The Finnish Medical Association says the import of snus should be banned in response to the proposal by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health working group on tobacco reduction, according to a report by the broadcaster YLE (Yleisradio Oy) relayed by the TMA.
In May, the working group that was tasked with reducing tobacco use in Finland proposed limiting daily imports from 1 kg to 100 grams.
“Selling snus is illegal in Finland. Therefore, it would be more logical to completely prohibit its import, instead of just reducing the allowed amount,” the FMA said.
However, the Finnish Shipowners’ Association argued that the proposed restrictions would decrease the revenues of ferries between Finland and Sweden, the only EU country where the sale of snus is legal, by €50 million annually.
Finland has a goal of phasing out all tobacco and nicotine products by 2030.
Other proposals to achieve this include increasing tobacco taxes and raising the limit of buying tobacco products from the current 18 years to 20 years.
Category: People
Half dead is quite unique
Mutual assured destruction
Air pollution is a public health emergency that is killing seven million people every year and seriously damaging the health of many more, according to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization writing in The Guardian on Saturday.
Tedros ended his piece by saying that the world had turned the corner on tobacco. Now it had to do the same for the ‘new tobacco’: the toxic air that billions breathed every day.
‘Despite this epidemic of needless, preventable deaths and disability, a smog of complacency pervades the planet,’ Tedros said. ‘This is a defining moment and we must scale up action to urgently respond to this challenge.
‘The bald truth is that bad air quality puts the health of billions at risk from the simple act of breathing. The World Health Organization estimates nine in 10 people globally breathe polluted, toxic air.
‘Filthy air is a health risk at every stage of life. Exposure to air pollution during pregnancy can damage a developing baby’s vital organs including the brain, heart and lungs and lead to a range of conditions including asthma, heart disease and cancers.
‘Air pollution also negatively affects brain development during childhood, lowering children’s chances of success in school and employment possibilities later in life.’
Tedros said that the WHO was due shortly [October 30-November 1] to host in Geneva, Switzerland, the first global conference on air pollution and health, where leaders would chart next steps for future action to cut air pollution in their countries.It's the smoker's burden
India’s Group of Ministers within the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council are being urged to increase the tax on tobacco products to help shore up the country’s disasters-remediation revenue, according to a story in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.
Public health groups, doctors and economists are said to be calling for the imposition of the additional tax on all tobacco products, including bidis, to address ‘the crisis and generate funds for the rehabilitation of the people of Kerala affected by recent floods’.
Currently, the tax on bidis is said to amount to 22 percent, while that on cigarettes is 53 percent and that on smokeless tobacco is 60 percent.
The World Health Organization recommends that tobacco-product excise taxes should be at least 75 percent.
Meanwhile, a panel of state finance ministers set up to consider a disaster tax within the GST to help states hit by natural calamities has decided to seek the response of all states on the matter.
It is probably as well that India is looking into raising funds for mitigating the effects of disasters natural or otherwise. The World Health Organization says that the country has nine of the world’s 10 most-polluted cities, as calculated on PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) levels in the air.Little profit in growing
Zimbabwe is forfeiting at least US$27 on every kg of unmanufactured tobacco that it exports, according to a story in The New Zimbabwe quoting the Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube.
Speaking at an investment conference in Switzerland last week, Ncube said that Zimbabwe was one of the biggest producers of leaf tobacco and that the bulk of what it produced was exported in unmanufactured form.
Zimbabwe’s more-than 100,000 growers had produced a record flue-cured crop this year of 252.5 million kg.
But the average price had gone down.
And the average price of about US$3 per kg for unprocessed grower tobacco and US$6 per kg for processed tobacco, compared with between US$30 and US$60 for tobacco cigarettes, Ncube said.
Therefore, by exporting unprocessed tobacco Zimbabwe was forfeiting at least US$27 per kg that could be accruing to the country.
