The EU has been urged to do more to prevent children and young people from taking up smoking.

Parliament’s tobacco products directive rapporteur Linda McAvan told theparliament.com, “The biggest worry for me is that more young people smoke than adults in the European Union.

“We have to do something to tackle the recruitment of children and young people into smoking.”

The British MEP, who is a member of parliament’s environment, public health and food safety committee, said that 28 per cent of European citizens’ smoke. According to the European commission, the figure for 15 to 24-year-olds is slightly higher, at 29 per cent.

Tobacco packaging is considered to be a crucial aspect of the directive because it is about how the industry sells its products, she said.

With some cigarette packages designed to resemble perfumes and others advertising chocolate flavoured tobacco products, McAvan said, “We know from the tobacco companies themselves that they are designed to attract young women.

“But we know its children and young girls who buy these, so we think this kind of packaging should go.”

McAvan wants to see picture warnings on the packaging of tobacco products, with images of the health effects of smoking clearly visible.

“We want packaging with big photographs, big warnings because that puts people off smoking,” she said.

She added, “The tobacco industry says it has no impact, but then why have they employed some 70 new lobbyists to lobby the European parliament?”

On the issue of e-cigarettes, McAvan said, “We’ve taken a lot of evidence about e-cigarettes and the evidence I’ve seen tells me that for people that smoke e-cigarettes can help in terms of harm reduction.

“So I don’t want to see e-cigarettes disappear from the market, I want them to be available for smokers. What I don’t want though, is to see young people start using e-cigarettes who have never smoked.”

The Socialist MEP said that schools in the UK have had to ban e-cigarettes to prevent children from bringing them in.

“We have no laws, we have no regulation of e-cigarettes, so what I want is a regulatory framework,” she said.

“I do think we need some regulation about the quality of e-cigarettes, about manufacturing processes to make sure they’re safe because they mainly come from China, and even the companies themselves know that there are problems with the way they’re manufactured.

“We need to make sure they’re available widely on the market so that they can compete with cigarettes.

“That’s why medicines regulation wouldn’t work in many countries, because in many countries you can only buy medicines at a pharmacy, you can’t buy them when you’re out on a Friday night.

“So that’s why I proposed a system of regulation which doesn’t go as far as making them medicines but nevertheless will stop them becoming gateway products for young people.”

The tobacco directive includes proposals for a pre-authorisation process for all new tobacco products on the EU market.

In explaining how this would be managed, McAvan said, “In the US they do have a pre-authorisation system for all new tobacco products, which is managed by the food and drug administration (FDA).

“We don’t have an FDA, but each country does have national regulators who regulate health products.

“It seems a little bit strange to me that we would allow tobacco companies to place new products on the market, and then we try to catch up and find out what was in them after.

“Tobacco products are harmful, they kill people and in my view governments should be able to see what the tobacco companies are putting on the market before they do it, and regulate them accordingly.”

McAvan also said the world health organisation’s framework convention on tobacco control was “really, really important”.

“It’s one of the first public health international laws and every single European country is signed up to it, plus the EU as a whole,” she added.

“We’ve got legal obligations to implement that law and that law asks us to bring in picture warnings on cigarettes, it asks us to tackle young people and smoking.

“So this is what this new law is doing, it’s helping us implement a legally binding law that we’ve all signed up to freely.”

Defence’s witness argues dangers of smoking have been common knowledge for decades.

 

Three of Canada’s tobacco giants began their defence 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.”

Landmark class-action lawsuit

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.

They also allege the companies failed to properly warn their customers about the dangers of smoking, underestimated evidence relating to the harmful effects of tobacco, engaged in unscrupulous marketing and destroyed documents.

The class-action lawsuit, which is being touted as the biggest civil case in Canadian history, was first filed years ago.

Lawyers for the tobacco companies attempted to have the entire civil suit thrown out, but the judge rejected the dismissal.

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No one under 21 would be able to buy cigarettes in New York City, under a new proposal announced Monday that marks the latest in a decade of moves to crack down on smoking in the nation’s largest city.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn discussed details of a proposed law that would raise the minimum age for tobacco purchases from 18 to 21. City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, some of Quinn’s fellow City Council members and health advocates were to join her.

Under federal law, no one under 18 can buy tobacco anywhere in the country, but some states and localities have raised it to 19. Texas lawmakers recently tried to increase the minimum age to 21, but the plan stalled.

Public health advocates say a higher minimum age discourages, or at least delays, young people from starting smoking and thereby limits their health risks. But opponents of such measures have said 18-year-olds, legally considered adults, should be able to make their own decisions about whether or not to smoke.

Some communities, including Needham, Mass., have raised the minimum age to 21, but New York would be the biggest city to do so.

