Tobacco.org

• Environmental cigarette company? You decide 

But the issue is not just about why Altria is going green, but is it really making a difference? Altria says it is, the tobacco company has reduced their packaging waste, water and emissions the last four years.

Eric Asche, Senior Vice President of Marketing at the American Legacy Foundation said that while reducing one's foot print is great, it does not balance out the 400,000 lives lost to tobacco every year or the 1,200 lost every day.

“Our job is to continue to point at what they are really up to and that is all the while they are trying to manufacture this new image- they are still addicting our kids and they are still selling a deadly product", said McGoldrick.

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• Scribe Jailed 10 Months 

The Arua-based Red Pepper reporter was on Thursday sentenced to a 10-month imprisonment for receiving a bribe.

Ronald Afeku pleaded guilty of taking sh1m from the British American Tobacco Uganda (BATU) manager for not running a story against the company last Thursday.

"You have acted against the ethics of journalism, a noble profession that informs, educates the masses. "You are sentenced to ten months imprisonment," the Arua Grade II magistrate, Marchelo Alioniin, read the judgement before a fully packed courtroom with the convict's relatives and journalists.

Alioniin urged journalists to clear their image from criminal acts if they wanted to get public confidence. . . .

On August 6, Afeku was arrested by plain clothed policemen from BATU offices after receiving a bribe to kill a story on a motor accident involving the tobacco firm, which claimed over 10 people and left many others injured.

The court heard that Afeku had asked for sh2m and the balance would be paid later after handing over the story to the manager

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LETTER: Refuse tobacco money 

I had a great time at Dfest; I'm thankful for any event that brings business to Tulsa. However, I was disappointed a tobacco company was allowed to distribute free cigarettes, coupons, and other tobacco products. I went through the tobacco trailer myself; it was obvious they were marketing to their next generation of replacement tobacco users before the FDA stops the distribution of samples. Although you were required to be 18, plenty of samples were distributed to share with friends after leaving the trailer -- all of this at an event sponsored by State Farm, a company that provides health insurance.

Edward B. Rust, Jr., the State Farm CEO, says on the company's Web site, "Not only do we do what is legal, but we also do what is right." OK, Mr. Rust, I know advertisement of a deadly product to a young crowd is still legal, but is it right?

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ARCHIVE: Education and debate: For and against: Why journals should not publish articles funded by the tobacco industry 

ARCHIVE: LETTER: Many claims about passive smoking are inadequately justified 

Editor–George Davey Smith and Andrew N Phillips suggest that the tobacco industry attempts to promote confusion about passive smoking and disease.1 Although I was not involved with the report of the European Working Group on Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer, their central concern, I am cited as an "enthusiastic recipient of tobacco industry financial support who ... has presented models ... most favourable to the tobacco industry case." Insinuating that I distort evidence for money is most unfair. I am widely consulted on many issues and attempt always to present an unbiased assessment. For passive smoking, which I have studied in detail, I strongly believe that many claims are inadequately justified, and I say so. In fact, the authors' own article promotes confusion by presenting the relevant evidence misleadingly.

They wrongly criticise my work on bias due to misclassified smoking habits for ignoring the fact that spousal smoking inaccurately measures total exposure. . . .

Given their keen awareness of residual confounding, I find it remarkable that the authors consider the association of cot death and maternal smoking to be due to passive smoking when studies such as Mitchell et al's have found that adjustment for numerous risk factors massively weakens the association.5

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Expo bureau rejects tobacco group's donation 

THE Shanghai World Expo 2010 bureau has rejected a 200 million yuan (US$29.27 million) donation from Shanghai Tobacco Group so as not to go against China's anti-smoking efforts and taint the healthy image of the world event.

The Expo authority originally agreed to the donation on May 7 and the money was supposed to be used to partially fund construction of China Pavilion, according to the bureau's Website.

However, the donation soon aroused concern among health experts who said accepting the group's donation was not in line with the bureau's pledge to offer a "green and smoke-free" Expo.

