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Global Tobacco Control Experience – JAN 29, 2013

(Jan 29, 2013 / Washington, DC) ASH director Laurent Huber has been invited to speak at the Global Tobacco Experience meeting. This CDC and HHS meeting  will provide a review of global tobacco control efforts and best practices by the U.S. and global partners to inform U.S. domestic efforts as well as the U.S. efforts as a global partner.

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TOBACCO COMPANIES CAN TELL THE TRUTH, BUT ONLY WHEN FORCED (PART 5)

A U.S. district court has ordered tobacco companies to issue and to pay for “corrective statements” in order to rectify decades of lying and manipulation.

Here is what you can expect on the Adverse Health Effects of Exposure to Secondhand Smoke:

A Federal Court has ruled that the Defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public about the health effects of secondhand smoke and has ordered those companies to make this statement. Here is the truth:

  • Secondhand smoke kills over 3,000 Americans every year.
  • Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and coronary heart disease in adults who do not smoke.
  • Children exposed  to  secondhand  smoke  are  at  an increased risk  for  sudden  infant  death  syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, severe asthma, and reduced lung function.
  • There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

continue reading »

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TOBACCO COMPANIES CAN TELL THE TRUTH, BUT ONLY WHEN FORCED (PART 4)

A U.S. district court has ordered tobacco companies to issue and to pay for “corrective statements” in order to rectify decades of lying and manipulation.

Here is what you can expect on the Manipulation of Cigarette Design and Composition to Ensure Optimum Nicotine Delivery:

A Federal Court has ruled that the Defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public about designing cigarettes to enhance the delivery of nicotine and has ordered those companies to make this statement. Here is the truth:

  • Defendant tobacco companies intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive.
  • Cigarette companies control the impact and delivery of nicotine in many ways, including designing filters and selecting cigarette paper to maximize the ingestion of nicotine, adding ammonia to make the cigarette taste less harsh, and controlling the physical and chemical make-up of the tobacco blend.
  • When you smoke, the nicotine actually changes your brain – that’s why quitting is so hard.

continue reading »

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Tobacco Companies Can Tell The Truth, But Only When Forced (Part 3)

A U.S. district court has ordered tobacco companies to issue and to pay for “corrective statements” in order to rectify decades of lying and manipulation.

Here is what you can expect on the  Lack of Significant Health Benefits from Smoking “Low Tar,”  “Light,”  “Ultra-Light,”  “Mild,” and “Natural” Cigarettes:

A Federal Court has ruled that the Defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public by falsely selling and advertising low tar and light cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes and has ordered those companies to make this statement. Here is the truth:

  • Many smokers switch to low tar and light cigarettes rather than quitting because they think low tar and light cigarettes are less harmful. They are not.
  • “Low tar” and filtered cigarette smokers inhale essentially the same amount of tar and nicotine as they would from regular cigarettes.
  • All cigarettes  cause  cancer,  lung  disease,  heart attacks, and  premature  death  -  lights,  low  tar, ultra lights,  and  naturals.  There is no safe cigarette.

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Senate bill targets tax credits for tobacco advertising

Legislation Includes Provisions to Fight Chronic Disease, Encourage Healthier Communities, Schools and Workplaces, and Improve Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities

Legislation introduced today by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, outlines critical public health and prevention initiatives to fight chronic disease, encourage healthier schools, communities and workplaces, and improve physical activity opportunities for individuals with disabilities. The Healthier Lifestyles and Prevention America (HeLP America) Act includes wellness provisions in a broad range of areas, including expanded access to fresh fruits and vegetables for all low-income elementary schools, tax incentives for businesses that offer comprehensive workplace wellness programs to their employees, improved physical activity and athletic opportunities for individuals with disabilities, and greater oversight with regard to food and tobacco marketing.

“Improving public health starts with prevention. Taking steps to improve access to healthier options, exercise opportunities, food labeling, and tobacco cessation will not only help stave off chronic disease—it will also save consumers and taxpayers money in the long run,” Harkin said. “By making health and wellness a key priority in our schools, workplaces, and communities—and by educating people to make informed choices—the HeLP America Act can open the door for more Americans to live longer and more productive lives free from chronic disease.”

Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are among the leading causes of death and disability in the United States, and the economic impact is staggering. More than seventy-five percent of the $2.5 trillion the United States spends on health care annually is due to chronic disease.

Harkin has championed preventive healthcare initiatives throughout his career, including increased access to screenings for breast cancer and other diseases, the school fruit and vegetable pilot program, and tobacco control.  Most recently, as HELP Committee Chairman, Harkin championed the prevention and wellness measures that are included in the Affordable Care Act.  Preventive initiatives in doctors’ offices and the community help rein in costs across the full health care spectrum. The Prevention and Public Health title of the health reform law creates incentives to prevent chronic disease, and requires health insurance companies to cover recommended preventive screenings with no copays or deductibles. The bill introduced today builds upon the prevention and wellness measures contained in the health reform law and includes several new sections that further expand public health and prevention efforts, including encouraging healthier food offerings in our National Parks and increasing opportunities for physical activity in school settings.

Harkin’s legislation has been endorsed by the American Heart Association, the YMCA of the USA, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and Trust for America’s Health. A full summary of the HeLP America Act of 2013 is below:

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Tobacco companies can tell the truth, but only when forced (Part2)

A U.S. district court has ordered tobacco companies to issue and to pay for “corrective statements” in order to rectify decades of lying and manipulation.

