Category: People

Further support for e-cigs
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has welcomed a report by the British Psychological Society (BPS) that yesterday urged wider promotion of electronic cigarettes as a method of stopping smoking.
“We welcome this report setting out the role e-cigarettes can play in reducing the harm from smoking,” said Hazel Cheeseman, ASH’s director of policy, in a statement posted on the organization’s website.
“Many smokers have found e-cigarettes helpful in quitting but confusion persists among some about the relative safety of vaping compared to smoking. 2.9 million adults in England currently use electronic cigarettes, over half have already quit smoking and many of the rest are actively seeking to do so.
“Evidence shows that the most effective way to quit smoking is through a combination of professional face-to-face-support and stop-smoking aids.
“What health professionals tell smokers about e-cigarettes is important to ensure that smokers have an accurate view of what switching to vaping might mean.
“It is hoped that if smokers are better informed this will help more to successfully quit tobacco for good.”
October 11, 2017
Tobacco losing out in India
Some farmers in India are exploring the possibility of moving from tobacco to alternative crops, according to a story in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.
Farmers in the traditional tobacco-growing areas of the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh are said to be exploring the possibility of switching from tobacco to crops such as Bengal gram.
Mechanization has made growing Bengal gram relatively easy and farmers are being attracted to this crop by what are described as ‘attractive’ prices.
The situation is such that the Indian Tobacco Association (ITA) is expecting a decline in tobacco yields in the district.
Meanwhile, the Tobacco Board of India and bankers are planning to assist tobacco growers with ‘farmer-friendly’ initiatives. The board has increased the crop size by two million kg to 86 million kg in the regions under the Southern Black Soil (SBS) and Southern Light Soil (SLS) auction platforms, and the leading bank in the district has increased the amount of loan assistance on offer from Rs350,000 per barn to Rs400,000 per barn.
However, the ITA believes that the combined crop in the SBS and SLS regions could be 70-75 million kg against the authorized crop size of 86 million kg.
October 10, 2017
Call for lower excise taxes
The New Zealand member of parliament and ACT party leader David Seymour has called for tobacco-product excise taxes to be lowered, according to a story by Sam Carran for Newstalk ZB.
Seymour says that the doubling of such taxes during the past five years has led to an increase in crimes against retailers.
Nearly 500 such robberies committed during the past year were said to have been related to tobacco.
“People who are doing these robberies are the scum of the earth and they should all be hung, drawn and quartered or whatever the maximum is allowed under the Crimes Act as it stands,” Seymour added.
October 10, 2017
Tobacco losing its allure
In the face of declining revenues, most of Malawi’s tobacco growers are ‘slowly abandoning’ the crop in favor of others, such as soya beans, sorghum, and groundnuts’, according to a story in The Nyasa Times.
The switch out of tobacco was described as a survival mechanism.
Malawi has for decades relied on its annual tobacco income to run its economy, and the government is said still to be ‘glued’ to it. Officials have indicated several times that Malawi will continue to grow the crop.
This is even though figures from the Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) show that tobacco revenue has, since 2010, declined by a third in dollar terms from $410 million to $275 million this year.
And this is even though most prominent tobacco growers, including members of the Tobacco Association of Malawi (TAMA), are now said to be backing off from the crop.
In a Times interview, TAMA CEO Mathews Zulu confirmed that a number of TAMA members were backing off from the crop in the face of declining tobacco-grower revenues during the past five years.
Zulu said even TAMA had a diversification plan that was looking at ensuring its own survival in response to demands from its members to grow other crops.
He said that so far three out of the 49 co-operatives under TAMA had signed contracts with Chibuku Products Limited to start growing sorghum beginning this year.
“Apart from sorghum, we are also looking into crops such as soy beans, sunflower, groundnuts and other commercial crops that tobacco farmers who are our members are now growing,” he said. “In this new strategy, we want to go towards contract marketing so that farmers should be producing for the market and not producing before they identify the market.”
One of the major tobacco buyers in the country, Alliance One Tobacco Company, was said to have announced recently that it was diversifying its operation by growing legumes in Dowa, one of the districts that is traditionally known for growing tobacco.
Alliance MD Hugh Saunders said the diversification initiative was a response to the pressure that was threatening the future of tobacco, especially Burley.
An economics professor at the University of Malawi’s constituent Chancellor College Ben Kaluwa said the move by TAMA was a wake-up call to the government and other tobacco stakeholders.
“Over the past years, tobacco has not been performing well in terms of revenue, and coupled with the global anti-smoking lobby, the future does not look good,” he said.
October 5, 2017
UK workers ‘furious’
Gallaher’s UK tobacco workers are ‘furious’ over its parent company’s plans to close its final salary defined benefit scheme to future accrual, according to a story by Natalie Tuck for the UK’s Pensions Age Magazine.
According to the union Unite, Japan Tobacco International plans to close the UK scheme at the end of December and move workers into a defined contribution scheme.
Unite has accused JTI of ‘blatant opportunism’ over the scheme’s closure, which follows the relocation of the company’s manufacturing operation in Northern Ireland to Poland with the loss of 800 jobs.
The union said that there was still a 700-strong workforce in the UK of which 177 were in the final pension scheme.
Unite has members at the company’s UK headquarters in Weybridge, Surrey, and at a distribution centre in Crewe.
Unite is due to meet UK bosses at Weybridge on October 12, when it will be asking for a boost to the pensions of the employees.
It pointed out that JTI had profits of £4 billion in 2016 and paid out £1.6 billion to shareholders.
“JTI can confirm that Gallaher Limited is, regrettably, proposing to close its defined benefit pension schemes to future accrual as of 31st December 2017,” a JTI spokesperson was quoted as saying.
