Category: News This Week

  • Cuba joins fight over Aussie plain packaging rules

    Cuba has become the latest country to launch a legal attack on Australia’s landmark plain packaging rules for tobacco at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

    The laws came into effect last December and mean cigarettes can only be sold in brown packages with graphic health warnings. The WTO says Cuba has requested consultations with Australia on the legislation, which covers all tobacco products, not just cigarettes. Under the 159-nation WTO’s rules, requesting consultations is the first step in an often complex trade dispute settlement process which can last for several years.

    The laws have already been challenged at the WTO by Cuba’s fellow cigar-producing nations Honduras and the Dominican Republic. In addition, the Ukraine has filed a suit at the Geneva-based body, which oversees its member nations’ respect for the rules of global commerce, according to the Australian news company ABC.

    All the plaintiff countries maintain that Australia’s packaging law breaches international trade rules and intellectual property rights.

    In the event that the WTO’s disputes settlement body finds in their favor, it would have the power to authorize retaliatory trade measures against Australia if the country failed to fall into line. The dispute with Australia marks the first-ever challenge by Cuba against a fellow member since it joined the global body in April 1995, four months after the WTO was founded in its current form.

    The plain packaging laws have won wide praise from health organizations which are trying to curb smoking. But the government has faced a string of court challenges from tobacco firms.

    Besides trade and intellectual property concerns, tobacco companies say there is no proof that plain packaging reduces smoking and have warned that the law sets a precedent that could spread to products such as alcohol.

  • A nickel a butt adds up

    Redemption programs have dramatically reduced the amount of bottles and cans that go into the waste stream. Now a restaurant owner in Portland, Maine, U.S.A. wants to do the same with cigarette butts, according to a story reported on WLBZ.

    Mike Roylos says he’s tired of dealing with butts outside the Spartan Grill. “They’re everywhere. I sweep. They come back. Customers track them in on their shoes,” laments Roylos.

    When the city’s new smoking ordinance failed to stop the butt barrage, Roylos decided to take matters into his own hands. He came up with the “No Butts Now” campaign.

    He supplies a basket of baggies for the public to collect cigarette butts in Monument Square. Using donations from grateful customers, Roylos will buy the butts back for five cents a piece.

    Sure, it’s a little gross..but a nickel’s a nickel. Billy O’Rourke lives a few blocks away at the Oxford Street Shelter and he went right to work as soon as he heard about the campaign. .

    “It’s an opportunity for us homeless guys to be a productive part of society and make a few extra dollars,” said O’Rourke.

    They may be tiny, but those butts add up.

  • Villiger eyes the premium side

    The U.S. unit of one of the major players in the world of European-style, machine-made cigars is expanding its presence on the premium side of the business.

    Villiger Cigars North America, the U.S. arm of Villiger Söhne AG of Pfeffikon, Switzerland, has expanded its small but growing stable of handmade cigar brands, according to a story in Cigar Aficionado.

    Villiger Colorado has a pair of new sizes, a 6-inch-long, 60 ring gauge Gordo (suggested retail price $10.50) and a corona measuring 5 1/2 inches by 44 ring ($6.99), pushing the brand to six sizes. Villiger Talanga has been expanded by one size, adding a corona (5 1/2 by 44, $6.99), giving the line five sizes in all.

    Both cigar brands are made in Nicaragua by the Plasencia family for Villiger Cigars North America, a Charlotte, North Carolina, company that is headed by president Roy MacLaren.

    MacLaren wanted to add a Gordo to Villiger Talanga, too, but found the blend wasn’t as appealing in that size.

    Villiger is a company that turns 125 this year, and while it’s a force in small machine-made cigars, particularly in Europe, the company has a very small presence in the premium business in the United States. MacLaren aims to change that.

  • Parkside’s safety and health approach gets gold

    Parkside Flexibles’ approach to occupational safety and health has been recognized by the U.K. Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

    RoSPA will present the company with its 2013 Gold Occupational Health and Safety Award during a ceremony at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel on May 14.

    Dating back 57 years, the RoSPA Awards scheme is the largest and longest-running program of its kind in the United Kingdom. It recognizes commitment to accident and ill-health prevention and is open to businesses and organizations of all types and sizes from across the U.K. and overseas. The scheme not only looks at accident records, but also entrants’ overarching health and safety management systems, including practices such as leadership and workforce involvement.

    “RoSPA firmly believes that organizations that demonstrate commitment to continuous improvement in accident and ill-health prevention deserve recognition,” said David Rawlins, RoSPA’s awards manager. “Parkside Flexibles (Europe) Ltd. has shown that it is committed to striving for such continuous improvement and we are delighted to honor it through the presentation of an award.”

