Obligatory Link-Based Lazy Weekend Post
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:57 PM

Link (1): A friend (but sometime critic, alas) of Vice Squad brings us word on this Jacob Sullum column at Reason.com concerning the effort in Congress to ban flavored cigarettes -- even though all the cool kids are smoking them. Not to be outdone, Chicago Alderman Edward Burke and two colleagues introduced a measure to ban the sale of sweet-flavored cigarettes locally. (Here's the link to a Chicago Tribune (registration required) story: the cigarette bill is briefly mentioned towards the end.) It has been a ban-happy week for Alderman Burke: he also wants to ban video-stalking of the type that has hounded US Senate candidate Barack Obama. Fortunately Obama is more sensible: 'the nice thing about our society is that not all problems have to be solved by laws.'

Link (2): Overlawyered notes three recent judicial losses for the tobacco industry. Vice Squad mentioned two of them this week; the third concerns the verdict of a Louisiana jury demanding that Big Tobacco pay more than half a billion dollars for smoking cessation efforts -- though the verdict is hardly the final word on this case.

Link (3): Last One Speaks informs us of a new study that looks at the effectiveness of the Drug Tsar's anti-marijuana advertising. Looks like a political winner: while there isn't evidence that the ad campaign dissuades kids from using pot (and hints of evidence in the opposite direction), parents like it.

Labels: Drug Czar, litigation, marijuana, Prohibition, tobacco