Recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that electronic cigarettes would be regulated as tobacco products. The announcement came after a decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that electronic cigarettes are not drugs or devices unless marketed for therapeutic purposes. In 2009, the FDA was authorized to regulate tobacco products which are not drugs or devices.

Cigarettes will be the most effective means to reduce the number of death caused by tobacco use,” Mom Kong, the executive director of the NGO-Cambodia Movement for Health, said at the event. “Moreover, the increase will generate more tax revenues for the state coffer.”Ho Naun, the National Assembly’s chairwoman of the Commission on Public Health and Social Welfares, expressed her full support for the demand.”I believe that it’s a major measure to discourage smokers,” she said.

Sitting on a deck chair reading the latest movie script and puffing away on an electronic cigarette, Lindsay Lohan looked the picture of happiness yesterday.But instead of every other young woman enjoying the sunshine in California yesterday, Lindsay was in fact trying to make the most of her house arrest. The 24-year-old actress looked happy and relaxed as she sat on the roof of her Venice Beach property wearing an orange vest top and beige trousers.

Of all the well-intentioned sentiments being expressed over the regulation of cigarette sales in Albany County, we’re most impressed with the perspective offered by John McDonald, a pharmacist as well as the mayor of Cohoes.Why?Because he brings a credibility that many others lack to the debate over whether pharmacies should be banned from selling tobacco products.Mr. McDonald’s owns Marra’s Pharmacy, which topped selling tobacco some 20 years ago. That’s long before government officials at any level considered dictating what at first seems like a sensible policy but actually is a misguided one.Ideally, the people who own pharmacies and similar business would recognize what Mr. McDonald calls the “hint of contradiction” between providing health care services and selling such a lethal product. Responsible action on their part would preclude the need for the sort of legislation that’s before the Albany County Legislature.