Here is what you can expect on the Addictiveness of Smoking and Nicotine:

Addictiveness of Smoking and Nicotine

A Federal Court has ruled that the Defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public about the addictiveness of smoking and nicotine and has ordered those companies to make this statement. Here is the truth:

  • Smoking is highly addictive.  Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco.
  • Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction.
  • It is not easy to quit.
  • When you smoke, the nicotine actually changes your brain – that’s why quitting is so hard.

continue reading »

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Tobacco companies can tell the truth, but only when forced (Part 1)

Can you imagine a tobacco company not only admitting that smoking and secondhand smoke cause disease, but admitting that they lied about it for decades? How about tobacco executives “seeing the light” and renouncing the sale of a product that, when used as they intend, kills? Okay, that last one can be filed with the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause, but later this year, look for some odd messages in newspapers, online and on television.

A U.S. district court has ordered tobacco companies to issue and to pay for “corrective statements” in order to rectify decades of lying and manipulation. I won’t get into whether this actually makes up for tens of millions of avoidable deaths (or homicides, if you like). But the statements are pretty damning.

They are still fighting over the when, but here is what you will see:

 

1.) Adverse Health Effects of Smoking

A Federal Court has ruled that the Defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public about the health effects of smoking and has ordered those companies to make this statement. Here is the truth:

  • Smoking kills, on average, 1200 Americans.  Every day.
  • More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol: combined.
  • Smoking causes heart disease, emphysema, acute myeloid leukemia, and cancer of the mouth, esophagus, larynx, lung, stomach, kidney, bladder, and pancreas.
  • Smoking also causes reduced fertility, low birth weight in newborns, and cancer of the cervix and uterus.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of “Tobacco companies can tell the truth, but only when forced”  and see what the tobacco companies must publicly admit about the Addictiveness of Smoking and Nicotine.

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States need to do more to reduce smoking, study says

Many U.S. state governments use little of the money they receive each year from tobacco taxes or legal settlements with cigarette makers to fund programs that could help people kick the habit or prevent them from becoming smokers, according to a new report released on Wednesday.

Each year, more than $25 billion flows into coffers in some states, both from state excise taxes on tobacco products and payments made under a 1998 landmark anti-smoking agreement with tobacco companies, the American Lung Association said in a report titled “State of Tobacco Control 2013.”

The association said in the 2013 fiscal year, states spent $462.5 million on smoking-prevention and other programs aimed at helping smokers quit, just over 10 percent of the recommended levels by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“States and federal policymakers must … step up to fund programs and enact polices proven to reduce tobacco use,” said Paul Billings, senior vice president of the American Lung Association.

Only two states – North Dakota and Alaska – spent amounts close to the CDC recommendations.

Some states use most of the money toward their general budgets, said Erika Sward, an American Lung Association assistant vice president.

In the report, the association graded states on their spending on efforts to reduce tobacco use, with 42 states earning an “F” because they failed to invest even 50 percent of the amount of the money recommended by the CDC on prevention programs.

In New York, home to the highest cigarette tax in the country at $4.35 per pack, the state spent around $41 million in the fiscal year 2013 on smoking-prevention programs out of $2.3 billion in revenue generated by the taxes, Sward said.

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Toward tobacco-free troops

The Pentagon recently announced a force reduction of 80,000 troops. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the new military will need to be “smaller, leaner, but agile and flexible.”

But how do we achieve an agile and flexible force when 30 percent of the force may be off-duty for several days because of illness related to tobacco use? How can we reliably deploy a ready force when a service member’s job performance is reduced because he or she is suffering from the physical effects of tobacco use? Can we afford to continue current policies such as selling tobacco at a discount in our military exchanges?

As a family nurse practitioner and registered nurse for 22 years, I have witnessed the effects of tobacco use on active-duty service members, their families and veterans during the course of my military career.

I particularly remember a gentleman in his late 50s who pulled me aside when I was a new 2nd lieutenant and registered nurse working on a busy cancer unit at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash. The man was upset and wanted to talk about his lung cancer, his addiction to tobacco and his advice to future generations of service members.

He asked me to “tell the young people not to smoke, not to use tobacco, it has ruined my life, I am dying, it isn’t worth it, it just isn’t worth it.” He died several months later, and although I remember him clearly, I really didn’t know what to do with his message – until now.

I recently had a chance to review some startling information on the effect of tobacco use on military readiness. For starters, soldiers who use tobacco have reduced night vision and mental sharpness and are at an increased risk of heat and cold injuries. Nicotine decreases oxygen in the bloodstream, resulting in a 30 percent reduction in night vision for normal eyes and a 50 percent reduction in those wearing corrective lenses.

Imagine the potential dangers to a deployed service member and his or her team conducting night operations.

In addition to the physical effects, tobacco use is linked to higher rates of absenteeism, lost productivity, increased health care costs and early discharge in the first year of military service. The Department of Defense estimates that it spends about $1.6 billion a year on smoking-related illnesses and that the Veterans Administration spends more than $5 billion a year to treat veterans who smoke.

Smoking is also one of the behaviors that contribute to early discharge of service members during their first year of service. These early discharges cost taxpayers more than $130 million a year in lost training expenses.

