Category: News This Week

The prevalence of smoking in China tends to fudge the contribution of air pollution to the growing incidence of respiratory disease in the country, according to a story in the South China Morning Post.

Two recent incidents were described as being timely reminders of the cost of China’s rapid development. In one, an 8-year-old girl became the nation’s youngest lung-cancer patient, with doctors linking her illness to environmental factors. Dr. Feng Dongjie, of the Jiangsu cancer hospital, said the girl lived on a busy road where she inhaled dust, including superfine particles considered to be the most lethal component of smog.

The other example was the smog that hung over many Chinese cities, including Beijing, last month. The smog was so bad in the northeastern city of Harbin that visibility fell to below three meters; so even public security surveillance cameras could not penetrate the thick layers of particles.

“The immediate concern for the authorities is safeguarding national security though a street surveillance network,” the story said. “They should also be deeply worried about the effects of smog on the public’s health as they are insidious and, if and when the air clears, will linger much longer.”

The World Health Organization has classified pollution from vehicles, power plants and factories as a leading cause of cancer that is worse than passive smoking.

The in-house design department of Essentra Packaging has been named Design Team of the Year at the U.K. Packaging Awards.

The company was also highly commended in the Packaging Company of the Year category, after reaching the final shortlist of four nominees.

Based at the company’s headquarters in Nottingham, U.K., Essentra’s four-strong design team is responsible for customer projects around the world.

The team is responsible for creating designs for a variety of pack types and substrates that are then realized using gravure, digital, flexo and litho print processes.

Typical applications include security print designs, narrow tear tape opening devices and larger package labels.

The end-product design space is unusual in that the workable area is often extremely small, with tape widths normally 3–5 mm.

A city council member in Berkeley, California, USA, is calling for a tobacco smoking ban in some single-family homes, according to a story by Carolyn Jones for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Councilman Jesse Arreguin said that a proposal to ban cigarette smoking in apartments and condos, where smoke can waft through ventilation systems, was not tough enough or fair.

He said his fellow council members should consider expanding the proposed ban to include single-family homes where children, seniors or lodgers were present.

Jones described how cigarette smoking was already prohibited in Berkeley’s commercial districts, parks and bus stops, and within 25 feet of any building open to the public; and how the council planned to extend the ban to all apartments, condominiums and other multi-unit buildings where secondhand smoke can spread.

U.K.-based Smoke Screenz Ltd. has launched a retail website that provides consumers with the opportunity to create personal designs for plastic cigarette-pack holders and then to buy those holders.

At www.smoke-screenz.com, consumers can overlay full-color graphics and text onto a durable, lightweight, high-quality, hard plastic holder that will accept a regular king-sized pack of 20 cigarettes.

The holders are so designed that the lid of the cigarette pack opens automatically when the holder is opened.

There are two design options. One that repeats the design created for the front of the holder on the back, while the other allows a smoker to design all six sides.

The king-sized holders can double as business-card containers.

Holders to accommodate other sizes of cigarette packs are planned for the future.

“If you can personalize your mobile phone case, your iPad cover, your car, your body and virtually everything else—why not your cigarette case?” said Smoke Screenz Director Ian Lowe.

“With ever increasing regulations being placed on society, we are pleased to be able to offer the smoking community around the world the opportunity to ‘stand out from the crowd.’”

The Indonesian Clove Farmers’ Association (APCI) wants to widen the market for cloves by working with overseas tobacco manufacturers to help them produce kreteks, according to a story in the Jakarta Post.

Indonesia currently has an oversupply of cloves.

At the fourth Asia Tobacco Forum in Surabaya, East Java, APCI Treasurer I. Ketut Budiman said that despite the decline in Indonesia’s clove farms from 770,000 ha to about 350,000 ha, annual yields of between 70,000 and 110,000 tons could  still more than meet the demand of the domestic kretek cigarette industry of between 80,000 and 100,000 tons.

Indian tobacco farmers operating under the banner of the United Association of Tobacco Growers (UATG) are urging the Indian government to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in the tobacco sector, according to a story in the most recent issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.

The farmers believe that opening the sector to FDI would allow them to realize remunerative prices for their crops.

Tobacco growers in India, unlike their counterparts in countries such as Brazil, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Kenya, were currently unable to benefit fully from favourable international market conditions, said UATG secretary C. Yashwant Kumar.

Meanwhile, UATG’s president, P. Bhadri Reddy, said it was high time the government opened up the sector to global players and turned India into a market that operated in the wider interests of growers.

Japan Tobacco Inc.’s domestic cigarette sales volume during October, at 10.2 billion, was increased by 2 percent on that of October 2012, 10 billion, according to preliminary figures issued by the company today. The October 2012 figure was up by 4.2 percent on that of October 2011.

Volume during April–October, at 69.8 billion, was up by 0.4 percent on that of April–October 2012, 69.5 billion, which was increased by 15 percent on that of April–October 2011.

JT’s market share stood at 61.1 percent in October, at 60.7 percent during April–October, and at 59.6 percent for the full year to the end of March.

JT’s domestic cigarette revenue during October, at ¥55.8 billion, was up by 1.7 percent on its October 2012 revenue, ¥54.8 billion.

Revenue during April–October, at ¥383.1 billion, was increased by 0.1 percent on that of April–October 2012, ¥382.8 billion.

Lorillard’s chairman, president and CEO, Murray S. Kessler, and its CFO, David H. Taylor, are due to participate in the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer Conference in New York, New York, from 10.20 hours to 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Nov. 19.

The presentation will be webcast live and access will be available through the Investor Relations section of Lorillard’s website at www.lorillard.com.

The presentation will be available in an archived format for 30 days following the event.

JTI Korea said yesterday that it would introduce Ploom, a tobacco vaporizer, on the domestic market on Nov. 18, according to a story in The Korea Herald.

The Ploom vaporizer is a pocket-sized smoking alternative device that heats tobacco contained in pods to a constant temperature, vaporizing nicotine and flavors without burning the materials or producing smoke.

In December 2011, Japan Tobacco International and the San Francisco-based Ploom announced that they had entered into an exclusive, long-term cooperation agreement under which JTI would commercialize Ploom’s new generation of “smoking alternative products” outside the U.S.

Ploom capsules will be available in Korea in six variants: Mevius, Camel, Cooler, Gold, Orchard and Alert. A multipack containing all six variants also will be available.

A pack, comprising 12 capsules, will retail at WON4,500: about twice the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes.

The use of e-cigarettes on Switzerland’s public transport system will be banned as of next month, according to a Medical Xpress story quoting the national association of mass-transit operators.

From Dec. 15, those caught using e-cigarettes on public transport will face a fine of CHF25, a spokesman for the Public Transportation Union told the Swiss news agency ATS.

The regulation against smoking tobacco on public transport was extended to take in e-cigarettes because, it was said, inspectors had difficulty distinguishing between traditional and e-cigarettes

Swiss regulations do not allow the sale of e-cigarettes, but their use in the country is allowed and the federal public health agency has noted an increase in their use.

There are currently no regulations in Switzerland governing the use of e-cigarettes in restaurants.