Author: Staff Writer

As well as raising health concerns in China, tobacco consumption has negative implications for the country’s sustainable development, according to a Global Times story quoting a Tsinghua University researcher.

Hu Angang, director of the university’s Research Center for Contemporary China, was speaking at a three-day seminar on tobacco control that ended yesterday in Beijing.

Hu said tobacco was the biggest killer in China; so it was not just a public health issue but something that impacted the sustainable development of the whole nation.

While the government worked on economic renewal, the transformation of the tobacco industry had to be addressed and the tobacco supply reduced, Hu added.

China signed the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2003 and it became effective in January 2006.

But experts are said to be critical of current government efforts to curb smoking, describing them as lagging far behind FCTC standards.

However, in December last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Health and six other government departments issued the China Tobacco Control Program (2012–2015) aimed at reducing tobacco plantings and tobacco production consumption.

The program was the first state-level tobacco-control initiative and it marked a new phase in the quest for comprehensive tobacco control.

The National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco (NCACT) has commended the government of Quebec for contributing $4 million to the city of Montreal to fight the contraband tobacco trade.

At the same time it has contrasted Quebec’s action to the apparent lack of action by the government of Ontario.

“Illegal cigarettes are a serious problem in Quebec and Ontario, and this action taken by [Quebec’s] government is an important step in the right direction in the fight against contraband,” said Gary Grant, NCACT spokesperson and 39-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service.

“The illegal cigarette trade in Quebec remains extremely volatile. By committing additional funds, Quebec’s government recognized that more remains to be done to control the negative impact the illegal cigarette trade continues to have across the province.”

Later, Grant said the Quebec government was giving the issue the serious attention it deserved. “Ontario must do the same,” he said. “The province has committed to tough new anti-contraband measures in the last two provincial budgets. It is important the government follow through on these commitments.

“There is more contraband tobacco in Ontario than [in] any other province, and the problem won’t improve unless that government takes concrete and meaningful action to address this problem.

“Commitments are meaningless without action,” concluded Grant. “Ontario must take action.”

Questions have been raised about what a proposed damage suit filed by Korea’s National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) against cigarette companies would accomplish, according to a story in The Korea Times.

The state-run NHIS has claimed since August that tobacco manufacturers operating in Korea are responsible for the medical costs of patients suffering from smoking-related diseases.

The amount of damages requested in the suit is expected to be up to WON1 trillion, but some experts believe the NHIS would have little chance of winning, given how similar cases have fared around the world.

And they say that any money tobacco companies were forced to pay out would result ultimately in an increase in cigarette prices, putting an additional financial burden on smokers.

One suggestion made is that the NHIS should use the fees it collects from the sales of cigarettes exclusively for smokers, instead of for patients in general.

The amount collected was WON1.54 trillion in 2010, close to the NHIS’s estimate of medical costs related to smoking in 2011: WON1.69 trillion.

The Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Health Promotion Administration has defended an upcoming ban on tobacco smoking in national parks by saying that subjecting people to second-hand smoke was a violation of their basic human rights, according to a story in the Taipei Times.

The administration was responding to a pro-smoking group’s accusation that restricting smokers from lighting up in national parks was unconstitutional.

Chen Shao-ting, chairman of the organizing committee of the Taiwan Smoker Rights Promotion Association, said the health ministry had overstepped its legal authority by banning smoking in national parks as of April 1 next year.

But Feng Tsung-yi, a section chief at the agency, said it was a matter of public interest for people to have the right to breathe fresh air, and ensuring that they could was part of the government’s duty.

“If you expose the majority of the people to an environment full of second-hand smoke, that would be a violation of their basic human rights,” he said.

Other administration officials said the government had been trying to extend no-smoking zones to pedestrian crossings, where smokers often lit up while waiting for traffic lights to change.

Essentra Scientific Services (ESS) has published its latest research into the quantitative analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) contained in cigarettes.

In the study, which was conducted by Dr. William Guthery and Dr. Mike Taylor, the yields of 16 PAHs cited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as potentially harmful compounds were tested and examined.

“PAHs were first isolated in the 1930s,” ESS, part of the Filter Products division of Essentra PLC, said in a press note. “One of the first PAHs to be identified was benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), which is included among the 44 constituents contained on the ‘Hoffmann analytes’ list of harmful compounds found in tobacco smoke.

“In Brazil and Canada it is currently mandatory to test tobacco products against the Hoffmann list. In recent years, the U.S. FDA has sought to expand on this with the identification of 93 harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHC), including 16 PAH compounds. In the United   States, the testing of an abbreviated list containing 20 HPHC compounds including B[a]P was made compulsory in 2012. Before this latest study, published data for the 16 PAHs on the full FDA list had been limited, which led Essentra Scientific Services to conduct its research.”