The Department of Defense, Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines have battled tobacco use in the military by implementing comprehensive tobacco-control programs; however, tobacco use rates among service members continue to be 10 percent higher than the civilian sector. Thirty percent of service members smoke and almost 15 percent use smokeless tobacco.

One possible solution is to stop selling tobacco products at a cheaper price to service members.Currently, Department of Defense directive 1330.9 allows military exchanges to sell tobacco prices at “no lower than 5 percent below the most competitive commercial price in the local community,” and exchange purchases are free from state or local tobacco taxes.

This means that tobacco users may be able to purchase tobacco products at greater than a 5 percent discount from military exchanges. Raising the price of tobacco has been shown to decrease tobacco use in younger service members.

In addition to raising tobacco prices, we also must continue to invest in prevention programs that keep our young service members from using tobacco as well as health-promotion programs that help tobacco users kick this highly addictive habit.

We must make the consequences of tobacco use equal to other health choices faced by service members, such as being overweight, failing the physical fitness test or drinking while driving. A smaller, leaner, but agile and flexible military needs to be healthy in order to deploy anywhere and anytime. For that to happen, our military needs to be tobacco-free.

Edward E. Yackel is a colonel in the Army Nurse Corps and a doctoral student at the Duke University School of Nursing. His views are his alone and do not reflect the official policy of the Department of Army, Department of Defense or U.S. government.

 

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Another super fund drops its investment in tobacco

The superannuation fund for health and community services workers has become the latest fund to dump its investments in tobacco.

HESTA chief executive Anne-Marie Corboy confirmed the fund had started removing tobacco investments from its portfolios this year, following a decision by the fund’s board late last year.

Ms Corboy said she expected the fund, which has more than 750,000 members, to have sold all its tobacco investments by about April.

She said for more than a decade the fund had allowed members to put together tobacco-free portfolios, and had excluded tobacco from its ethical investment option since early 2012. She said less than $35 million of the $20 billion managed by the fund was invested in tobacco.

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Anne Jones, the chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health Australia, welcomed the move.

”If a health fund invests in the tobacco industry, they are part of the tobacco industry,” she said. ”It’s clearly unethical.”

HESTA’s decision comes as the Future Fund weighs what to do with its tobacco investments, worth more than $200 million. Fund chairman David Gonski told a Senate hearing in October the fund had not set out to invest in cigarette makers, but acquired its tobacco shares through investments in fund managers, which often had a mandate to own top-performing stocks.

Ms Jones called on the Future Fund to dump its stake, arguing it was hypocritical for Australia to try to stamp out smoking domestically while profiting from it abroad.

”You can’t have Australia being a leader in tobacco control driving down smoking rates at home but saying it’s OK for us to be investing in getting poor people addicted in other countries,” she said.

In November, the New South Wales government said it would dump more than $200 million in tobacco investments and ban them in future.

First State Super, which has more than 770,000 members and more than $32 billion in funds under management, said in July it had disposed of all its tobacco investments.

The Victorian government’s investment management organisation, the Victorian Funds Management Corporation, has more than $100 million invested in tobacco and has said it has no intention of getting rid of them.

See this article at its original location>

 

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Study calls for tobacco profits cap

An extra £500 million a year could be raised in tobacco tax if an independent regulatory agency to cap cigarette manufacturers’ profits was set up, academics have said.

The creation of an ‘Ofsmoke’ agency to regulate the industry – similar to those in force for utility companies – would increase tax revenue and protect public health.

The University of Bath study said the agency would have the potential to increase UK annual tobacco tax revenue by approximately £500 million a year for HM Treasury.

The money would fund, twice over, UK wide anti-tobacco smuggling measures and smoking cessation services in England. Co-authors of the study Dr Robert Branston and Professor Anna Gilmore said regulation would set a maximum price that cigarette companies could charge for their product.

They said that under their plan the retail mark-up would not be affected and neither would the price that consumers pay in shops. Instead a slice of the profits currently accrued by cigarette manufacturers would be transferred to HM Treasury through increased tax. The system would be set up at no cost to the consumer or taxpayer and would be funded instead through a levy or licence fee paid by tobacco companies.

Dr Branston said: “The market has failed to curb cigarette manufacturers in terms of pricing power and profit, and tobacco control policies have unintentionally exacerbated the problem. Clamping down on the extreme profitability of cigarettes would reduce the incentive for tobacco companies to fight public health measures and mean they have fewer funds at their disposal.

“It would also raise the small matter of £500 million for the nation. A move to regulation would make it easier to expand tobacco control policies as companies would be partially insulated against their impact on revenue and, therefore, less able to argue against them.”

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of health charity Action on Smoking and Health, added: “Tobacco multinationals are unique, they make excessive profits despite the fact their products kill half of all their customers.

“They can continue to charge premium prices and make excess profits because their products are cheap to make, highly addictive and competition in such a highly regulated market is so limited. Capping their profits is not extreme it’s essential.”

The study, which has been published in the journal Tobacco Control, is based on the UK – but the researchers are confident the system could be applied to any country where tobacco companies enjoy significant market power.

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New anti-tobacco ads for African American market unveiled

California Department of Public Health director and state health officer Dr. Ron Chapman has unveiled new ethnic-market advertisements that will continue to educate Californians on the harmful effects of tobacco use.