“With this legislation, we’ll be targeting the age group at which the overwhelming majority of smokers start,” Quinn said.

Officials say 80 percent of NYC smokers started before age 21, and an estimated 20,000 New York City public high school students now smoke. While it’s already illegal for many of them to buy cigarettes, officials say this measure would play a key role by making it illegal for them to turn to slightly older friends to buy smokes for them. The vast majority of people who get asked to do that favor are between 18 and 21 themselves, city officials say.

“We know that enforcement is never going to be perfect,” but this measure should make it “much harder” for teens to get cigarettes, Farley said.

The Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group Inc., parent company of Philip Morris USA, which makes the top-selling Marlboro brand, had no immediate comment, said spokesman David Sutton. He previously noted that the company supported federal legislation that in 2009 gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products, which includes various retail restrictions.

Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the health commissioners he has appointed, including Farley, New York has rolled out a slate of anti-smoking initiatives.

Bloomberg, a billionaire who has given $600 million of his own money to anti-smoking efforts around the world, began taking on tobacco use in the city shortly after he became mayor in 2002.

Over his years in office, the city — at times with the council’s involvement — helped impose the highest cigarette taxes in the country, barred smoking at parks and on beaches and conducted sometimes graphic advertising campaigns about the hazards of smoking.

Last month, the Bloomberg administration unveiled a proposal to keep cigarettes out of sight in stores until an adult customer asks for a pack, as well as stopping shops from taking cigarette coupons and honoring discounts.

Bloomberg’s administration and public health advocates praise the initiatives as bold moves to help people live better. Adult smoking rates in the city have fallen from 21.5 percent in 2002 to 14.8 percent in 2011, Farley has said.

But the measures also have drawn complaints, at least initially, that they are nannyish and bad for business.

Several of New York City’s smoking regulations have survived court challenges. But a federal appeals court said last year that the city couldn’t force tobacco retailers to display gruesome images of diseased lungs and decaying teeth.

Quinn, a leading Democratic candidate to succeed Bloomberg next year, has often been perceived as an ally of his.

Bloomberg also has pushed a number of other pioneering public-health measures, such as compelling chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus, banning artificial trans fats in restaurants, and attempting to limit the size of sugary drinks. A court struck down the big-beverage rule last month, but the city is appealing and Bloomberg has urged voluntary compliance in the meantime.

While Bloomberg has led the way on many anti-smoking initiatives, this one arose from the City Council, Farley said. City Councilman James Gennaro, who lost his mother to lung cancer after she smoked for decades, has been a particularly strong advocate.

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A senior official in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today (April 22) said that the department is playing a larger role than ever before in the development of U.S. trade policy, including on sensitive issues in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations like a draft proposal for a tobacco-specific “safe harbor” and the U.S. stance on issues related to intellectual property protections for pharmaceuticals.

In an interview with /Inside U.S. Trade/, HHS Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs Nils Daulaire said that, historically, the department’s role in formulating trade policy has been more marginal. “HHS’ seat at the table in the trade discussions has largely been occupied by the Food and Drug Administration, because the focus really has been on what does this mean for our regulatory regime when we have food and drugs imported into the U.S.,” he said.

But Daulaire, who joined HHS in 2010, said he did not believe that this type of engagement on a “technical level” was sufficient, especially because trade issues often intersect with health concerns. For that reason, he said he has put more emphasis on substantive engagement “upstream,” meaning while initial trade policies are still in the early phases of being formulated within the Obama administration.

“I came to the conclusion that unless we took a proactive role, and an upstream role, in discussions on trade issues with the USTR, we were going to be left in a position … of either signing off on things or raising technical concerns,” he said. Daulaire said that in the past, HHS had waited to be “the last on the clearance list” in the interagency process, and made clear in the interview that he wanted HHS to play a much larger role on health-related trade issues.

Daulaire heads up the department’s Office of Global Affairs, which is part of the Office of the Secretary. His office is focused on global health policy and has a broader perspective than the FDA, which is also part of HHS.

In the interview, Daulaire acknowledged that the department does not have as much influence when it comes to trade-related matters as other parts of the administration for which trade is the central focus, such as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative or the Commerce Department.

“We are the new kids on the block,” he said. “I don’t think there is any question that we are starting from a fairly low base and having to demonstrate both our value and our thoughtfulness in the process.” At this point, “I would in no way consider us to be full equal players, but we are clearly actors in this dialogue,” and that in and of itself is an important development, Daulaire said.

He made a similar point when participating in an April 5 panel on global health issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “We don’t make the final decisions as to what USTR does; that is for the White House to decide,” he said at that event. “But we want to make sure, and I think it is really for the very first time, that this [health] perspective has been strongly introduced, and our secretary is deeply committed to this.”

