Category: News This Week

European Commission proposals could leave tobacco smokers within the EU with easy access to tobacco cigarettes but little access to less risky alternatives to these products.

According to a story in the European Voice, the commission, whose proposal to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines was turned down by MEPs in October, is now putting forward other measures seen by some as being medicines regulation by the back door.

If the commission has its way, smokers might be left with no access to electronic cigarettes and—with the exception of tobacco users in Sweden—no access to snus.

The question of how to regulate e-cigarettes is said to be the biggest remaining obstacle to an agreement between MEPs and the member states on revising the European Union’s Tobacco Products Directive.

As negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers prepare to meet in Brussels to finalise the text of a revision to the directive, lobbying about e-cigarettes is intensifying.

At issue are differences about whether e-cigarettes should be regulated lightly because they might prove useful to wean smokers off more harmful cigarettes, or whether e-cigarettes should be heavily regulated because they pose a health risk.

The European Voice says that, ahead of the negotiations, the commission has circulated a text that proposes introducing a series of restrictions on e-cigarettes, including banning those that produce levels of nicotine above 20 mg per ml of vapor or 10 mg/unit, and those with refillable cartridges or tanks. They would also ban e-cigarettes designed to taste like tobacco.

Thirteen health experts from Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Poland and the U.K. have written a letter warning that the latest commission proposals could bring to an end the positive effect that safer electronic cigarettes have had in weaning smokers from tobacco cigarettes, which, they said, caused 700,000 premature deaths a year in the EU.

British American Tobacco has said that it is surprised and disappointed by the BMJ group of journals’ recent decision not to consider for publication any scientific studies funded by the tobacco industry.

BAT has spent an enormous amount of money in recent years setting up state-of-the-art facilities in which to carry out research into reduced-risk products, and it has placed great importance on publishing its findings and having those findings peer-reviewed.

But editors at the BMJ, Heart, Thorax and BMJ Open have said that they will not consider the publication of studies that had been funded in part or wholly by the tobacco industry.

In BAT’s response, Chief Scientific Officer Christopher J. Proctor said the BMJ’s new policy of banning consideration of scientific studies based on their source of funding was particularly disappointing in the light of its historical policy of encouraging robust scientific discourse independent of ideology.

Proctor said it was ironic that the BMJ had revised its prior view given that there was a new commitment to transparency of funding and potential conflicts of interest throughout the scientific world.

There was also a renewed interest in tobacco science.

Proctor’s response and the responses of other people are at http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5193?tab=responses.

The city council of Perth has become the first in Western Australia (WA) to ban tobacco smoking in shopping malls, according to an Australian Associated Press story.

Initially, those found to be smoking tobacco will be cautioned, but fines will be issued from June 1.

Rosanna Capolingua, the chairperson of Healthway, the Western Australian Health Promotion Foundation, said nine out of 10 people in WA were nonsmokers and it was important to show young people that being a nonsmoker was a community standard.

Healthway “ambassadors” would be in the malls during peak periods and at major city events over the summer to inform the public of the local law changes.

Philip Morris Ltd. has warned the Irish government that the introduction of standardized packaging for cigarettes could lead to “an extremely high price” in compensation being paid to multinational tobacco companies by the taxpayer, according to a story in The Irish Times.

PM Ltd., an arm of Philip Morris International, was said to have commissioned a legal opinion in response to proposals to introduce standardized packaging in Ireland.

It said such moves would not “withstand legal scrutiny” without providing compensation to the tobacco companies involved.

The opinion and accompanying letter, which have been seen by The Irish Times, were sent to the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and the Minister for Health James Reilly.

Cigarettes could be sold in the U.K. only in standardized packs after a government U-turn on a public health policy U-turn.

A story in The Guardian said that in a surprise move the government was set to give ministers the power to introduce the policy, though implementation would be subject to an evidence review.

The government would table an amendment to that effect in the children and families bill, which was currently going through the House of Lords, The Guardian reported.

The review, which will be led by Sir Cyril Chantler, a doctor, academic and NHS administrator, will report by the end of March.

Subject to its findings, standardized packaging could be in force before May 2015.

Imperial Tobacco’s business in Madagascar is providing training aimed at helping its employees stay safe on the country’s roads.

The road risk training has been provided for those working at the SACIMEM manufacturing plant in Antsirabe.

Outside towns and cities, the majority of roads on the Indian Ocean island are dirt tracks, and many of them become impassable during the rainy season.

Employees were invited to attend a two hour training course that was led by an expert instructor and designed to improve their road safety awareness.

