Tobacco.org

AUDIO: Draft law to ban tobacco advertisement approved 

Parliament's Administration and Justice Committee approved a draft law on Wednesday banning all advertisements that promote tobacco products. The committee also approved banning smoking in public places, especially indoor spaces, and approved placing a label, which covers almost half of any cigarette pack, to warn against smoking. The

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Cancerous mouth pictures on tobacco products from June 1 

Come June 1, packets of cigarettes and other tobacco products will display pictures of cancerous mouths as health warnings, health officials said Monday.

The 'grotesque' picture will occupy at least 40 percent of the packet area and will be displayed on the top portion so that people could be dissuaded from using tobacco which causes cancer, and is one of the top 10 killers in India.

The health ministry, as per provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008, and amended in 2008 and 2009, notified the new pictorial health warnings March 5, a health ministry official told IANS.

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New pictorial warning for tobacco products to come into effect from 1st June 2010 

As per the provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008, subsequently amended in 2008 and 2009, the specified health warning rules notified by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare on 31.5.2009 have to be rotated after every 12 months and the next rotation is due on 31.5.2010. As a signatory to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control the MoHFW has to rotate the health warnings on tobacco product packs on a regular basis.

The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) (Amendment) Rules, 2010 have been notified vide G.S.R. No. 176 (E) dated 5th March 2010. The new specified health warnings for both smoking and chewing of smokeless forms of tobacco will come into effect from 1st June 2010.

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DFS gets SC nod to sell cigarettes sans pictorial warnings at airports 

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed DFS India Private Ltd to continue its operations and sell international cigarette brands and other tobacco products in duty-free outlets at the departure lounges of the international airports without any statutory pictorial warnings.

A bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan asked the customs department to release its confiscated goods and sell the same to passengers travelling overseas in accordance with law.

DFS had challenged the Bombay High Court's judgment that refused to interfere with the authorities that restrained sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai.

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Outbound fliers can buy cigarettes sans picture warning 

Despite a ban on sale of cigarettes without pictorial warnings in the country, the Supreme Court Friday allowed their sale to outgoing passengers by the duty-free outlets at departure lounges of Indian airports.

Approving the sale, a bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice Deepak Verma and Justice T.S. Thakur ordered the release of international brand cigarettes worth Rs.75 lakh, seized by custom authorities from outlets at departure lounges of Mumbai international airport, for not carrying the pictorial warning.

The bench gave its order on a lawsuit by the DFS India Private Ltd, which has been given the license to set up duty-free shops at various international airports in the country.

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• Submissions To US Unilateral IP Enforcement Process Highlight Piracy, Health, and ACTA 

Submissions to the United States annual review of how well it says the rest of the world is protecting US intellectual property are being assessed this week, with marked changes from previous years.

In a process typically dominated by industry groups and the occasional stakeholding nonprofit, 2010 submissions not only included far more public interest groups but also a significant number of submissions from private citizens - primarily commenting on the tangentially-related Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. . . .

Every year the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) identifies countries it says are failing to provide effective protection of US IP rights or denying fair and equitable market access to US persons relying on IP protection. This is under a provision of Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Trade Act), commonly referred to as “Special 301.”

USTR has a “watch list” and a “priority watch list” . . .

Philip Morris said the increasing number of countries proposing to adopt plain packaging for cigarettes, or having heath warnings covering more than 50 percent of cigarette packaging is worrisome, as it might infringe trademark rights, and encourage “illicit trade in tobacco products.” The cigarette maker called for their IP rights to be protected and enforced in a number of countries, arguing that “these initiatives, which are not based on any solid scientific evidence that they contribute to legitimate public health objectives, would effectively constitute an expropriation of some of the world’s most valuable trademarks without the payment of adequate compensation to manufacturers.” . . .

USTR’s final report is due in April.

