoke-free in order to bring about the nation’s first tobacco-free generation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released the final report on the Winnable Battles program, an effort to make the biggest health impact for the most Americans in the shortest time.