At that event, Daulaire also highlighted tobacco and issues related to pharmaceuticals as two issues on which HHS plays a role when helping to develop U.S. trade policy.

*On tobacco, HHS has played a role in developing the “safe harbor” from tobacco-related litigation* that the Obama administration has publicly described, but not yet tabled, in the TPP negotiations. Outside observers say HHS officials were the ones that initially suggested negotiating tobacco-specific provisions in TPP, while USTR was initially hesitant to endorse special provisions for tobacco.

“We consider this to be hugely important from the standpoint of global public health,” Daulaire said, in reference to the draft proposal.

Tobacco control “is unquestionably at the very top of our policy agenda in terms of domestic health, in terms of global health, and in terms of the interface with the trade environment,” especially in light of estimates that one billion people could die of tobacco-related diseases in the twenty-first century, he said.

When asked directly if HHS was responsible for originally proposing tobacco-specific measures in TPP, the HHS official declined to answer.

“All I can tell you is that there had not been this level of engagement and attention previously, and now there is, and we are very glad for all the engagement of many different parties,” he said, adding that the fact that the U.S. draft proposal certainly reflects the increased engagement from HHS on trade policy.

The fact that the Obama administration has still has not tabled the proposal has some anti-smoking advocates nervous, although Daulaire appeared to downplay those fears. “We understand that this is moving forward,” he said. “I can’t go beyond what we can talk about publicly in terms of international trade negotiations, but let me just say that I do not feel discouraged.”

The “safe harbor” proposal would clarify that, notwithstanding other rules contained in the final TPP deal, national health authorities may adopt regulations that impose origin-neutral, science-based restrictions on specific tobacco products or classes in order to safeguard public health. U.S. business and agricultural groups strongly oppose the proposal, saying there is no need to treat tobacco products differently from other products in trade deals.

Anti-smoking advocates, on the other hand, argue that the proposal does not go far enough, and that tobacco products should be completely “carved out” from the TPP talks. In their view, tobacco products should not even be subject to tariff cuts. However, the U.S. has thus far not adopted this complete carveout approach and is currently negotiating tariff phaseouts on tobacco products in TPP.

When asked about his views on a complete carveout, Daulaire signaled his possible support, although he stressed that he had not yet made up his mind on the issue.

“I think that is something that we are talking about at this point,” he said. “I’m not a trade specialist, and the issue of carveouts is pretty complex,” he explained. While his “knee-jerk” reaction would have been to support a complete carveout, his current response is “maybe,” especially in light of his desire to learn more about the “nuance and the consequence” of including such a carveout in a trade deal, he said.

“As we move forward on this, we’ll see where this goes, but it is certainly not something that I would unequivocally say is a bad idea,”

Daulaire explained. “The public health side is very clear and straightforward on this: tobacco is bad and anything we can do to reduce its use and its promotion is good for public health.” At the same time, the administration as a whole must consider a range of issues when formulating policy, he said.

Daulaire declined to respond directly when asked whether special provisions for tobacco should be considered for other new trade agreements, including the planned U.S.-European Union trade talks, but he again signaled his possible support for the idea. “I don’t see anything with TPP that makes it unique in terms of this,” he said.

While each trade negotiation is different, he also noted that TPP is the first time that the U.S. has negotiated an agreement since passing a landmark 2009 tobacco bill.

That bill — the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act — was signed into law in June 2009 and gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products. The U.S. “safe harbor”

draft proposal in TPP is essentially meant to ensure that FDA implementation of its new mandate under the 2009 law would be effectively shielded from legal challenge under a TPP agreement.

“This is also the first time that we’ve gone into a treaty negotiation since the FDA was given tobacco authority, so the ground has changed from earlier negotiations,” Daulaire maintained. U.S. tobacco control advocates are already gearing up to engage with administration officials in the EU context, and are hoping that the administration will look to table special provisions on tobacco in that context as well (/Inside U.S. Trade/, April 12).

*HHS is also playing a role in developing U.S. trade policy when it comes to access to medicines in the TPP*, although here the department’s role was initially more limited, according to Daulaire.

The Obama administration originally unveiled a proposal in this area based on an “access window” concept in the fall of 2011.The basic concept is that pharmaceutical companies would be rewarded with stronger patent protections under a TPP deal if they seek to gain marketing approval swiftly in other TPP countries. The proposal has faced skepticism from U.S. stakeholders and intense resistance from TPP partners (/Inside U.S. Trade/, March 15).