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• Case of light cigarettes may return to top court  

A lawsuit over the marketing of light cigarettes could be headed back to the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal judge denied a motion to apply facts found in a previous case to the current one.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock said in a 16-page decision issued Friday that it would not be fair to the litigants to apply the facts found by a judge in a jury-waived criminal trial in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against tobacco companies to the potential class-action civil suit.

The lawsuit contends smokers of Marlboro Lights, Virginia Slims Lights and other light cigarettes were misled into thinking that the cigarettes contained less tar and nicotine than regular cigarettes.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, who live all over the country, had asked Woodcock to apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel to the current case and adopt the facts found in the 2005 verdict in which a federal judge in Washington, D.C., concluded cigarette makers had violated racketeering statutes.

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Now cancerous mouth will replace pictures of scorpion, diseased lung 

The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has issued a new pictorial warning for cigarette and tobacco packs. It will come into effect from June 1.

The new picture, notified on March 5, shows a cancerous mouth. The warning reads: "Tobacco causes mouth cancer."

It replaces the earlier pictures of a scorpion and lungs. The scorpion sign was meant for gutka or chewing tobacco packs, while cigarette packs were to carry diseased lungs.

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New pictorial warnings on tobacco products  

Come June 1 and cigarette packets and tobacco products will carry a new set of pictorial health warnings, an NGO said.

Binoy Matthew of Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), an NGO said: "The ministry of health and family welfare March 5 notified the new pictorial health warnings which will be implemented on all tobacco products from June 1."

"Since the news came just a few days before the No Smoking Day, we are very happy. VHAI had field tested these pictorial warnings in seven states in the country and found them to be most effective," he said.

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Inquiry pushed to ask Govt why Maori still smoking 

A Maori tobacco researcher says the Maori Affairs Select Committee inquiry into smoking needs to ask why successive governments have done nothing to help Maori to quit.

Dr Marewa Glover has been running anti-smoking campaigns and research for almost two decades.

She says governments have sat by and watched Maori die, despite a succession of national hui highlighting the problem, Waatea News reports.

"We know what it does to marae, we know its killing our elders," she says. "The inquiry needs to be asking why the Government hasn't done something more effective to stop the harm." . ..

Labour Party leader Phil Goff says the government is not doing enough to target smoking among Maori.

He told Waatea News the select committee inquiry into the tobacco industry and the effects of smoking on Maori is an important step in addressing a major public health issue.

But he says young Maori women in particular are not getting the message that smoking is harmful.

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Harawira calls for complete tobacco, cigarette ban 

The country's biggest cigarette company looks set for a fiery reception when it fronts MPs looking at the impact of tobacco on Maori.

Parliament's Maori Affairs Select Committee is in Auckland, hearing submissions on its inquiry into the tobacco industry.

British American Tobacco sells 3/4 of all tobacco and cigarettes in New Zealand.

The company will tell MPs to clamp down on illegal sales, sales to under-18s, and set a minimum price for cigarettes.

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira will be there and says British American is just offering a few token concessions.

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New pictorial warnings on tobacco products from June 1 

Come June 1 and cigarette packets and tobacco products will carry a new set of pictorial health warnings, an NGO said Wednesday.

Binoy Matthew of Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), an NGO said: 'The ministry of health and family welfare March 5 notified the new pictorial health warnings which will be implemented on all tobacco products from June 1.'

'Since the news came just a few days before the No Smoking Day, which is today, we are very happy. VHAI had field tested these pictorial warnings in seven states in the country and found them to be most effective,' he told IANS.

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• Now cigarette and gutka packs to carry a cancerous mouth 

The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has issued a new pictorial warning for cigarette and tobacco packs. It will come into effect from June 1.

The new picture, notified on March 5, shows a cancerous mouth. The warning reads: "Tobacco causes mouth cancer."

It replaces the earlier pictures of a scorpion and lungs. The scorpion sign was meant for gutka or chewing tobacco packs, while cigarette packs were to carry diseased lungs.

