The Russian Ministry of Finance plans to raise tobacco tax by about 50 per cent to bring it closer to European levels, according to an RT Business story quoting Izvestia.
The World Health Organization has suggested Russia needs a seven-fold increase in tobacco tax by 2020.
According to draft legislation, the excise duty on filter cigarettes will be raised from 550 roubles to 820 roubles per thousand cigarettes.
In recent months the Palestinian Authority (PA) has begun clamping down on tobacco farmers who package and sell hand-rolled cigarettes around the villages, accusing them of being involved in the illicit trade, according to a story by Noah Browning for Reuters.
The PA has even begun arresting some workers.
‘While the government maintains that building a modern economy depends on the rule of law, its critics say the moves to stamp out black market trading is another example of the state-in-waiting’s failure to implement policies that protect jobs and help pull Palestinians out of poverty,’ Browning wrote.
“We’ve triumphed over joblessness,” farmer Mohammed Amarnih, 65, was quoted as saying, before adding that tobacco cultivation had brought unemployment in several local villages down to nearly zero.
“The government has given us no alternative to this work, so [this is the only way] we can live a normal life in dignity,” he said.
Browning’s story is at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/20/us-palestinians-tobacco-idUSBRE95J06H20130620.
The Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control would like to see ‘governments’ follow Australia’s lead by introducing plain packaging for cigarettes, according to a blog posted by Richard Deschamps on the CJAD website.
The coalition’s Flory Doucas was quoted as saying that the brand name should be written on the bottom of the pack in a plain font with no colors; so that “it looks like the deadly product that it is”.
Doucas would like to see, too, bans on all new tobacco products, though it was not clear whether she meant new types of tobacco products, new versions of existing product categories or both.
The call for action follows the publication by Statistics Canada of data indicating that Quebec’s smoking prevalence has remained stable since 2005; the year before smoking was banned in the province’s bars and restaurants.
Quebec’s smoking prevalence stands at 23.8 per cent while the Canada-wide prevalence is 20 per cent.
The EU faces fierce opposition from Kentucky’s Republican Senator, Mitch McConnell, over its efforts to amend its Tobacco Products Directive, according to a Dow Jones story.
In a sharply worded letter, the Senate minority leader has warned the EU its proposed restrictions on tobacco marketing would violate international trade rules and harm trade relations with the US.
Along with three other senators from tobacco states, McConnell pointedly reminded the EU that his legislative body would pass judgment on any US trade accord with Brussels.
The letter, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, said the four senators had serious concerns about the tobacco proposal and its impact on trans-Atlantic trade relations. As the Senate considered the potential US-EU free trade agreement, the tobacco proposal called into question the EU’s ability to deliver on regulatory commitments to the US that it would have to make under the agreement, they added.
A spokesman for Tonio Borg, the EU health commissioner, denied trade relations would be hurt.
And replying to the senators, the EU ambassador in Washington, Joao Vale de Almeida, said the proposed measures were consistent with the EU’s international commitments. And this was expected to be the case in respect of the EU’s future engagement in the US-EU trade pact.
The New Zealand government has said that it will continue to fund the quit-smoking drug Champix even though a major New Zealand study has shown that the drug might be linked to depression and even suicide, according to a story by Brook Sabin for TV3.
The government, which has spent almost $35 million subsidising Champix for 100,000 people, believes that the drug’s benefits outweigh the risks.
However, health officials have told the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, to make the risks of taking the drug clearer in the fine print.
A major study that 3 News obtained under the Official Information Act monitored almost 13,000 Champix users, with the youngest being just 14 years of age.
The study was said to have found 710 psychiatric events with a possible link to Champix, including 250 related to sleep disorders, 154 related to depression and 80 related to anxiety. Six people committed suicide, with four of the cases potentially linked to Champix.
Pfizer told 3 News that an overseas trial had found no evidence of increased psychiatric problems.
Cigarette prices are due to rise next month, and again in October, according to a SeeNews France story.