“We were not involved in the early stages of the policy that was put forward as the U.S. negotiating position,” Daulaire explained, largely because “nobody thought to ask us.” While FDA was asked to sign off on an initial version of that proposal, the concern of FDA is more limited to questions like “does this create problems in terms of the application of existing law and regulation,” he explained.

The HHS official stressed that his office is focused on the broader interest of promoting global public health. “Our concern is a broader one … and frankly, it was early in the administration, we hadn’t gotten our ducks lined up yet, and it took us a while to recognize that this was an issue” and that HHS officials should substantively engage, he said.

In light of the resistance from other TPP partners to the original proposal, however, the administration is once again engaged in an interagency process to determine whether or not it should be modified, and HHS is involved in this new round of consultations, Daulaire said.

“We have been welcomed to the table in terms of internal discussions within the administration to see whether a modified U.S. position would be warranted,” he said.

While unable to speak to the precise nature of the deliberations within the administration, Daulaire said that HHS officials “are now very much engaged in this and in these conversations and are looking for ways to make sure that public health is well protected in this process.” He said there is an “open consideration of what we can do to move things forward that is going to work both in terms of the negotiations and in terms of public health.”

This article was originally posted by Inside US Trade on April 22, 2013>

It could raise revenue, reduce youth smoking, and could fund early childhood education.

Under his new budget plan, President Obama would use $78 billion from new tobacco taxes to fund early-childhood education. It’s one of the more-notable parts of his proposal and one that The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein says is one of its three best ideas. It also turns out that the tax hike could do even more good than Obama’s budget gives it credit for.

The proposal itself alludes, albeit briefly, to the potential upsides of raising tobacco taxes: “Researchers have found that raising taxes on cigarettes significantly reduces consumption, with especially large effects on youth smoking.” But it doesn’t explore the nonfiscal consequences much.

But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office offered a detailed look last June at how a per-pack cigarette-tax hike would affect behavior, public health, spending and revenue. While CBO’s 84-page analysis explored a 50-cent hike from the current $1.01 tax, Obama calls for a 94-cent increase. But the CBO report is still instructive: The agency itself said doubling the tax hike, as Obama nearly would, would yield twice the estimated health effects.

Curbing Youth Smoking. Taxing cigarette packs at $1.51 starting this year would, perhaps unsurprisingly, discourage some new smokers and encourage current smokers to quit. As the White House noted in its budget plan, such a tax would help to rein in youth smoking. That’s exactly what CBO found: “By 2021, 4.3 percent fewer 18-to-24-year-olds would be smokers than would be the case under current law,” it reported in June.

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President Obama’s proposal to nearly double the federal tobacco tax would help fund a universal pre-K program. And, if history is any guide, it would likely have a marked impact on driving down the country’s smoking rates.

“Increasing the price of tobacco is the single most effective way to discourage kids from smoking,” CDC director Tom Frieden told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “We estimate this would result in at least 230,000 fewer kids smoking than would have smoked if the tobacco tax does not go into effect.”

Researchers have conducted over 100 studies that have “clearly and consistently demonstrated that higher cigarette and other tobacco product prices reduce tobacco use,” Frank Chaloupka, a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, writes. While tobacco is an addictive substance, demand tends to be surprisingly elastic: Price increases have reliably shown to decrease cigarette purchases.

The Congressional Budget Office recently looked at what would happen if the country implemented a 50-cent per pack tax on cigarettes. It estimates, given the research we have on tobacco taxes, that the price increase would lead to 1.4 million fewer smokers by 2021.

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The government has dropped its push for cigarette labels to carry images of diseased lungs and other graphic health warnings, and will craft new anti-smoking ads that do not run afoul of free speech rights.

In a letter to Republican House Speaker John Boehner last Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Food and Drug Administration would go back to the drawing board to develop the ads, as required by legislation passed by Congress in 2009.

Half the space on the front and back of each cigarette pack must be taken up by anti-smoking warnings and a large share of other printed ads should have similar discouraging messages, according to the legislation.

Cigarette manufacturers, however, sued to prevent the ads from appearing on the packaging for their products, saying such a move would curtail free speech rights. In August, a federal court struck down the requirement as unconstitutional.

The Justice Department was facing a deadline on whether to ask the Supreme Court to review that ruling.

“The Department of Justice in this case has vigorously defended the constitutionality of the graphic warnings,” Holder wrote in the letter notifying Boehner, who is a smoker. Holder said the deadline for an appeal prompted the new approach.

Many other nations have for years used graphic images to try to deter smokers.

The FDA has argued that the images of rotting teeth and diseased lungs are accurate and necessary to warn consumers – especially teenagers – about the risks of smoking.

On Tuesday, the FDA used a blog posting to say the agency “will undertake research to support a new rulemaking consistent with the (2009) Tobacco Control Act.”

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