Author: Staff Writer

A University of Canterbury (UC) health sciences researcher has called for New Zealand’s public places to be declared smoke-free, according to a Voxy story.

As well as the more usual places targeted: bus stops, train stations, ferry terminals and beaches; the researcher includes streets and urban centers.

In fact, UC lecturer, Dr. Mark Wallace-Bell, was quoted as saying that bans should be imposed in any public space used by children and non-smokers.

Wallace-Bell wants the supply of tobacco to be limited by reducing the number of retail outlets, in part by forcing retailers to undergo costly registrations.

He especially wants the number of retailers to be reduced in ‘low socio-economic areas’ because, he says, the tobacco industry targets the poor and profits from them.

Overall, Wallace-Bell would like to see New Zealand’s approximately 10,000 tobacco retailers reduced by more than half.

It appears that he wants limits placed on the nicotine content of any tobacco sold in New   Zealand and for nicotine eventually to be phased out, so as to reduce and then end tobacco addiction.

And he wants the tobacco industry to pay more to clear up what he describes as ‘the mess that it makes’.

Wallace-Bell said that only with such hard hitting measures in place would it be possible to achieve the ambitious goal of a smoke-free New Zealand by 2025.

Universal Corporation has announced net income for the fiscal year ended March 31, at $132.8 million, or $4.66 per diluted share, compared with the previous year’s net income of $92.1 million, or $3.25 per diluted share.

For the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013, net income was $26.1 million, or $0.92 per diluted share, compared with the previous year’s fourth quarter net income of $25.8 million or $0.91 per diluted share.

“I am proud of the successful results that we achieved in fiscal year 2013,” said chairman, president, and CEO, George C. Freeman, III.

“Despite smaller crops, rising leaf production costs, and margin pressures in most regions, we delivered better performance than we had anticipated at the beginning of the fiscal year.

“Some of this success was attributable to the sale of previously uncommitted inventories and carryover shipments of the prior year’s large African and South American crops. In addition, we benefited from lower selling, general, and administrative costs. Certain of these costs reductions were unpredictable – such as currency re-measurement and exchange gains – and may not be recurring, while others were a result of our targeted cost reduction and efficiency improvement efforts.

“In fiscal year 2013, we also generated over $230 million in cash flow from our operations and returned nearly $70 million to our shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases.

“In addition to our financial achievements, our strong local management teams around the globe continued to advance our goal of providing compliant leaf, produced in a sustainable and competitive manner, to our customers.

“As we move into fiscal year 2014, we are seeing crop sizes increase in many of the key sourcing areas for flue-cured and Burley tobacco in response to strong global leaf demand. Sales activity has also been robust, especially for quality flavor flue-cured styles of tobacco.

“Burley tobacco remains in high demand, and current year crop levels are not expected to meet global requirements.

“At the same time, our uncommitted inventories are near historic lows, limiting our ability to glean additional volumes from this source. In addition to the low uncommitted inventories, we will not have the benefit of carryover crop shipments which helped our results in the first and second quarters of fiscal year 2013. While we look forward to another productive year, total volumes shipped may be lower in fiscal year 2014.”

Anti-tobacco activists in Indonesia have mounted a sticker pasting campaign in an attempt to raise awareness of regulations banning smoking on public transport, according to a piece posted on Beritajakarta.com.

The campaign, which was staged at the Senen Terminal, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday, was conducted by students from IndonesiaUniversity’s public health faculty, who pasted thousands of no-smoking stickers on to the windows of public transportation vehicles.

The students were helped by police and transportation department officers.

The stickers featured no-smoking slogans, a picture of someone suffering from mouth cancer, applicable no-smoking rules and regulations, and a hotline for people to call to report incidents of smoking on public transport.

Despite the rules being in place, the head of the Indonesia Consumers Board Foundation, Tulus Abadi, said 57 per cent of crews and 43 per cent of passengers smoked while travelling on public transport.

British American Tobacco has appointed Sir Ronnie Flanagan as its new external consultant and advisor on tackling the illegal tobacco trade.

‘Sir Ronnie, a highly respected global policing, organised crime and counter terrorism expert, brings a wealth of experience to the role having previously served in a number of high profile positions,’ BAT said in a note posted on its website. ‘These include serving as Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary which became the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and as the country’s most senior police officer as the Home Office Chief Inspector of Constabulary for the United Kingdom.

‘The main focus of Sir Ronnie’s role at British American Tobacco, will be to advise on and advocate the company’s global strategy for tackling the trafficking of illegal tobacco –something that accounted for the sale of 660 billion illegal cigarettes in 2012 alone and costs governments around the world approximately $40bn a year in lost taxes.

‘Today’s black market in tobacco involves criminal gangs producing counterfeit cigarettes, cross-border smuggling and large-scale tax evasion that governments can little afford in these challenging economic times. Up to 12% of global tobacco sales are estimated to be illegal, making cigarettes one of the most commonly traded products on the black market. When combined, the global illegal market is roughly equivalent in size to the world’s third largest multinational tobacco company by volume.

“There is a misconception that tobacco trafficking is a ‘victimless crime’,” said Sir Ronnie. “This is wrong. It is now a multi-billion dollar, global business run by serious crime organisations. It funds all manner of criminality, including gun smuggling, people trafficking and drugs, and is also linked to the funding of terrorism – something that governments are becoming increasingly aware of.

