The Australian Government spent nearly $39 million over six years defending its standardized-tobacco-packaging laws against Philip Morris Asia (PMA), according to a story in The Guardian quoting freedom of information documents.
The documents indicate the figure, $38,984,942.97, is the total amount invoiced to the Department of Health by ‘external service providers’, related to the bilateral-investment treaty dispute between Australia and PMA for the financial year 2011-12 through to October 2016.
The department was quoted as saying that some of that amount might not relate solely to the PMA dispute, because some service providers had worked on that dispute and other standardized-tobacco-packaging litigation matters, and invoices for their work had not been disaggregated.
However, that figure had been provided as the ‘grand total’ amount after a two-year freedom of information battle by former senator Nick Xenophon and his former staffer, now Centre Alliance senator, Rex Patrick.
Patrick was quoted as saying that he had been blown away by the “mammoth cost” to taxpayers of the legal fight.
“This is exactly why Australia must stop signing up to free trade agreements with these insidious ISDS [Investor-State Dispute Settlement] provisions in them,” he said.
“I accept the government had to defend the matter, but if we hadn’t signed up to the Hong Kong agreement with ISDS provisions in it then there would not have been a tribunal hearing. Imagine what health outcomes could have been achieved with that $39 million.”
The Guardian story said that Philip Morris had taken its case to the permanent court of arbitration in 2012, using an ISDS clause in a 1993 Hong Kong-Australia trade deal.
The Guardian story looks also at ISDS issues related to the 11-country (including Australia) Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Category: Packaging
Plain-packs defense costly
LL Flex Restructures
LL Flex a supplier of paper, film and metals-based laminates for packaging and industrial applications, has said it is to realign its executive management team and focus its assets in core markets.
This is said to follow Centre Lane Partners’ (CLP) sale of the Oracle Packaging business in Winston-Salem.
Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, LL Flex will remain a part of the CLP portfolio of companies. Industry veteran Victor Dixon has been appointed CEO.
The company said it planned to allocate resources to support continued growth, expansion into new lines of business and development of innovative laminated materials solutions for the wire and cable, tobacco, building and construction, and specialty markets.
‘For tobacco companies, LL Flex is North America’s largest supplier of cigarette inner bundling material, as well as custom-printed laminations for cigar, pipe and smokeless tobacco,’ the company said in a press note.No, no; it's easy to quit
Major tobacco manufacturers in the US have from yesterday been compelled to include on their websites so-called corrective statements.
Altria, Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Lorillard have been ordered by a federal court to make the statements.
The statements cover the health effects of smoking; the addictiveness of smoking and nicotine; low-tar and light cigarettes; the design of cigarettes; and the health effects of second-hand smoke.
According to a CNBC story relayed by the TMA, the statements were ordered on May 1 as part of a 2006 federal court decision that found the major cigarette manufacturers had defrauded the public about the health risks of their products.
CNBC said that the statements must be included also with cigarette packs as ‘onserts’ by November 21, running for 12 weeks over two years.Reforming in Cambodia
Japan Tobacco International (JTI), one of Cambodia’s biggest cigarette distributors, has said that it is rejoining the Association of the Tobacco Industry of Cambodia (ATIC) following a recent ATIC promise to combat illegal cigarette sales and fake products, according to a story in The Phnom Penh Post.
The company left the association in the middle of 2016.
The ATIC said it had organized an annual meeting last week and decided to regroup to tackle issues that had put the industry at risk, including illegal cigarette sales, fake products, packs with non-pictorial health warnings, and products which did not have legitimate tax stamps.
Cormac O’Rourke, the general manager of JTI Cambodia, which distributes Camel, Winston and Mevius brands, said his company’s rejoining of ATIC would raise the commitment of all members and players to adhere to the relevant laws and regulations that benefitted the entire industry.
“The illegal trade of tobacco products is, by far, the industry’s biggest challenge,” he was quoted as saying. “It is severely damaging tobacco companies, the industry, public health agenda and the national economy.”
In July 2016, JTI ended its affiliation with the ATIC because, it said, the association had failed to create a ‘level playing field’ by allowing unmarked imported cigarettes to flood the market, despite legislation requiring tobacco packaging to carry graphic images and warning labels.
