Author: Staff Writer

The Virovitica-based Hrvatski Duhani is to host the Flue-cured Tobacco Field Day 2013 in Croatia on Sept. 5.

This, the 14th such event, will start on Sept. 4 with a welcome dinner at the Pustara Višnjica hotel.

Sept. 5 will be devoted to visiting tobacco fields and trials.

In announcing the event, Hrvatski Duhani said it had made a lot of effort this year to improve its tobacco production in Podravina and Slawonia by reducing costs and improving quality.

The company said it wanted to use the event to present the results of its tobacco trials and raise the awareness of farmers, scientists and customers about its achievements in introducing new technology and breeding new varieties.

Further information about the field day can be obtained from Zlatko Plesa at zlatko.plesa@hrvatskiduhani.hr.

Cigarette sales in Sri Lanka have gone down by 7 percent during the past several months due to the government’s efforts at discouraging smoking, according to a Daily News story quoting Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena.

And now the ministry is waiting on a court judgement that is expected to give it the go-ahead to require the imposition of graphic health warnings taking up 80 percent of cigarette-pack surfaces.
“Thailand has already implemented 85 percent of pictorial warning coverage on cigarette packets,” the minister said.

Sirisena is keen that anti-smoking campaigns should reach “difficult and rural areas” where older people continue to smoke.

While some of the world’s biggest companies were trumpeting their arrival in Myanmar, tobacco manufacturers were slipping into the country without fanfare, according to an Associated Press story.

British American Tobacco was said to have “shepherded a select audience of government officials to a low-key ceremony last month where it formalized a $50 million investment over five years to produce, market and sell its brands in Myanmar.”

In July, BAT published on its website a nearly-400-word note outlining its plans for its re-entry to the Myanmar market. The note said, in part, that BAT’s joint-venture foreign investment was approved by the Myanmar Investment Commission in January.

Meanwhile, Japan Tobacco was said to have “quietly inked a deal nearly a year ago” with local partner Kyaw Win. A company spokesman, Royhei Sugata, was quoted as saying that a factory was being built but refused to divulge information about the factory’s location, the scale of the project or brand names.

And the story was able to provide almost no information about a Chinese initiative, apart from the fact that “China’s largest tobacco producer is also setting up a multimillion-dollar joint venture.”

Tin Maung, a retired army major and Myanmar’s top anti-smoking campaigner, was quoted as saying that tobacco companies seemed to think that by entering the market stealthily, they could avoid public scrutiny.

And Nang Naing Naing Shane, who heads the Ministry of Health’s National Tobacco Control Program, said the ministry’s strong opposition to BAT, JT and others had been overridden by the Myanmar Investment Commission.

International tobacco control activists will no doubt be looking to see how the major tobacco companies conduct themselves as they make a fresh start in Myanmar. Especially, they might watch to see whether the manufacturers bring with them, as well as tobacco cigarettes, alternative products that many see as being less risky than tobacco cigarettes.

The New Zealand Association of Convenience Stores (NZACS) has come out strongly against a suggestion that the government should consider banning convenience stores and dairies from selling tobacco products, according to Scoop and NZ City stories.

Otago University researchers say that tobacco is too readily available, and that retail outlets are especially prevalent near schools and in low-income communities.

The researchers say that reducing the availability of tobacco would reduce smoking rates.

They recommend the introduction of a tobacco license for stores selling cigarettes and banning some shops from selling such products.

“Yet again we are seeing tobacco control activists out of Otago University lobbying the government for another whack on New Zealand retailers,” said Roger Bull, chairman of the NZACS.

“Saying that ‘availability was like advertising’ and that ‘the density of tobacco retailers in poor areas and near schools pointed to a strategy of targeting the most vulnerable and potential new customers’ is stretching the credibility of the researchers into the realm of conspiracy theories,” said Bull.

“Anti-tobacco activists conveniently forget tobacco is hidden behind doors in retail outlets so there’s no visibility of the product, and that people have to be over 18 years of age to purchase the product. …

“The simple fact is that retailers sell tobacco because there is a consumer demand for the product, and tobacco represents an important revenue stream for convenience stores and small retail outlets.

“This idea will achieve little, if anything, aside from driving small retailers out of business,” said Bull.

Meanwhile, the researchers’ proposal seems to have a built-in next step. Once the number of retailers had been reduced, new research would presumably show that those retailers still in business were selling more cigarettes than previously, and that the only way to prevent such an outcome would be to introduce manufacturing quotas.

The United  Arab Emirates has agreed a comprehensive federal anti-tobacco will come into force next year, according to a story in the Khaleej Times.

Under the new law, growing or manufacturing tobacco for commercial purposes will be banned. Existing manufacturing plants have been given a grace period of 10 years, but tobacco farmers have been given just two years’ grace.

