Tasmania State Parliament Enforsed New Smoking Legislations

The Tasmanian State Parliament has banned smoking in outdoor dining areas, at sporting events, bus shelters and playgrounds. The Upper House on Thursday gave the final approval needed to ensure the bans comes into effect next March. During debate the Leader of Government Business in the Upper House, Doug Parkinson, said it will denormalise smoking.

“Denormalising tobacco is crucial to protecting the children of today,” he said.

“Reducing the incidences in which children are exposed to tobacco and smoking helps to denormalise it to children so they are less likely to view smoking as socially acceptable behaviour, less likely to start smoking and, as a consequence, less likely to suffer the harms of smoking.”

The sale of tobacco will not be permitted at public events and specialist tobacconists will no longer be able to permanently display tobacco.

It means cigarette packets and cartons, cigars and loose tobacco will not be displayed in any retail stores across the state.

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The Shocking Ingredients in Cigarettes

If you think cheap cigarettes are simply dried tobacco leaves rolled in paper, you’re about 597 ingredients off. The tobacco industry has become master mixologists with the additives.

Some ingredients are added for flavor, but research has shown that the key purpose of using additives is to improve tobacco’s potency resulting in increased addictiveness–and the additives they choose to use are dreadful.

I remember hearing something about “the list” back in the 1990s when tobacco companies first started being taken to task for their dastardly ways, but seeing the list again now that I’m educated about chemistry and health, I am absolutely staggered. It’s amazing this isn’t in the news everyday. It’s bad enough that many of these ingredients are approved for use in food–but that they haven’t been tested for burning? When burnt, the whole mess results in over 4,000 chemicals, including over 40 known carcinogenic compounds and 400 other toxins. These include nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide, as well as formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and DDT.

You know it’s bad when the Phillip Morris website has this posted on their homepage: Nearly 5,000 chemicals have been identified in tobacco smoke to date. Public health authorities have classified between 45 and 70 of those chemicals, including carcinogens, irritants and other toxins, as potentially causing the harmful effects of tobacco use.

According to Dr. and Mrs. Quit, also known as Lowell Kleinman, M.D., and Deborah Messina-Kleinman, M.P.H., from the Quit Smoking Center, cigarette flavors have gone through many changes since cigarettes were first made. Initially, cigarettes were unfiltered, allowing the full “flavor” of the tar to come through. As the public became concerned about the health effects of smoking, filters were added. While this helped alleviate the public’s fears, the result was a cigarette that tasted too bitter.

The solution to the bitter-tasting cigarette was easy–have some chemists add taste-improving chemicals to the tobacco. But once they got rolling they figured out they could really maximize the whole addiction part, what a hook. They found that a chemical similar to rocket fuel helps keep the tip of the cigarette burning at an extremely hot temperature, which allows the nicotine in tobacco to turn into a vapor so your lungs can absorb it more easily. Or how about ammonia? Adding ammonia to cigarettes allows nicotine in its vapor form to be absorbed through the lungs more quickly. This, in turn, means your brain can get a higher dose of nicotine with each inhalation. Now that’s efficiency.

For a start, here’s the who’s who of the most toxic ingredients used to make cigarettes tastier, and more quickly, effectively addictive:

Ammonia: Household cleaner.
Arsenic: Used in rat poisons.
Benzene: Used in making dyes, synthetic rubber.
Butane: Gas; used in lighter fluid.
Carbon monoxide: Poisonous gas.
Cadmium: Used in batteries.
Cyanide: Lethal poison.
DDT: A banned insecticide.
Ethyl Furoate: Causes liver damage in animals.
Lead: Poisonous in high doses.
Formaldehyde: Used to preserve dead specimens.
Methoprene: Insecticide.
Maltitol: Sweetener for diabetics.
Napthalene: Ingredient in mothballs.
Methyl isocyanate: Its accidental release killed 2000 people in Bhopal, India, in 1984.
Polonium: Cancer-causing radioactive element.

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Marijuana Smoke in MediLeaf Legal Fight

More than two years after a Gilroy medical marijuana dispensary was shut down for operating without a city business license, a state appellate court has ruled that city officials were in the right by declaring it a “public nuisance” despite prolonged objections by the club’s operators.

In a 36-page opinion filed Tuesday by California’s Sixth District Court of Appeals, Associate Justice Wendy Clark Duffy wrote that the City of Gilroy acted within its power and broke no laws when it ordered MediLeaf to close its doors in August 2010.

City officials are confident the decision is the final nail in the coffin for MediLeaf’s fight, with City Attorney Andrew Faber calling the ruling “a complete judicial victory” in an email sent to Gilroy City Council members Tuesday.

Berliner Cohen, the city’s hired legal firm, is still compiling the final financial tally for Gilroy’s battle to close the dispensary, City Finance Director Christina Turner said. The city spent $202,500 in legal fees as of July, according to attorney bills obtained by the Dispatch, though City Councilman and attorney Perry Woodward predicts the total could approach $300,000 when all is counted.

Though Council members weren’t smiling over the price tag, there were still cheers for the city’s apparent victory.

“Of course, I’m happy. I never thought otherwise to be honest with you. From the beginning, I thought we were well within the law,” Councilwoman Cat Tucker said. “It’s a shame that it would cost so much money and take so long, but we did what we had to do and what the majority of the community wanted us to do.”

MediLeaf reps still have 30 days to submit their case to the state Supreme Court.

“Thirty days before I get a full sigh of relief,” Tucker said.

“I’m very happy that the courts agreed,” Mayor Al Pinheiro wrote in an e-mail Thursday, “and yet it is sad that ultimately the city of Gilroy had to spend so much money in protecting the right to decide what is best for Gilroy.

MediLeaf’s defendants – led by founder Goyko “Batzi” Kuburovich – asserted “various claims of error,” Justice Duffy wrote, including arguments that the dispensary should be allowed under the city’s zoning ordinance, and that prohibiting their operation “was unconstitutional.”