Those who took part received a diploma of good practice and a booklet in the local Malagasy language to help reinforce the lessons learned.

“This training will be of enormous benefit for our people coping with the hazardous driving conditions found here in Madagascar,” said factory manager Hervé Lamy.

The next step in the program will focus on safety equipment for motorbike riders and vehicle safety checks.

Indonesia’s House of Representatives plans to press ahead with discussions on a tobacco bill despite the government’s commitment to accede to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), according to a story by The Jakarta Post.

The House’s legislative body (Baleg), which has been tasked with deliberating on the bill, has insisted that the government’s FCTC plans would not affect its discussions.

“We will not cancel the deliberation because of the government’s plan to ratify it [the FCTC],” the Baleg’s deputy chairman, Sunardi Ayub, of the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura), said on the sidelines of a hearing with tobacco companies on Wednesday.

“Having said that, we will write to the health minister to discuss this issue so that we can match the draft bill with the treaty.”

Earlier this month, the Post reported that Indonesian Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi had said that her country would accede to the FCTC before the end of this year.

“The treaty accession will be completed through a presidential decree,” Nafsiah was quoted as saying. “The president has agreed. God willing we will accede to the treaty before the end of the year.”

Hospitality-sector associations in Kerala, India, are expected soon to encourage their members to display signs indicating that tobacco smoking is not permitted on their premises and to stop people smoking within their establishments, according to a Business Standard story.

According to India’s Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, hotels, restaurants, coffee bars, pubs and bars fall under the ambit of public places, where tobacco smoking is banned.

In addition, hotel and restaurant owners have to display signs stating, “No Smoking Area—Smoking Here is an Offence,” in English and in the regional language.

Owners are required also to ensure that they provide no ashtrays, matches or other items designed to facilitate smoking.

A campaign to encourage the hospitality sector to obey the regulations is being mounted by, among others, the Kerala Hotels and Restaurants Association (KHRA), the South India Hotels and Restaurants Association and the South Kerala Hoteliers Forum.

G. Sudheesh Kumar, the state president of the 20,000-member-strong KHRA, said the association would use persuasion to encourage its members to comply with the regulations.

Compliance would be implemented in a phased manner, he apparently told the Standard.

Six out of 10 restaurants in South Korea suffered revenue declines after the imposition of a tobacco smoking ban in July, according to a story in The Korea Herald quoting the results of a survey published yesterday.

Nearly 59.3 percent of restaurant owners who responded to the survey said their revenues had fallen as a result of the new smoking regulations.

The average reported fall in revenues was 17.6 percent.

The smoking ban that went into effect on July 1 affected only certain restaurants, based on size.

But all restaurants will be smoke-free by 2015, when stronger regulations are due to come into force.

The survey, which consulted 300 restaurant owners, was commissioned by the Korea Smokers’ Association.

It has long been clear that bans on tobacco smoking in public places would lead those so inclined to look at the potential perils of other sources of smoke.

Indeed, stories of the possible dangers caused by cooking inside over open fires and outside over barbecues preceded public-places tobacco-smoking bans.

Earlier this year, a Euro Weekly News story quoting Spain’s Consumer and User Organization (OCU) said some household air-fresheners were more toxic than tobacco smoke was.

The OCU said some household air-fresheners that were heated, including oils, incense and perfumed candles, worsened the quality of the air because they had “excessive levels of toxic, allergenic and contaminating substances.”

Now it is the turn of wood smoke, according to a story in the Bangor Daily News, Maine, USA.

The story quotes Ed Miller, senior vice president for policy at the American Lung Association of the Northeast, as saying that wood smoke is more dangerous on a dose-by-dose basis than is cigarette smoke.

And Miller said that the problem was compounded because of the mystique surrounding wood smoke. People would walk into a room where wood smoke was in the air and say, “Oh, smells like fall,” whereas they wouldn’t walk into a room and say, “Oh, it smells like cigarette smoke, it’s so nice in here.”

But not everybody is enamored of wood smoke. Ernest Grolimund began a one-man crusade to get Maine to take the issue seriously when his neighbor began burning with both an indoor wood boiler and a wood stove in 2007.

“Immediately, my eyes were stinging and I was having allergy reactions,” said Grolimund, of Waterville. “I knew as an engineer, right away, this was bad.”

His daughter had an asthma attack. His neighbor had a heart attack. He attributes both to wood smoke.

Quite how seriously such warnings will be taken is difficult to say. Miller likened the uphill battle for raising awareness around wood smoke to that of raising awareness about secondhand tobacco smoke. But, he said, the twist was that wood, unlike cigarettes, had upsides.