The story said that Zimbabwe was looking for foreign direct investment to boost its economy so that it could become a middle-income country by 2030.Vaping under further threat
South Australia is taking anti-vaping policy to a new level, according to a note posted on the website of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association.
The Tobacco Products Regulation (E-cigarettes and Review) Amendment Bill 2018 currently passing through parliament (the bill has been passed by the lower and upper houses and is back in the lower house for a final vote next month) is set to be the harshest in Australia.
Under the proposed law, which would ban in-store vaping and taste-testing, South Australia would become the first jurisdiction in Australia to ban the sale of vaping products online, by mail, phone, email or fax.
The Association points out that the proposed laws protect the tobacco industry from competition and make it even harder for smokers to transition to vaping, a much less harmful alternative.
‘Smokers in South Australia are already struggling to quit,’ the note says. ‘Smoking rates have not changed since 2012 when 16.7 percent of SA adults smoked, according to the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. ‘In fact, adult smoking rates increased … from 14.9 percent to 16.5 percent from 2016 to 2017.’
Given these figures, the Parliament might be expected to be doing everything it could to help smokers quit.
‘Instead, SA is attempting to destroy the vaping industry and make it harder for smokers to access safer products,’ the note said.
‘Two thirds of industry sales within South Australia are online according to Australia’s vape advocacy peak body, Australian Vaping Advocacy, Trade and Research (AVATAR). More than half of all vendors based in South Australia do not operate a physical retail store and rely entirely on online sales.
‘It is hard to see how this could have any possible benefit for public health.’Figuring the 'epidemic'
In a piece published at reason.com, Jacob Sullum makes the point that it is impossible for the public to evaluate the ‘epidemic’ of vaping among young people in the US because the relevant figures have not been made available.
Sullum, who is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist, said that when the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, threatened last month to crack down on vaping products in response to ‘an epidemic of e-cigarette use among teenagers,’ he alluded to ‘preliminary data’ showing that ‘youth use of e-cigs is rising very sharply’.
‘Although we still have not seen those numbers, that has not stopped Gottlieb from making policy decisions based on them, including changes that could limit the appeal and availability of products he concedes have enormous potential to reduce the harm caused by smoking,’ Sullum said.
Later in his piece, Sullum said that it was hard to be sanguine about Gottlieb’s use of this secret information after watching a CNBC interview, which he describes in his piece. In that interview, Gottlieb had talked about banning online sales of e-cigarettes, for example, even though online vendors such as Juul used age verification systems and the vast majority of illegal sales to minors occurred in brick-and-mortar stores, as Gottlieb conceded.
“We recognize [e-cigarettes] as a viable alternative for adult smokers who want to get access to satisfying levels of nicotine without all the harmful effects of combustion,” Gottlieb was quoted as saying. “If we could switch every adult smoker to an e-cigarette, it would have a profound public health impact.”
Yet, Sullum said, Gottlieb was ready to discourage that switch by making e-cigarettes less appealing (by restricting flavors, for example) and harder to get (by banning sales outside of adults-only vape shops, another idea he floated), all based on an ‘epidemic’ that was impossible to evaluate without the data he was not letting most people see.Leaf price increased
The grower price for leaf tobacco produced during Japan’s 2019 harvest has been set at an average of ¥1,912.32 per kg for all leaf types, an increase of 1.33 percent on the 2018 price of ¥1,887.14 per kg, which was 0.51 percent up on the 2017 price of ¥1,877.57 per kg.
But the 2019 price has been set 0.40 percent lower than it was in 2015. The 2017 price was the same as that for 2016 tobacco, but the 2016 price was down by 2.2 percent on that of 2015, ¥1,920.10 per kg, which was up 0.71 percent on that of the 2014, ¥1,906.47 per kg. The 2014 price was the same as that of 2013 but up by 0.84 percent on that of 2012.