The court ruled their claims were “without merit.”

“We reject appellants’ challenges and conclude that the court properly found that Gilroy was entitled to judgment on its public nuisance claim,” Duffy wrote. “Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment.”

Woodward said the court made the correct decision, but maintained his gripe with the city’s battle against the dispensary has always focused on its climbing legal bills. Woodward – a partner at San Jose law firm Terra Law LLP, said he hasn’t seen the city’s final bill but predicted the $202,500 figure would be “far less” than what it would end up paying. He said the legal battle’s timing couldn’t have been worse.

“When we made this decision, we were laying off firefighters, laying off police officers,” Woodward said. “And to me, it’s just not money well spent.”

Woodward argues the city probably would have been better off allowing the dispensary to operate, though under strict guidelines.

“I would have liked to have seen what was being discussed at the time: I would have preferred to see the city adopt an ordinance that would have strictly regulated the operation, that would have limited the operations to one or two (locations),” Woodward said. “The next thing I had hoped to do was to impose a tax so we could have an additional source of revenue.”

He added, “It seems that the opposition to it was just a philosophical opposition to medical marijuana. So I’d like to get the money back.”

Woodward laughed that a refund was out of the question. And he said Gilroy’s battle against marijuana was far from finished.

“No, of course it’s not over. The issue of medical marijuana is going to go on for all of our lives,” he said. “The younger generation doesn’t see it in the same terms.”

Gilroy isn’t the only spot keeping a close on the MediLeaf saga. Woodward and City Administrator Tom Haglund have also been contacted by the Los Angeles Times for an article examining California cities’ battles with recent marijuana issues, the Dispatch has learned.

While no other marijuana dispensaries exist in Gilroy, Woodward predicted the drug will be fully legalized within the next 10 years, which would make Gilroy’s fight against MediLeaf seem ancient.

“We’re going to look back on this on the same way we look back on prohibition in my view,” he said.

Woodward said the MediLeaf case had some factors that “could be attractive” to the state Supreme Court, but agreed the legal debate was probably dead.

“The supreme court takes very few cases. Any case going to the supreme court is an extreme long shot,” he said.

MediLeaf opened Nov. 9, 2009 without a business license at 1321 First St. because they were operating as a nonprofit, the shop’s owners argued.

Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy turned down the city’s request for a preliminary injunction Dec. 15, 2009 that would have shut down MediLeaf pending a trial, partly because of accusations that the city had violated the Brown Act during a closed session discussion Nov. 16.

The Council voted 4-3 in open sessions Dec. 30 to approve litigation. Mayor Al Pinheiro and Council members Cat Tucker, Dion Bracco and Bob Dillon voted yes in favor of the resolution. Woodward, along with Councilmen Peter Arellano and Craig Gartman voted against it.

MediLeaf was forced to close Aug. 9, 2010 after Superior Court Judge Kevin McKenney issued an eight-page order on July 20 upholding the city’s claim that MediLeaf was operating illegally following a Gilroy lawsuit.

Attorneys for MediLeaf filed a notice to appeal the prohibitory injunction the day after McKenney’s Santa Clara County court decision and requested the dispensary be allowed to operate during the appeals process. McKenney denied MediLeaf’s request on Sept. 13, 2010.

The dispensary maintains it used a not-for-profit model and therefore did not require a business license.

On Dec. 9, 2010, dozens of undercover law enforcement officers from across Santa Clara County raided eight homes and MediLeaf offices in Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Jose as part of an eight-month investigation of illegal sales of marijuana and money laundering into the medicinal pot club.

The MediLeaf search warrant obtained by the Dispatch names the six people who law enforcement refused to release at the time of the warrant: founder Goyoko “Batzi” Kuburovich, 50, Patricia Kuburovich, 46, Kristel Kuburovich, 21, Neil Forrest, 58, Bruce Ziegelman, 53, and Kevin Keifer, 54.

Charges have not been filed against MediLeaf’s proprieters as of Thursday, said Lisa McCrary, spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.

Calls to “Batzi” Kuburovich and Forrest on Thursday were not returned as of press time.

Councilman Dion Bracco, who along with Councilman Woodward is running for the city’s mayoral seat in 2012, called Tuesday’s court decision “good news,” and said he doesn’t think MediLeaf will have a chance to continue its fight.

“According to our legal counsel, they don’t believe the high court would even listen to it,” Bracco said. “They’ve lost every step of the way. Who would believe they would finally win something?”

Bracco also called the city’s hefty legal bills “the cost of doing business.”

“A city can operate as it sees fit. They can’t just come in and do what they feel like and get away with it,” he said. “The way it’s set up, they have nothing to lose by filing these frivolous lawsuits. We have to defend our city. Otherwise, people can do whatever they feel like and get away with it.”

He added, “If you’re going to run your city according to price sheet or make decisions on how much it costs someone to fight your decisions, I don’t know what type of city you’d be living in.”

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British American Tobacco - best cigarettes brands

We recognise that our business starts with our consumers and our brands. It’s not about encouraging people to start smoking or to smoke more, but about meeting the preferences of adults who have chosen to consume tobacco, and differentiating our brands from their competitors.

We have never believed that ‘one size fits all’. Our portfolio of more than 200 brands is based on distinct strategic segments – premium, fresh taste and Adult Smokers Under 30 (ASU30).

Our four Global Drive Brands - Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall - cover the premium and value for money price segments. They grew by 7 per cent in 2010, or 13 billion more cigarettes.

While developing our Global Drive Brands is central to our strategy, we are also increasing the profile of Vogue in the premium segment and Viceroy, a leading low price international brand.

Much of the growth of our leading brands is driven by innovation – from filters to flavours and packaging to cigarette formats.

Overall our brand mix is broadly balanced between premium, mid-price and low-price.

