Category: News This Week

  • Revenue drop fires VAT rethink

    In an unusual move that has attracted some criticism, India’s Uttar Pradesh state government has slashed the VAT on cigarettes and cigars from 50 percent to 25 percent.

    According to a report in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter, the decision to reduce VAT was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet, which is hoping to halt the loss in revenue that followed an increase in VAT last year.

    The level of VAT levied on cigarettes and cigars was increased in 2012 from 12.5 percent to 50 percent.

  • E-cigarette firm FIN appoints sales VP

    The e-cigarette company, FIN Branding Group, has appointed Rick Torgalski as vice president of sales, a role in which he will be responsible for “leading, developing, and growing” the company’s national sales, distribution and promotional efforts.
    Before joining FIN, Torgalski served as director of convenience channels at Hostess Brands.

    And prior to that he spent 10 years with The Hershey Company, where he held a number of positions, including national account manager and marketing manager.

    “Rick’s varied experiences working on national account development is very important for our organization at this juncture,” said FIN chairman and CEO Elliot B. Maisel.

  • Smoking on the up in Gulf states

    The six member countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) are home to about four million smokers, a number that is increasing by 150,000 a year, according to a story by Habib Toumi for the Gulf News.

    Smokers within the GCC, which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, consume about 50 billion cigarettes annually.

    And, according to Arabi Atta Allah and Majdi Ashoor, who were described as experts with the Qatar Supreme Health Council, this consumption level meant that the GCC incurred annual health care costs of $500 million.

    “According to one study, up to 50 percent of the GCC students aged between 14 and 18 smoke regularly,” they said as they gave a lecture in the Qatari capital, Doha. “Around 25 percent started puffing at cigarettes when they were between 10 and 15 years old.”

    “In the Arab world, the number of smokers has been steadily increasing, reaching 70 percent among males and 25 percent among females.”

  • International travel broadens the options

    The smoking room in the domestic departure area of Thailand’s Phuket International Airport is to be closed at the end of this month, but the smoking room in the international departure area will remain open, according to a story in the Phuket News.

    And this is a pattern that will be repeated throughout the country as all smoking rooms within domestic airport facilities will be closed while those in international airport facilities will be retained.

    Pratueng Sornkham, director of Airports of Thailand, Phuket, said the closures followed the enforcement of a new Ministry of Health no-smoking law.

    In the future, domestic flight passengers travelling through Phuket would be able to leave the terminal if they wanted to smoke.

    But once they had checked in and gone through security into the departures area, they would no longer be able to indulge their habit.

  • Turkey to toughen tobacco laws

    The Turkish government wants to toughen the country’s laws on smoking and alcohol consumption, according to a Trend news agency story quoting a Sabah newspaper report.

    The report said that a new bill would be put before parliament, though it did not indicate when that would happen.

    Under the bill, smoking, already banned in enclosed public places, would be forbidden in open public spaces.

    The bill would ban smoking by public transport drivers, presumably only while operating their vehicles.

    And it would increase the penalties for violating smoking bans.

  • Smoking test for UK mothers-to-be

    Expectant mothers in the U.K. will be asked to take breath tests to show whether or not they have been smoking during their pregnancies, according to a number of media stories.

    About 20 percent of women are estimated to smoke while pregnant, which is said to lead to low birth weights and to cause complications in pregnancy and labor.

    Under NHS (National Health Service) guidance, pregnant women will be asked to take a test for carbon monoxide during antenatal appoints and given help to quit if levels are too high.

  • Potential help for unborn in Vitamin C

    Vitamin C might help prevent lung problems in babies born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy, according to a small new study reported by HealthDay.

    Pregnant women are advised not to smoke because it can harm their babies’ lungs and lead to problems such as wheezing and asthma. But if a pregnant woman can’t quit smoking, taking vitamin C might help protect her baby’s lungs.