    “It is an honor to be presented with such an award,” said Robert Adamson, operations director at Parkside. “Our team in Normaton work tirelessly to ensure health and safety is our number one priority and this award is a great recognition of their achievements.”

    A flexographic printer and specialized laminating company, Parkside has been supplying packaging solutions to the tobacco industry for more than 40 years.

  • UK plain packaging plan goes up in smoke

    U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has scrapped plans to force all cigarettes to be sold in plain packs, according to a story published today in The Sun.

    Health ministers had been considering the move for a year. Proponents had insisted making packages bland would put smokers off — and stop kids from picking up the habit.

    Cameron initially backed the plan, but has been persuaded it would damage the packaging industry. There were also concerns it could cost £3 billion in lost tax revenue and tie up the Commons in bitter arguments.

    Cameron has now ordered the proposed law to be pulled from next week’s Queen’s Speech.

    A Whitehall source said: “Plain packaging may or may not be a good idea, but it’s nothing to do with the government’s key purpose. The PM is determined to strip down everything we do so we can concentrate all our efforts on voters’ essentials. That means growth, immigration and welfare reform.”

    Officials in Australia, the first to enforce uniform packaging, have admitted there was still no evidence that they cut smoking.

  • WHO to conduct tobacco cost-benefit analysis

    A team of 20 WHO researchers will conduct a study in Uganda to determine the country’s earnings from the tobacco industry and costs incurred from treating people with tobacco-related illnesses, reports Monitor.

    According to the Uganda Demographic Health Survey 2011, about 15 percent of males and 3 percent of females aged 15-49 use tobacco products. Statistics show that tobacco-related illnesses claim about 13,500 lives in Uganda annually. The government raises UGX80 billion ($30.9 million) per year in tax revenue from tobacco companies.

  • Philippine credit rating up after tax reform

    Fitch Ratings recently raised Philippines’ credit worthiness to “BBB-,” saying recent “sin” tax reforms demonstrated the government’s commitment to strengthening its revenue base. In January, the Philippines enacted new alcohol and tobacco tax laws, which raised the price of locally made, low-end cigarette brands by about 700 percent.

  • Kazakhstan to go graphic

    Kazakhstan will start requiring pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs from July, according to Azhar Tulegaliyeva, director of the Medical Care Organization Department. The country will be the first nation in the Commonwealth of Independent States to mandate graphic warnings in line with the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Kazakhstan ratified in 2007.

    Under the new law, cigarette packs will contain smoking-related diseases such as stroke and heart attack, and show the threat of miscarriage among pregnant women and the impact of smoking on premature aging of the skin.

  • India reconsiders filmmakers’ smoking disclaimers

    At a meeting with the filmmaker on April 17, the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare agreed to consider the possibility of replacing the current anti-smoking disclaimers played in movie theaters with more creative ones, reports The Times of India.

    Filmmakers and broadcasters said they are not opposed to laws that prevent glorification of smoking, but want a change in the way the disclaimers are displayed in a film.

    Kulmeet Makkar of Film and Television Producers Guild said anti-smoking messages should be pleasant and aesthetic, without affecting creativity.

    Makkar said the film industry is opposed to the regulation requiring an editorial justification for including smoking scenes in films, as the rule takes away a filmmaker’s “right to express reality.”

    Bollywood movies show 14 billion images of tobacco use every year, according to a study conducted by the nongovernmental organization HRIDAY in collaboration with Imperial College London.

    The World Health Organization recommends that movies with tobacco content be given an adult rating. In September 2012, the Indian government started requiring movies that portray tobacco use to include health warnings, but it provided no guidance on ratings.

  • Illicit trade breaks another EU record

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    Boatloads of bootleg

    The illegal cigarette trade in the EU reached a new record high for the sixth year in a row, according to a KPMG report commissioned by Philip Morris International. The study showed the illegal cigarette trade rising to 11.1 percent in 2012 from 10.4 percent in 2011.

    At 31 percent of the national tobacco market, illicit cigarettes had the highest market share in Latvia. Latvia loses an estimated LVL60 million ($111.4 million) to LVL70 million  in annual tax revenue due to cigarette smuggling. KPMG Baltics representative Andris Purins said Latvia’s proximity to Belarus and Russia is exacerbating the black market problem.

    Other strongly affected EU markets included Lithuania, where illicit cigarettes accounted for 27.5 percent of the market; Ireland (19.1 percent), Finland (16.9 percent), the United Kingdom (16.4 percent), France (15.7 percent), Greece (13.4 percent) and Poland (13 percent).

    The U.K., Greece, Italy and Estonia recorded the steepest growth in the illegal cigarette market since 2011, according to the KMPG report.