Tag: tobacco

  • $2.87 per pack tax possible in Calif.

    California lawmakers chose not to make smokers pay more for health insurance,  but they may be more willing to make smokers pay more for cigarettes.

    A new bill proposing to raise the tax on tobacco by $2 per pack of cigarettes  cleared its first two committee votes last week in predictably partisan votes. SB 768, by Sen. Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), would raise  the price of cigarettes to more than $8 a pack and generate about $1.4 billion a  year. De León proposes the money be used to offset costs of medical care for  tobacco-related diseases, anti-tobacco education and smoking-cessation  programs.

    The Senate Governance and Finance Committee approved the bill in a 5-2 vote  and the Senate Committee on Health approved it 6-2. All “yes” votes were  Democrats. All “no” votes were Republican.

    “Taxpayers pay $3.1 billion a year to subsidize this industry,” de León told  the health committee, citing an estimate for California’s annual medical costs  for tobacco-related diseases and health problems.

    “On a fiscal level, the price is much too high, and taxpayers have been  footing the bill for much too long,” de León said.

    California, which hasn’t increased taxes on tobacco since 1998, now charges  $0.87 cents on each pack of cigarettes and ranks 33rd in the country in tobacco  taxation. De Leon’s bill would move the state into fourth place.

  • Sticky story: 3rd-hand smoke gives guests gooey fingers

    Anyone who has ever walked into a “non-smoking” hotel room and caught the distinct odor of cigarette smoke will not be surprised by the findings of a new study: When a hotel allows smoking in any of its rooms, the smoke gets into all of its rooms, the study suggests, according to a story in USA Today.

    Nicotine residues and other chemical traces “don’t stay in the smoking rooms,” says Georg Matt, a psychologist from San Diego State University who led the study, published Monday in the journal Tobacco Control. “They end up in the hallways and in other rooms, including non-smoking rooms.”

    The study found smoke residue on surfaces and in the air of both smoking and non-smoking rooms in 30 California hotels where smoking was allowed. Levels were highest in the smoking rooms, but levels in non-smoking rooms were much higher than those found at 10 smoke-free hotels.

    Volunteers who stayed overnight in the smoking hotels also ended up with sticky nicotine residues on their fingers, whether they stayed in smoking rooms or not. Urine tests found additional evidence of nicotine exposure in those who stayed in smoking rooms, but not those who stayed in the non-smoking rooms.

  • Canadian tobacco giants begin defense in $27 billion suit

    Three of Canada’s tobacco giants began their defense Monday against a $27-billion class-action lawsuit in Montreal by calling a witness who said the dangers of smoking are no secret.

    Historian and professor Jacques Lacoursière testified tobacco’s health risks have been common knowledge for decades. He pointed to over 700 references to the hazards of smoking dating back to the 1950s, including TV and radio reports, school manuals, government releases and health professionals.

    One of the many examples included a newspaper article that outlined a significant increase in lung cancer risk following the prolonged use of cigarettes. The proceedings will continue on Tuesday with the plaintiffs’ cross-examination of Lacoursière.

    “What these historians miss is all the coverage that came out in the media about how the industry was involved in a conspiracy to hide all that information,” said Damphousse François, the Quebec director of the Non-Smoker’s Rights Association.

    “They knew about the health effects of their products, but they didn’t meet the obligation to inform their public about what they knew.”

    The class-action lawsuit, which is being touted as the biggest civil case in Canadian history, was first filed years ago. The complainants, two groups of individuals representing a total of 1.8 million Quebecers, allege three tobacco companies did everything possible to encourage addiction:

    • Imperial Tobacco.
    • JTI-MacDonald.
    • Rothmans, Benson & Hedges.

    One group involves individuals who have become seriously ill from smoking, and members of the other group say they are unable to quit smoking.

  • Diggers reject mine sites smoking ban

    A call by the Cancer Council for smoking to be banned at all West Australian (WA) mines sites has been rejected, according to an Australian Associated Press report.

    The Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) has said that a ban would cause resentment.

    WA’s Department of Mines and Petroleum data show smoking rates in the mining sector are almost double the national average.

    The CME’s manager of occupational health and safety, Richard Wilson, was quoted as saying that public health campaigners needed to design strategies to improve the health of the whole population, not target specific industries.

    “Singling out one sector above others just causes resentment amongst people in that industry and fails to improve health outcomes across the population,” Wilson said.

  • Demand drives crop size increase

    The Tobacco Board of India has increased Karnataka’s authorized 2013–14 crop size by about four percent on that of 2012–13, according to a report in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.

    The crop size has been set at 102 million kg, up from 98 million kg in 2012–13 and 100 million kg in each of the previous two years.

    The increase is said to have been driven by international demand for the crop.

    Traders had sought a crop of 112 million kg and growers one of 105 million kg at a recent board meeting, the report said.

  • Reynolds agrees to more farm labor talks

    Reynolds American Inc. has agreed to resume discussions with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) about ways to address alleged farm-worker abuse, according to a story by Federico Martinez for The Blade (Toledo, Ohio).

    Reynolds was said to have agreed to resume the meetings after the farm-labor union and advocacy group staged a protest outside the tobacco company’s annual shareholders meeting in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.