More than 20 experts issued a joint letter in Beijing this month to call on the Expo authority to turn down the tobacco donation. They said acceptance would violate the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a worldwide paper issued by the World Health Organization in 2003.

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• Senate denies bribery allegation on tobacco law 

No senator has been bribed to influence the passage or otherwise of the National Tobacco Control Bill, Senate President David Mark said yesterday while declaring the public hearing on the bill open.

Senator Mark said the issue of checking cigarette smoking was contentious as there are global lobbyists for ban of tobacco smoking as there are also organisations against the ban saying, “I have heard all sorts of stories about lobbyists trying to see that the public hearing does not go on, or that lobbyists insist that the public hearing must go on.

We must begin to accept that our legislators are patriotic Nigerians they don’t need to take money in any form to do anything at all. There is too much rumour in the air, rumour based on nothing absolutely.

If you have a strong case, make your case, when you fail to make your case then you go with the excuse that people have been bribed that that has happened nobody is going to bribe anybody on any bill that will come before the Senate or the House of Representatives any bill that comes here will pass through the normal process.”

The Senate President expressed reservation on the bill saying “I will remain neutral on this bill because the two key issues are health versus economy. How many jobs can we provide from the tobacco industry? How many people are going to lose their jobs now if the tobacco industries are not able to produce in this country? More importantly, if the tobacco Industries here close down, will it stop Nigerians from smoking?

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TEMKIN: PRIVATE INVESTOR:White knight was a smoke-wreathed BAT  

We’re now looking at companies with sustainable, growing dividend yields.

British American Tobacco (BAT) is one of these. At its share price of R230, its historic earnings yield is 7,55% and its dividend yield is 3,83%. Many of its markets are flourishing. The global economic crisis could spur demand for more addiction.

We won’t buy the shares, however, because we don’t like the tobacco business.

Relative to my fear that Anglo will be in a takeover battle, I can’t resist telling you something about BAT in the role of a “white knight”. . . .

In 1986, I was offered the position as marketing director of Eagle Star’s offshore life insurance company based in the Isle of Man.

There I found, to my dismay, that BAT was the controlling company of Eagle Star. I had been so focused on the domestic market that I had missed the costly battle against Allianz. To win the battle and be free from the clutches of a larger competitor, Eagle Star had been grabbed by a death-dealing tobacco merchant. Could there have been a less suitable owner for a company that wanted its life insurance policyholders not to be lured into smoking tobacco?

The tobacco business is, comparative to life insurance, simple. You find a growing market for potential addicts, build a factory, make cigarettes, and the cash flows and flows. Building an insurance business, especially a life insurance business, requires capital and patience. It can often take years before profits emerge.

The last thing a tobacco company wants is to wait years for life insurance profits to emerge and have to back up the promise with additional capital. It also doesn’t enjoy the cyclical fortunes of short-term insurance business.

In the 1990s, the infant Eagle Star life company in Holland, which I then headed, was growing so rapidly that it was cash- starved. . . .

Inevitably, the unholy alliance with the “white knight” ended when Eagle Star’s larger rival, Zurich, bought the UK company from BAT. This ironic consequence says nothing about the years of pain and misery endured by Eagle Star’s management in trying to pursue a business strategy directly in conflict to that of the tobacco business.

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• WEIHUA: Expo should say no to tobacco money 

The US struck a last-minute deal on Friday to participate in the show. The news of attendance, first announced by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington on July 1, was a big face-saving move for both the US and the Shanghai host. . . .

Yet only a day after the inking of the US contract, some 20 Chinese public health experts petitioned the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination to return the 200 million yuan donated to the China Pavilion by the Shanghai Tobacco (Group) Corp on May 7. It was the largest contribution since the China Pavilion kicked off its donation program in December 2007.

Health experts believe the donation is a serious violation of China's commitment to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). . . .

The Shanghai Expo organizer has a tough decision to make. Does it want to continue its long affair with the tobacco industry? Does it want to undermine China's anti-smoking campaign? Does it want the Expo to be associated with the country's 350 million smokers and 1 million deaths from smoking-related diseases each year?