Cali Black anti-tobacco ad

An anti-tobacco ad from a previous campaign

The advertisements, which include radio and print ads for the African American market, will start airing in early January and can be viewed atTobaccoFreeCA.com. In California, Black and Hispanic men smoke at higher rates (18.9 percent and 15.5 percent, respectively) than white men (14.3 percent). Among women, Blacks continue to have the highest prevalence (15.2 percent), followed by whites (11.2 percent).

 

Chapman also released the state’s first “State Health Officer’s Report on Tobacco Use and Promotion,” featuring new data on illegal sales to minors, the disproportionate number of tobacco retailers and advertising in minority and low-income neighborhoods, the effect of tobacco advertising in stores, and troubling tobacco-use trends.

Highlights of the report include:

  • Illegal tobacco sales to minors rose to 8.7 percent from 5.6 percent in 2011, which was the state’s lowest rate since the survey began in 1995;
  • Smoking prevalence was higher at schools in neighborhoods with five or more stores that sell tobacco than at schools in neighborhoods without any stores that sell tobacco;
  • In 2011, young adults 18-24 had the highest smoking prevalence among any age group in California;
  • The popularity, promotion and availability of smokeless tobacco have greatly increased – examples include snus (a smokeless, spitless, moist-snuff product) and dissolvable and flavored “orbs” and “sticks” (shaped like Tic-Tacs and dissolvable breath strips, respectively), which are currently being test-marketed in other states;
  • In less than a decade, sales of smokeless products have nearly tripled, from $77 million in 2001 to $211 million in 2011; and
  • Nearly one-third (32.3 percent) of California stores that sell tobacco had at least one cigarette advertisement less than three feet above the floor, where it is easily seen by children.

In addition to the ads, a new Spanish website, CAsinTabaco, was launched to complement the campaign and to provide the Spanish-speaking community the tools they need to quit.

The California Tobacco Control Program was established by the Tobacco Tax and Health Protection Act of 1988. The act, approved by California voters, instituted a 25-cent tax on each pack of cigarettes and earmarked five cents of that tax to fund California’s tobacco control efforts. These efforts include supporting local health departments and community organizations, an aggressive media campaign, and tobacco-related evaluation and surveillance.

California’s comprehensive approach has changed social norms around tobacco-use and secondhand smoke, resulting in dramatic decreases in smoking in the state. It is estimated that California’s tobacco control efforts have saved more than a million lives and have resulted in $86 billion worth of savings in health care costs. Learn more at TobaccoFreeCA.com.

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NGOs tell Barroso to remove tobacco lobbyist from ethics commission

Philip Morris lobbyist reappointed to committee that should regulate lobbies and revolving doors policy for commissioners.

European transparency groups Corporate European Observatory, Lobby Control, and Corporate Accountability International, have lodged a complaint with the European Commission, over the reappointment of a tobacco lobbyist to the Commission’s own ethical committee.

Former EC head of legal services Michel Petite was reappointed in December 2012 to a three-man ethical committee that is supposed to regulate lobbies and their influence in Brussels. But Petite himself works as a lawyer for the firm Clifford Chance, and represents tobacco giant Philip Morris.

The reappointment, just two months after Maltese commissioner John Dalli was asked to step down over claims that he was aware of a bribe to influence tobacco laws he was spearheading, has raised the ire of transparency campaigners in Brussels, who believe Petite has a conflict of interest.

CEO has told European Commission president José Barroso that article 4 of the 2003 Commission decision on establishing the ethical committee states that the appointment of a member requires their “independence, an impeccable record of professional behaviour as well as sound knowledge of the existing legal framework and working methods of the Commission.”

“We believe that the questions raised about the independence of Mr Petite mean he is not a suitable person to hold this position,” CEO said in their complaint.

Petite headed the Commission’s Legal Service from 2001 to the end of 2007 and then went through the revolving door to private law firm Clifford Chance, a firm that also offers lobbying services.

“In the Commission’s December 2012 response to European Parliament’s questions about the circumstances leading to the resignation of Commissioner Dalli, it became clear that tobacco giant Philip Morris International is a client of Clifford Chance, and that as a Clifford Chance lawyer Mr Petite presented views on tobacco legislation at meetings with Legal Service officials…

“It is clear that setting out views on tobacco legislation, whilst working for a tobacco firm, to former colleagues in a Commission department falls under the definition of lobbying – or ‘interest representation’ – that applies to the Commission’s Transparency Register.”

CEO believes that Petite’s role representing Philip Morris International raises doubts about his independence and his ability to rigorously assess potential conflicts of interest, and judge whether ex-Commissioners moving into private sector lobby jobs are appropriate or not.

“We do not believe that a former Commission official who himself went through the revolving door to a law firm that offers lobbying services, represents a tobacco industry client and refuses to sign up to the Transparency Register, is the most credible advisor to the Commission on revolving door cases.”

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Regulate cigarette manufacturers like water companies – report

The UK government could raise at least £500m a year by capping the amount of profit tobacco companies can make from cigarettes, academics have said.

They are calling for state regulation similar to that used to limit the price of water.

Writing in the journal Tobacco Control, they say reducing profits would allow for higher taxes without changing the price in shops.

