Category: News This Week

In raising taxes on licit tobacco products in its latest budget, the Québec government has set out a welcome mat for organized crime to increase its stake in the province’s tobacco market, according to a note posted by Imperial Tobacco Canada on its website.

“Given the availability of cheap illegal products, raising tobacco taxes is an irresponsible, short-sighted cash grab decision by the government of Québec,” said Caroline Ferland, the company’s vice-president, corporate affairs.

“Québec has simply pandered to its anti-tobacco lobby and handed over the tobacco trade to illegal traffickers.”

The Government of Québec acknowledges that it is already losing more than $225 million a year because of illegal tobacco sales and Imperial says that increasing taxes on tobacco products will make a bad situation worse.

There were more than 200 smoke shacks in Québec that were ready to meet the increased consumer demand this tax increase would generate, the company added.

“We understand that the government is looking for a quick way to fill its coffers,” said Ferland.

“Raising tobacco taxes will only drive smokers to illegal, untaxed sources.

“The government will not reap the reward it expects.”

Imperial Tobacco is to launch a Supreme Court challenge against the implementation of a cigarette display ban in Scotland, according to a story by Louise Wilson for the Edinburgh Journal.

Imperial, which is concerned about the cost to retailers of their implementing the ban and about the boost the ban will give to the illicit tobacco trade, believes the ban is anti-competitive and against the principle of adult choice.

It believes also that the Scottish government is not empowered to implement this type of ban.

“Imperial Tobacco is challenging the competence of the Scottish government to legislate for a tobacco display ban and a tobacco vending sales ban inScotland,” a spokesman was quoted as saying.

“We believe that a proper interpretation of the Scotland Act reserves the power to legislate on these issues toWestminster.”

Imperial Tobacco said also there was no evidence to suggest the bans would lead to a decrease in smoking amongst young people.

“There has been no reduction on smoking in countries where similar bans have been introduced,” the spokesman said.

Workers at a firm in Leeds, England, are being offered regular ‘sweet breaks’ after their boss discovered smokers were more productive after popping outside to smoke, according to a story by Ian Garland for The Sun.

Larry Gould, the CEO of translation company, thebigword, was said to have been shocked to find employees got more done immediately after taking a cigarette break.

And in a bid to get the same level of productivity out of his non-smoking staff, he has set up counters stocked with sweets and fruit on every floor of the firm’s Yorkshire HQ.

Workers are encouraged to get a regular sugar fix while they socialise with colleagues – in return for a small donation that will go to a local charity.

The full story is at http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4655411/boss-offers-sweet-breaks-to-non-smoking-staff.html.

Health insurance companies in the US would be allowed to set their premiums for smokers at 1.5 times the level of those for non-smokers under proposed new rules.

According to a story by N.C. Aizenman for the Washington Post, the Obama administration proposed new rules on Tuesday that would loosen some of its 2010 health-care-law mandates on insurers while tightening others.

But while the law permits insurers generally to set their premiums for tobacco users higher than those for non-smokers, they wouldn’t be allowed to do so in a case where smokers were enrolled in smoking-cessation programs.

This and other changes were included in the fine print of three regulations the Department of Health and Human Services proposed to flesh out key parts of the statute. For the most part, the regulations, which will be open for comment until December 26, would simply codify mandates in the law or in earlier administration guidance.

‘Average air pollution levels from second-hand smoke directly outside designated smoking areas in [US] airports are five times higher than levels in smoke-free airports,’ according to a Newswire story quoting a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This seems to imply that there is second-hand smoke in smoke-free airports, but might be meant to mean that the presence of second-hand smoke directly outside designated smoking areas in US airports raises the general air pollution levels there to five times the level of general air pollution levels in smoke-free airports.

The study conducted in five large hub US airports showed also that air pollution levels inside designated smoking areas were 23 times higher than levels in smoke-free airports.

In the study, designated smoking areas in airports included restaurants, bars, and ventilated smoking rooms.
Five of the 29 largest airports in the US allow smoking in designated areas that are accessible to the public: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Denver International Airport, and Salt Lake City International Airport.

There were worrying elements to the talks at the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP5) of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, according to a story in The Moodie Report.

The story opened with an account of how the talks on the illicit trade in tobacco had ended without restrictions being imposed on the duty-free industry.

But it then went to say that daily bulletins from the event organizer revealed a climate in which interested parties were denied access to discussions.

‘Interpol – the international police organisation that works to identify, disrupt and dismantle transnational organized networks behind the trafficking in illicit goods – was denied observer status as a result of a donation by Philip Morris International to aid its efforts in the area,’ the story said.

‘And the public were denied access to the closing plenary session for the first time in the FCTC process.’

Parishas declared war on the billions of cigarette butts littering its streets, according to a WorldCrunch story.

An estimated 315 tons of butts are discarded each year on to the French capital’s streets.

The problem was exacerbated when smokers were banned from smoking in restaurants, cafés, hotels and other indoor public spaces, at which time they had no recourse but to take to the streets.

Now, the city’s authorities have begun installing 10,000 public trash bins with ashtrays in an attempt to deal with the problem of discarded butts.

And they are to increase the fine for dropping butts on to the pavement from €35 to €68.

The story quoted Le Monde as reporting that millions of filters end up blocking sewers and pollutingParis’ water supply with toxic substances such as nicotine, phenol and heavy metals.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said recently thatIndiawould benefit from a 50 per cent hike in cigarette prices, according to a story in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.

The hike, which would require a 70-120 per cent increase in tobacco taxes, ‘could bring in added revenues to help close the fiscal deficit’, ADB reportedly said.

Tax increases on other tobacco products also formed part of an ADB report.

Text and video messages designed to help people quit smoking can be effective when relayed to the cellphones of quitters.

According to a Reuters story based on aNew Zealand study, those attempting to quit and receiving such messages were nearly twice as likely to be successful as those who tried to quit but didn’t receive support.

Researchers at theUniversity of Auckland, whose work was published in The Cochrane Library, found that nine per cent of would-be quitters went without cigarettes for at least six months when reminded and encouraged through cellphone messages, compared to five per cent who went it alone.

“We can’t say all text messaging interventions are going to work,” said lead author Robyn Whittaker.

“But it certainly shows there’s reason to believe that mobile phone-based interventions are a good option to think about adding to your portfolio of smoking-cessation services.”

KT&G, which launched Tonino Lamborghini cigarettes on the South Korean market in April, has said it will export 300,000 packs of these premium brand products toHong Kong, according to a Korea Herald story relayed by the TMA.

KT&G has been selling the brand in Chinese duty-free shops since September, with a first import order of 488,000 packs.

A KT&G official said Tonino Lamborghini was aimed at becoming a global brand.

The company had plans already to export the cigarettes to Russia, Taiwan and Dubai.