Information on data storage and technical standards relating to the EU’s tobacco-products tracking and tracing system has been published in the Official Journal of the EU L 96, dated April 16.
The Journal includes:
1) The EU Commission’s Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/573 of December 15 2017 on key elements of data storage contracts to be concluded as part of a traceability system for tobacco products;
2) The Commission’s Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/574 of December 15 2017 on technical standards for the establishment and operation of a traceability system for tobacco products; and
3) The Commission’s Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/576 of December 15 2017 on technical standards for security features applied to tobacco products.
The Journal is at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2018:096:FULL&from=EN.
Category: Packaging
Keeping track
Black or white unattractive?
The government of Sri Lanka is planning to introduce a requirement that tobacco products are sold in standardized packaging, according to stories in The Daily News and The Times.
The Daily News reported that the Cabinet of Ministers had approved an amendment to the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol Act that would usher in packaging that, presumably with the exception of health warnings, would be in black and white.
The packs would bear only the name and quantity of the product, and information required by the government, such as health warnings.
Meanwhile, the Times story quoted Cabinet spokesman Dr, Rijitha Senaratne as saying that the standardized packaging would have to be in a single non-attractive color, such as white or black.Factory shut down
A cigarette-manufacturing factory in the Tbong Khmum province of Cambodia was ordered on Tuesday to cease production because it was not including health warnings on its packs, according to a story in The Khmer Times.
Interior Ministry representatives together with court and local officials, shut down production and seized more than 1,600 non-compliant packs.
Hak Siek Lim, a Tbong Khmum Provincial Court spokesman, said production would not be allowed to restart until the company operating the factory, CTK Co. Ltd, was able to fulfil its obligations.
Dr. Mom Kong, executive director of the Cambodia Movement for Health, which pushed for the health warnings on cigarette packs, said that compliance was better among companies that sold cigarettes domestically and overseas.
Companies that sold mostly on the domestic market were more reluctant to warn the public about the dangers of smoking.
According to a National Center for Health Promotion report published last year, there were 1.68 million cigarette smokers in Cambodia.
In June, Health Minister Mam Bunheng said tobacco use was an obstacle to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, since it harmed public health, the economy and the environment.
“The Health Ministry wants to introduce a ban on smoking at work and in public places, prohibit tobacco advertising, and stop sponsorship and promotions by tobacco manufacturers,” he said.
Bunheng added that Ministry officials wanted also to strengthen warnings and images printed on tobacco product packaging and expand public health campaigns discouraging smoking.Limit on warning obligation
A district court in Berlin, Germany, has ruled that cigarette-pack health warnings do not necessarily have to be visible when the packs are displayed in retail outlets, according to a story by Denis Bedoya for InfoSurHoy.com.
In making its ruling, the court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (the Federation of German Consumer Organizations) against a retailer.
It was alleged that the health warnings on cigarettes stacked on shelves were completely or partially obscured by mounts or stock cards.
The court emphasized that the EU directives on cigarette-pack warnings referred only to the cigarette packs themselves. And the same applied to the German law implementing the EU law.
There was no legal basis on which to control the presentation of the warnings in a retail environment.
It was noted, too, that it was, on a practical basis, hardly possible to show the warnings of all packs.Plain packaging attacked
The removal of brands from packaging is a ‘gross violation’ of intellectual property rights and has failed to achieve its intended goals, the Property Rights Alliance argues in a letter to the World Health Organization.
According to a story by Claire Stam for EURACTIV.com; in an open letter to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Gehbreyesus, an international alliance of 62 think tanks, advocacy groups and civil-society organisations said it was time to end ‘ineffective’ standardized packaging for any kind of product.
The alliance said they had sent the letter in response to a growing number of standardized-packaging tobacco-control measures in a number of countries.
‘Intellectual property rights are human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Article 17, the right to ownership, Article 19, the right to freedom of expression, and article 27, the right to protection of material interests,’ the letter reportedly said.
‘In this regard, even if plain packaging is effective, it should still be repealed, as rights are inalienable and should not be discarded for political purposes.’
Meanwhile, Stam said that, in the eyes of the WHO and public health NGOs, standardized packaging was a key tool to reduce the appeal of smoking, especially among young people.
The full story is at: https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/who-urged-to-end-ineffective-tobacco-plain-packaging/.New warnings published
The Philippines’ Department of Health yesterday published new graphic warnings that will be included on cigarette packs, according to a story on ABS-CBN.
There are 12 warnings, including one depicting a mouth cancer patient, an asthma-stricken boy and a stillborn baby.
The warnings indicate, too, that cigarette ingredients are used in embalming fluid and toilet cleaners.
Such warnings were made mandatory under a nearly four-year-old law signed by former president and smoker Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino.
Aquino’s successor, President Rodrigo Duterte, last year signed an executive order restricting smoking in public places, replicating a city ordinance he instituted as Davao mayor.