However, the industry said the ideas “fly in the face of common sense”.

Dr Robert Branston, from the University of Bath, said the tobacco industry was “incredibly profitable”, with some companies making 67p in profit out of every £1 received after tobacco duties. He described that as an “incredible sum”.

Some industries in the UK are already regulated to prevent companies taking advantage of a lack of competition in the market place. The regulator Ofwat reviews the price water companies can set and Dr Branston wants a similar organisation “Ofsmoke” to limit the profits made by tobacco manufacturers.

The report calculated the effect of limiting profits to levels achieved by food and drinks manufactures in Europe – between 12% and 20%.

Tax potential

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Some popular cigarette brands are already taxed at nearly 90%, yet this report chooses to ignore this fact ”

Tobacco Manufacturers’s Association

Even accounting for the cost of setting up a regulator and a fall in corporation tax paid by the tobacco companies, the researchers estimated there was a large amount of extra tax to be made.

“The results suggest that price caps could give the UK government scope to raise tobacco taxes by approximately £500m annually without affecting the price the consumer pays,” they wrote.

The report said this was the equivalent of funding anti-tobacco smuggling measures across the UK and smoking cessation services in England twice over.

Dr Branston said: “How can you say it is a bad ideas then people are dying? I think there’s a lot going for this personally.”

The Tobacco Manufacturers’s Association said the industry was already high taxed and paid more than £12bn to the Exchequer in 2011-12.

It said: “Some popular cigarette brands are already taxed at nearly 90%, yet this report chooses to ignore this fact and instead concentrate on the profit of a legitimate industry which supports over 70,000 UK jobs.

“The tobacco industry supports any regulation which is necessary, proportionate and evidence-based, but not proposals such as these, which fly in the face of common sense.”

Deborah Arnott, the chief executive of the charity Action on Smoking and Health, said, “Tobacco multinationals can continue to charge premium prices and make excess profits because their products are cheap to make, highly addictive and competition in such a highly regulated market is so limited.

“Capping their profits is not extreme, it’s essential.”

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South Africa: Govt Signs WHO Treaty Against Tobacco Smuggling

Last week South Africa became the first country to sign a new international treaty aimed at combating tobacco smuggling.

Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, signed the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products at a ceremony held at the WHO headquarters in Geneva on Thursday. Eleven other countries including China, France, Panama, Turkey and Uruguay have also signed the treaty, which is now open for signature by other countries.

The aim of the treaty is to reduce tobacco smuggling worldwide. It promotes measures that governments can adopt to eliminate smuggling and encourages international co-operation between countries in identifying tobacco smuggling routes and trends, and in apprehending smugglers.

Tobacco smuggling is big business for both the tobacco manufacturers and criminal organisations. Once-secret industry documents reveal that the major tobacco companies have actively participated in smuggling worldwide. They have knowingly supplied tobacco products to criminals involved in smuggling.

Stopping smugglers from obtaining tobacco products by controlling the supply chain is an important aspect of the treaty. The treaty recommends that the supply chain be controlled through licensing of manufacturers; requiring them to verify the bona fides of their customers; tracking the movement of tobacco products across borders as well as tracing the origins of seized goods; better border controls and stronger penalties for smuggling.

The National Council Against Smoking (NCAS) commended the Minister for being the first to sign the treaty. “Reducing the illicit trade in tobacco is an important public health measure,” said Dr Yussuf Saloojee, executive director of the NCAS. “Smuggling makes cigarettes cheaper and so increases sales. It encourages adults to keep smoking instead of quitting after tax increases, and makes tobacco affordable to youth. Higher tobacco sales in turn mean more sickness and death,” he added.

“The level of cigarette smuggling in South Africa is highly over-estimated by the tobacco industry, as this creates pressure on the Treasury to keep excise taxes low. Nonetheless we do not need to combat smuggling and the way to do so is not by lowering taxes but by adopting the measures proposed by the protocol,” Saloojee said.

At the signing ceremony, WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said: “The protocol gives the world a unique legal instrument for countering and eventually eliminating a sophisticated international criminal activity that costs a lot, especially for health.”

The new treaty is the first protocol to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The protocol will enter into force 90 days after the 40th government has ratified it.

The Protocol will help to protect people across the globe from the health risks of tobacco. In SA 44 000 are killed every year due to tobacco – that is three times as many as are killed in road accidents.

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US Should Embrace Efforts to Combat Smoking Overseas

SMOKING MAY be the world’s greatest global health threat. It kills nearly 6 million people a year around the world — more than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. The United States has done an admirable job of combating this threat within its own borders. But Washington has done embarrassingly little to address the problem overseas.

The US government spends about $8 billion on global health annually, but only about $7 million on tobacco-control efforts overseas, according to Thomas Bollyky of the Council on Foreign Relations. That’s a tiny amount, given the gravity of the problem and the cost-effectiveness of anti-smoking campaigns.

The United States has also failed to ratify the Framework Convention On Tobacco Control, an international treaty aimed at encouraging countries to implement anti-smoking initiatives that were pioneered in the United States, such as warning labels, bans on smoking in public places, and taxes.

Since the United States has already done most of what is required by this treaty, there is little to lose by ratifying it. Doing so would allow the United States to take its rightful place as a global leader on this issue. Instead, US officials had to sit on the sidelines of a recent meeting in South Korea, because the United States is not a party to the pact.

