Category: News This Week

The Altria Group is due to host a live audio webcast at www.altria.com beginning at 09.00 hours Eastern Time on October 25 to discuss its 2012 third-quarter business results.

The results will have been issued as a press release about 07.00 hours on the same day.

During the webcast, which will be in listen-only mode, chairman and CEO, Marty Barrington, and executive vice president and CFO, Howard Willard, will discuss the results and answer questions from the investment community and news media.

Pre-event registration is necessary at www.altria.com, where an archived copy of the webcast will be available until 17.00 hours on December 31.

The Australian federal government seems to be concerned that cigarette smuggling will increase with the imposition from December 1 of its requirement that tobacco products are sold in ‘plain’, ugly packs.

According to an Australian Associated Press story, people involved in tobacco smuggling inAustraliaare to face criminal charges under new changes to customs law.

The Senate today passed an amendment to the Customs Act that creates criminal offences in the case of those smuggling, conveying or possessing contraband tobacco products.

The shadow attorney-general, George Brandis, despite supporting the amendment, criticized the government for its “inconsistent and incompetent” handling of the issue.

He accused Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, of claiming that tobacco smuggling didn’t represent a major threat toAustralia.

“If there is no major threat why is it necessary to legislate?” Brandis asked.

“This is clearly an issue on which the government is in denial.”

Brandis said figures showed the illicit tobacco trade inAustralialast year was worth an estimated $1 billion in foregone tobacco excises.

The Customs Amendment (Smuggled Tobacco) Bill 2012, which carries a 10-year jail term for tobacco smuggling, passed without dissent.

The Andhra Pradesh MP, Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, has written to the Indian Health Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, objecting to the implementation of guidelines drawn up by the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), according to a story in the most recent issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.

Rao said that enforcement of the guidelines in India would adversely impact tobacco production and trade in the country.

He highlighted the effect of the FCTC guideline that sought to regulate the content of tobacco products and one requiring the disclosure of ingredients.

And he said that the FCTC policies would cause cigarette smuggling inIndiaand lead to the criminalization of the cigarette trade.

The FCTC’s fifth Conference of the Parties is due to meet next month at Seoul, South Korea, to discuss guidelines aimed directly at reducing tobacco production around the world.

Yunnan province’s Luoping county says it is speeding up the consolidation of its tobacco-production farmland, according to a Qujing Tobacco Monopoly Administration story relayed by Tobacco China Online

The consolidation is aimed at establishing a number of standard tobacco fields with well-established infrastructure that can produce stable yields during seasons of drought or excessive rain.

So far, the county has concluded the process of inviting tenders for the project of consolidating farmland in the Xinzhai district of Agang township.

The project, which may now have started, involves farmland attached to the villages Gangde and Nieqia, and will include local general infrastructure improvements to roads and drains.

Overall, Yuan28.06 million will be invested in the consolidation project.

A legal challenge by the tobacco industry to a ban on cigarette sales from vending machines in Scotland has been rejected by senior judges, according to a story in the Daily Record and Sunday Mail.

The ban is one of several measures being introduced under the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010.

Due to be implemented in October last year, the legislation was delayed after Sinclair Collis, the largest cigarette vending operator in theUK, challenged the ban in the Court of Session.

The company, owned by Imperial Tobacco, had argued the law was against the European Convention on Human Rights.

The firm lost the challenge and launched an appeal against the ruling.

However, Lord Carloway, sitting with Lords Bonomy and Osborne, today agreed with Lord Doherty’s earlier decision made in May 2011.

“The prohibition cannot be said to have failed to strike a balance between the public interest in maintaining good public health and the petitioners’ private economic interest in its use of vending machines,” concluded Carloway in rejecting the appeal.

Philip Morris International has issued its first report on its Agricultural Labor Practices (ALP) program, which was launched in May last year.

The ALP program seeks progressively to eliminate child labor and other labor abuses on farms PMI sources tobacco from.

“We are pleased to share the progress we have made” said Martin King, senior vice president operations, “and will continue to implement the ALP program in a transparent manner, sharing results and outcomes.”

The report is at: http://www.pmi.com/eng/media_center/company_statements/documents/PMI_ALP_Progress_Report_2012.pdf

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co says that teachers, parents and community youth groups have a free youth tobacco prevention program at their fingertips with the online enhancement of its evidence-based program, Right Decisions Right Now: Be Tobacco Free (RDRN).

‘RDRN educational materials – now readily available via computers and smart boards – can be used to teach students about the risks of using tobacco products. The program also helps students build good decision-making skills and find effective ways to handle peer pressure,’ Reynolds said in a note posted on its website.

