Starting in mid-September, Utah bars and clubs cannot allow patrons to smoke most hookah products indoors.The Utah Department of Health announced Monday that it has amended the Utah Indoor Clean Air Act to ban hookah products that contain tobacco. The rule goes into effect Sept. 12.”The purpose of the clarification is to protect people from exposure to second hand smoke. Even minimal amounts of exposure is considered harmful,” said Steve Hadden, a health program specialist in the department’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program.

The University of Montana’s fall semester started Monday, and so did the tobacco free policy.It requires UM students, employees, and visitors to use tobacco products in designated areas. Those spots are marked with cigarette outposts near sidewalks and the street on the borders of campus.Workers put up signs around the campus to remind people of the new policy. The UM Office of Public Safety is responsible for enforcement, but campus officials are asking everyone to do their part.

With a view to garner additional revenue of Rs 6,000 crore, the West Bengal government has stressed more on tax compliance and simplification of the tax regime. It has also increased tax on foreign liquor and tobacco products other than bidis.Presenting the Finance Bill in the Assembly on Monday, Finance Minister Amit Mitra put tobacco products such as cigarettes, gutkha and pan masala under schedule D of VAT, which enables the government to charge taxes more than the present 13.5 per cent.

If Bengal drinks, smokes and lives up to the ideals of Anna Hazare by complying with tax rules, finance minister Amit Mitra can keep his word on additional resource generation this year.Mitra today raised taxes on alcoholic beverages and tobacco products, the usual suspects tapped by governments wary of hard decisions, as part of his attempts to account for the Rs 6,390-crore additional revenue he has promised to generate this financial year.Another chunk of the revenue is expected to come from better compliance by taxpayers, to facilitate which he has streamlined some rates and jacked up the penalty on dodgers. Changes in stamp duty rates on family transactions and a hefty penalty on hoteliers who do not register themselves appear key to Mitra’s plans.

Tobacco companies are back in court trying to prevent the government from imposing new regulations that will require bold warning labels on cigarette packages and advertisements. They lost a similar federal lawsuit in tobacco-friendly Kentucky last year. Now they are suing in U.S. District Court in Washington.The Food and Drug Administration gained the authority to regulate tobacco products under a law passed in 2009. Among various restrictions placed on tobacco advertising, the law required that stronger warning labels — including those that graphically depict the harm caused by smoking — cover the top half of the front and the back of cigarette packs.