But even if it is impossible to get the treaty through the Senate, where conservatives this month blocked even a disability-rights treaty signed by George W. Bush, the Obama administration could do a great deal more to help developing countries combat the scourge of smoking. Perhaps the most significant move would be to stop requiring poor countries to reduce tariffs on foreign cigarettes during trade negotiations.

In the 1980s, US officials forced countries that wanted to trade freely with the United States to put out a welcome mat for the Marlboro Man. Thankfully, Congress ended such blatant shilling on behalf of the US tobacco industry in 1998. But US trade negotiators still fight on the side of cigarette companies, under the guise of demanding an even playing field. To join the World Trade Organization, China had to lower tariffs on imported cigarettes from 200 percent to 25 percent.

Despite the enmity between global anti-smoking activists and tobacco companies, there is one area where they might find common cause: combating cigarette smuggling and counterfeiting, which cost governments around the world billions of dollars in lost tax revenues. New efforts to require tobacco companies to put tracking numbers on packages to prevent illicit trade make a lot of sense.

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Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

Today a new landmark in global health knowledge and evidence was released. After five years and the collaboration of 500 scientists and researchers from around the world, the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010) http://www.thelancet.com/themed/global-burden-of-disease has been published in The Lancet.  Thanks to dramatic achievements in health over recent decades the world has seen a drop in deaths from infectious diseases and a dramatic rise in life expectancy.  Yet these impressive gains in health are being undone by the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) which now account for nearly two out of every three deaths worldwide in 2010. Of the 52.8 million deaths in 2010, NCDs account for 34.5 million or 65.5%.

Most significantly, tobacco smoking, the leading risk factor for NCDs has been recognized  as the 2nd leading cause of death globally. The report states that tobacco smoking causes 6.3 million deaths annually.

While people are living longer, the report suggests that populations are not necessarily enjoying more years of health. Disability is taking a greater toll on our lives than they were two decades ago and increasingly people are living with chronic illnesses and multiple comorbidities. Tobacco is a major contributor to this problem.

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Free Trade Agreement Ignores Global Tobacco Epidemic

Talks on a tobacco exception in a free trade agreement between the United States and ten other countries in the Asia-Pacific region – the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – became the subject of many unanswered questions during the stakeholder briefing with chief negotiators at Sky City on Friday, 7 Dec 2012. “We are still undergoing internal consultations,” was the response of Barbara Weisel, chief negotiator for the U.S., when asked about the U.S. draft proposal to recognize tobacco as a unique product in what is intended to be the most comprehensive and ambitious free trade agreement in history. The U.S. announced the draft in May, but several negotiating rounds have come and gone and the exception has not been formally proposed.

Tobacco use is responsible for nearly 6 million deaths per year, and is on track to kill one billion people this century. Governments responded in 2004 by adopting the world’s first public health treaty, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The FCTC has been rapidly embraced, and includes 175 countries, including all but one of the TPP negotiating countries. Tobacco plain packaging and graphic warnings, point of sale bans and bans on flavored cigarettes, interventions found in the FCTC and its guidelines, have been subject to several high profile trade disputes initiated by tobacco industry interests in the past 3 years, causing serious concern in the public health community.

According to Mary Assunta, Senior Policy Advisor of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA): “Although ten of the eleven countries negotiating the TPP are Parties to the international tobacco treaty, most trade negotiators at the 15th Round of the TPPA in Auckland have little awareness of their obligations under the FCTC nor of the tobacco industry’s tactics to undermine public health. It is almost like they are running on parallel tracks with opposite destinations – one to reduce tobacco and the other to increase trade of tobacco products.”

The FCTC Conference of the Parties was held a few weeks ago in Seoul, and Parties at that meeting voted to exclude the tobacco industry from attending the negotiations relating to the FCTC. Governments at that meeting rejected Interpol’s application for observer status to the COP on the ground that it had received funding from a tobacco company (Philip Morris). This same policy has driven many governments to reject so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from tobacco companies, and disallow it from interfering in policy development and implementation.

“In contrast to the FCTC policy to exclude the tobacco industry, the TPP seeks the input of the tobacco industry to promote free trade. This is not compatible with FCTC obligations,” according to Chris Bostic Deputy Director of Policy for Action on Smoking and Health, a U.S.-based anti-tobacco group.

Bostic, citing extensive legal research from the Harrison Institute, adds: “Trade negotiators have yet to officially recognise tobacco as a hazardous product. Tobacco is unlike any other consumer product. When used exactly as intended, it kills.”

Now into its 15th Round, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam have been negotiating the proposed TPP agreement since March 2010. Canada and Mexico recently joined the talks, and other countries are expected to follow.

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Are We Being Duped by Our Government on Trade Negotiations?

The 15th negotiating round of the ongoing TransPacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement will end tomorrow in Auckland, New Zealand. This marks the fourth round that U.S. negotiators have failed to “table” (formally propose) a special exception protecting governments’ right to legislate on tobacco, which they promised back in May.