‘More than 20,000 middle schools across the country have used the RDRN program since it was established more than 20 years ago. The program is also used by community groups such as Boy Scouts of America; Big Brothers, Big Sisters; and the Crosby Scholars Program.’

“This program is designed to empower students to make good decisions, including the decision not to use tobacco, and to give them the knowledge to live a healthy lifestyle,” said Pamela Gorman, a senior manager involved in R.J. Reynolds’ youth tobacco prevention efforts. “RDRN is part of our company’s long-term initiative to transform the tobacco industry. Over the past 20 years, youth tobacco prevention efforts and programs have had a big impact on reducing teen smoking, now at a historic low, and we are actively working on ways to accelerate the decline in youth tobacco use.”

‘The RDRN program has been tested nationally and found to be successful on two key measures: Smoking levels decreased significantly in test schools, particularly for grades eight and nine, and the program lowered anticipated tobacco use among middle school-aged students,’ the note said. ‘Additionally, students’ susceptibility to peer pressure and their perception of the popularity of tobacco-using peers both showed significant declines versus [the susceptibility and perception of the] control groups.

‘The program’s new digital format is easy to use and designed for students in grades five through nine. It can be used by educators, parents and grandparents, as well as non-profit community groups involved with youth. The free materials include a teacher guide and interactive activities that provide students with factual information about tobacco prevention that they can reference when completing subsequent lessons. All of the guides are available in digital format on the website: www.rightdecisionsrightnow.com.

‘The RDRN program updates and digital enhancements and activities were created by By Kids for Kids® (BKFK®), a marketing company that provides educational resources – curriculum and challenges that promote social change and entrepreneurial endeavors.’

New York’s highest-in-the-nation cigarette taxes are failing to drive down smoking rates, according to a story by Patrick Basham and John Luik in the New York Post quoting a new study funded by the state’s Department of Health.

What these taxes are doing is putting a heavy extra burden on poor New Yorkers. ‘Yes, the public-health establishment insists that every hike in cigarette taxes results in fewer people smoking,’ say Basham and Luik in a piece headlined: The great cigarette-tax lie. ‘But it’s not true: Extensive research shows that high “butt taxes” are a major public-health mistake that punishes the poor without reducing smoking.

‘Today, smokers are mostly lower income and younger people. But neither of these overlapping groups is smoking less – and both groups are poorer, thanks to cigarette taxes.’

The full story is at: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_great_cigarette_tax_lie_My57RghhpuH5YSpbzASwEK.

The Bulgarian Health Minister, Desislava Atanasova, has refused to lift the smoking ban in enclosed public places imposed in June, according to a Novinite story.

“This is a very European step that we made and we shouldn’t come back,” Atanasova was quoted as having said yesterday.

Representatives ofBulgaria’s restaurant and hotel sector had written an open letter to Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, asking for an easing of the country’s indoor public-places tobacco smoking ban.

The sector estimates that turnover has slumped by 20-40 per cent since the ban was introduced on June 1 and is alarmed about a possible mass exodus of customers and, therefore, business bankruptcies, during the winter.

At the end of September, two MPs had proposed amendments to the Health Act that would have returned the country to the regulatory position that existed before the introduction of the ban whereby all establishments bigger than 70 square meters had to have separate smoking and non-smoking areas, while smaller establishments had the choice of being either fully-smoking or non-smoking.

Tobacco farmers from 14 countries are due to arrive in Budapestnext week for the 33rd Congress of their European association, UNITAB, at which the main theme will be: Retain the jobs inEurope.

The Congress, which has attracted more than 250 delegates to register, will be held on October 18-20.

On the first day, representatives of farmer associations will give presentations about the state of tobacco production in their respective countries and the Congress will discuss market issues.

The second day will be given over to, among other things, presentations on the likely effects of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Looking forward to the Congress, József Eisler, the secretary of the Hungarian Tobacco Growers’ Association, said that European tobacco farmers were worried about the jobs of 85,000 farmers and those of the more than 400,000 people employed by them.

This concern, he said, stemmed from the fact that European politicians were making a series of decisions that were disadvantageous to tobacco growing without being able to identify any alternative form of livelihood for those involved in tobacco.

ThroughoutEurope, tobacco was produced in regions where no other crop could be grown and unemployment rates were relatively high. There was no alternative to growing tobacco.

Eisler said the organisers of the Congress were hoping they could make European politicians aware that they could not successfully fight smoking through the liquidation of jobs.

The Hungarian Minister of Regional Development, Dr Sándor Fazekas, will receive several delegations from tobacco growing countries during the Congress and a number of politicians are expected to attend the debate on CAP reforms.