Tobacco.org

Tobacco Deal With Tennis Organisation May Breach UK And International Law 

Six years after the ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in the UK, a London-based sports body stands accused of breaching the law by promoting a cigarette brand on its website.[1] The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) which represents the world's top male tennis players, is responsible for the sponsorship contracts for the various international tournaments. The next ATP World Tour tournament, which is due to take place in Basel, Switzerland from 31 October to 8 November, is sponsored by Davidoff, a cigarette brand manufactured by Imperial Tobacco. The Swiss indoor tournament is believed to be the only one in the world to be sponsored by a tobacco company.

British-based Imperial Tobacco acquired the Davidoff cigarette brand in 2006 and has exploited the weak law in Switzerland which still allows events to be sponsored by tobacco companies, although tobacco advertising on television is banned. However, the televising of the event means that tobacco advertising will be beamed into the homes of more than one billion people worldwide, [2] contrary to Article 13 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which has been signed by 160 countries worldwide. [3]

ASH has written to the ATP urging the organisation to end its ties with the tobacco industry when the current contract comes to an end and is seeking clarification from the Department of Health regarding the possible breach of UK law.

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• Tobacco deal with tennis organisation may breach UK and international law 

Six years after the ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in the UK, a London-based sports body stands accused of breaching the law by promoting a cigarette brand on its website.[1] The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) which represents the world's top male tennis players, is responsible for the sponsorship contracts for the various international tournaments. The next ATP World Tour tournament, which is due to take place in Basel, Switzerland from 31 October to 8 November, is sponsored by Davidoff, a cigarette brand manufactured by Imperial Tobacco. The Swiss indoor tournament is believed to be the only one in the world to be sponsored by a tobacco company.

British-based Imperial Tobacco acquired the Davidoff cigarette brand in 2006 and has exploited the weak law in Switzerland which still allows events to be sponsored by tobacco companies, although tobacco advertising on television is banned. However, the televising of the event means that tobacco advertising will be beamed into the homes of more than one billion people worldwide, [2] contrary to Article 13 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which has been signed by 160 countries worldwide. [3]

ASH has written to the ATP urging the organisation to end its ties with the tobacco industry when the current contract comes to an end and is seeking clarification from the Department of Health regarding the possible breach of UK law.

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• Display boxes for cigarettes may be illegal ($$) 

Display boxes showing cigarette packets replaced banners and posters at newspaper stands yesterday, as tobacco advertisements disappeared across Hong Kong in the final phase of the cigarette advertising ban.

But the government said the display boxes could be regarded as advertisements and it would consider prosecution. Both vendors and smokers said the ban would not affect how many cigarette packets they bought or sold.

Tobacco advertisements have been banned in newspapers, magazines, radio, television and public spaces since the 1990s, but newspaper stands and hawkers were exempted until yesterday.

In Causeway Bay, large display boxes equipped with spotlights were observed at almost all newspaper stands. Packets of cigarettes were seen revolving inside the boxes.

Ms Chim, a vendor, said tobacco companies helped her renovate the stand by adding the display boxes, and were still paying her about HK$3,000 a month in "advertising fees", even though her posters and banners had disappeared. But display boxes were not advertisements, she said. "It is not an advertisement if there are no words."

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It is not an advertisement if there are no words.
Ms Chim, a vendor who said tobacco companies helped her renovate her stand by adding display boxes, and were still paying her about HK$3,000 a month in "advertising fees"--even though her posters and banners had been taken down as Hong Kong's final phase of its advertising ban took effect.

• Federer fires up anti-smoking emotions  

As Roger Federer sets out to win his fourth consecutive Swiss Indoors title in Basel, a debate has reignited over tobacco sponsorship in sport.

The tournament, which has been sponsored by Swiss luxury brand Davidoff since 1994 and starts on Monday, is one of the last in the world to be sponsored by a tobacco company – and health campaigners aren't happy.

"First of all, linking sport and tobacco is utterly perverse," Jürg Hurter, president of Pro Aere, Switzerland's largest organisation against passive smoking, told swissinfo.ch.

"Second, the tobacco industry – who aren't idiots – try to get around tobacco promotion laws by sponsoring sporting events or by branding various products."

Pascal Diethelm, director of the anti-smoking group OxyRomandie, said last year "players drowned in an advertising soup for Davidoff".

"At the end of the match the young ball boys and ball girls received a medal from Roger Federer in recognition of having served the cause of Davidoff so well. Each medal bore the Davidoff logo in order to make sure that these potential smokers would know which cigarette brand to choose," he said. . . .