The public health community has not seen the text of the exception, because only big corporations are allowed to see the draft TPP text. But we’ve had it described to us at length. It was the result of painful negotiations among the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the White House, Health and Human Services, Congress, and Big Tobacco. As far as our experts can tell (not having seen it), it’s not great, but it would at least get the conversation about tobacco going amongst the TPP negotiators. There was a tacit agreement between the U.S. government and health groups that the latter would lay off criticizing (and even extolling the virtues of) the exception or the TPP in general in order to give the administration political cover to actually table the exception. So we waited. And waited. There were some hints that once the election was over, the political balancing would change and it would be tabled. It’s over, and it wasn’t.

Will it be tabled next time? USTR won’t say. When asked for a reason for the delay, they answer “We are still consulting on the text.” Which is a strange answer for two reasons. First, back in May USTR made a point of telling us that it was extremely difficult to agree on the text, and that a lot of political give and take was necessary. It took months. So how are revisions politically feasible? Second, who are they consulting with? They certainly haven’t been asking us for any input.

There are TPP negotiators from other countries who are keen to see the exception, and to see their tobacco regulations protected under the agreement. But in general, the U.S. holds most of the power in trade negotiations – smaller countries are reluctant to rock the boat, and so rather than propose something themselves, they would prefer to wait for the U.S. to start the conversation. We’ve been prepping them for 18 months on the tobacco issue, and they are ready to talk.

A trade expert pointed out recently that the U.S. tobacco proposal (as far as they could tell from not reading it) sounded a lot more like a reservation than an exception. Reservations are taken at the very end of negotiations, when most chapters have been closed. Is the U.S. simply going to protect its own tobacco measures at the last moment, and leave the other countries open to endless lawsuits from the tobacco industry? If so, was this the plan all along, or has the plan changed due to industry pressure? Either way, if the exception is never tabled, public health groups should be outraged at being lied to. And the administration should be ashamed. Their failure to act – and duplicitous treatment of constituents who largely supported it in the last election – will directly lead to millions of additional deaths.

President Obama, please do the right thing. There is no grey area here – the interests of Big Tobacco are directly opposed to the interests of public health. They are not a stakeholder, they are the vector of a disease that will kill one billion people this century.

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Virginia Considers Outlawing Smoking in Car with Kids

Virginia’s ban on smoking in restaurants and public buildings just passed the three-year mark, and a Democratic lawmaker is now looking to expand the ban to some cars.

Del. Joe Morrissey, D-Highland Springs, filed a bill for the General Assembly session next month that would prohibit smoking in any vehicle with a passenger under the age of 13. The violation would carry a $100 fine.

“Children are captives in a car,” Morrissey said. “They’re not free to leave a car that’s smoke-filled, and we have other legislation that protects children in automobiles.”

Extending the smoking prohibition to cars with children in them could be a tough sell in the GOP-controlled House, where many Republicans were criticized in 2009 for backing a statewide smoking ban that conservatives saw as an infringement on private businesses, like restaurants. Private clubs, prisons and tobacco stores are exempt from the law.

“I’m not a smoker. I don’t like being around it. But I just don’t think it’s the state’s place to ban the use of a legal product on your own property,” said Del. Mark Cole, R-Fredericksburg.

The smoking ban, Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine’s signature legislative achievement in office, marked its three-year anniversary on Dec. 1 and there’s no indication it will be lifted anytime soon.

Cole questioned whether Morrissey’s bill is an indication that Democrats will eventually try to expand the smoking ban’s reach. Some states have gone much further than Virginia in banning smoking, including prohibiting the use of tobacco products in public parks.

“That’s the way liberals are. They try to micromanage people’s lives,” Cole said. “We can’t afford a big, intrusive government to enforce all these things.”

Morrissey also introduce legislation that would fine anyone caught throwing a cigarette butt on the street $100 and allow a judge to require the smoker to do community service.

Money collected from the fines would go to the Litter Control and Recycling Fund.

“One of my and many others’ pet peeves are when we drive along and see someone flick a cigarette out of their car,” Morrissey said. “It’s like they’re saying, ‘I want to keep my car clean but I don’t care about the environment.’ ”

Including cigarettes as litter would go a long way toward helping restore the Chesapeake Bay, Morrissey said. The burned-out butts that make their way into the watershed each year could fill 12 Olympic-size swimming pools, he said.

“I don’t think people are aware of the volume of cigarette butts that are put out into the environment,” Morrissey said.

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Meningitis Linked To Smoking While Pregnant

Women who smoke while pregnant can triple the chances of their child succumbing to a major cause of meningitis, according to new research.

Several studies have already suggested a link between passive smoking and meningococcal disease.

To investigate the association, scientists at the UK Centre for Tobacco Studies carried out a systematic review of 18 studies and pooled their results.

Their study, published in the online journal BMC Public Health , shows that exposure to second-hand smoke both in the home and womb significantly increases the risk of meningococcal disease.

Passive smoking in the home doubled the risk in children and raised it even further in the under-fives.

For children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, the risk was three times higher than for children born into non-smoking households.

Study leader Dr Rachael Murray, from the UK Centre for Tobacco Studies at the University of Nottingham, said: “We estimate that an extra 630 cases of childhood invasive meningococcal disease every year are directly attributable to second-hand smoke in the UK alone.

“While we cannot be sure exactly how tobacco smoke is affecting these children, the findings from this study highlight consistent evidence of the further harms of smoking around children and during pregnancy, and thus parents and family members should be encouraged to not smoke in the home or around children.”

