Category: News This Week

The New Zealand Association of Convenience Stores (NZACS) has come out strongly against a suggestion that the government should consider banning convenience stores and dairies from selling tobacco products, according to Scoop and NZ City stories.

Otago University researchers say that tobacco is too readily available, and that retail outlets are especially prevalent near schools and in low-income communities.

The researchers say that reducing the availability of tobacco would reduce smoking rates.

They recommend the introduction of a tobacco license for stores selling cigarettes and banning some shops from selling such products.

“Yet again we are seeing tobacco control activists out of Otago University lobbying the government for another whack on New Zealand retailers,” said Roger Bull, chairman of the NZACS.

“Saying that ‘availability was like advertising’ and that ‘the density of tobacco retailers in poor areas and near schools pointed to a strategy of targeting the most vulnerable and potential new customers’ is stretching the credibility of the researchers into the realm of conspiracy theories,” said Bull.

“Anti-tobacco activists conveniently forget tobacco is hidden behind doors in retail outlets so there’s no visibility of the product, and that people have to be over 18 years of age to purchase the product. …

“The simple fact is that retailers sell tobacco because there is a consumer demand for the product, and tobacco represents an important revenue stream for convenience stores and small retail outlets.

“This idea will achieve little, if anything, aside from driving small retailers out of business,” said Bull.

Meanwhile, the researchers’ proposal seems to have a built-in next step. Once the number of retailers had been reduced, new research would presumably show that those retailers still in business were selling more cigarettes than previously, and that the only way to prevent such an outcome would be to introduce manufacturing quotas.

The United  Arab Emirates has agreed a comprehensive federal anti-tobacco will come into force next year, according to a story in the Khaleej Times.

Under the new law, growing or manufacturing tobacco for commercial purposes will be banned. Existing manufacturing plants have been given a grace period of 10 years, but tobacco farmers have been given just two years’ grace.

The law bans, too, the importation of tobacco products that are not consistent with technical standards set by the UAE. Violators could find themselves facing a one-year prison sentence and a fine ranging from AED100,000 to AED1 million, in addition to the confiscation of the noncompliant products.

All packs will have to display a large warning label on the front and, once again, violations will attract hefty penalties.

The law will ban the advertising of tobacco products and their display near items marketed for children, sportswear, health food and electronic products.

Tobacco products will be banned from sale within 15 meters of kindergartens, schools, universities and colleges, or within 100 meters of places of worship.

Shisha cafés will have to be at least 150 meters away from residential areas. Their working hours will be regulated; they will not be able to serve people under 18 years of age; and they will not be allowed to deliver shishas to apartments.

The law will ban smoking in private vehicles if a person under 12 years of age is traveling in them.

A decision to allow police in Cambridgeshire, U.K., to use electronic cigarettes at work has been upheld following a review over health scares.

According to a story in the Cambridge News, the Cambridgeshire force’s Executive Board (EB) had been asked by the force’s “People Board” to reconsider the decision to allow the use of electronic cigarettes “following the announcement that the products were unregulated and produced some slight release of chemicals.”

However, the EB upheld the original decision, which means that officers will be able to use electronic cigarettes, though not in public.

After a two-month break, the Blais and Létourneau class actions trial against Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. and other Canadian tobacco companies resumed on Monday in the Quebec Superior Court before Mr. Justice Brian Riordan.

According to an Imperial press note, the case, which is the first of its kind in Canada, is providing Imperial and the industry an opportunity to present their perspectives on issues that had been reported on in the media for many decades.

“Imperial Tobacco Canada will continue its defense by presenting evidence to the court [that], to date, has been largely overlooked or ignored when reporting on the industry in this country,” said Tamara Gitto, vice-president, law and general counsel for Imperial.

The company said it looked forward to responding to the allegations and to shedding light on the parts of the story that had thus far been left out, including the important role of the federal government in the Canadian tobacco industry. For decades, the government had essentially partnered with the industry on many issues central to the case.

The defence would also focus on the extent and magnitude of the decades-long public and government awareness of the health risks associated with smoking.

“We believe that once we have the opportunity to present our defense, a more fair and balanced view of the industry will emerge,” said Gitto.

Monday, according to an Eye on the Trials blog (http://tobaccotrial.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/day-157-another-side-to-history.html), was the 157th day of the trial and the 17th day of the defense.

Indonesia’s Health Ministry is trying to push the country into ratifying the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi recently told reporters that her ministry had asked the president for permission to ratify the treaty.