These should not be difficult questions for Shanghai to answer.

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CHAPMAN: International tobacco control should repudiate Jekyll and Hyde health philanthropy  

The founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, famously said "...take the Devil's money, wash it in the Blood of the Lamb, and use it to save a dying world". Booth thus opened the door for people of goodwill to take money for noble works from assorted devils. . . .

So what should global tobacco control workers make of the world's richest man,1 Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú, pouring rivers of money into health, education and poverty charities in Latin America? Slim announced last year that he will expand the endowment of his foundations, such as the Carso Foundation, to US$10 billion over the next 4 years, up from US$4 billion, and will dedicate himself more to philanthropy. Slim set up the Carso Health Institute initially endowed with US$500 million and nominated Dr Julio Frenk (former Ministry of Health in Mexico and former candidate for WHO's director general position) for the Institute's executive director position.2 . . .

There is now a conga line of health and poverty relief agencies and researchers applauding Slim's philanthropy and hoping to get in on the action. Business philanthropy is to be applauded but when a philanthropist's day job is a major contributor to the death and disease that his generosity in part seeks to redress, it is time for all self-respecting agencies to make a stand and refuse to have anything to do with it.

Although most known for his telecommunications business, Group Carso, which he controls, Slim owns many other businesses including until recently a majority ownership of Cigatam, Mexico's largest tobacco company. Cigarros la Tabacalera Mexicana (Cigatam) was majority owned by the Carso Group (Philip Morris Mexico owns the other half (49.9%)). In July 2007 Philip Morris International (PMI) announced an agreement to buy an additional 30% of shares

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• Cigarette companies skirt advertising ban 

Now prohibited from advertising their products in the so-called "paid media"--television, radio, and newspapers--tobacco companies have found ways to defeat the ban through subtle but potentially more effective promotional activities.

Their activities range from donating to community projects to influencing the content of movies or shows to being the subject of positive news reports.

Advertising specialists told Newsbreak that these new approaches taken by tobacco companies may be "more expensive," but they sure "built relationships" with consumers and can therefore help maintain, if not expand, the tobacco market.

The Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003 stopped the elaborate marketing strategy of tobacco companies in the "paid media." Anti-tobacco advocates have reported violations of the ad ban in province-based television and radio stations, but noted that the national media have generally heeded the law.

The law, however, has been unable to prevent the invasion of "free media"--the very content of news and entertainment media--by tobacco products and brands. . . .

Tobacco companies have also maintained their presence in newspapers, particularly through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.

CSR activities of Fortune Tobacco made it in the news last year, for example. Major newspapers and at least one television network featured stories on the efforts of Lucio Tan, Fortune Tobacco owner, to help the tobacco farmers in the Ilocos region, where the bulk of his raw materials come from. . . .

Newspapers ran a story on Philip Morris's P2-million donation to Red Cross, which was given on Gordon's 63rd birthday in August 2008. . . .

"Promo girls" are most common in the Philippines. Pretty girls are recruited to distribute cigarettes in parties sponsored by the tobacco companies. This is the lowest level of promotional activity.

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CRONIN: Is the EU in the sway of Big Tobacco?  

Maybe there's still hope for journalism when the News of the World manages to squeeze in a story or two unrelated to Michael Jackson. "European zealots", the paper told us on Sunday, are demanding a ban on smoking outside pubs and offices. The ever-reliable Godfrey Bloom, newly re-elected MEP for Ukip, was rolled out to fulminate against this latest affront to his nation's sovereignty. "It's beyond the nanny state," he said. "It's the bully state. Do they want to close down the English pub?" . . .

the sad fact is that EU officials have not been sufficiently tough in standing up to the tobacco industry representatives that have been strenuously lobbying against an EU-wide smoking ban. The lobbyists have resorted to a sophisticated and sometimes duplicitous campaign in trying to advance their threadbare case that smoking isn't really that harmful. Top-level officials have been quite literally bought by the tobacco industry. Pavel Telicka, the former EU commissioner for health, now works for British American Tobacco, setting up appointments for the firm with his old colleagues in officialdom. Others have been charmed into submission; one former commissioner told me he was convinced that Philip Morris represented the progressive side of the industry. It never dawned on him that the firm had sunk gargantuan sums into making him believe just that by, for example, setting up a medical institute bearing its name.

