Action on Smoking & Health Draws on “Sick of Smoking’s” Current Legal Challenge Against Tobacco Companies in the Netherlands to Highlight Criminal Liability WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tuesday, July 18, 2017 – Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) released a new video to draw attention to a Dutch criminal complaint against
The man Donald Trump has chosen to direct health policy for the federal government has close ties to the tobacco industry he will be charged with regulating. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who was confirmed as health and human services secretary by a 52-47 vote in the Senate early Friday morning,
On February 1, 2017, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) issued the following statement: “According to its own public reports, in 2016 Phillip Morris manufactured 800 billion cigarettes. Thus, [IASLC] views with some skepticism Philip Morris’ recent statement committing to the design of a smoke-free future
In California, RJ Reynolds is spending millions to prevent a new tax on cigarettes. But in Missouri, RJ Reynolds is spending millions to promote a new tax on cigarettes. Tobacco taxes are proven to prevent kids from smoking and to increase the number of adults who quit. Big Tobacco has
The David-Goliath battle between Uruguay and Philip Morris is an iconic case because it so clearly illustrates the way corporations can use international investment treaties to attack regulations made in the public interest. So does Big Tobacco’s defeat by Uruguay mean that the growing public opposition to these investment treaties
The embattled tobacco industry is struggling to fight off one of its fiercest and possibly most dangerous foes to date: the World Health Organization. The Hong Kong native who has run the U.N. body for the past decade, Margaret Chan, takes evident pride in being called Big Tobacco’s public enemy
Bloomberg said: “Someday somebodies going to come along and say to the people who are running these companies, you are killing people. If you kill somebody on the streets with a gun or beat them over the head, we put you in jail or worse. “These people [tobacco companies] deliberately
Public health groups are urging newly minted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to follow in her husband’s footsteps and take on Big Tobacco. The calls for Clinton to make the issue part of her campaign platform take place amid a growing push to raise the national smoking age to 21.
Tobacco and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) The inclusion of tobacco control in the Sustainable Development Goals has been in the works for several years. It is due to various advocacy efforts of the Framework Convention Alliance and the support of NGO partners and allied missions in New York and
The Public Health Advocacy Institute (“PHAI”) announced today that its newly formed Center for Public Health Litigation has filed lawsuits against two major tobacco companies and several local distributors on behalf of the families of two former smokers who suffered devastating disease from smoking cigarettes. “This is the first time
Tobacco products kill more people than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined. Left unchecked, tobacco use will kill 1 billion people this century. As one state Supreme Court recently noted, cigarettes likely constitute “the most dangerous product lawfully sold” to consumers. The lethal consequences of smoking
John Oliver of HBO’s Last Week Tonight continued his original episode on the tobacco industry with this response. Watch here>
WASHINGTON – A temporary order by a Superior Court judge is keeping a man from smoking inside his home in the District of Columbia. WJLA-TV (https://bit.ly/1BrlPLl ) reports that Edwin Gray’s next door neighbors in northeast Washington have filed a civil suit claiming they’re being harmed by smoke that sneaks
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
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
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
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
Almost 200 countries signed the World Health Organisation’s Tobacco Control Convention and are obliged to take measures to curb tobacco use. But the industry has hit back. A big tobacco company, Philip Morris, has taken Uruguay and Australia to tribunals under bilateral investment treaties, claiming billions of dollars in compensation
Eric Crosbie, MA, Mariaelena Gonzalez, PhD, and Stanton A. Glantz, PhD ABSTRACT Noncommunicable diseases result from consuming unhealthy products, including tobacco, which are promoted by transnational corporations. The tobacco industry uses preemption to block or reverse tobacco control policies. Preemption removes authority from jurisdictions where tobacco companies’ influence is weak
“I think we have seen this movie before,” Senator Richard Blumenthal said. “It is called big nicotine comes to children near you and you are using the same kinds of tactics and promotions and ads that were used by big tobacco and proved so effective” In a hearing Wednesday afternoon
The Chamber of Commerce is undercutting its trade agenda by supporting Big Tobacco. Since early in 2011, much of our attention here at ASH has been focused on the nexus between trade and tobacco, in particular on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). If you have followed this issue, you’ve seen
THE NSW government is considering abandoning tobacco investments after a backlash from health experts and anti-smoking campaigners. It has for the first time admitted to having nearly $30 million invested in tobacco companies. The figures were provided in an answer to a budget estimates question asked by the Greens NSW