Nafsiah said that while Indonesia was one of the 192 countries that had formulated the FCTC, it had not yet ratified it.
Indonesia was the only Asian country and, along with Somalia, one of only two Muslim countries that had not ratified the treaty, she added.

Nafsiah said that the ministry would face opposition from the tobacco industry, but, she said, the government meant no harm to the industry or tobacco farmers.

“Within the FCTC, basically there are no regulation[s] to ban tobacco production,” Nafsiah said. “The treaty aims to protect the public by controlling tobacco advertising, to prohibit the youth from smoking and regulate the harm to passive smokers.”

The minister said the government would need to work hard to get approval from the House of Representatives, which had long been reluctant to support tobacco control.

While news about cigarette packaging in Australia has focused recently on legislation requiring that it be made to look ugly, some positive developments have been going on behind the scenes.

Imperial Tobacco’s Australian (ITA) business, for instance, has reported that it has been recognized by the government for its “careful approach to product packaging.”

ITA said that it had been awarded an above-average star rating of 3.2 out of 5 under the Australian Packaging Covenant (APC) scheme.

APC is a sustainable packaging initiative that aims to change the business culture and encourage the design of more sustainable packaging, increase recycling and reduce litter.

“I’m really pleased with our APC result and the team here should feel proud of their efforts,” said Gary Dickson, regulatory affairs manager, Australia.

“Our score has improved year on year since 2010, and we’re working to identify further improvement opportunities in this area.

“This achievement is even more impressive considering that a lot of work relating to our Sustainable Packaging Guidelines has been put on hold whilst we assess the impact of plain packaging legislation in Australia.”

LOGIC Technology is continuing to outperform its U.S. competitors in sales of electronic cigarettes per distribution point, according to a LOGIC press note quoting figures from Nielsen’s latest Item Rank Report.

The Nielsen report, based on sales from convenience stores nationwide, posits LOGIC electronic cigarettes as the only major brand demonstrating increased sales since the previous report.

Of all the brands within the category, LOGIC was said to have generated the largest dollar increase in sales.

LOGIC ranked first, second, third and fourth in SKUs for dollar sales per point of distribution across the U.S.

The number of tobacco users in Turkey has fallen by about 7.5 percent since 2008, while cigarette consumption has fallen by more than 10 percent, according to a Cihan News Agency story quoting data from the Turkish Statistics Institute.

In 2008, 31.2 percent of people aged 15 or over—about 16 million people—used tobacco on a regular basis.

But this figure has dropped to 27.1 percent—about 14.8 million people.

Tobacco use among men fell from 47.9 percent to 41.5 percent, while tobacco use among women dropped from 15.2 percent to 13.1 percent.

Turkey’s ban on tobacco smoking in enclosed public places took full effect from July 2009.

Hundreds of shops would be forced to close and more than 3,000 jobs would be lost if the Scottish government were to go ahead with its plans to introduce standardized packaging for cigarettes, according to a story by Eddie Barnes for The Scotsman quoting new research.

A paper by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), commissioned by Philip Morris, says the plans would deal a “body blow” to high streets.

“Our findings show that the potential impact of this plain packaging policy could be traumatic for the high street,” Oliver Hogan, CEBR head of microeconomics, was quoted as saying.

“In Scotland alone, CEBR would expect the loss of some £30 million in tobacco and nontobacco revenues to small independent retailers and the loss of over 3,200 jobs and up to 700 shops.”

“The evidence supports our conclusion that tobacco customers will flock to illegal street vendors, buy bulk from abroad and make purchases from larger stores.

“Thousands will lack the patience to queue for the till in a local shop as a small staff tries to find the right cigarettes among the plain packaging,” he said.

British people caught farming their own tobacco have been warned they could face a hefty penalty if they do not pay duty on it, according to a story in The Star.

With 20 cigarettes retailing at about £7-£8 and 25 g of fine cut retailing at about £8, some smokers have taken to growing their own tobacco from seeds, which are readily available.

A standard-sized allotment of 500 plants was enough, The Star said, to yield up to 54 kg of tobacco.

But a spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was quoted as saying that anyone growing tobacco at home and smoking it had to ensure they paid the duty legally due, otherwise they could face a fine or have the tobacco seized.

This requirement applied even if the tobacco was for private use.

It was not clear why this story has arisen because it seems unlikely that the number of people growing their own tobacco and smoking it in Britain would be sufficient to attract the attention of the HMRC. Tobacco can be grown in Britain, but it is questionable whether such tobacco could be cured and processed at home in a way that would result in a product acceptable to the modern smoker, especially the cigarette smoker.