ATIC President Matt Naumann said the group had decided to make major reforms to its structure and direction to drive compliance in the tobacco sector for a ‘One Industry’ standard.
The recent reform had led to changes in membership, he added. The Viniton Group had left the association while JTI had rejoined.
The ATIC now comprises Philip Morris International, Houtraco, British American Tobacco Cambodia and JTI (Cambodia) as official members.Packaging fight continues
The drive to impose standardized packaging on tobacco products in the hope of discouraging current and potential smokers, has pitted the World Health Organization and the EU against the tobacco industry, according to a story by Claire Stam and Sarantis Michalopoulos for euractiv.com.
The industry says standardized packaging has no discernible impact on smoking rates but opens the door to black markets. On the other hand, the WHO insists that the measure is effective and rules out any link to the illegal trade.
From its side, the EU is expecting the number of smokers to fall by 2.4 million during the five-year period following the introduction of the its revised Tobacco Product Directive (TPD). The TPD, which came into force in May 2016, requires that 65 percent of a tobacco pack’s surface should include health warning graphics and text, though it leaves open to member states whether they introduce standardized packaging.
New research conducted by the consultancy group Europe Economics and commissioned by Japan Tobacco International, showed that the introduction of standardized packaging has had no statistically-significant impact on smoking prevalence or consumption in the UK, where standardized packaging was imposed.
The research, which was based on government data found that three out of five UK adults believed standardized packaging would lead to an increase in the number of illicit cigarettes, benefiting organised crime.
“What this evidence and public opinion research shows is that plain packaging should never have been introduced in the UK,” Ben Townsend, head of EU Affairs for JTI, told EURACTIV.com. “Other European countries considering the measure should think twice before importing a failed experiment, which appears to have back-fired big time.
“One year ago, the UK government introduced plain packaging for tobacco products in the absence of clear supportive evidence from Australia [at the time, the only country to have introduced the policy]. Five-and-a-half years into the Australian experiment, we see that plain packaging has completely failed to reduce smoking rates.”Tax rises not working
Australia is one of the most expensive countries in which to buy cigarettes, with retail prices set to reach nearly A$40 for a 30-piece pack after this year’s Budget, according to a Nova Network story quoting the federal Treasurer Scott Morrison.
September 1 is scheduled to see the imposition of the second of four planned, consecutive 12.5 percent tobacco excise increases.
The September increase will see the price of a 30-piece pack of cigarettes increase by about A$3. When the first of the increase was imposed last year, the price of a pack of 30 Winfield Blues rose from A$32.50 to A$35.20.
But it seems that high prices do little to convince smokers to quit.
According to the Nova Network story, Australia saw an 0.2 percent drop in smokers during a recent three-year period, which saw also cigarettes being sold in standardized packs.
Meanwhile, a Channel 7 News story had it that the number of people giving up smoking in Australia had slowed in recent years despite the country’s having the highest-priced cigarettes in the world.
England, the US, Canada, Norway and Iceland were said to be among a long list of western countries that were seeing their citizens kick the habit at a faster rate.
The Channel 7 story quoted Colin Mendelsohn, a tobacco treatment specialist and associate professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales, as saying that “high prices simply aren’t working anymore”.Graphic warnings fail
Cigarette-pack graphic-warnings showing grossly disfigured feet and rotting teeth are no longer shocking enough to prompt Australians to quit the habit, according to a story by David Chen for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, citing new research.
The results of the research indicated that it was time to devise novel ways of reaching out to people to explain the risks associated with smoking.
A James Cook University team surveyed 900 people, including non-smokers, smokers, pharmacists and students in the Queensland-state cities of Townsville, Rockhampton and Brisbane, seeking their views on current cigarette warning labels.
Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed thought the warnings were ineffective in getting current smokers to quit, while 27 percent thought the labels were effective in preventing non-smokers from taking up the habit.
Survey author Aaron Drovandi said the findings suggested health authorities needed to come up with new ways to encourage smokers to quit the habit.