    “It appears that there is some interest on their part,” said FLOC president Baldemar Velasquez, who added that he hadn’t heard from Reynolds’ officials since December. “Whether or not they are sincere about addressing the concerns is another issue.”

    Velasquez and other critics say they want Reynolds’ officials to address several issues, including the human trafficking of workers from Mexico and Central America, and the numerous human-rights abuses from which they say tobacco-industry laborers frequently suffer.

    FLOC’s primary mission was to persuade the tobacco company to support farm workers’ efforts to form a union, said Velasquez.

    Many tobacco farm workers lived in labor camps with inadequate or non-functioning toilets or showers and other substandard conditions. They also suffered from nicotine poisoning and exposure to dangerous pesticides, he added.

    Reynolds’ spokesman David Howard said the two sides hadn’t met since December but they had communicated by phone and email.

    “We’ve had a series of discussions since December,” Howard said. “They are ongoing and we will continue meeting and having dialogue.”

  • Turkey to toughen tobacco laws

    The Turkish government wants to toughen the country’s laws on smoking and alcohol consumption, according to a Trend news agency story quoting a Sabah newspaper report.

    The report said that a new bill would be put before parliament, though it did not indicate when that would happen.

    Under the bill, smoking, already banned in enclosed public places, would be forbidden in open public spaces.

    The bill would ban smoking by public transport drivers, presumably only while operating their vehicles.

    And it would increase the penalties for violating smoking bans.

  • Supreme Court denies cert in cig labeling case, FDA plans new rules

    The U.S. Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari filed by the tobacco companies challenging the advertising regulations promulgated pursuant to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Act.

    While the Court’s cert denial allows a previous 6th Circuit decision to stand, the contested rules may never be enforced. The Solicitor General declined to file a writ of certiorari in the D.C. Circuit case and in a letter from U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. noted that the FDA plans to engage in “new rulemaking consistent with the Tobacco Control Act.”

    Because the FDA has indicated that it plans to engage in new rulemaking, the tobacco companies have effectively avoided compliance with the stringent new rules.

    The tobacco companies made two separate challenges to the rules. In the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, and Liggett Group, among others, sought an injunction against the enforcement of the new requirements. The U.S. District Court agreed that the “mandatory graphic images unconstitutionally compel speech” and that the tobacco companies would “suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief pending a judicial review of the constitutionality of the FDA’s rules.” The FDA appealed, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.

    At the same time, another group of tobacco companies filed a facial First Amendment challenge to the rules in their entirety – and got an entirely different result. A federal court judge in Kentucky upheld the rules, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that “the Act’s warnings are reasonably related to the government’s interest in preventing consumer deception and are therefore constitutional.”

    The defendants then filed cert with the U.S. Supreme Court, which the justices denied in late April.

     

  • Smoking goes airside at Aberdeen airport

    The establishment of an airside smoking shelter at Aberdeen International Airport in Scotland is expected to help reduce the number of full terminal evacuations caused by people smoking in areas where smoking is banned, according to a story by The Scotsman.

    The shelter, which is adjacent to the main departure lounge, will provide passengers who have been processed through security and are waiting for their flights with somewhere to have a cigarette before takeoff.

    The smoking shelter was erected after more than 400 people who took part in a survey last year said they would like to see an airside facility installed at the airport.

    “It is designed to reduce the number of full terminal evacuations,” an airport spokeswoman was quoted as saying.

    Many such evacuations, which cost thousands of pounds, were caused by passengers lighting up in prohibited areas, activating smoke alarms and causing major disruption and delays, she said.

    “Interestingly, even 61 percent of non-smokers who took part in the survey said they supported an airside smoking shelter,” the spokeswoman added.

  • Ousted retailers could be compensated

    The Hungarian government is considering what it should do to compensate tobacco-product retailers who missed out when tobacco retail licenses were recently put out to tender, according to an All Hungary Media Group story (AHMG).

    Legislation passed in September last year provided for the establishment of a state monopoly of the retail sale of tobacco products from July 1, 2013. The process, overseen by the National Tobacco Trade Non-profit (NTTN) organization, has involved putting out for tender a limited number of tobacco retail concessions.

    Prime Minister Viktor Orban apparently told public radio Kossuth the government was working to ensure that people whose livelihoods depended on selling tobacco products, but who had failed in their bids for licenses, stayed in business.

    And ruling Fidesz party group leader Antal Rogan said he supported the idea of compensation.

    But asked whether plans were afoot to ban family members of local council officials from getting licenses, Rogan said such a move would create more problems than it would solve.

    Meanwhile, NTTN has refused a socialist MP’s request for access to documents containing bids submitted for the recent tenders.

    The company rejected Csaba Toth’s request to view the bids, arguing that even though NTTN was publicly owned, it was not a state agency and so it did not have to disclose such information.

    Toth said he would appeal to the National Development Ministry.

    Opposition parties have sharply criticized the government for the tobacco tender, alleging that Fidesz party members had influenced the process.

    Earlier this year, the NTTN was forced to announce a second tender in 1,417 communities from which no applications had been received during the initial tender.