French health minister, Marisol Touraine, said last week that cigarette prices would increase from July 1 as part of an anti-smoking campaign launched in May this year.
Touraine said an increase was agreed at the end of 2012 as part of a law on social security financing.
This increase would be made in two steps, with EU0.20 being added to the price of a pack of cigarettes in July and another, unspecified rise being made in October.
Imperial Tobacco has pledged its support for skills and training projects for jobseekers in the Cantabria region of northern Spain.
The ‘Conduce tu futuro’ (drive your future) course is designed to help people find commercial driving jobs.
Those taking part get lessons to help them gain a commercial vehicle driving licence as well as support in finding work, including CV preparation and interview techniques.
This is the fifth year that the Altadis Foundation has agreed to support the driving course in Santander – home to its Cantabria cigar factory.
In addition, the Madrid-based foundation is helping to provide skills training for vulnerable adults at a social centre in the city.
“In the current economic environment in Spain it’s vital to provide more opportunities for people to find work,” said Ines Cassin, the foundation’s general manager. “These are both pioneering projects which we’re delighted to support.”
TerraCycle, supported by Imperial Tobacco Canada, is planning this year to collect and recycle more than 10 million used cigarette filters this year, according to a Canada Newswire story.
TerraCycle and Imperial partnered last year in an innovative program to recycle the butts, inner foil, outer wrap, unused tobacco, ashes and other elements that comprise cigarette waste.
As a result, close to 50,000 people and more than one hundred organizations banded together to recycle more than five million cigarette filters during what was the first year of the program.
“Several years ago, in the spirit of our vision of eliminating the very idea of garbage, we set our sights on tackling cigarette waste,” Tom Szaky, the entrepreneur who launched TerraCycle in 2001, was quoted as saying.
“Cigarettes butts are one of the planet’s most ubiquitous waste streams. We are delighted that Imperial Tobacco Canada and its employees shared our dream to provide Canadians with an alternative to cigarette waste.
“With such a successful first year under our belts, we’re urging all Canadians to consider joining us in 2013.”
The program aims to incentivize Canadians by offering money for each pound of cigarette waste collected – money that can be directed to registered charities.
Cigarette filters and packaging are recycled into various plastic products for industrial use, such as the manufacture of plastic pallets, while the ash, paper and tobacco are composted according to industry guidelines.
About 43 per cent of smokers in the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq are males aged from 15 to 25, according to a story by Salih Waladbagi for the Kurdish Globe, quoting figures from a survey conducted by the Zhian Health Organization (ZHO).
The survey found, too, that about 18 per cent of the women in the region were smokers, as were 32 per cent of doctors.
About 36 per cent of ‘young men’ were shisha smokers.
Kurdistan’s parliament ratified in 2008 a prohibition on smoking in public places, but the ban is apparently not strictly enforced.
The law sought also to require the inclusion of Kurdish-language health warnings on cigarette packs, but this requirement has not been ratified as yet; so cigarettes without such health warnings continue to be imported.
E-Cig Cavern (E-CC) is supporting the decision by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to regulate all nicotine-containing products.
In a press note issued through PRNewswire, the company said it strongly supported greater controls on the production and sale of electronic cigarettes, some of which were produced in factories where health and safety standards were ‘severely lacking’.
And it described as significant the MHRA’s decision not to pull electronic cigarettes from the shelves: a decision that supported the argument that electronic cigarettes, when manufactured, sold, and used correctly, did not pose a threat to the general public.
But E-CC’s support is not without misgivings because of the MHRA’s links to the pharmaceutical industry and, through it, to what it describes as ‘ineffective’ nicotine replacement products.
E-CC said that it sold only e-liquid that was manufactured in Europe and that met all EU safety standards.
It said, too, that it was laying the groundwork for its products to obtain a full medical license.
A number of e-cigarette companies have come out in favor of the regulation of electronic cigarettes as over-the-counter medicines, though a number are still reading the fine print.