The yields of the 16 PAHs were determined from cigarette mainstream smoke condensate extracts using gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in a method validated for both ISO and Health Canada Intense (HCI) smoking protocols.

The research paper presents the comparative results obtained for five branded cigarettes and three reference cigarettes.

“This work demonstrates that the 16 PAHs listed by the FDA can be measured in smoke condensate using the methods outlined in our latest research paper,” said Taylor.

“The method provides the flexibility to be able to determine B[a]P and other PAHs if required, and triple quadruple MS provides a reliable means to analyze these components without employing complex clean-up procedures.”

The research paper can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.essentrafilters.com/PAH.

Philip Morris International is accelerating its launch plans for reduced-risk products, which, it believes, represent its greatest growth opportunity.

It intends to start what it describes as several commercial pilot city tests during the second half of next year; while the first national launch of its Platform 1 product is now scheduled for 2015, well ahead of the previous target of 2016–2017.

The accelerated launch schedules formed part of a presentation given by CEO André Calantzopoulos when he addressed investors yesterday at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer Conference in New York.

“In support of its accelerated schedule for reduced-risk product launches, PMI will increase its reduced-risk product-related expenditures in R&D, operations and the commercial organization by more than $100 million in 2014,” according to a presentation-highlights note posted on the company’s website.

Next year is viewed by the company as an investment year, which will see raised expenditures in markets where its share performance has trailed expectations and potential, and investment in its reduced-risk products.

Calantzopoulos said, too, that PMI would enter the e-cigarette sector during the second half of next year.

Meanwhile, PMI forecasts that total international tobacco cigarette industry volume will, by the end of this year, have declined by about 3 percent in 2013.

Next year, it forecasts, volume will decrease by about 2–3 percent overall, with falls of 7–8 percent in the EU and of 9–11 percent in Russia.

Total volumes are unlikely to recover until 2015, it says.

China’s cigarette sales volume during the first nine months of this year, at 1,975 billion, was increased by about 1.1 percent on that of the first nine months of 2012, 1,954 billion, according to a Tobacco China magazine story.

At the same time, key-brand volume was said to have risen by 7 percent to 1,550 billion.

Meanwhile, the value of total cigarette sales during the first nine months of this year, at CNY998 billion, was increased by 8.7 percent on that of the first nine months of 2012.

The value of key-brand sales increased, during the same period, by 11.2 percent to CNY913 billion.

Twenty seven key brands account for about 78 percent of total volume sales and for 91 percent of the value of total sales.

Part of the tobacco control community in India is objecting to companies operating within the tobacco industry being required, along with other companies, to invest in CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities, according to a Merinews story.

The Tamil Nadu People’s Forum for Tobacco Control (TNPFTC) believes that CSR activities legitimize and popularize tobacco companies’ activities and brand names in people’s minds.

It wants tobacco companies to be required to pay a health levy equivalent to what they would have had to spend on CSR.

The issue has arisen because the Companies Act, which is due to come into effect in the 2014–2015 financial year, would require companies of a certain size or with a certain turnover or profit in any financial year to be involved in CSR activities.

The TNPFTC says that the CSR requirement of the Companies Act would be in conflict with provisions of India’s Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, and the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Anti-smoking lobbyists in Hong Kong are urging the government to increase its tobacco tax to at least 75 percent immediately and to 100 percent by the next fiscal year, according to a story by Qi Luo for the Hong Kong Standard.

The Council on Smoking and Health said the current tobacco tax accounted for between 65 and 68 percent of the retail price, which was below the 70 percent recommended by the World Health Organization.

The council estimates that the prevalence of smoking would drop from 10.7 percent to single digits within two years of the 100 percent tax taking effect.

“The tobacco tax was hiked by 50 percent and 41.5 percent in 2009 and 2011 respectively,” said Executive Director Vienna Lai Wai-yin.

“As a result, the incidence of smoking dropped from 12 percent in 2009 to 10.7 percent in 2012.

“A high tobacco tax will push smokers to quit or reduce tobacco consumption, as well as prevent those who plan to start smoking, especially youngsters.”

James Reilly wants to ban smoking on beaches, in cars with young people and in public parks, according to a story by Sarah Bardon for the Irish Daily Mirror.

The new bans would be part of Reilly’s war on the tobacco industry and smoking, which he claims is not a war on smokers.

He wants Ireland to be tobacco-free by 2025.

Reilly said that nobody could believe it was right to see a child strapped into a child seat in the back of car while someone smokes in the front. “They have no say in the matter; we have a duty of care,” he said. “That legislation is very important to me.

“We are pursuing areas like beaches and parks, [but] if local authorities can do this without me producing legislation that is far preferable to me.

“The whole point about that is normalizing smoking. … What monkey sees, monkey does. If they see adults smoking in these places, they are going to be curious and look to do it themselves.”