“The company has entered into a period of consultation with trade union and other employee representatives about the proposals, which remain subject to such consultation.
“The company does not intend to make any further comment on this matter whilst the consultation process is ongoing.”
October 5, 2017
Singapore issues tickets
About 19,000 tickets were issued in Singapore last year to people caught smoking tobacco in prohibited areas, according to a Channel NewsAsia story quoting a statement yesterday by the Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources Dr. Amy Khor.
Of the total number of tickets issued, more than 2,600 were handed to people smoking in food establishments.
Replying to a parliamentary question posed by the MP Denise Phua, Khor said her ministry’s long-term goal was to prohibit smoking in all public places, except in designated areas.
“This is to protect non-smokers from the harmful health effects of second-hand tobacco smoke,” she said.
But she pointed out that because smoking was prohibited at more than 32,000 places, it was not possible for the National Environment Agency (NEA) to watch over every location, or to respond immediately to every report of smoking in prohibited places before the smokers had finished their cigarettes.
Therefore, operators and managers of smoke-free premises had a legal duty to stop patrons from smoking, or request patrons to leave if they refused to stop smoking, she said.
“In cases where they do not stop smoking or leave the premises, the operator or manager of the premises can seek assistance from NEA,” she said, before adding that the NEA had taken out 400 enforcement actions against operators and managers of premises who “had not fulfilled their duty under the law”.
She urged all smokers to be considerate when in public places by smoking only in permitted areas.
October 4, 2017
Taiwan to stop growing
About 84 percent of Taiwan’s tobacco farmers have stopped growing the crop, according to a story in The Taipei Times quoting the Council of Agriculture.
The Council said that farmers could apply for subsidies until the end of the year, when the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (TTLC) is due to stop buying domestic tobacco.
Prior to 2002, when Taiwan became a member of the World Trade Organization, tobacco and alcohol sales were government-controlled, but the system was abolished with the formation of the TTLC.
Since its formation, the TTLC’s tobacco purchases had gradually shifted overseas, which had greatly affected domestic tobacco farming, said Agriculture and Food Agency Secretary-General Weng Chen-hsin.
In 2013, the council started to help tobacco farmers transition to other crops, but with limited success, he said.
Then, in February, the council started paying farmers who stopped growing tobacco NT$600,000 per ha. Those who accepted the payment agreed not to grow or sell tobacco; or to return the money if they did.
Under the scheme, farmers willing to grow other produce can be provided with subsidies on seeds, equipment and fertilizers, the council said.
Of the 1,530 registered tobacco farmers, 1,250 have applied for the one-off payment, while 49 have applied to grow other crops, Weng said.
The council has so far paid for about 524 ha to be taken out of tobacco.
According to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act, one percent of the nation’s cigarette tax revenue is used to subsidize tobacco farmers.
October 4, 2017
PMI chief says goals aligned
The CEO of Philip Morris International, André Calantzopoulos, has told a grouping of health organizations that his company’s core strategy is not at odds with their demand that it stops selling cigarettes.
In an open letter posted on the PMI website, Calantzopoulos said that he had recently received an open from 122 health organizations in which they had called on PMI to stop selling cigarettes; and to do so immediately.
‘In essence, the letter says that anything less than shutting down PMI’s cigarette business is “irresponsible” and “monstrous”,’ Calantzopoulos wrote.
‘In the interest of open discussion, I’ll take the letter’s demand at face value and assume that I could simply order PMI to stop its cigarette sales. What would that accomplish from the perspective of public health? Would smoking prevalence change?
‘Globally, PMI has a market share of approximately 15 percent, which represents about 150 million men and women who smoke our cigarette brands. If those brands are suddenly unavailable, our competitors – both the lawful and the illicit ones – would quickly step in to meet demand. The supply would change, and there would be short-term turmoil on the market, but people would still smoke.
‘In short, there is no benefit to society for us to stop selling cigarettes from one day to the next. Nonetheless, and perhaps surprisingly, our core strategy is not at odds with the demands of your letter. Indeed, our paramount business strategy is to replace cigarettes with less-harmful, smoke-free alternatives. That’s what we call a smoke-free future, and it could mean that PMI will one day, ideally sooner rather than later, no longer be in the cigarette business.’
The full text of the health organizations’ letter and the current list of signatories is at: https://www.unfairtobacco.org/en/open-letter-quitpmi/.
The full text of Calantzopoulos’ letter is at: https://www.pmi.com/media-center/news/details/Index/open-letter-from-pmi.
October 3, 2017
Children miss out
The US Congress failed to extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by the October 1 deadline, a program that is supported by tobacco taxes, according to a halfwheel.com story relayed by the TMA.
CHIP is a Federal program that was expanded in 2009 with funding coming from federal excise tax increases on tobacco products.
The tax increases remain in effect.
The 2009 expansion levied a federal excise tax of 52.75 percent on cigars, capped at 40.26 cents per piece, on every cigar imported to the US, and increased the federal tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1 per pack.
“Tax itself is statute,” said Daniel Trope, director of federal government affairs for the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers Association.
“If anything, (the money will) just go to general treasury but the tax remains in perpetuity.”
October 3, 2017
Duty-rise welcomed
The Zambia Association of Manufacturers (ZAM) has welcomed a rise in duties on unmanufactured tobacco and tobacco refuse, according to a story in the Zambia Daily Mail.
The association says that the increase, from 15 percent to 25 percent, will encourage value addition to the commodity and support farmers.
ZAM’s CEO Chipego Zulu commended the government for encouraging the processing of tobacco locally as a move that would benefit tobacco farmers.
She said the move would encourage also the production of cigarettes and boost the manufacturing industry.
October 2, 2017