More than cigarettes
While more than 95 per cent of the world’s smokers consume ready-made cigarettes you can find cigar and roll your own tobacco brands in our portfolio. Our cigar brands include Captain Black and the hand-made premium Dunhill Signed Range.

Smokeless too
Some of our Group companies sell Swedish-style snus, a form of smokeless tobacco that is placed under the lip and is reported by several independent health experts as being much less harmful than cigarettes. It’s sold under the Lucky Strike, Peter Stuyvesant, Granit and Mocca brands.

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Lorillard Recalls Certain Newport Non-Menthol Packs

Lorillard Inc., the third largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the United States, said that it voluntarily implemented a precautionary recall of certain Newport Non-menthol cigarettes. The company initiated the recall “out of an abundance of caution” following its discovery that some Newport Non-Menthol cigarettes manufactured June 29 and 30, 2011, could contain small pieces of plastic.

The company sought and received guidance from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) upon discovering the foreign substance.

No plastic has been found in any of the cigarettes. If burned, the plastic may create discomfort or irritation of the respiratory tract. The recall is limited to products distributed with the following code numbers, which are located on the bottom of the pack:
Newport Non-Menthol Box 80s: 1-O-29-750, 1-O-30-750.
Newport Non-Menthol Box 100s: 1-O-29-440, 1-O-30-440.
No other Lorillard products are affected, including Newport Menthol and other brands, said the company.

A letter provided to CSP Daily News that Lorillard sent to all direct-buying customers on July 19 said, “We are pleased to inform you that all involved Newport Non-Menthol Box 80s and Newport Non-Menthol Box 100s manufactured on 6/29/2011 or 6/30/2011 located in Direct Account locations have now been identified and segregated. As such, all Direct Account customers may resume retail shipments of all other on-hand inventories of Newport Non-Menthol products that were not segregated and discussed with you.”

A letter sent to all retail customers said, “All public distributing warehouses and our direct buying customers have already segregated this product and therefore, any future shipments you
receive have no issue. We are, however, now asking for your assistance in identifying any involved Newport Non-Menthol product that may have reached your retail outlet.”

The company added, “Should you identify any Newport Non-Menthol product in your retail outlet with the involved lot codes please hold them separately from your other Newport Non-Menthol products and arrange to have them returned to your wholesale supplier. We have authorized your wholesale supplier to accept returns of Newport Non-Menthol with the above lot codes. Also, if any of your customers have purchased any Newport Non-Menthol product with the above lot codes and returned them to you please provide them with a full refund of the purchase price and return the product to your wholesale supplier.”

Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard, through its Lorillard Tobacco Co. subsidiary, is the third largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the United States. Founded in 1760, it is the oldest continuously operating U.S. tobacco company. Lorillard’s flagship menthol-flavored premium cigarette brand is the top-selling menthol and second largest selling cigarette in the United States. In addition to Newport, the Lorillard product line has four additional brand families marketed under the Kent, True, Maverick and Old Gold brand names. These five brands include 43 different product offerings which vary in price, taste, flavor, length and packaging.

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Winston Cigarettes and Tobacco Description

Winston cigarette is the brand which became famous immediately it appeared on the market of the tobacco productions due to its magnificent taste and exclusive flavor. It obtains the leading places in tobacco sales of discount cigarettes brands in the United States. Winston wins the name of the best selling brand of the cigarettes of the year 1954 , the year when Winston cigarettes appear; and at the beginning of our century the Winston tobacco is still on the top among the famous brands of cigarettes from the United States. Winston is the cigarette brand that has been winning a large audience of smokers all over the world.

This brand was named after the city where R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was established. So, Winston has the predestination to be the “face” of the famous tobacco company. And the producers don’t underestimate this brand. Its exclusive flavor and taste has been appreciated and loved by the tobacco smokers of the different years and generations.

It is also important to mention the fact that Winston cigarettes are safer to smokers because it is a brand that has no additives in its composition. So, it is less toxic tobacco product than the other cigarette brands. It is the cognate brand due to its famous slogan “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”.This slogan characterized these cigs at the course of more than 20 years. This slogan was one of the most illustrious that ever existed. It was advertised on TV and radio. This famous slogan was introduced into Simpson's Contemporary Quotations.

Another thing that makes Winston cigarettes to become a world recognizable brand is that Winston was the sponsor for the NASCAR’s championship and such famous drivers as Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin. Winston cigarette brand was a sponsor of a track racing for the first time but it is a brand that is out of competition. Winston was, is and will be a legendary cigarette brand.

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Tobacco Product Prices Doubled in State

With the restriction imposed by UG groups on tobacco products and the popularity among the youths of the state, corrupt businessmen have found safe haven in the state by selling the restricted tobacco products and Winston cigarettes at a much higher rates which is more than twice the actual rate of the products.
Tobacco products like Zarda, Khaini, Talab, Rajnigandha are being procured by the businessmen in the state by trafficking them in buses and trucks.
They are also not paying any VAT tax to the state government since they are trafficking the products in illegal ways.
Since the state authority is not doing anything to check the trafficking of such products in the state, the state government is losing a quite large amount of revenues.
With restriction imposed by some UG groups to these products taking stocks of its health effects, the items have become an item of black marketers.
Taking advantage of the restriction dealers in Imphal is charging whatever amount they like from retailers which even exceeds double of its printed price.
They are pricing Rs 85 for a can of Zarda Baba Black instead of Rs 55, Rs 250 to 270 for a Zarda Baba 120 gm instead of Rs 215, Rs 680 for a can of Zarda 160 instead of Rs 620, Rs 260 to 270 for a packet of 60 Talab sachets instead of Rs 55, Rs 50 for a packet of Rajnigandha instead of Rs 24 and Rs 180 to 200 for a packet of 30 cans of Khaini instead of Rs 130.With the dealers pricing a heavy price for the products, customers are forced to buy the products at a much higher rate from the retailer.
It may be mentioned that some UG groups have restricted shops in the state to sell the tobacco products in the state.
Since then dealers in the state have found the trade of tobacco products in the state a money making machine by selling the products at much higher rates taking advantage of the restriction.
On the other hand shops throughout the state are selling these products at large without thinking of any consequences.
Moreover youths in the state especially the women and teenage girls have found a fashion in chewing tobacco and Talabs.
In such situation many question arise whether the restriction imposed by the UG groups is effective or have the restriction become a valuable maney making tool for the dealers.
Interestingly, no authorized dealer is found in the state when Hueiyen Lanpao investigated the matter.
It was also found that non Manipuri businessmen are procuring the tobacco products by sending their men to the company.

