One of the world’s largest tobacco firms has told the Government to immediately halt plain packaging legislation in the Dáil or face a High Court claim for damages. JTI Ireland, owner of the Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut brands, has told Ministers James Reilly and Leo Varadkar that it
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.
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
In the past few years, several localities have increased the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21. The first to increase the minimum sales age to 21 was Needham, MA, a suburb of Boston, in 2005. Following implementation of the law, smoking rates among Needham high-school students dropped almost
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
“Health must become a priority. The time is now,” said global tobacco control advocates in the Framework Convention Alliance video. They emphasize the importance of this year, 2015, and that leaders must raise their ambitions for humanity. They also encourage the general public to stand up and speak out. The
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
Only about half of Americans are protected from exposure to secondhand smoke, whether in public places or at work. Yet, a growing number of foreign countries have achieved complete protection, often in the face of strong tobacco industry opposition. While every society is different, some of the strategies used offer
We’re almost there. This year, tobacco control was included in several key United Nations (UN) documents that will change our future. We know that mentioning tobacco control and tobacco control treaties in UN documents seems only natural, but in the last set of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), tobacco control and
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
Philip Morris International was fined in Brazil for targeting youth The consumer protection agency from the Brazilian state of São Paulo has fined Philip Morris over $480,000. The agency acted after a formal complaint was filed against Philip Morris by tobacco control activists who documented how its marketing tactics in
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
December 9, 2014 An ISDS carve-out in the TPPA would be good for tobacco control, but not good enough. There has been some scuttlebutt in trade circles over the past weeks about a possible US proposal in the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations to exempt tobacco measures from the investment
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
By Krista Hughes WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) – The United States has floated excluding tobacco products from a key section of a 12-nation Pacific trade deal and signaled it may present a formal proposal to trading partners at talks in Australia, sources briefed on the negotiations said. Dropping tobacco from
Annually, the tobacco industry contributes over $1.6 million to federal candidates and spends approximately $16.6 million lobbying Congress. This money buys the tobacco industry access to government officials and influence over laws. This is a serious problem because there is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests
The tobacco industry has a long history of flexing its muscles, namely in the area of investor protection schemes, against governments in the name of protecting its own market. TTIP is an opportunity to set a good example for 21st century trade agreements by, at the minimum, recognizing the unique
In the past, the United States has been a leader in tobacco control. For the last 15 years, though, the U.S. has been falling behind as other countries have moved to protect their people from tobacco addiction and death. For example, when it comes to tobacco prices, there are huge
More organizations have revealed thecomments that they submitted to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on whether certain tobacco products should fall under the agency’s authority. Aug. 8 was the deadline for interested parties to submitpublic comments to the FDA on the proposed tobacco “deeming” regulations–“Deeming Tobacco Products to
Big Tobacco wants to reclaim the hearts and wallets of most adult Americans by rebranding its tarred image — pitching “smokeless” e-cigarettes, embracing the mantra “harm reduction,” and funding science that could turn tobacco plants into life-saving medicine. That tactical shift, not surprisingly, has cultivated cynics like anti-tobacco crusader Patrick
Three U.S. surgeons general have played the biggest roles in alerting the public to the dangers of tobacco. In 1964, Dr. Luther Terry issued the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health, irrefutably linking smoking with lung disease and other illnesses. The report led to a sharp drop in
