Author: Staff Writer

New Zealand’s associate health minister, Tariana Turia, is aiming to cut, perhaps to zero, the number of duty-free cigarettes people may bring into the country, according to a story by Lynley Bilby for The New Zealand Herald.

Turia apparently intends to seek cabinet approval for the necessary law change during the next few months.

Travelers “avoided” between $55 million and $66 million in tobacco duties last year, according to official estimates, and that could rise to $84 million in 2016 unless the allowance is cut.

Ministry of Health officials are looking to copy Australia by lowering the duty-free limit from 200 cigarettes to 50; to copy Hong Kong by allowing arriving passengers to be in possession of only a single open pack of up to 19 cigarettes; or to eliminate the duty-free allowance entirely.

While R.J. Reynolds Tobacco is to keep offering for sale its dissolvable tobacco products, they are not going to be made available outside of the limited markets to which they are currently confined, according to a story by Richard Craver for the Winston-Salem Journal.

After spending more than four and a half years in five test markets, the products (a pellet called Camel Orbs, a twisted stick the size of a toothpick called Camel Sticks,  and a film strip for the tongue called Camel Strips) have struggled to gain consumer traction.

By comparison, Reynolds needed just two and a half years, from April 2006 to October 2008, to take its Camel Snus products from test markets to national distribution.

The dissolvable products remain in limited distribution in Charlotte and Denver and are marketed through Reynolds’ age-verified consumer website at www.cameldissolvables.com.

However, Reynolds spokesman Richard Smith was quoted as saying there were no plans for marketing beyond these channels.

“We’ve found in our conversations with adult tobacco consumers that while there’s strong interest in the category, a different product form may present a better option over the long term,” he said.

Japan Tobacco Inc. said today that none of the domestic flue-cured tobacco it had tested in prepurchase tests for radioactive materials had exceeded its standard value (radioactive cesium: 100Bq/kg).

The company has been conducting at each stage of its production process a number of tests for radioactive materials in Japanese leaf in order to allay consumer concern over the accident at the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant following the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Prepurchase testing of this year’s flue-cured tobacco has now been completed, but the company said it would continue with its scheme of testing after purchase, and testing and monitoring a number of times at each stage of its production process.

Meanwhile, testing of the country’s native tobacco and burley tobacco is scheduled to be initiated from September.

Australian smokers should be forced to carry a “smartcard license” with which to buy cigarettes so health authorities can track their behavior and better target quit messages to them, according to a story by Julia Medew for The Age, quoting health and legal academics.

In an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia, the University of Sydney Law School’s professor, Roger Magnusson, and the chief executive of the Cancer Institute of NSW, professor David Currow, said a licence scheme could also make it harder for children and adolescents to buy cigarettes.

Building on a similar licensing proposal from anti-smoking crusader and professor Simon Chapman, last year, Magnusson and Currow said adult smokers could be forced to buy a smartcard license embedded with age and identity-verifying information. “Retailers would then be required to reconcile all stock purchased from wholesalers against a digital record of retail sales to licensed smokers,” Medew’s story said. “This would help to create a database of smokers and their cigarette purchases, while also creating an incentive for retailers to comply with laws that prohibit tobacco sales to children.”

While Chapman last year proposed a scheme under which smokers would have had to have sat a pre-license test on the risks of smoking, and would have been subjected to limits on how many cigarettes they could buy, Magnusson and Currow said a simpler system was required.

They said that their proposed smartcards would enable health authorities to detect patterns and variations in smokers’ behavior and to develop more sophisticated, individualized communications to assist them to quit.

They would enable rigorous evaluation of smoking cessation programs, ensuring that public health dollars were focused on evidence-based strategies that yielded the best returns.

Some critics of the scheme say it could exacerbate the stigma attached to smoking through the creation of “registered addicts,” but the opposite is also possible. Referring to licenses as smartcards could make them the next must-have accessories.

Gallup researchers have found that only 12 percent of smokers have never tried to quit the habit, according to a blog in the Huffington Post.

Forty percent have tried to quit once or twice in their lives, 41 percent have tried to quit three to 10 times, and 4 percent have tried to quit more than 10 times.