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Appeal Against Cigarette Companies

Jerry Weingart has been waiting more than a decade for the companies he believes killed his wife to be brought to justice. But at 89, the Boynton Beach man doesn’t have the stamina to spend the whole day in court. Holding a cane, he listened on Wednesday morning while one of his attorneys explained to a jury why three Pall Mall cigarette makers should be held responsible for his wife’s death. But Weingart headed home before tobacco attorneys launched their full counterattack

Like in the two other tobacco trials that have been held in Palm Beach County, millions of dollars are at stake.

The cases are among roughly 8,000 that were spawned statewide when the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion jury verdict in a class-action lawsuit. While upholding the jury’s findings that cigarette-makers lied about the dangers of smoking, the high court ruled that each smoker had to prove how they were uniquely harmed by cheap cigarettes.

Weingart’s attorneys said they are seeking damages for the years smoking took off Claire Weingart’s life. Instead of spending their “golden years” together, Jerry Weingart became widower in 1997 when his wife of 54 years died at age 73, attorney Hardee Bass told jurors.

A heavy smoker for roughly 50 years, she didn’t stop smoking even when lung cancer spread to her brain, Bass said. She began smoking in the 1940s when no one suspected smoking posed any health risks. She was powerless to stop because cigarette-makers R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and Lorillard — the companies that produced her brands of choice — turned her into an addict, he said.

“This case is about a promise the cigarette industry made to a generation of people — the World War II generation,” Bass said during opening arguments. “It’s about the lies they told a generation of smokers. It’s about the truth they hid from a generation of smokers.”

Using company documents, he showed how the companies orchestrated a misinformation campaign to counter growing evidence that smoking kills.

“Claire Weingart was an industry success story,” he said.

Tobacco industry attorneys countered that there is no evidence Weingart was influenced by the documents. Attorney Kenneth Reilly acknowledged that tobacco chiefs made some “wrong-headed” decisions. But, he said, there is no evidence Weingart knew about the statements or used them to justify her decision to keep smoking. Like millions of other smokers, she could have quit.

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Roxon Gazes Down Big Tobacco

Health Minister Nicola Roxon has weathered an attack over her attempt to solicit funds from big tobacco in 2005 and vowed to push ahead with plans to introduce plain packaging for Hilton cigarettes. Ms. Roxon says even if cigarette makers win compensation for the loss of trademark rights, the commonwealth would be ahead because plain packs would cut smoking rates and therefore health spending.

The federal government wants Australia to be the first country in the world to force cigarettes to be sold in packets devoid of branding.

“The billions of dollars we currently spend in our health system fixing up problems that are caused by tobacco will absolutely dwarf the amount of money that will be spent on a legal challenge, even if that challenge was successful, which I very much doubt,” the health minister told Macquarie Radio on Wednesday.

It was revealed on Tuesday night that in 2005 Ms Roxon asked three executives at Philip Morris to support her re-election by attending a $1500 a table fundraiser.

The Labor Party had banned political donations from big tobacco a year earlier under then leader Mark Latham.

“Obviously it’s an embarrassment for me,” Ms Roxon told ABC TV.

“Obviously you don’t want to make these sorts of mistakes.

“But it does need to be kept in perspective. Six years ago an invitation was sent that was not accepted – a donation was not made.”

Ms Roxon accused big tobacco of “playing the man and not the ball”.

She’s previously come under fire for attending the 1999 Australian Open tennis while a guest of Philip Morris.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was quick to sink the boot in on Wednesday.

Ms Roxon has been attacking the coalition in recent weeks for continuing to accept political donations from big tobacco.

She has repeatedly called on Mr Abbott to “kick the habit”.

“Certainly, she has been remarkably shrill on this issue,” the opposition leader told reporters in Canberra.

“It must be a pretty embarrassing thing to have been caught out on this.”

But the coalition didn’t press the issue in Question Time – perhaps because that would inevitably raise fresh questions about the millions big tobacco still donates to the Liberal and National parties.

The coalition has received more than $1.5 million from Philip Morris and British American Tobacco since the ALP banned donations in 2004.

Ninety-seven per cent of BAT’s worldwide donations in 2010 went to the Australian Liberal and National parties.

Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton was asked about the wisdom of attacking Ms Roxon when the coalition still accepted donations.

In response, he suggested his party’s policy could be reviewed.

“We’ve been up front saying that we accepted donations from a legal company,” Mr Dutton told ABC Radio.

“Now, we may well review that policy into the future.”

A United States business group on Wednesday warned that Australia’s move to mandate plain packaging meant it was in danger of breaching international obligations.

But Ms Roxon is confident the law is on the government’s side.

“We’re not taking away their logos and trademarks to use them somewhere else,” she told Macquarie Radio.

“We’re (just) restricting the use of those logos.”