Now, the mouth cancer warning will be common for both gutka and cigarette packs. The pictorial sign will cover 40 per cent of the pack, as before.

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• ORDER ON PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR APPLICATION OF THE COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL DOCTRINE 

Judge Kessler‟s exhaustive August 17, 2006 ruling contains thousands of factual findings against the tobacco company defendants and in this ensuing multi-district litigation, individual smokers, who claim harm from smoking light cigarettes, are anxious to avoid proving before this Court what the United States so painstakingly proved to Judge Kessler. Relying on the doctrine of issue preclusion, they ask this Court to hold that Philip Morris USA, Inc. (PM) and its corporate parent Altria, Inc. (Altria) are bound by Judge Kessler‟s factual findings. From the standpoint of judicial efficiency, the Plaintiffs‟ argument has an undeniable attractiveness. However, upon analysis, the Court concludes the Plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden to establish the criteria for non-mutual issue preclusion, and the Court denies their motion. . . .

Whether PM and Altria violated various state marketing and unjust enrichment statutes by fraudulently advertising light cigarettes is distinct from whether nine different cigarette companies and trade organizations participated in a decades-long enterprise to defraud consumers in six different ways. Liability in the pending actions must depend on the specific actions or inactions of the named defendants in relation to light cigarettes.

Similarly, liability in DOJ was based on fraudulent activity that took place “throughout the past fifty years.” DOJ, 449 F. Supp. 2d at 866. Many of the proposed class periods for the pending cases, however, are limited to fraudulent activity occurring within a more circumscribed time.15 The DOJ conclusions based on the consideration of a larger time period do not sufficiently overlap. . . .

None of the predicate RICO actions alleged against Altria involved light cigarettes, . . .

The additional Parklane considerations underscore why issue preclusion is inappropriate in this case. First, the decision in DOJ was reached through a bench trial whereas the Defendants are entitled to a jury trial in the pending actions. Although Parklane found the lack of a jury in the initial action did not bar offensive issue preclusion and was “basically neutral,” 439 U.S. at 332 n.19, Parklane also gave district courts “broad discretion” over the issue preclusion decision. Id. at 331. The Court follows the lead of other courts that have given weight to the deprivation of a jury trial.

Second, the Court is concerned about the possibility for jury confusion and the lack of efficiency.18 Punitive damages may not be used to “punish a defendant for injury that it inflicts upon nonparties.” Williams, 549 U.S. at 353. If issue preclusion were imposed, however, much of the Defendants‟ underlying liability would be based in part on actions that inflicted injuries

Furthermore, proving causation and reliance might also involve the introduction of evidence that duplicates DOJ‟s basic findings, negating efficiency benefits. The Plaintiffs contend that “the majority of plaintiffs” do not have to prove “reliance and deception.” However, they base this argument on statutes from only two of the states in which actions are pending, Pls.’ Mot. for Collateral Estoppel at 17-19, and implicitly concede that some Plaintiffs will have to make both showings.

Finally, even if issue preclusion were appropriate against PM, there is a significant question as to whether it may be used against Altria. Applying issue preclusion to PM and not to Altria would yield few efficiency benefits and would likely confuse the jury.

Because the Plaintiffs have failed to satisfy traditional issue preclusion requirements and additional fairness considerations weigh against its application, the Court declines to apply the doctrine of issue preclusion to the facts in these consolidated cases.

III. CONCLUSION

The Court DENIES the Plaintiffs‟ Motion for Collateral Estoppel (Docket # 59).

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• Plaintiffs Lose Ruling In Light Cigarette Lawsuit 

Smokers suing Philip Morris and its parent company over light cigarettes will have to start from scratch with their lawsuit in Maine.

A federal judge in Bangor has denied plaintiffs' request to have facts from a previous lawsuit by the Department of Justice applied to the new litigation over so-called "light" or "low-tar" cigarettes. The order, issued Friday, will likely be appealed.

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