Author: Staff Writer

The smokers’ group Forest has dismissed claims by Cancer Research that nearly two in three Britons support plans to introduce plain packaging of tobacco in theUK.

Forestsays a recent government consultation on standardised packaging of tobacco attracted around 700,000 responses, half a million of them opposed to plain packaging.

“Forest alone submitted over a quarter of a million signatures against plain packaging,” said Simon Clark, the director ofForest, which runs the Hands Off Our Packs campaign. “In total we estimate that around 500,000 people registered their opposition to the measure.”

“The scale of the public response against standardised packaging has been nothing short of overwhelming. However many polls they commission, the tobacco control industry cannot spin its way out of that.”

The Chief Minister of the Indian state of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, has asked the country’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to implement an India-wide ban on the chewing tobacco product known as gutkha, according to a story in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.

By bringing in such a ban, Chandy said,Indiawould send a clear signal of its commitment to public health.

Bans have been imposed on gutkha and other chewing tobacco products on a state-by-state basis and currently 14 states and the Union Territory of Chandigarh prohibit the sale and manufacture of such products.

But with only about half of the country’s states having imposed bans, further business opportunities are likely to arise in those states where prohibitions are not in force.

The value of tobacco exports from India grew by 26 per cent during the first half of this financial year (April-September), according to a story in a recent issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter quoting the chairman of the Tobacco Board, G. Kamala Vardhana Rao.

Rao said that the outlook was bright and that overseas sales of tobacco leaf and products might touch or even exceed a record US4,924 million by the end of the financial year.

During the period April to September, 112,472 tons of leaf and 15,582 tons of tobacco products were sold abroad, which compares with 95,685 tons and 17,941 tons respectively during the equivalent period of the previous financial year.

A private member’s bill submitted by a member of the parliament of the Indian state of Orissa seeks to have plain packaging imposed on all tobacco products sold throughout the country, according to a story in a recent issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.

The bill would require that a statutory warning occupy at least 60 per cent of the principal display area of each pack, on which the brand name would appear only once, below the warning and in a font style and size specified by the government.

The bill is likely to be consider during the coming winter session of parliament.

A revised bill that tightens restrictions on tobacco smoking in South Korea was passed on Monday and will come into force on Saturday, according to a report by Kim Hyun-bin for Arirang TV & Radio.

All restaurants over 150 square meters in area will have to restrict tobacco smoking on their premises to designated enclosed areas.

Previously, restaurants were obligated to assign half the area for non-smokers.
Over 75,000 restaurants will be affected by the new regulations, which, in addition, will prohibit cigarette companies from promoting their products as being flavored.

Saudi Arabia’s General Commission for Tourism and Antiquities has imposed a ban on smoking at all enclosed tourist facilities, according to a story by Habib Toumi for Gulf News, quoting local news reports.

The ban includes hotels and furnished apartments.

The Commission said that the ban was based on an interior ministry circular about eliminating smoking in all enclosed public areas in the kingdom, including government buildings, cafés, restaurants and shopping malls.

Last month, municipal authorities in the Saudi Red Sea resort of Jeddah shut down 242 restaurants and cafés for 24 hours after they were found to be serving shisha. The establishments were fined and the shisha confiscated.

Tobacco industry representatives in the British Crown Dependency of Guernsey have said that they will work with parliament on new legislation regulating the sale of cigarettes, according to a BBC Online story.

The industry had opposed plans for annual licensing and a ban on shop workers under the age of 18, but now says it wants to ensure the changes are implemented efficiently and with minimal disruption.

James Filleul, of the Channel Islands’ Tobacco Retailers Association, said that the association had fought the battle but that parliament had not agreed with it. The problems of cost and staffing remained, but retailers had to move forward.

“We were heartened though by the fact that the health department committed substantially in the debate to consult with the retail trade who will be implementing the laws, so we’re looking forward to that consultation,” he was quoted as saying.

The new legislation, which will give the police the power to confiscate tobacco and related paraphernalia from under-18s, will return to the parliament for final approval next year.