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Renault Colour Scheme Link to Tobacco Companies

The Renault Formu-la One team has been cleared to race in its black-and-gold colours in Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix after fears that it would fall foul of antitobacco advertising laws. Principal Eric Boullier said in a statement that the Lotussponsored team, which has no connection with the tobacco industry, had contacted the Quebec authorities recently to discuss the livery and the legislation.
“We’re delighted to be able to race in Montreal in our usual colour scheme,” the Frenchman said.
“The Quebec authorities noted that the current livery makes a reference to images from the 1980s when the car was sponsored by the tobacco industry, but it has also accepted the fact that Lotus Renault GP receives no direct or indirect financing from the industry in question.”
The team’s 2011 black-andgold livery harks back to the days when the old Lotus team was sponsored by Marlboro cigarette brand John Player Special.
Boullier said Renault was fully aware of Quebec’s stringent legislation on promotional associations with tobacco and would “use all means available to dispel any misconceptions that our identity and that of our partners is somehow associated with this industry.”

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Mexico’s Tobacco Growers Used as Lobbyists

On October, in chaotic Mexico City, a small army of protestors, sporting placards and shouting into bullhorns, worsened the usual traffic snarl around San Lazaro, the nation’s congressional office complex. Television news accounts showed screaming-mad tobacco farmers, some of whom had boarded buses and traveled 500 miles to warn federal legislators that new taxes on Winston cigarettes would put them out of business.
Inside, lawmakers were in a tug-of-war over a landmark excise tax law that eventually added about 50 cents to a pack of cigarettes and—anti-tobacco activists hoped—would make tobacco less attractive to consumers.
It was not the first time these farmers had traveled far to protest in Mexico. Like tobacco growers around the world, Mexican campesinos—farmers and farmworkers—for years have been deployed to send a message to the public and politicians: Jobs are at stake in the effort by public health advocates to eliminate tobacco ads and limit smoking.
As the global fight over smokers moves from the United States and other countries where tobacco consumption is on the decline, Big Tobacco has drawn a line around developing nations that account for an increasingly important share of their revenues.
From Jakarta in Indonesia to Mexico City, farmers have been reliable street-level lobbyists in the industry’s fight against smoking limits. Farmers say they’re defending their jobs, even though experts insist that the buying habits of multinational companies have more impact on the fortunes of growers than anti-tobacco rules designed by the World Health Organization and public health officials who seek to shrink the human and fiscal costs of tobacco-related disease.
Between 2005 and 2030, 135.1 million people will have died worldwide in developing nations because of smoking-related illness, according to the World Lung Foundation. Tobacco consumption is the globe’s leading preventable cause of death.
In Mexico “the anti-tobacco campaigns didn’t hit farmers as hard as the companies’ global strategies have,” said Javier Castellón, a senator representing western Mexico’s Nayarit state, a swath of humid terrain once known as the Gold Coast because of the value of its tobacco crops.
In Mexico City protests in recent years, farmers have been vocal and proud to stand up for their business, even if some who attended the marches said they’d received stipends for doing so.
In interviews with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, farmers in Nayarit state recalled getting about $20 a day and restaurant and hotel stipends for trips to the nation’s capital. “Many of the ‘farmers’ there were not ,” said one grower, who asked that his name not be used because he fears economic reprisal from tobacco companies.

Big Tobacco in the Third World
Similar relationships between farmers and Big Tobacco are repeated in country after country throughout the developing world—where the industry is seeing impressive revenue growth. British American Tobacco said last year that “some two-thirds of our revenue comes from developing markets.”
One of the industry’s strongest political avatars in developing nations has been the International Tobacco Growers Association. It works in Mexico through local farmers associations. And around the world, ITGA activities mirror those of grower groups here.
In November, tobacco growers protested in Punta del Este, Uruguay, outside a meeting of WHO officials and tobacco-control delegates from around the globe who had gathered to discuss the progress of smoking restrictions and excise tax initiatives. The growers were there to rally against a proposal to ban burley tobacco, used to make flavored cigarettes.
ITGA organized the Uruguay protest. The group says that in 22 countries it represents 85 percent of the world’s tobacco producers. On its website ITGA says it promotes empowerment, understanding and advocacy for tobacco growers and tobacco growing nations around the globe. But the website doesn’t say that ITGA is a Big Tobacco brainchild.
ITGA was formed and funded through a historically tobacco industry-driven research entity, the International Tobacco Information Center, according to internal tobacco corporate documents made available after lawsuits against the industry in the U.S.
One of the benefits of ITGA, listed in a 1988 proposal by John Bloxcidge of INFOTAB, was that the group “could ‘front’ for our third world lobby activities at WHO and gain support from nations hostile to (multinational corporations).”
Former ITGA President Roger Quarles doesn’t deny the group is partially funded by the industry.
“But there’s nothing sinister about it,” he said in an interview with ICIJ. “The companies barely give us enough to get our bills paid. We don’t share in the profit of cigarettes. ”
Tobacco is grown in more than 100 countries. Mexico has declined into a mid-level player, but its leaf still spices the mix in cigarettes manufactured here and abroad.
There’s still abundant consumer demand for tobacco in Mexico: About 16 percent of Mexican adults still smoke, and a growing number of teenagers have tried cigarettes at least once. Because of that, the Mexican public health ministry estimates the country spends $5.7 billion a year providing medical care for tobacco-related illnesses. An estimated 60,000 tobacco-related deaths are reported each year in Mexico.

A rich tobacco tradition
Mexico is also home to the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim Helú, who is Latin America’s biggest tobacco baron, with a seat on the Philip Morris International board of directors and a stake in the company’s Mexican brands.

Philip Morris and British American Tobacco dominate the cigarette market in Mexico. They´ve been involved in farm production since the late 1990s after the government privatized national tobacco production. BAT eventually purchased Cigarrera La Moderna and Philip Morris increased its shares in Slim’s Cigatam. Other foreign companies now produce tobacco for cigarettes sold abroad.
But in Amapa, in Nayarit state — this was once the center of the Mexican tobacco-farming business— BAT has moved out of its large building and into a smaller office on the outskirts of town. The U.S.-based tobacco leaf vendor Alliance One closed its offices two years ago and liquidated its local assets. A supermarket is being built on land where another company’s reception center was once located.