The law bans, too, the importation of tobacco products that are not consistent with technical standards set by the UAE. Violators could find themselves facing a one-year prison sentence and a fine ranging from AED100,000 to AED1 million, in addition to the confiscation of the noncompliant products.

All packs will have to display a large warning label on the front and, once again, violations will attract hefty penalties.

The law will ban the advertising of tobacco products and their display near items marketed for children, sportswear, health food and electronic products.

Tobacco products will be banned from sale within 15 meters of kindergartens, schools, universities and colleges, or within 100 meters of places of worship.

Shisha cafés will have to be at least 150 meters away from residential areas. Their working hours will be regulated; they will not be able to serve people under 18 years of age; and they will not be allowed to deliver shishas to apartments.

The law will ban smoking in private vehicles if a person under 12 years of age is traveling in them.

A decision to allow police in Cambridgeshire, U.K., to use electronic cigarettes at work has been upheld following a review over health scares.

According to a story in the Cambridge News, the Cambridgeshire force’s Executive Board (EB) had been asked by the force’s “People Board” to reconsider the decision to allow the use of electronic cigarettes “following the announcement that the products were unregulated and produced some slight release of chemicals.”

However, the EB upheld the original decision, which means that officers will be able to use electronic cigarettes, though not in public.

After a two-month break, the Blais and Létourneau class actions trial against Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. and other Canadian tobacco companies resumed on Monday in the Quebec Superior Court before Mr. Justice Brian Riordan.

According to an Imperial press note, the case, which is the first of its kind in Canada, is providing Imperial and the industry an opportunity to present their perspectives on issues that had been reported on in the media for many decades.

“Imperial Tobacco Canada will continue its defense by presenting evidence to the court [that], to date, has been largely overlooked or ignored when reporting on the industry in this country,” said Tamara Gitto, vice-president, law and general counsel for Imperial.

The company said it looked forward to responding to the allegations and to shedding light on the parts of the story that had thus far been left out, including the important role of the federal government in the Canadian tobacco industry. For decades, the government had essentially partnered with the industry on many issues central to the case.

The defence would also focus on the extent and magnitude of the decades-long public and government awareness of the health risks associated with smoking.

“We believe that once we have the opportunity to present our defense, a more fair and balanced view of the industry will emerge,” said Gitto.

Monday, according to an Eye on the Trials blog (http://tobaccotrial.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/day-157-another-side-to-history.html), was the 157th day of the trial and the 17th day of the defense.

Indonesia’s Health Ministry is trying to push the country into ratifying the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi recently told reporters that her ministry had asked the president for permission to ratify the treaty.

Nafsiah said that while Indonesia was one of the 192 countries that had formulated the FCTC, it had not yet ratified it.
Indonesia was the only Asian country and, along with Somalia, one of only two Muslim countries that had not ratified the treaty, she added.

Nafsiah said that the ministry would face opposition from the tobacco industry, but, she said, the government meant no harm to the industry or tobacco farmers.

“Within the FCTC, basically there are no regulation[s] to ban tobacco production,” Nafsiah said. “The treaty aims to protect the public by controlling tobacco advertising, to prohibit the youth from smoking and regulate the harm to passive smokers.”

The minister said the government would need to work hard to get approval from the House of Representatives, which had long been reluctant to support tobacco control.

While news about cigarette packaging in Australia has focused recently on legislation requiring that it be made to look ugly, some positive developments have been going on behind the scenes.

Imperial Tobacco’s Australian (ITA) business, for instance, has reported that it has been recognized by the government for its “careful approach to product packaging.”

ITA said that it had been awarded an above-average star rating of 3.2 out of 5 under the Australian Packaging Covenant (APC) scheme.

APC is a sustainable packaging initiative that aims to change the business culture and encourage the design of more sustainable packaging, increase recycling and reduce litter.

“I’m really pleased with our APC result and the team here should feel proud of their efforts,” said Gary Dickson, regulatory affairs manager, Australia.

“Our score has improved year on year since 2010, and we’re working to identify further improvement opportunities in this area.

“This achievement is even more impressive considering that a lot of work relating to our Sustainable Packaging Guidelines has been put on hold whilst we assess the impact of plain packaging legislation in Australia.”

LOGIC Technology is continuing to outperform its U.S. competitors in sales of electronic cigarettes per distribution point, according to a LOGIC press note quoting figures from Nielsen’s latest Item Rank Report.

The Nielsen report, based on sales from convenience stores nationwide, posits LOGIC electronic cigarettes as the only major brand demonstrating increased sales since the previous report.

Of all the brands within the category, LOGIC was said to have generated the largest dollar increase in sales.

LOGIC ranked first, second, third and fourth in SKUs for dollar sales per point of distribution across the U.S.