This year’s Christmas card from Iggesund Paperboard could well become a collector’s piece.

It has been produced by the van Heertum Design agency, which has made a name for itself by not flinching from design commissions that demand both complex printing and intricate finishing.

The motif is a starry sky with depictions of reindeer and celestial objects created through the use of extremely fine laser cutting of Iggesund’s Invercote board, complemented with the application of several foils and then printed with three PMS inks.

‘The tabs attaching the laser-cut sections to the rest of the card are so fine that they are hard to see, and it is only thanks to Invercote’s superior tear strength that the card stays in one piece,’ said an Iggesund press note.

Iggesund has a tradition of creating intricate Christmas cards that demonstrate and, in the best cases, stretch the limits of what can be achieved with Invercote as the base material.

“We want to produce more than a Christmas card, we want designers to challenge Invercote and give us something that reflects its essence,” said Carlo Einarsson, director market communications at Iggesund Paperboard.

‘Frans van Heertum, founder of van Heertum Design and winner of a number of awards for sophisticated printing projects, has done large, advanced projects a number of times using Invercote as the base material,’ the press note said. ‘One recent project is his contribution to Iggesund’s Black Box Project, in which he printed a series of cards. Each paperboard sheet was printed using three different techniques and more than 30 inks and varnishes. The printed sheets then passed through various finishing stages a total of 14 times.

‘The card is made of Invercote Creato 350 g/m2 and van Heertum Design VHD was responsible for both the design and implementation. The agency was assisted by a group of Dutch suppliers, such as the printers Drukkerij Tielen, Boxtel, and the foil printers Hensen Foliedrukkers, Oirschot, using foil supplied by Leonhard Kurz Benelux of Nijmegen. The characteristic laser cutting was done by Point to Paper, Waalwijk.’

The newly-appointed European Commissioner for health and consumer affairs, Dr. Tonio Borg, is said to have forwarded the proposed new Tobacco Products Directive to the Commissioner’s College for vetting and approval, according to a Malta Today story of December 2.

This may pave the way for the proposal and previous directive drafts to be seen, before too long, by MEPs. In a question to the Commission, MEP, Kartika Tamara Liotard, had asked:

1.         ‘Can the Commission – upholding the principle of Commission transparency – forward to Parliament the new Tobacco Directive or a draft thereof, in the form in which it existed when Commissioner [John] Dalli resigned?

2.         ‘How many previous provisional versions of the Tobacco Directive were there, and can the Commission also, as a matter of urgency, forward these previous versions to Parliament?’

On Tuesday last week, the Commission replied that, so far, neither the members of the Commission nor their respective services had discussed the upcoming proposal to revise the directive.

‘The Commission inter-service consultation has not yet taken place and no draft has been submitted to the College for adoption,’ said the written reply. ‘In these circumstances, the Commission considers that transmission to the European Parliament of internal drafts by the Directorate general for Health and Consumers is premature.’

Welcoming the imposition in Australia on Saturday of mandatory plain packaging for tobacco products, an anti-tobacco campaigner said there was still more that could be done, according to an Australian Associated Press (AAP) story.

From December 1,Australiahas required that all tobacco products be sold in ‘plain packaging’ – packaging designed on behalf of the government to be as ugly as is possible. Packs are hugely dominated by graphic health warnings, are otherwise a standardized olive color, have no logos or other design features, and have brand and variant names in a standardized font and position.

Protecting Children from Tobacco Coalition co-ordinator, Stafford Sanders, described plain packaging as an important part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce smoking uptake but said there was still work to be done.

“We could reach virtually zero prevalence in 10 or 15 years if we were determined enough,” he told AAP.

Among the measures proposed were regulating the cigarette’s contents by prohibiting tobacco flavourings and additives, reducing nicotine or introducing a “cut-off birth year” that would prohibit retailers from selling tobacco to anyone born after that year.

“We are also concerned that the federal coalition parties continue to accept tobacco company donations,” Sanders said.