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Obstruction Decried in Tobacco Legislation

A student looks at a tobacco control poster at a high school in Chaohu, a city in East China’s Anhui province, on Tuesday, which is World No Tobacco Day. Local anti-smoking advocates encouraged students to refrain from lighting up Camel cigarettes and to work together to have a campus free of tobacco.
China can use its government monopoly of the tobacco industry to prevent interference in policies meant to control tobacco use in a country where more than 1 million people die each year of illnesses related to smoking, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said.
“China’s tobacco industry is 100 percent owned by the State,” Dr Sarah England, a Beijing-based WHO tobacco control official, said on the eve of World No Tobacco Day, which falls on Tuesday.
“And this offers tremendous opportunities for the government to bring it under control.”
China produces more cigarettes than any other country and its people smoke more than people living anywhere else. About 300 million smokers live in China, and nearly 60 percent of Chinese men smoke.
China ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003, pledging to take strong measures to curb tobacco use. Despite that strong statement, the task of putting the treaty into effect has been left to a work group whose members include the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, a regulatory body that shares management with the China Tobacco Corp.
The China Tobacco Corp is the world’s largest cigarette maker. Industry figures show that about 2.3 trillion cigarettes were sold in China in 2009, 40 percent more than had been in 2002.
“The tobacco industry is acting against the principles of public health, and the WHO (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) guidelines make clear the tobacco industry should have no influence on tobacco control policy,” she said, adding that the State monopoly is actually an advantage to China, since it allows the government to control the industry’s actions and influence in policymaking.
She said Thailand has a similar State monopoly, and the Thai government manages to keep the government’s tobacco industry separate from the process it uses to formulate tobacco policies.
“China can look to examples where there is a separation of these functions and consider whether a similar arrangement of firewalling is workable,” she said.
Many in the health industry have long called for representatives of the tobacco industry to be kicked out of the work group charged with putting the WHO treaty into effect.
The main reason China is not closer to its goal of doing more to control tobacco use is that representatives of the tobacco industry interfere with the drafting and enforcement of tobacco policies, said a report written in part by a deputy head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a message delivered for World No Tobacco Day this year, the WHO said the biggest barrier to enacting and enforcing national laws that are consistent with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is the tobacco industry’s interference in the formulation of public health policies.
The WHO said governments, civil society and communities should stay vigilant and work together to prevent interferences in policymaking.
Tobacco use kills nearly 6 million people in the world every year. Most of them die from heart disease, strokes, cancer or emphysema, according to the WHO. Deaths related to tobacco use account for 63 percent of deaths stemming from non-communicable diseases in the world. And second-hand exposure to tobacco causes an estimated 600,000 deaths a year.
The tobacco industry now generates about 7 percent of the Chinese government’s annual revenue. Although a boon to society in one way, health experts argue the money is overshadowed by the lost productivity and overwhelming medical costs linked to the deaths and illnesses caused by tobacco consumption.
The WHO official said she was encouraged to see the government’s current five-year plan contains language aimed at controlling tobacco use, a historical inclusion signaling that controlling tobacco is a priority of the Chinese government.
Upon the plan’s release, the Ministry of Health immediately adopted a ban on smoking indoors.
“I think we are going to see a real change in the quality of indoor air in the next year,” England said. “We are very optimistic that China will implement the (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) and honor its obligations.”

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California, Ohio Use Reserves for Tobacco Bonds

California, Ohio and Virginia will use reserve funds to pay interest and principal on bonds backed by tobacco company payments under a 1998 health-care settlement, according to a report by Herbert J. Sims & Co.

Payments to the states by Altria Group Inc. (MO)’s Philip Morris unit, Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) and other companies have declined on lower U.S. cigarette sales and as the companies lose market share to tobacco manufacturers that didn’t participate in the settlement, according to Richard Larkin, director of credit analysis at Sims in Iselin, New Jersey.

“Any time you see a municipal bond go to their reserve fund, it’s a significant sign of trouble,” Larkin said in a telephone interview. “It’s not an imminent default, but it’s a sign that cash flow is certainly far weaker than any of us thought.”

U.S. states have more than $107.6 billion in outstanding bonds backed by the 1998 settlement, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Under the settlement, tobacco companies agreed to reimburse states $246 billion for treating smoking-related illnesses. The companies make annual payments each April.

The amounts paid to the states declined 5.6 percent this year, mostly because Altria’s Philip Morris decided for the first time to withhold disputed payments, Larkin said, citing data from the National Association of Attorneys General. In 2010, the payments fell 16 percent after the federal government raised cigarette excise taxes 61 cents.
Payments in Escrow

Since 2005, Reynolds and Lorillard Inc. (LO) have put a portion of their payments into an escrow fund, arguing that they’re entitled to refunds because they’ve lost market share to other producers such as National Tobacco Co. LP, which didn’t sign the 1998 accord.

Philip Morris made its full payments to the states, even though the tobacco company disputed them, until this year, when it withheld $267 million, Larkin said. Philip Morris disclosed the escrow payment in an April 15 statement.

California’s Golden State Tobacco Securitization Corp. and Ohio’s Buckeye Tobacco Settlement Financing Authority may use debt-service reserves to meet the minimum required interest payments on Dec. 1, according to bond filings.

The Virginia Tobacco Settlement Financing Corp. will need to use debt reserve funds for its Dec. 1 payment, he said.

Issuers such as Golden State are special entities set up to sell debt backed by the tobacco-settlement money. The states don’t guarantee interest and principal payments on the bonds.
California Reserve Plan

California plans to draw $5.35 million from reserves to help make a $68.3 million interest payment on series 2005 bonds and $7.7 million to make a $87.9 million interest payment of series 2007 bonds, both due Dec. 1, said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for Treasurer Bill Lockyer.

“Like any other issuer, the state doesn’t relish, to say the least, being forced to draw on reserves,” Dresslar said. “Hopefully, we won’t have to be in that position again.”

