INTERNATIONAL NEWS
June, 1995
- CANADA: Plain Packaging Furor
- EUROPE: Tobacco Adversaries Go Continental
- POLAND: Tobacco Bill Threat Spawns Industry Group
- RUSSIA: "Hermitage" Cigarettes Rankle Museum
- THAILAND: Ingredient List Law Irks Importers
CANADA: Plain Packaging Furor
Ottawa. July 1, 1995. The Canadian government is seriously considering a tobacco "plain packaging" law. Tobacco companies maintain such a law would amount to an "expropriation of trademark."
EUROPE: Tobacco Adversaries Go Continental
Brussels. July 1, 1995. Europe is seeing the kinds of battles between government agencies and tobacco companies that have been raging in the US for the last 7 years, according to Martin du Bois of The Wall Street Journal.
While individual members of the EU are considering smoking bans and advertising restrictions, the EU itself is facing pressures for Europe-wide bans on advertising and smoking on flights between member countries.
In response to the growing tide, the industry has stepped up its governmental and social lobbying efforts.
Philip Morris recently launched a newspaper advertising campaign throughout Europe. One series shows street maps of London or Paris, with tiny areas marked "smoking section." Caption: "Where will they draw the line?"
Other recent tobacco-related events in EU countries:
BRITAIN: The opposition Labor party has said that if it comes to power, it may ban all tobacco advertising, even though Britain and the Netherlands have been leading the battle in the EC against a European-wide tobacco advertising ban.
NETHERLANDS: Netherlands Health Minister Elst Borst told the EC she may move to ban cigarette advertising by the end of the year.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines recently announced plans to ban smoking on its trans-Atlantic and intra-Europe flights this fall.FRANCE: Rothmans was successfully sued for placing what critics charged was a mocking tag line to the health warnings on their cigarette packs. Thus the warning "Pregnant women: Smoking harms your child's health" would be followed by "according to law No. 91-32"--the French law implementing an EU directive that cigarette packs shall carry health warnings.
The court ruled the interpolation "insinuated in the minds of the consumer the idea that (the warning) is a technocratic measure with no real health reason behind it."
Only Brown and Williamson does not add such a postscript in France. Other tobacco companies are being sued by the National Committee Against Nicotine Poisoning, but the Rothmans court was the first to arrive at a decision. Rothmans will appeal.
GERMANY just added two more nonsmoking international flights to the US, and even Poland's Lot Polish Airlines became the first Easter European carrier to ban smoking on an international flight: Business Class on New York-Warsaw flights is now smokefree.
ITALY: The Italian Parliament is considering legislation to ban smoking in public offices and in public transportation, and to restrict smoking in private spaces open to the public.
POLAND: TOBACCO BILL THREAT SPAWNS INDUSTRY GROUP
Warsaw, Poland. June 27, 1995 Just as Poland is about to put 5 local tobacco manufacturing plants on the block, Parliament is considering a law that not only bans smoking in some public places, but would put a halt to tobacco advertising altogether.
Reuters reports that the bill has been fought for 3 months in a major campaign waged by media firms and foreign and domestic tobacco companies. The campaign's slogan: "Defend your right to choose."
But now that a health committee has passed the bill, and it now goes to Parliament, 8 Polish producers and 11 foreign companies--including Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds--have established the National Tobacco Producers' Association (KSPT). The groups mission: "to help legislators so that their decisions are reasonable," according to president Robert Hanisz.
RUSSIA: "Hermitage" Cigarettes Rankle Museum
St. Petersburg, Russia. June 27, 1995. When Rothmans-Nevo, a joint British-Russian company, released "Hermitage" cigarettes this month, it intended to evoke the essence of things uniquely Russian, and meeting standards of the highest quality.
Instead, the name may evoke a lawsuit. When the director of the museum returned from vacation to find the new cigarettes being sold in St. Petersburg, he was "shocked," and called the brand "disgraceful."
Museum Director Mikhail Piotrovsky told UPI he was talking with Hermitage lawyers, but "Russian laws are not very good."
According to a copyright law passed three years ago, the Hermitage name must be registered as a trademark in order for the museum to have grounds for a suit, according to a museum lawyer.
UPI does not state if the museum has such a trademark.
Rothmans claims the museum knew of its plans; Piotrovsky claims the museum did not.
THAILAND: INGREDIENT LIST LAW IRKS IMPORTERS
Bangkok, Thailand. June 27, 1995. American, British and Japanese tobacco companies are furious over proposed regulations that would require tobacco companies to disclose their ingredients.
The domestic Thailand Tobacco Monopoly would also be affected, but the rule would allow the Health Ministry to ban the import of cigarettes containing poisonous substances.
Philip Morris Cos., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Britain's Rothmans International, British-American Tobacco and Brown & Williamson Inc., and Japan Tobacco Inc. complained Saturday to the Commerce Ministry but were rebuffed.
The companies said the ruling would violate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, but the Health Ministry said GATT rules allow a country to control imports it feels endanger public health.
US appeals to GATT helped force Thailand's doors open to US cigarettes in 1990.
Source: Ron Corben, The Journal of Commerce June 27, 1995.
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