Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA was ordered Thursday by a Florida jury to pay $300 million in damages to an ex-smoker. Cindy Naugle, who is wheelchair-bound by emphysema, is 61 years old. Although the jury ordered Philip Morris USA to pay, they also found Ms. Naugle was 10% responsible because of her decision to start smoking.

It's been more than 30 years since the first such event, and the Great American Smokeout 2009 is underway. Held on the third Thursday of every November, the American Cancer Society uses the day to encourage smokers to quit for at least 24 hours, hoping that the cessation sticks.

Middle-aged men with risk factors for heart disease such as smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are taking 10 to 15 years off their lives.

Researchers from the Catalan Institute of Oncology have studied the impact of the law banning smoking in public places such as bars and restaurants on those working in these places. The results are positive – 5% of waiters have stopped smoking, and the number of cigarettes smoked by those who still smoke has fallen by almost 9%.

Smoking is a risk factor for active tuberculosis disease, according to a new study on TB incidence in Taiwan.

A new study finds that smokers in rural Indonesia finance their habit by dipping into the family food budget—which ultimately results in poorer nutrition for their children. The findings suggest that the costs of smoking in the developing world go well beyond the immediate health risks, according to authors Steven Block and Patrick Webb of Tufts University.

People who use smokeless tobacco products like snus have a slightly higher risk of having a fatal heart attack or stroke, according to research published on bmj.com today.

As teens head back to school, health teachers may want to revise their lesson plans. Temple researchers have found that kids who engage in heavy drinking will more than likely also engage in heavy smoking, and they say educators can help combat the trend by addressing both topics as one health risk.

Tobacco acts as a precipitating factor for headaches, specifically migraines. This is indicated in a study which shows that smokers have more migraine attacks and that smoking more than five cigarettes a day triggers this headache. The work has appeared in the Journal of Headache and Pain.

New research which suggests a direct link between smoking and brain damage will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry. Researchers, led by Debapriya Ghosh and Dr Anirban Basu from the Indian National Brain Research Center (NBRC), have found that a compound in tobacco provokes white blood cells in the central nervous system to attack healthy cells, leading to severe neurological damage.

Cigarette smoking induced COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is a disease that results in severe breathing difficulty. According to World Health Organization (WHO) it is the fourth leading killer worldwide. However the mechanisms responsible for some smokers developing COPD and others evading the disease have not been well understood.

Current research suggests that smoking increases the production of osteopontin in the lungs, which contributes to the development of smoking-related lung disease.