Kurt Kauffman, Ohio’s debt manager, said his state expects to use $6 million to $8 million in reserves in December, based on current projections.

“We have a $389 million funded reserve so that offers a significant degree of protection to investors,” Kauffman said in a telephone interview.

Virginia’s director of debt management, Evelyn Whitley, said her state will draw $3.6 million from reserves to make a Dec. 1 interest payment.

“I don’t think it should come as any great surprise,” Whitley said. The state filed a notice when it didn’t make sinking-fund payments last year, she said, and investors “realized it was cutting it close then.”
Lower Investment Returns

Besides payment declines, California and Virginia also received lower-than-expected investment returns on their debt- service reserves, Larkin said. Both states put the money in investment contracts with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEHMQ), which filed for bankruptcy in 2008, he said.

While it’s unlikely that more Americans will take up smoking, the outlook for tobacco bonds may improve if U.S. states win a legal challenge to the companies that are withholding payments, Larkin said. About $2 billion held in escrow would go to the states, he said.

“That boost in cash flow would be significant,” Larkin said. “If the states lose, it will look a lot worse.”

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Smokers See Some Smoking Brands As Safer

One in five smokers believes some brands of Lucky Strike cigarettes are safer than others, a study has found. Smokers of ”gold”, ”silver” or ”slim” cigarettes were also more likely to think their brands were less harmful. The findings highlight the power that packaging can have on risk perception, and come as the federal government prepares to introduce its plain-packaging legislation.

As part of an international study, published in the journal Addiction, researchers surveyed more than 8000 current and former smokers, including more than 2000 Australians, about their smoking beliefs.

Females were more likely to believe some brands might be less harmful while older individuals considered their cigarettes brand was safer.

More than a third of respondents falsely believed nicotine was linked to cancer, and 41 per cent believed light cigarettes were better for them.

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Danville company proposes new use for tobacco

If a new company at Dan River Business Development Center has its way, that will happen — but the product will be used to create biofuels instead of cigarettes.
Peter Majeranowski, a founder and managing director of Tyton BioSciences, said years of development have gone into the product, which will be genetically modified to produce “both ethanol and biodiesel at yields that far surpass the traditional crops of corn and soy.”
And, because corn and soy are also food crops, using tobacco to create the same products can alleviate the complaints that food prices are rising because of demand for crops as fuel, Majeranowski said.
Smoking-grade tobacco was much more difficult to grow than the crop his company is developing, Majeranowski said.
Farmers will be able to plant between 80,000 to 100,000 plants per acre, rather than the average 6,000 plants per acre of smoking-grade tobacco. It can be mechanically harvested and can be processed “green,” as opposing to going through the drying process that smoking-grade tobacco goes through. Tobacco fields for biofuels also can yield two to three harvests a year, Majeranowski said.
“We can chop it close to the ground, and it grows back,” Majeranowski said. “We don’t have to worry about flavor, just how many green leaves and stems we can get per acre.”
The seeds are still being tested, but the company has successfully processed the genetically altered plants to extract sugars for ethanol and oil for biodiesel fuel; the process has a patent pending on it, Majeranowski said.
During processing, sugar for ethanol and oil for biofuel are extracted, both in larger quantities than comparable amounts of soy or corn, Majeranowski said.
According to Majeranowski, the group was encouraged by Gov. Bob McDonnell’s office to visit Danville, and Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Todd P. Haymore recommended they talk to the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research about their project.
Majeranowski said he met with Liam Leightley, executive director at the institute, and Barry Flinn, who directs the Institute for Sustainable and Renewable Resource, and was impressed with the facility. The new Sustainable Energy Technology Center at the institute also was one of the reasons that Tyton BioSciences chose Danville for its new home.
“It’s just five minutes from our office,” Majeranowski said. “We will collaborate on certain parts of our research; it’s a great fit for us.”
Next week, the company hopes to learn whether it will get a $2.2 million grant from the Tobacco Commission, which, combined with about $2 million of its own investment, will get the new seeds closer to the production stage.
Majeranowski said: “We have committed to stay in Danville beyond the potential Tobacco Commission grant period because of Danville’s rich tobacco history and growing know-how, as well as its new research facilities.
“We are also excited to help re-ignite the agricultural community with a new tobacco crop that can help the country break its addiction to foreign energy.”

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Tobacco Company to Develop Products without Tobacco

British American Tobacco (BAT) PLC announced their plans to create a new company called Nicoventures Ltd. which will produce products made without tobacco and with only pure nicotine in an effort to offer a safer alternative to smokers. Even though a spokeswoman of the organization said the products the company is considering aren’t on the market yet and declined to give any more details, we do know that two subsidiaries of Altria Group are testing spit-free tobacco-coated toothpicks in an effort to offer tobacco in a less socially scrutinized way.

If successful, the products of Nicoventures could help wean smokers off cigarettes. It is the hope of BAT that Nicoventures will be a highly profitable business that will help make up for the loss in profits due to the decrease in cigarette sales and the scrutiny faced by tobacco companies. “Nicoventures could be a hugely positive development from the public health point of view, in reducing the harm from smoking”, said David Sweanor of the University of Ottawa in Canada. However, he did admit he was a bit skeptic, saying that nothing currently on the market had the ability to match the sensational and psychological effects of a cigarette that smokers crave for.

