Dublin: Ireland has became the second country in the world to pass a law introducing mandatory plain packaging for tobacco products, prompting the tobacco industry to threaten legal action. It follows Australia’s introduction of similar plain packaging legislation in 2012. Under Ireland’s new rules all forms of branding, including logos
By Senator Elizabeth Warren The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries. Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the
Smoke-free in the Skies, but not on the Ground Just 25 years ago, smoking was a pervasive norm. People could smoke at work, in restaurants, and even on airplanes. Non-smokers were exposed to second hand smoke often and for extended periods of time. Twenty five years ago today, a huge
If you think the air travel experience generally stinks now, consider what it was like before smoking was banned on domestic flights 25 years ago. Tracy Sear, a flight attendant with US Airways, was looking over some Facebook posts from colleagues recalling those bad old days when a third or
WASHINGTON (AP) — Never underestimate the staying power of big tobacco. In 2006, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the nation’s largest cigarette makers to publicly admit that they had lied for decades about the dangers of smoking. The basis for the punishment: Testimony from 162 witnesses, a nine-month bench
The powerful cigarette industry reignited Florida’s tobacco wars Wednesday with a one-sentence bill that would strip away the right of thousands of Florida victims from collecting millions in damages…. But for Bob Wilcox, 49, a Miami-Dade police lieutenant in the homicide bureau, the bill is an “outrageous” attempt to shield
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver exposed Big Tobacco’s international bullying tactics to target new and existing customers with their deadly products. ASH supported their researchers in putting together this episode. Join the conversation online using #JeffWeCan Watch the episode below. Read ASH’s Response here> Watch how ASH responded below.
Drivers in England will be banned from smoking in their cars if they are carrying children as passengers. The move, which will become law on 1 October, follows a similar ban in Wales and aims to protect young people under 18 from second-hand smoke. Scotland is also considering introducing a
The Cambridge City Council passed last week a series of controversial amendments to the Cambridge Tobacco Ordinance, including an increase in the purchase age to 21 years old and limits on smoking in public parks and use of e-cigarettes, our partners at Wicked Local reported Tuesday. The new ordinance won’t
President Barack Obama’s latest budget is his most populist ever, seeking big tax hikes to pay for ambitious new spending on education and infrastructure in a dare to Republicans to find common ground. Here are the biggest and boldest among his tax proposals. All estimates are for revenue raised or
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California health officials Wednesday declared electronic cigarettes a health threat that should be strictly regulated like tobacco products, joining other states and health advocates across the U.S. in seeking tighter controls as “vaping” grows in popularity. The California Department of Public Health released a report saying
One of the world’s top universities is taking a smoking ban a step further this week, as Stanford University prohibits the sale of tobacco as well as smoking on campus. Campus shops at the Californian university will have to end the sale of all tobacco products from 1 March. Parts
One of the strongest arguments in favor of raising the legal age for tobacco purchases inadvertently comes from the tobacco industry itself. In 1986, in a confidential memo, an executive for Philip Morris wrote, “Raising the legal minimum age for cigarette purchase to 21 could gut our key young-adult market
Remarks by the President at Meeting of the Export Council December 11, 2014 The big bugaboo that’s lifted up there is tobacco companies suing poorer countries to make sure that anti-smoking legislation is banned, or at least tying them up with so much litigation that ultimately smaller countries cave. Those
Tel Aviv University has backed out of its agreement with the Philip Morris Tobacco Company (Altria Group) that the firm provide scholarships to TAU’s School of Marketing students. The decision was made last week after the Israel Cancer Association (ICA) threatened to cancel its research grants to TAU scientists. The
New York (Reuters) – The American Red Cross risks damaging the reputation of the global Red Cross brand because of its refusal to stop accepting donations from tobacco companies, a top official with the humanitarian network said. These concerns are prompting the International Red Cross and public health organizations to
Those requirements have appeared in previous fast-track bills. They sound perfectly reasonable, right? Well, consider this: Australia is a party to the TPP and already has a free trade agreement with the United States. Under Australian law, cigarettes must be sold in “plain packaging.” Health warnings have to cover at
Worldwide, tobacco is responsible for 7 million deaths a year. In the United States, nearly 500,000 people die as a result of smoking each year, and approximately 16 million people are sick as a result of tobacco. But the cost to health and lives are not the only costs that Americans are suffering
Australian expertise in tobacco control is helping save lives around the world, but that work could be undone. Every day, 5500 children in India start using tobacco. If they continue the habit, as many do, the illnesses brought about by tobacco addiction will kill about half of them. In the
One of the world’s smallest countries – Nepal – has taken a large step toward combating tobacco-related disease this week. Ninety percent of the surface area of all tobacco packaging must now be covered with harrowing images designed to warn consumers of the health consequences of tobacco use. The new
Uruguay has presented a 500 page document to defend itself against an international lawsuit challenging the country’s tough tobacco packaging regulations. The claim was brought by Philip Morris, the global tobacco giant, at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington DC… On October 13,
Subsidiaries of Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) (NYSE/Euronext Paris: PM) today obtained a green light from an English Court to challenge the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (2014/40/EU) before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Key questions regarding the Directive’s validity will be referred to the CJEU as
WTO members meeting as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council on 28–29 October 2014 responded to the latest developments on plain packaging for tobacco products, exchanged views on innovation, and heard about plans to make it easier to make sense of the huge amount of information they
The Central Massachusetts town of Westminster would become the first community in the state, and perhaps the nation, to ban all tobacco sales under a proposal made public Monday that regulators say is designed to improve health, especially among the young. Draft regulations posted on the town’s website would prohibit
The latest round of negotiations for the global tobacco treaty, the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), held in Moscow ended this past Saturday, October 18, 2014. Government Delegates from 178 countries and the European Union representing nearly 90 percent of the world’s people gathered to confront
