APRIL-MAY2008

tobacco scourge reducing..?

"Offering cigarettes in various candy flavors is a blatant attempt by the tobacco industry to recruit children into a life of smoking, and all the negative health consequences that such a life carries."

February 21, 2008 - Big Tobacco?s Guinea Pigs: How an Unregulated Industry Experiments on America?s Kids and Consumers.. This excellent report has been issued by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. More and more tobacco products are being marketed as a result of the decline in cigarette smoking and ban on smoking in public places. The report details how the companies manipulate their products to recruit new youth users, create and sustain addiction, and discourage users from quitting. Even though tobacco use in the leading preventable cause of death in this country, tobacco products are not regulated by any public health agency. As a result tobacco manufacturers can introduce new products, secretly modify existing products with new designs and ingredients, and make unproven health claims without regard for the impact on public health. The cornerstone of the pending legislation before the U.S. congress is the requirement that any explicit or implicit health claim must be evaluated by the FDA on a pre-market basis. This principle applies to all other products that the FDA regulates and should be applied to tobacco products.
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February 20, 2008 - Swedish Match (Svenska Tandsticks) shares are falling in 2008.. The shares of Swedish Match AB, the world's second-biggest maker of smokeless tobacco products, fell four kronor, or 2.8 percent, to 138 kronor ($21.75 USD) in Stockholm trading on Tuesday (2/19/2008). The stock has declined 11 percent in 2008 after 11 years of gains. Taxes on snus, or Swedish-style snuff, rose again last month in the only European Union country that permits its sale. A scientific committee said on Tuesday there's not enough evidence to show that snus may help people quit smoking, casting a pall on efforts by Swedish Match to lift a ban in other EU states. Snuff generates about half of Swedish Match's operating profit, and the bulk of snuff sales comes from Sweden. The country's government raised taxes by 37 percent last month (January 2008) after doubling them in 2007. The company has forecast an effect similar to that of the last tax rise, which contributed to a 10-percent drop in total sales and a 27-percent slide in operating profit in last year's first quarter (2007). Swedish Match and competitors such as Altria Group Inc have banked on demand for smokeless products to fuel sales as fewer people buy cigarettes in the United States and western Europe.

February 18, 2008 - EU Scientific Committee Concludes: Insufficent Evidence to Lift Ban on SNUS.. General conclusion of the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) is that smokeless tobacco products (STP) are addictive and their use is hazardous to health. STP contain various levels of toxic substances. Evidence on the effectiveness of STP as a smoking cessation aid is insufficient, and relative trends in progression from STP into and from smoking differ between countries. It is thus not possible to extrapolate the patterns of tobacco use from one country where oral tobacco is available to other countries due to societal, and cultural differences the patterns of tobacco use'' to other countries, the committee said. Evidence that the snuff, known as snus, may help Swedish smokers stop isn't sufficient to lift an EU ban because it's not possible to extrapolate. For example, overall smoking prevalence in Norway, as well as in young Norwegians, has decreased at the same rates in men and women during the last decade, whereas a marked increase in snus use during this time period has only occurred in young men. The benefits of lifting a ban would be offset by the risk that consumers who might never have smoked would start using snus, or that consumers who quit smoking for the product would continue using it indefinitely, the panel said. Now the European Commission must decide to accept or reject the commitee's conclusion.Related news brief: SCENIHR received the assignment from the European Union (EU) Commission to investigate the health risks of smokeless tobacco products, including Swedish snus.


February 17, 2008 - License Could Be Required to Use Tobacco.. Professor Julian Le Grand, Chairman of Health England has come up with a great idea. Smokers could be forced to pay ?10 ($19.61 USD) for a permit to buy tobacco if a government health advisory body gets its way. Professor Le Grand, a former adviser to ex-PM Tony Blair, said cash raised by the proposed scheme would go to the National Health Services. Le Grand added: "70% of smokers actually want to stop smoking. "So if you just make it a little bit more difficult for them to actually re-start or even to start in the first place, yes I think it will make a big difference." He said it was the inconvenience of getting a permit - as much as the cost - that would deter people from persisting with the smoking habit. "You've got to get a form, a complex form - the government's good at complex forms; you have got to get a photograph. "It's a little bit of a problem to actually do it, so you have got to make a conscious decision every year to opt in to being a smoker." A department of health spokeswoman did not rule out such a scheme as part of the next wave of tobacco regulation.

February 16, 2008 - Vehicles Most Dangerous Space for Second-Hand Smoke Levels.. New research shows that the concentration of second-hand smoke (SHS, passive smoking, involuntary smoking, environmental tobacco smoke, ETS) particles in a car can be up to 60 times higher than concentrations indoors, more than double previous findings. ( A Harvard School of Public Health report indicated that secondhand smoke in cars can be up to 10 times more of a health risk than secondhand smoke in a home. - TM) Ontario doctors believe this research and other recent findings on in-car smoke concentrations will aid the government in moving quickly to implement a provincial ban on smoking in vehicles when children are present. "We now have new evidence showing the harmful levels of second-hand smoke in a car are even more potent than we once believed," said Dr. Janice Willett, President of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA). "These important findings should be heard by both caregivers who smoke and our lawmakers so that children can be protected." For children, the risks associated with SHS include respiratory illnesses (asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia), middle ear disease, lower respiratory tract infections, as well as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and increased incidences of cancer and heart disease in adulthood. In December 2007, Nova Scotia became the first province in Canada to pass legislation banning smoking in cars with children. Most recently, British Columbia announced that it will be introducing similar legislation. This follows on the heals of a growing list of U.S. jurisdictions that have already implemented bans including California; Arkansas; Louisiana; Bangor, Maine; Keyport, New Jersey; and Rockland County. South Australia has also taken action to protect children from the dangers of SHS in vehicles.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand will extend its ban on smoking to air-conditioned bars and offices and outdoor markets next month, joining major developed countries in a war on tobacco, a leading Thai anti-smoking agency said on Friday.

Smokers faced a 2,000 baht ($60) fine and owners who fail to enforce the law could be fined 20,000 baht ($600) after the ban takes effect on February 17, said the Thailand Health Promotion Institute, which helped push for the law. The Health Ministry ban, already in place for air-conditioned restaurants, could face opposition from some bar owners, group president Hatai Chitanondh said in a statement. "They may be thinking the Health Ministry is ruining their business, kicking away their customers, but our research papers show a smoking ban will bring more customers to them," Hatai said. The move comes hard on the heels of similar bans this month by France and Germany. Many other members of the European Union have also outlawed smoking in enclosed public places.

February 7, 2008 - With less restraints... PMI Philip Morris International looks to the future..Spinoff - Philip Morris International free from the marketing rules and legal clouds handing over the U.S. tobacco market wil be able to pursue new products that will be off-limits in the U.S. In developing countries, where smoking is on the increase, to appeal to customers in these emerging markets, PMI is making sweet-smelling cigarettes that contain tobacco,cloves and flavoring - with twice the tar and nicotine levels of conventional U.S. cigarettes. From http://SNUS.biz: In Indonesia, Dji Sam Soe, Philip Morris-owned Sampoerna's flagship best-selling brand, has twice the amount of nicotine and three times the amount of tar of a conventional cigarette. Information on some of these new products. In developing countries to appeal to customers in these emerging markets, PMI is making sweet-smelling cigarettes that contain tobacco, cloves and flavoring - with twice the tar and nicotine levels of conventional U.S. cigarettes. The World Health Organization is soon to release a report that may offer a road map to combat tobacco use globally.