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KT&G rules slim cigarette market with best-selling Esse

What is the best-selling cigarette brand in the world? Most smokers would name one from multinational juggernauts Philip Morris, British-American Tobacco (BAT) or Japan Tobacco.
As far as super-slim cigarettes are concerned, however, Korea’s KT&G dominates with its Esse cigarettes brand, which has steadily remained in the lead.
The country’s largest tobacco manufacturer said Monday that it sold 42.2 billion cigarettes of Esse last year to chalk up a 44.5-percent growth from 2009 when 29.2 billion were sold.
In particular, the Seoul-headquartered outfit almost doubled its exports of Esse from 11.2 billion cigarettes in 2009 to 20.8 billion last year to top the podium in competition with Virginia Slims marketed by Philip Morris and Vogue by BAT.
In 2009, the latest data available, Esse racked up sales of 29.2 billion cigarettes compared to 17 billion for Virginia Slim and 11 billion for Vogue, according to London-based consultancy Euromonitor International.
“Since its inception in 1996, we have nurtured Esse as a global brand. It is currently available in around 40 states and regions including Russia and the Middle East,’’ said Huh Up, who is in charge of the firm’s global businesses.
“In particular, Esse is presently the top-selling super-slim cigarette in Iran, Uzbekistan and Indonesia. In Russia it accounts for more than 10 percent in the segment.’’
Huh added that the former state monopoly has tapped into the global markets throughout the past decade as the local market showed saturation.
In achieving its initiative to make Esse a global product, KT&G demonstrated its potential at various events.
Currently, it accounts for 85 percent of the domestic consumption of super-slim tobaccos.
When its sub brand Esse Soun debuted in 2006, it took just eight days to reach the benchmark of selling 10 million packs in the shortest period in the history of the company.
Esse also boasts of other sub brands such as the premium Esse Golden Leaf as well as Esse Edge which targets young smokers.
“On top of exporting Esse to other countries, we have established a set of factories abroad to generate products with local relevance,’’ Huh said.
“In addition to Esse, we are determined to foster a host of globally famous brands through vigorous efforts to become a genuine international player.’’
Indeed, KT&G channeled up to $100 million in order to set up production lines of the Esse products in the Kaluga region, approximately 150 kilometers of south of Moscow, last October.
The factories churn out 4.6 billion cigarettes per year targeting the smokers of the world’s second-largest market in terms of sales, trailing just China.
In addition, the company also operates cigarette factories in Turkey and Iran, both of which opened in early 2008 with a combined annual capacity of 5.6 billion cigarettes.

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Plainly put, cigarette packaging matters

This week our government committed itself to the removal, albeit slowly, of cigarette displays in shops. But plain packaging on cigarettes has been delayed for further consultation.

The Unite union is unimpressed. It represents 6,000 people in tobacco production and distribution, and put out a statement: “Switching to plain packaging will make it easier to sell illicit and unregulated products, especially to young people.” This, the union added, “may increase long-term health problems”.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: “Plain packaging for cigarettes would be gesture politics … it would have no basis in evidence.”

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not, sadly, their own facts. Cigarette packaging has been used for brand-building and sales expansion, and that is bad enough; but it has also been used for many decades to sell the crucial lie that cigarettes which are “light”, “mild”, “silver”, and the rest, are somehow safer.

This is one of the most important con tricks of all time: people base real decisions on it, even though low-tar cigarettes are just as bad for you as normal cigarettes, as we have known for decades. Manufacturers’ gimmicks, like the holes on the filter beside your fingers, confuse laboratory smoking machines, but not people. Smokers who switch to lower-tar brands compensate with larger, faster, deeper inhalations, and by smoking more cigarettes.

The collected data from a million people shows that those who smoke low-tar and “ultra-light” cigarettes get lung cancer at the same rate as people who smoke normal cigarettes. They are also, paradoxically, less likely to give up smoking.

So the “light”, “pale” and “mild” packaging sells a lie. But do people know this? In data from two population-based surveys, a third of smokers believed incorrectly that “light” cigarettes reduce health risks, and were less addictive (it’s 71% in China (pdf)). A random telephone-digit survey of 2,120 smokers found they believed on average that “ultra lights” convey a 33% reduction in risk. A postal survey of 500 smokers found a quarter believed “light” cigarettes are safer. A school-based questionnaire of 267 adolescents found once again, as you’d expect, that they incorrectly believed “light” cigarettes to be healthier and less addictive.

Where do all these incorrect beliefs come from? Careful manipulation by the tobacco industry, as you can see for yourself, in their internal documents available for free online. They explicitly planned to deter quitters with “mild” products, which were made to seem safer and less addictive.

But more than 50 countries, including the UK, have now banned a few magic words like “light” and “mild”. So is that enough? No. A survey of 15,000 people in four countries (pdf) found that after the UK ban, there was a brief dip in false beliefs, but by 2005 we bounced back to having the same false beliefs about “safer-looking” brands as the US.

This is because brand packaging continues to peddle these lies. A street-interception survey (pdf) from 2009 of 300 smokers and 300 non-smokers found that people think packages with “smooth” and “silver” in the names are safer, and that cigarettes in packaging with lighter colour, and a picture of a filter, were also safer.

Of course tobacco companies know this (pdf). As the Philip Morris tobacco company said in an internal document, entitled Marketing New Products in a Restrictive Environment: “Lower delivery products tend to be featured in blue packs. Indeed, as one moves down the delivery sector, then the closer to white a pack tends to become. This is because white is generally held to convey a clean, healthy association.”

If you’re in doubt of the impact this can have, “brand imagery” studies show that when participants smoke the exact same cigarettes presented in lighter coloured packs, or in packs with “mild” in the name, they rate the smoke as lighter and less harsh, simply through the power of suggestion. These illusory perceptions of mildness, of course, further reinforce the false belief that the cigarettes are healthier.

But these aren’t the only reasons why banning a few words from packaging isn’t enough. A study of 600 adolescents, for example, found that plain packages increase the noticeability, recall, and credibility of warning labels.

There’s no real doubt that the extended, complex, interlocking branding and packaging machinations of cigarette companies play a big role in misleading smokers about the risks, by downplaying them, and sadly nothing from Unite – for shame – or some Tory MP will change that.

If you don’t care about this evidence, or you think jobs are more important than people killed by cigarettes, or you think libertarian principles are more important than both, then that’s a different matter. But if you say the evidence doesn’t show evidence of harm from branded packaging, you are simply wrong.

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