The researchers noted in their report findings that the survey results suggested “smokers on average are engaging in a habit they wish they didn’t have; and, in fact, the average smoker has attempted to quit at least three times in their lifetime.”

The survey, which included phone interviews with 2,027 adults in the U.S. last month, revealed also that three out of four smokers would like to quit.

A U.S. doctor in Beckley, West Virginia, believes that he has developed a product for helping people quit or cut down on smoking, chewing tobacco, alcohol and food, according to a story by Lisa Shrewsberry for the Beckley Register Herald.

Dr. Hassan Amjad, an oncologist and herbalist known for preferring natural remedies, has developed a compound that he calls Smoke-Less.

Placed on the tongue, the herbal substance changes taste perceptions so that smoking can taste like “licking a tire” and food can taste rancid.

Amjad says that after using the substance for a short time people quit their habits.

He believes he has developed a safe and effective way to support the desire to quit without creating further harm, and with the added bonus of potential weight loss.

Most people who don’t want to quit smoking or tobacco were afraid they would gain weight, he said, but by using Smoke-Less their food – especially sugary food – would not taste great either.

Oil palm cultivation in Nigeria’s Cross River State is being boosted by British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN), which has so far invested more than N10 million in the state’s oil palm revival program, according to a story by Jude Okwe for This Day.

The investment figure was revealed by Francis Adie, a director at the Cross River State Ministry for Agriculture, during the inauguration of an oil palm processing cottage industry by the BATN foundation at Itigidi, in the Abi local government area.

Adie, who was representing the commissioner for agriculture, said that BATN had, over the years, supported a series of local initiatives by empowering farmers through agricultural development.

And he said the foundation had provided also a water supply, environmental protection and support to educational institutions.

“This palm oil cottage industry is the product of successful collaboration between government and the private sector,” Aide said.

“We do encourage private organisations to invest in our local communities to create employment, embark on income generating activities and tackle poverty,’’ he added.

The electronic cigarette company Gamucci has been appointed category leader by WHSmith as part of the U.K. retailer’s plans to expand its range of electronic cigarettes.

The partnership will see a gradual roll-out of Gamucci’s products in 600 high street stores from today.

WHSmith will display electronic cigarettes through Gamucci branded fixtures, either as part of its tobacco merchandising units or on branded display units, which will appear adjacent to its existing unbranded tobacco fixtures.

According to Nielsen, the independent consumer research company, Gamucci is now the fastest-growing participant in the U.K. electronic cigarettes category, with year-on-year growth of more than 2,000 percent.

“We are delighted to have secured this partnership with WHSmith,” said John Dunne, head of U.K. sales at Gamucci.

“As electronic cigarettes move from niche to mass-market category, we think the quality and consistency of our products will become increasingly important to retailers and consumers alike.”

Smokers, who normally comprise one of the most submissive large minority groups of all, are starting to voice their opposition to the designation of no-smoking streets and areas in Seoul, South Korea, according to a story in the Korea Times.

The latest no-smoking street is a 250-meter-long strip called Hwigyeong-ro, which leads from the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies to a subway station in front of the school.

Those found to be violating the ban will face a WON100,000 fine from next year—following a four-month period of grace starting in September.

Lee Yeon-ik, head of a local smoker’s community, I Love Smoking, said that whereas his group understood the reasons behind the government’s effort to reduce the harm caused by passive smoking, the designation of nonsmoking areas was killing the rights of smokers who had paid high levels of taxes for the privilege of smoking.

Smokers’ tax revenue should be used for smokers who needed smoking booths within otherwise smoke-free areas, he said.

The designation of smoke-free zones and the installation of smoking booths should occur at the same time, he added.

The Vietnamese government has decided to establish under the Ministry of Health a fund to be used for the control and prevention of tobacco harm, according to a story in Vietnam Plus.

The fund, which will be regulated under the Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harm law, will be operated on a nonprofit basis.

It is expected to support a range of activities, such as the dissemination of information on the negative impacts of tobacco and the introduction of smoke-free working-place initiatives, initially through the use of pilot models.

It will organize designated smoking areas in public places and support the establishment of community-based services to help smokers give up their habit.

The fund is being established with money from the compulsory contributions of tobacco manufacturers and importers, as well as with donations from national and international organizations and individuals.