>>Oh, I agree fully. The manufacturers are simply skirting around the Federal and state mandates for public and worker safety. Bottom line is the bottom line. Don't imagine for a second they do it out of any concern for the public. Much simpler and cheaper to move it offshore. Now it's "someone else's problem".
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>Related, has anyone else been seeing those weird Phillip Morris anti-smoking ads lately? It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what's going on...
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>Anti-smoking is verrryyy popular in the US - my county just banned it almost entirely. But for much of the rest of world, the tobacco market is still peaking...I'll bet top dollar those PM ads aren't shown round the world.

You're talking to the wrong guy, Bruce - look very closely at my picture ;-) And why are the tobacco companies producing any anti-smoking ads at all? If you can believe what you read, PM is actually increasing the the likelyhood of teen smoking (12-17). Maybe there should have been a clause against any advertising whatsoever, since their public service ads don't seem to have the desired result. It seems the lawyers let that slip through the cracks.

and if by "verrryyy popular" you mean politically correct - yes, I would agree. However, the bar and restaurant owners here in NY, since NYC's and now the statewide bans are in effect, might disagree. Those small businesses are dropping like flies, every night on the evening news. Along with the jobs. And the droves of nonsmokers that will now flood them with new business? Never happened. Another broken promise. Enough thread drift.