“What we currently have in Australia, which is the set of rotating warnings, I think we need to increase the rate at which we do that, developing new warnings and rotating them,” he was quoted as saying.
“Also trying to think of novel ways of reaching out to people explaining the risk of smoking in ways they haven’t come across, that might try to trigger more of a response than the current packaging warnings which have had their effectiveness reduced over time.”
“A lot of people indicated that they care more about the money than their own health.”Local Heets to go on sale
Philip Morris Korea said on Wednesday that locally-produced tobacco sticks for its heated-tobacco devices would be on the shelves of South Korea’s stores ‘within the year’, according to a Yonhap News Agency story.
The company said Heets would be produced at its factory in Yangsan, 420 km southeast of Seoul. The factory would be the first facility in Asia to manufacture tobacco sticks for IQOS.
In December, PM Korea said it planned to invest US$420 million by 2019 to expand its local facilities and hire 700 new employees.
The story said that increasing numbers of South Korean smokers were switching to smoke-free products following the launch of IQOS on the domestic market in June 2017.
The share of Heets on the all-cigarettes market was reportedly 7.3 percent during the first quarter of the year, placing it within the top five tobacco brands in the country.
“I am pleased to see that our vision to replace cigarettes with science-based smoke-free products is becoming a reality in Korea at an unprecedented speed,” said Chong Il-woo, PM Korea’s MD, during a press conference in Seoul.
But all is not well. The company expressed concern after the government unveiled its plan to adopt pictorial health warnings for heated-tobacco products, starting at the end of the year.
“The proposed warnings are inappropriate and misleading; not only would they confuse current heated-tobacco product users, but they would also have a negative impact on those adult smokers considering switching to better alternatives,” said Nikolaus Ricketts, director of Reduced Risk Products.Impulsive behavior
One in eight people in South Korea buy cigarettes on impulse after seeing cigarette advertisements or cigarette packs on display at convenience stores, according to a story in The Korea Bizwire citing the results of a new study.
The study showed also that 1.9 percent of non-smokers purchased cigarettes on impulse.
The study, carried out by Professor Cho Seong-il and his team at Seoul National University, surveyed 1,047 young people and adults at five convenience stores in the Gangnam region of Seoul.
Of the respondents, 12.9 percent said they had bought cigarettes on impulse after seeing a cigarette advertisement at a convenience store or cigarette displays shelves.
The study showed also that the higher the number of visits by respondents to convenience stores, the higher the chance of them buying cigarettes impulsively.
People who visited convenience stores five times a week on average were found to be 12.4 times more likely to make impulsive purchases than those whose visits numbered just once or twice a week.
“The results that show a significant number of impulsive purchases of cigarettes signify that ads and product placement can affect purchasing patterns regardless of whether one is a smoker or not,” said Cho.
The story said that, in contrast to tobacco producers’ claims that advertisements and product placements simply provided information to consumers, the study had confirmed that advertisements and products actually facilitated the sales of cigarettes.Looking beyond TPD2
There is no evidence that, one year after its full implementation in EU member states, the revised Tobacco Products Directive (TPD2) has reduced smoking rates, according to the smokers’ campaign group Forest EU.
TPD2 measures were said to have included an immediate ban on packs containing fewer than 20 cigarettes, a ban on flavored cigarettes (except menthol, which will be banned in 2020) and severe restrictions on the ability of smokers to access e-cigarettes.
TPD2 also increased the size of health warnings to 65 per cent of the front and back of every pack of cigarettes, with additional warnings on the top of the pack.
“The regulations are excessive, even by the European Commission’s standards,” said
Guillaume Périgois, director of Forest EU. “Smokers are being treated as second class citizens in a disgraceful attempt to denormalize both the product and their habit.
“Larger pictorial warnings are problematic since the Commission itself is now on record having called into question the proportionality of larger health warnings in delivering public health gains. If they are clearly visible, smaller warnings are just as effective as larger warnings in the eyes of the consumer.”
Calling for the Commission to explore alternative models of achieving public health gains that didn’t ostracize smokers, Périgois said the Commission needed to look at new approaches, for instance supporting member states in the provision of education programs or in providing a proper framework in which smokers could explore the growing vaping sector.