Scientists estimated that each year in the UK exposure to second-hand smoke led to several hundred extra children being affected by invasive meningococcal disease.

Meningococcal bacteria are responsible for the most dangerous form of meningitis and can also invade the blood, lungs or joints.

One in 20 of those struck by invasive meningococcal disease will die despite medical attention and one in six will be left severely disabled.

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US Study Finds Smoking May Worsen a Hangover

Study: You’ll Likely Feel Worse After Drinking if You’ve Been Smoking, Too

For smokers, it may seem only natural to light up while imbibing at this month’s holiday parties. But a new report published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs suggests that those who smoke cigarettes on the same day they drink heavily suffer worse hangovers than those who stick to booze alone. Brown University researchers analyzed a group of 113 college students at a Midwestern university who tracked their drinking and smoking habits, as well as their hangover symptoms over an eight-week period, reports TIME. Students who drank about six cans of beer per hour and also smoked were most likely to feel the consequences in the morning and suffered the worst hangovers. “This is another reason for people who drink heavily to quit smoking,” Damaris Rohsenow, study author and professor of behavioral and social sciences, told TIME. “It’s not just that the smoking will increase their discomfort the next day, but it may be increasing brain problems in the long run. The fact that smoking aggravates hangover may be a warning sign that people should heed.”

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New Zealand’s Proposed Plain Packaging

The discussion about New Zealand’s proposed law on plain packaging for cigarettes and other tobacco products, largely followed the earlier debates on Australia’s law.

New Zealand notified its intention to introduce the legislation in documentG/TBT/N/NZL/62, which includes a link to its health ministry for further information. The proposal was agreed in principle by the Cabinet in April 2012, New Zealand said, and was open for consultation from July to October. Information and comments are being compiled and no draft legislation has been issued so far, it said.

The delegation said smoking is the most serious preventable cause of death in New Zealand, and is most serious among the Maori population. The government aims to make the country essentially smoke-free by 2025, it said.

Expressing concern were the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Mexico, Zambia, Cuba and Zimbabwe. They said the measure would hurt their tobacco producers and would restrict trade more than is necessary to meet the health objectives.

Supporting New Zealand were Australia, Norway and Canada, and the World Health Organization (an observer in the committee). They said the measure is justifiable in view of how serious are the problems caused by smoking.

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Examples of the new plain cigarette packaging in Australia Photo: Rex Features

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Medical Students from Across the Globe Unite to Demand Special Treatment of Tobacco in Trade Agreements

A letter from TPP Medical Student Association Presidents including the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA)  went out to TPP negotiators asking for access to the negotiating text as well as revisions or removal of provisions that threaten public health including tobacco. Stating that “Tobacco alone is responsible for one in ten deaths worldwide”. To Read the Full Letter Click Here>

 

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Court Blocks FDA Tobacco Warning Labels Appeal

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the government’s request for the full court to hear a case on the Food and Drug Administration’s graphic tobacco warning labels, setting up a potential Supreme Court showdown with Big Tobacco.

But first, the government has to decide whether it wants to defend the labels it developed or go back to the drawing board.

The Department of Justice has 90 days to appeal the case to the high court. A spokesman declined to comment on whether it would.

Calls from some anti-tobacco groups to do so came quickly.

Wednesday’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit “was wrong on the science and wrong on the law, and we urge the government to appeal this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement.

In August, a three-member panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of five tobacco companies, which argued the labels violate the First Amendment rights of corporations. The labels are supposed to take up half of each cigarette package.

That case directly challenged the nine labels FDA developed to implement the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. They include graphic images meant to illustrate the consequences of smoking, including an autopsied cadaver and a man smoking through a tracheotomy, a hole in his neck.

The majority argued that the government showed no evidence that the labels would effectively reduce smoking — the science is a matter of debate — and that the government, therefore, could not force the industry to foot the bill for advertising an anti-tobacco message.

In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld the underlying provisions in the law before the labels were created. The tobacco industry has already appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court but asked it not to take action on it before the case was resolved in the D.C. court.

“Now, it’s up to the government to decide if these particular warning labels are actually defensible to the Supreme Court,” said Mary Rouvelas, senior counsel for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, who supports the labels.

Other countries have introduced similar labels. Anti-smoking advocates expect to see mounting evidence that the labels are effective, but the FDA produced limited data to suggest that its labels would work.

One option the FDA could consider, Rouvelas said, would be to adopt labels that are basically the same as labels in other countries. Then the agency could use evidence of their effectiveness to make its case.

“It’s pretty clear that the [D.C. court] had a problem with the scientific studies,” Rouvelas said, adding that First Amendment cases often rise or fall with scientific data that shows any infringement on free speech is narrowly tailored to accomplish a legitimate government goal.

In any event, the labels will not go on cigarette packs anytime soon.

If the government appeals the case and Supreme Court agrees to hear it, the case most likely will be argued next fall and decided spring or winter 2014. Under the law, the labels were supposed to go on packages in October.

The graphic warnings aren’t the only labeling issues the industry is grappling with.

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that tobacco companies will have to publish “corrective statements” about the health effects of cigarettes in package inserts, on corporate websites and in national print and broadcast advertisements — to make amends for decades of misleading the public.

The statements include that tobacco kills an average 1,200 people a day. The industry has not yet said whether it will appeal the ruling.

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