    “The study included 159 women who were less than 22 weeks pregnant and unable to quit smoking,” the story reported. “They were randomly assigned to take either one 500-milligram capsule of vitamin C or a placebo each day for the remainder of their pregnancy.

    “Forty-eight hours after birth, babies born to women who took vitamin C had significantly better lung function than those whose mothers took the placebo. During their first year, wheezing was reported in 21 percent of infants whose mothers took vitamin C and in 40 percent of infants whose mothers took the placebo. The rate among infants born to non-smokers was 27 percent.”

    The preliminary study, which showed an association between vitamin C use and better lung function in infants but did not prove a cause-and-effect link, was presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting in Washington, DC.

    “Vitamin C is a simple, safe and inexpensive treatment that may decrease the impact of smoking during pregnancy on childhood respiratory health,” said lead author Dr. Cynthia McEvoy, an associate professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University Children’s Hospital.

    Meanwhile, study co-author, Dr. Eliot Spindel, a senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University, said that getting women to quit smoking during pregnancy had to be priority one. “… but this finding provides a way to potentially help the infants born of the roughly 50 percent of pregnant smokers who won’t or can’t quit smoking no matter what is tried,” he added.

  • RAI expanding e-cig operations

    Reynolds American Inc.’s experiment with making e-cigarettes is about to move to a larger distribution scale, the company said Thursday at its annual shareholders meeting.

    The company provided several strategic updates during formal remarks by Daan Delen, its CEO and president, and during a question-and-answer session that wasn’t consumed by farm-worker issues, according to the website equities.com.

    Reynolds also said it has placed links on its website — www.reynoldsamerican.com — under the corporate governance header where its 2012 political-oriented contributions are listed. Delen said the company opted for more disclosure after getting requests from various stakeholder groups.

    R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. remains in test markets with its internally developed Vuse e-cigs with no reported sales numbers. Vuse is being sold at Tarheel Tobacco stores at 6311 Stadium Drive in Clemmons, 3193 Peters Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem and in Danville, Va.

  • Seoul may link cigarette prices to inflation

    South Korea may link cigarette price hikes to the growth of consumer inflation in an effort to reduce smoking and secure more revenue, reports The Korea Herald.

    Tobacco prices have been frozen at KRW2,500 ($2.28) per pack for more than eight years. The health ministry earlier said average cigarette prices need to be raised to KRW7,000 per pack to reduce the country’s smoking rate to what it called a desirable level.

    However, an official at the finance ministry argued for a more moderate approach, saying increases by more than KRW2,000 could have unintended side effects.

    Korea’s overall smoking rate dropped from 28.8 percent in 2005 to 27 percent in 2011, according to health ministry numbers.

  • Supreme Court denies cert in cig labeling case, FDA plans new rules

    The U.S. Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari filed by the tobacco companies challenging the advertising regulations promulgated pursuant to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Act.

    While the Court’s cert denial allows a previous 6th Circuit decision to stand, the contested rules may never be enforced. The Solicitor General declined to file a writ of certiorari in the D.C. Circuit case and in a letter from U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. noted that the FDA plans to engage in “new rulemaking consistent with the Tobacco Control Act.”

    Because the FDA has indicated that it plans to engage in new rulemaking, the tobacco companies have effectively avoided compliance with the stringent new rules.

    The tobacco companies made two separate challenges to the rules. In the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, and Liggett Group, among others, sought an injunction against the enforcement of the new requirements. The U.S. District Court agreed that the “mandatory graphic images unconstitutionally compel speech” and that the tobacco companies would “suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief pending a judicial review of the constitutionality of the FDA’s rules.” The FDA appealed, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.

    At the same time, another group of tobacco companies filed a facial First Amendment challenge to the rules in their entirety – and got an entirely different result. A federal court judge in Kentucky upheld the rules, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that “the Act’s warnings are reasonably related to the government’s interest in preventing consumer deception and are therefore constitutional.”

    The defendants then filed cert with the U.S. Supreme Court, which the justices denied in late April.