Author: Staff Writer

Korean tobacco growers joined with protestors from other countries on Tuesday in Manila, the Philippines, to voice their opposition to measures that are expected to be announced at a tobacco control conference at Seoul, Korea, in November, according to a story in The Korea Herald.

Titled ‘Save Our Farms’ and led by the International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA), the protest was said to reflect the views of millions of Asian tobacco growers who fear having their livelihoods destroyed upon the implementation of a series of ‘radical guidelines’, the Korea Tobacco Growers’ Organization (KTGO) said yesterday.

According to the KTGO, the guidelines were drafted in advance of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)’s Conference of the Parties hosted in Seoul in November, where they will be presented.

The ITGA says that these regulations mandate shortened cultivating seasons; the abolishment of all governmental and private subsidies for tobacco farmers; and reductions in both the area planted to tobacco and tobacco production.

“The restriction will cause serious damage to farmers from Korea and other countries that adopt the FCTC,” KTGO chairman Lee Hae-kwon said. “Instead, countries like the US, Argentina, Indonesia and Malawi will take advantage of these
sanctions.”

Doctors in certain regions of China have been found to smoke tobacco at rates similar to or even exceeding those seen within the general population, according to a 7th Space Interactive story quoting the results of a study.

The study sought in part to investigate through an anonymous questionnaire the smoking habits of doctors at a teaching hospital inShandongprovince.

The overall smoking prevalence of doctors in the study was found to be 36.3 per cent: 46.7 per cent among male doctors and 5.3 per cent among female doctors.

The study concluded that smoking rates among doctors in Shandong province were higher than those among doctors in many other countries, a finding that was consistent with previous research conducted in some other Chinese provinces.

Eight US anti-smoking organizations that have called for electronic cigarettes to be removed from the market between them received $2.8 million from Pfizer alone during 2011 and the first half of this year, according to Professor Michael Siegel, of Boston University’s School of Public Health, quoting the drug maker’s financial contribution reports.

And these organizations, which insisted that smokers use drug therapy to quit smoking, had repeatedly failed to disclose their financial interests in Big Pharma, which stood to lose enormously if electronic cigarettes became increasingly popular.

When the anti-smoking groups submitted an amicus brief urging the DC District Court to allow the Food and Drug Administration to ban electronic cigarettes, they did not disclose their financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, Siegel said.

And the groups had not disclosed their financial conflicts of interest in public statements or on websites opposing electronic cigarette use.

The anti-smoking groups are: the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Medical Association, the American Legacy Foundation, and Action on Smoking and Health.

Siegel’s comments, which are at tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com, were relayed by the TMA.

The recently-chartered Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association (SFATA) is due to make its first public appearance when it attends a trade show in Las Vegas on October 8, according to a PRWeb story.

SFATA aims to use the Association of Convenience and Fuel Retailing Conference (NACS) to promote electronic cigarette self-regulation and attract new members.

SFATA says it is the only association in the smoke free alternatives industry that represents all stakeholders, including manufacturers, distributors, retailers and end users.

It says that it aims to address a wide variety of consumer matters including tobacco regulation and its possible extension to vaporizing devices.

Bulgarian tobacco producers and traders are predicting that this season’s leaf prices will be 10 to 20 per cent higher than those of last season because a smaller, good-quality crop has been produced this year.

According to a Sofia Globe story, tobacco yields in Bulgaria this year will be lower than those of last year because of a drought that affected tobacco-growing areas.

A tobacco trading company representative, Krassimira Nedeva, told Bulgarian National Radio that there were no concerns about a tobacco shortage this year despite the lower yields.

Iggesund Paperboard has officially inaugurated its new recovery boiler at Iggesund Mill, Sweden, in a ceremony conducted by Lars G. Sundblad, who was managing director of the company at the end of the 1950s when the decision was made to begin manufacturing paperboard.

The new recovery boiler makes it possible for Iggesund to increase production of its Invercote paperboard while enabling the mill to operate on 100 per cent biofuel and be self-sufficient in both thermal and electric power.

Construction of the recovery boiler took two years and cost SEK2.3 billion.

The company is investing a further SEK1.1 billion building a biofuel boiler at its mill in Workington, England.

That investment, for the production of Incada paperboard, is funding a radical change of energy source: from today’s natural gas to bioenergy.

The new biofuel boiler at Workington is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2013.

The Bulgarian restaurant sector is registering record losses because of the country’s tobacco smoking ban, according to a Novinite story quoting the deputy chair of the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association, Atanas Dimitrov.

Speaking to bTV on Tuesday, Dimitrov said that turnover in the sector had slumped by 50 per cent since the introduction of the ban.

And yet the ban had not and would not reduce the number of smokers in the country. Dimitrov cited data from the Finance Ministry showing that, in June, after the imposition of the ban, revenues from tobacco products excise duty were BGN994 million, which was BGN73 million higher than during the previous month.

He insisted that the ban should be lifted and that the country returned to the previous arrangements whereby hospitality venues had smoking and non-smoking areas.

However, Dimitrov’s pleas are likely to fall on deaf ears. The Health Ministry is unwavering in its support for the ban.

Its representatives said nothing ‘apocalyptic’ had been seen to happen during the past three months when the ban was in effect.

Society had accepted the ban reasonably well, they said, and going back on the ban would be more detrimental.

The Prime Minister of Republika Srpska (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Alexander Dzombic, has said that his government would do everything possible to prevent job losses at the Fabrika Duvana Banja Luka tobacco factory should it be sold to Bulgartabac Holding, according to a Srpska Republika News Agency story relayed by the TMA.

He reportedly said also that he expected negotiations on the sale would be ‘successful’.

Dzombic said that if Bulgartabac purchased the factory, it would produce cigarettes not only for the Bosnian market, but also for other markets in the region.

Labor organization leaders say that Nebojsa Antonic, the owner of Antonic Trade, which currently holds a 55 per cent stake in the factory, has stated that about 50 factory workers could lose jobs.