Japan Tobacco Inc. said yesterday that the Leaf Tobacco Deliberative Council (LTDC), chaired by Yoshio Kobayashi, had released its annual determinations for the domestic leaf-tobacco cultivation area and grower prices for 2019 in response to a proposal submitted by JT earlier in the day.
The Council was said to have been in general agreement with JT’s proposal, and determined that, in 2019, the domestic tobacco cultivation area should be set at 6,886 ha, a decrease of 4.8 percent compared to the contracted area of the previous year, which included inactive areas in Fukushima.
The domestic tobacco-cultivation area for 2018 was set at 7,436 ha, a decrease of 4.7 percent compared to the contracted area of the previous year.
The council went along too with JT’s price recommendation of ¥1,912.32 per kg for all leaf types.
The LTDC was described as a council that confers on important matters concerning the cultivation and purchase of domestically-grown leaf tobacco in response to inquiries by JT. It comprises no more than 11 members, appointed by JT with the approval of the Minister of Finance from among representatives of domestic leaf tobacco growers and academics.Jordan has growing ideas
Jordan is considering lifting its ban on the commercial cultivation of tobacco, according to a Roya News story citing an Al Ghad report and relayed by the TMA.
Tobacco cultivation has been banned in Jordan for the past 10 years, except in the case of small quantities for personal use.
Quoting an unnamed source at the Ministry of Health, Al Ghad, reported that the Government was considering allowing leaf cultivation for commercial purposes.
The Government had formed a committee, comprising representatives of the ministries of health, agriculture and trade-and-industry, and other organizations, to study the feasibility of such a move.Quitting through willpower
About 42 percent of Irish smokers who quit during the past year did so through willpower alone, while 41 percent used electronic cigarettes, according to a story by Catherine Shanahan, health correspondent of the Irish Examiner, quoting a new report.
The report was based on the Healthy Ireland Survey 2018, which was published yesterday and which involved interviews with 7,701 people aged 15 and older.
One of the main findings of the report was that where people live can have a significant bearing on their health, with those in deprived areas more likely to engage in risky behaviours such as binge drinking and smoking.
The report shows that one-third of people living in deprived areas have a long-standing illness compared to under a quarter of people living in affluent areas.
Women living in deprived areas are more likely than those in affluent areas to continue smoking and binge drinking (six or more standard drinks) into their 50s, while men aged 55-64 living in deprived areas are 2.5 times more likely to smoke than their peers in affluent areas.
Across both genders, the report found:- The incidence of smoking in deprived areas is 10 percentage points higher (26 percent v 16 percent) than it is in affluent areas.
- The incidence of binge drinking in deprived areas is five percentage points higher (31 percent v 26 percent) than it is in affluent areas.
- Those in deprived areas are less likely to visit a dentist but make more visits to their GP than those in affluent areas.
In more general terms, the report found that men had a more ‘lax attitude’ toward their health than women did, with higher levels of binge drinking and smoking among men, higher consumption of sugary drinks and less likelihood of getting the flu vaccine.
The survey showed some success in cutting the incidence of smoking, which went from 23 percent in 2015 to 20 percent in 2018.
Meanwhile, 23 percent of smokers say health warnings on tobacco packs have made them ‘at least somewhat more likely to quit smoking’.Early plantings down
Zimbabwe’s farmers have so far put about 7,000 ha under flue-cured tobacco, a figure that is almost 50 percent lower than that recorded by the same time last year, according to a story in The Herald.
The latest weekly statistics from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board show that farmers have put 6,572 ha under the crop so far this season, which compares with 11,945 ha during the same period of the previous season.
The president of the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union, Wonder Chabikwa, said the decline in tobacco hectarage was due to farmers being wary of the climatic conditions this season, with rainfall forecasts pointing to an El Nino effect.
“Tobacco hectarage this year is lower than that of last year due to farmers being cautious about the quality of the rainy season,” he said.
“They may decide to increase the hectarage after the first rains.”