No national administration would allow paedophiles a say in setting child welfare policies. So why should the views of Big Tobacco on issues of health be taken seriously? And no, I don't think this analogy is too extreme. According to the World Health Organisation, half of the children on this planet have to breathe air polluted by smoke.

This week's move towards creating a "smoke-free environment" across the EU by 2012 is superficially positive, but in reality quite a timid move. The commission's ban will not be legally binding but will rely on the goodwill of national governments to put it into effect. . . .

At the cost of five million lives each year, smoking is the top cause of preventable death in the world. The industry that seeks to profit from this misery is beneath contempt – it's about time our policy-makers started treating it that way.

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ESCONDIDO: Activist says Abed shouldn't vote on smoking ban 

With the City Council slated Wednesday to consider a ban on smoking in Escondido parks, a community activist has called on Councilman Sam Abed to remove himself from the debate because Abed owns a gas station that sells cigarettes.

"It's a pretty big conflict of interest for him to sell cigarettes all day and then vote against banning them from parks," said Danny Perez, a longtime community activist in Escondido.

But Abed, a longtime opponent of smoking bans, said Monday that there is no conflict of interest because cigarette sales make up less than 2 percent of the $10,000 in gross revenue his Mobil service station generates on a typical day.

City Attorney Jeff Epp agreed.

"As I understand it, they are a very minor part of his business," Epp said Monday.

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• Senators say tobacco votes based on regulations, not campaign contributions  

The 17 senators who voted against allowing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco included some of the top recipients of campaign contributions from tobacco manufacturers.

Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss is the third highest recipient of the group.

The historic anti-smoking legislation that the Senate passed Thursday sped to final congressional passage on Friday. Lawmakers and the White House quickly declared that it would save the lives of thousands of smokers of all ages. Even more important, they said, the measure could keep countless young people from starting in the first place. . . .

"I voted against the FDA tobacco bill because I'm opposed to the overregulation of an industry that's already highly regulated, from farmer to manufacturer," Chambliss said. "The bill saddles the already overburdened FDA with even more oversight duties, and does nothing to reduce the rate of smoking among Americans -- cigarettes already on the shelves will remain on the market."

Bunning, whose campaigns received $42,500 from R.J. Reynolds, says his vote reflects his state's interests. According to 2007 figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kentucky ranks second in overall tobacco exports, and the crop pumps $386.4 million into the state's economy.

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MORFORD: A troubling lack of pure evil / Where to find a refreshing dose of vileness in the Age of Obama? 

it turns out classic, black-hearted evil still abounds in our culture. It's just a little less easy to spot.

Witness, say, the long-forgotten R.J. Reynolds tobacco company ("Passionately dedicated to evil since 1890"), currently struggling, like many supervillains of the past, to maintain its diabolical cred in this new era, especially given the drop-off in smoking rates and the company's diminishing capacity to bring death and disease to millions.

R.J. Reynolds has apparently been test-marketing a new tobacco product, some sort of melt-in-your-mouth pellet candy thing, called Orbs, tasty little lumps of toxic tobacco packaged in nifty metal tins, just like breath mints. No smoke, no inhaling, no spitting. Just pop one in your mouth and let the fresh, lethal goodness leech straight into your bloodstream. Cancer never tasted so good!

Pretty evil, yes? It gets better. How about the fact that the U.S. Senate is about to block the damnable product because it's so clearly, albeit subversively, aimed at attracting children? "Tobacco candy," they call it. "We're just giving undereducated, cancer-ready adults what we tell them they want," the evil corporation says. They're both right.

So there you have it. All told, I'm not that worried. This is America, after all. I know we can do it. We have the ingenuity, the imagination. Our megacorporatons and our neoconservative politicians and our gun-wielding sociopaths are famous the world over for innovating new and exciting ways to reek of pure evil.

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