About 15.9 million Filipino adults smoke tobacco products, down from about 17.0 million in 2009, according to the 2015 Global Adult Tobacco Survey.Lock them up – healthily
Health advocates have reminded the Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) that it should ensure that new graphic health warnings were appearing on all tobacco packaging, according to a story The Manila Bulletin.
The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (Seatca) said that Republic Act 10643, or the Graphic Health Warning Law, required all tobacco companies to replace the warning templates that were brought in on March 3, 2016 for two years.
“There should be no excuse for tobacco companies not to comply with this,” said Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo, Seatca’s program director. “We call on the DOH to ensure that all tobacco products carry the new set of warnings and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to ensure that excise tax stamps are affixed only to tobacco products with the new warnings. Violators must be fined or prosecuted.”
Dorotheo claimed that “refreshing” health warnings and messages increased their effectiveness.
“It is important that health warnings and images are changed after a certain period to enhance and maintain the maximum impact over time,” he said.
Meanwhile, HealthJustice president Mary Ann Fernandez-Mendoza said the country was a party to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and so “ought to implement rotating graphic health warnings on all tobacco packaging and labeling”.
Retailers who are found selling non-compliant products are said to be liable to a fine of P10,000 to P100,000 and a one-year term of imprisonment.
Manufactures, importers, and distributors, who fail to display the graphic health warnings on their products will be liable to a fine of P500,000 to P2,000,000, and a five-year term of imprisonment.Considering plain packs
The Turkish government is considering introducing standardized packaging for tobacco products, according to a story in The Hurriyet Daily News quoting the Health Minister Ahmet Demircan.
Demircan did not elaborate but said that details of the planned measures would be unveiled in coming days.
“Cigarette packages should not be easily accessible and they should not make smoking appealing,” he said.
“Packages should not serve as advertisement materials. We have to take necessary measures to prevent this.”
More than 26 million people are said to have called the ‘172 helpline to quit smoking’ that was launched by the Health Ministry in 2010 and some 70 percent of those people stopped smoking, according to the minister.
But in November 2017 he said that while the proportion of tobacco users aged 15 and above had dropped to 26.8 percent in 2012, the rate had increased to 32.5 percent in 2014.
The latest proposed measures follow on from the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) long-standing anti-smoking crusade, which began with a smoking ban in enclosed public places in 2009.
“You don’t have freedom to commit suicide, so you don’t have freedom to expose yourselves to terminal diseases …,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is known for his strong anti-smoking views, said in 2016.
“There can be no such freedom as the freedom to smoke … The state must protect its citizens against tobacco, alcohol and drugs, just as it is obliged to protect them against crimes like theft and terrorism.”Tracking an export ban
A German member of the EU parliament has asked the Commission what measures it is taking to prevent its track-and-trace system creating a de facto ban on the export of tobacco products from EU countries to certain other countries.
In a preamble to three questions, Werner Langen said that on December 15, 2017, the Commission had adopted an implementing act introducing an EU-wide track-and-trace system for tobacco products.
The system was intended to cover also products manufactured for markets outside the EU, he said, before asking:
1) ‘Is the inclusion of goods for export within the scope of the track-and-trace system compatible with EU legislation, and how does the Commission therefore view the fact that, in principle, it lacks the power to regulate product specifications for markets outside the European internal market?
2) How does the Commission intend to get around the resulting de facto export ban in third countries such as Australia that, owing to strict packaging and labelling regulations, will not allow track-and-trace coding?
3) ‘What specific measures will the Commission take to prevent this de facto ban?’Graphic pack proposal
All tobacco-product packs sold in Singapore might soon have to carry graphic health warnings enlarged to cover 75 percent of the packaging, according to a Today story.
Currently, graphic health warnings cover 50 percent of the packaging.
In a press statement issued yesterday, the Ministry of Health said it would be conducting a public consultation on its Standardized Packaging Proposal from February 5 to March 16.
In its statement, the ministry said Singapore’s smoking rate had fallen from 23 percent to 19 percent between 1977 and 1984, and then to 12.6 percent in 2004.
But it said the rate of decline had slowed in recent years.
‘The smoking rates have been fluctuating between 12 percent and 14 percent in the last 10 years, with no clear pattern of continuous decline,” said the ministry.
‘A particular concern is the fact that there remains a sizable proportion of men (more than 1 in 5) who smoke daily.’
The ministry said that it is the government’s preliminary assessment that the implementation of the Standardized Packaging Proposal would, with other existing and future tobacco control measures, ‘constitute a significant step towards Singapore becoming a tobacco-free society’.
Members of the public may contribute their views and feedback on the Standardized Packaging Proposal by email at tobacco_control@moh.gov.sg or by post.
The public consultation paper can be found on REACH at www.reach.gov.sg and on ministry’s website at www.moh.gov.sg/proposed-tobacco-control-measures.