“I know the misery that tobacco trafficking creates and am pleased to be working with British American Tobacco which is taking a lead role in fighting it. I am fully committed to doing everything in my power to alert people around the world that this is a fight we simply must win.”

Pat Heneghan, global head of anti-illicit trade at BAT, said the company was delighted to have Sir Ronnie on board to help in its fight against tobacco trafficking.

“We believe Sir Ronnie will be a major asset to British American Tobacco and the industry in general,” he said. “He fully understands the seriousness of the illegal tobacco trade and shares our belief that the tobacco industry, governments, law enforcement agencies and customs officials around the world must work collaboratively to defeat it.”

In a distinguished career, Sir Ronnie joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in 1970, before being appointed chief constable. He then continued as the first chief constable of the RUC’s successor, the PSNI, before taking up his Home Office role.

In addition, Sir Ronnie has held a variety of policing posts in the Middle East. He also succeeded Lord Condon as chairman of the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption and security unit.

Japan Tobacco Inc. announced today that it will grant scholarships to nine students from Asia as part of its 2013 Asian Scholarship Program of human resource development.

The program was established in 1998 to promote international exchange and human resource development in Asia by offering financial support to Asian students.

Through this program, Asian graduate school and doctoral course students currently or imminently financing their own studies at 37 universities and colleges selected by JT from around the nation will receive ¥150,000 each month for up to two years. Each year, JT awards scholarships to about 10 applicants, and, in total, 182 students have been awarded scholarships since 1998.

As well as supporting study and research in Japan, JT offers several opportunities for students to experience Japanese culture, establish networking with young JT employees and visit JT facilities.

The JT Group has established various social activities under the JT Group Social Contribution Policy, activities focusing on: social welfare, arts and culture, environmental protection, and disaster relief.

British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN) has expressed its support for what it describes as a balanced and evidence-based public-places smoking bill currently being given a public hearing in Lagos, according to a story in the Nigerian Tribune.

The company lauded Nigeria’s House of Assembly for producing a bill to address the issue of smoking in public.

It said it believed that a workable bill would help reduce the impact of tobacco on the country’s public health.

Also speaking at the public hearing, the Assistant Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Anthony Ibafor, said his organization was against the bill because, in the long run, it would lead to unemployment.

Distributors and representatives of restaurants, bars and café owners also agreed that the passage of the bill, in its current form, would have a negative impact on their businesses.

They asked the legislators to include provision in the bill for designated smoking areas, and they appealed for enough time to be allowed for them to meet display-sign requirements.

Nurudeen Ogbara, who represented the Nigerian Tobacco Control Alliance, which comprises 40 civil society organizations, said the bill had limited potential to aid the cause of public health.

The head of regulatory affairs at BATN, Sola Dosunmu, said BATN had always supported appropriate regulation for the tobacco industry in Nigeria.

But he added that any proposed regulation should not force regulated businesses out of operation.

Dosunmu advocated a ban on the sale of cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18, higher than the age of 15 proposed in the bill.

New Jersey residents have displayed skepticism over the likely effect of proposed legislation that would raise from 19 to 21 the minimum age at which a person could legally buy tobacco products, according to a story by Don E. Woods for the South Jersey Times.

Woods quoted two residents. One aged 25, who said he started smoking when he was 15, conceded that the measure might help, but said it would not end the problem. The other, aged 22, who said he started at 17, believed that young people would smoke regardless.

The idea of raising the minimum age has come from Senator Richard J. Codey, who, while he was governor in 2006, signed legislation that raised the legal smoking age from 18 to 19 years.

“Research shows that a large majority of casual smokers become addicted between the ages of 18 and 21,” Codey said in a press release.

“If we limit access to tobacco products during those formative years, it will buy them time that could save their lives. They can make more mature decisions about smoking with a better understanding of all the potential consequences for themselves and others around them.”

It was difficult for Vietnam to enforce tobacco control laws because the people who passed those laws also broke them, according to a story in Vietnam Net.

At a meeting of the National Assembly’s Committee on Social Affairs, deputy Cuong described smoking in public places as a chronic disease that was never cured. “At the meetings of the National Assembly (NA), just during the break, the hallway was filled with cigarette smoke,” said Cuong. “It looked terrible.”

In the offices of the NA committees, he added, deputies closed the doors, turned on the air-conditioners and smoked.

Cuong said the implementation of the law had to begin with Congress because this was the law-making agency. After the NA had done so, the government and the agencies of the ministry of justice had to implement the law strictly, he added.

Campaigners are calling for more legislation to cut the number of adult smokers in Wales because Welsh Health Survey figures have revealed a fall of only one per cent in six years, according to a BBC Online story.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) said the Welsh government had to take ‘bold action’ in light of the figures.

The figures showed that 23 per cent of people were still smoking despite a 2007 ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces.

“The Welsh government needs to look at banning smoking in cars and around children,” said Elen de Lacy, chief executive of ASH in Wales.

“We need to be thinking about packaging to stop young people being attracted to smoking.”

The call for the government to be “thinking about packaging” is probably a reaction to the fact that standardized tobacco packaging was not included in the list of legislation being brought forward during the current session of the UK parliament.

One way to circumvent this ‘omission’ might be to encourage the implementation of standardized tobacco packaging in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and later to say that having England as the only part of the UK without such packaging was creating problems.