"This discussion is like the Loch Ness monster – it comes back every year!" Jürg Vogel, a member of the Swiss Indoors organising committee, told swissinfo.ch.

"Davidoff sells not only tobacco but also perfumes and other accessories. I think you have to see the whole picture.

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John Luik  

John Luik has challenged the validity of smokefree policies since the late 1960s and has worked as a lobbyist, consultant, analyst, and advocate of "junk" and "corrupt science" for the tobacco industry worldwide since 1987. Luik - a philosophy and international studies theorist - challenges the science of secondhand smoke and the government's role in protecting public health through the passage of smokefree laws by publicly skewing ideas of personal freedom, ethics, and liberty in the tobacco industry's favor.

In 1987, Philip Morris's law-firms - Covington and Burling, and Shook, Hardy and Bacon - created a campaign dubbed "Project Whitecoat," which sought to single out independent scientists and analysts who would "go beyond the establishment of a controversy concerning an alleged ETS health risk but to disperse the suspicion of risk." Luik was an active player in Project Whitecoat. . . .

After Luik and Gori's book attacking the U.S. EPA's report was published, tobacco holdings in the Fraser Institute increased from 1.3 percent ($31,740 to $76,180) of the institute's total annual budget from 1996 to 1998, to 5 percent ($229,300) in 1999.2

Although a self-proclaimed staunch ethics analyst, Luik has been fired from numerous universities and teaching positions for repeatedly misrepresenting his own credentials since 1977.

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John Luik - SourceWatch 

John Luik is a Canadian philosopher with a history of vocally opposing government agency efforts to warn people about the health dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke. Luik was involved in a tobacco industry-coordinated attack on United States Environmental Protection Agency’s 1992 Risk Assessment on secondhand tobacco smoke.[1]

In 1993, the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturers (CECCM) hired Luik to write a paper attacking the EPA’s influential 1992 risk assessment, The Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking - Lung Cancer and Other Disorders. [2] (CECCM is a coordinating body for European tobacco manufacturers similar to the Tobacco Institute, and like the Institute, helped European cigarette manufacturers fight public health efforts to reduce smoking. tobacco.) [3][4].

Luik gave several tobacco companies editorial capacity over the content of the paper. . . .

Luik taught philosophy at Nazarene College in Winnipeg, Canada from 1977 to 1985, after which time he was fired for misrepresenting credentials on his resume. In 1985 he was accepted at Brock University where he taught applied professional ethics. In 1990 Brock discharged Luik citing "misrepresentation of his credentials" and saying he was unable to fulfill his duties there "since he has apparently engaged in a series of misrepresentations of his professional and/or academic qualifications to three separate employers, and had done so again, on several occasions, to Brock University." Luik has worked at several conservative Canadian think tanks including the Niagara Institute and the Fraser Institute.

In 1994 Luik was invited to a meeting at Rothmans Tobacco to discuss a proposal he had submitted to serve as managing editor for the book about plain packaging for cigarettes. [14] In 1995 Luik was commissioned to produce and edit the book.

The book, entitled Plain Packaging and the Marketing of Cigarettes, was published in 1998 by Admap Publications in Oxfordshire, England. It concluded that public health assumptions about the beneficial effects of plain packaging were defective, that plain packaging would cause problems with smuggling and threaten the values of a democratic society. It wasn't until June 21, 2001 that a report emerged (in the Montreal Gazette) that Luik was paid US $155,000 to edit the book. [Montreal Gazette, June 21, 2001] The total cost of the book project to the participating tobacco companies was US $240,000.

Luik also served the industry as an associate of the tobacco industry-funded group, Associates for Research in the Science of Enjoyment (ARISE), that was publicly active between 1991 and 1999.

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• Doctor presses the case against tobacco scholarships 

A San Luis Obispo doctor is continuing to speak out against Cal Poly for allowing students to accept scholarships from the smokeless tobacco industry as prize awards in collegiate rodeo events.

University officials say Cal Poly has no basis to deny students scholarship funds from a legal source, and university officials note that no tobacco-related advertising is allowed at school events under a campus policy. Five years ago, Cal Poly officials supported creating a fund that could be an alternative to tobacco-industry scholarships, but that idea was rejected by tobacco opponents.

Stephen L. Hansen, a physician and representative of the county Tobacco Control Coalition, said he's outraged that the chewing tobacco industry lures students to a cancer-causing product through scholarships

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LETTER: Rodeos likely to end tobacco sponsorships  

There is great news for families that enjoy the sport of Rodeo. We are one step closer to tobacco-free rodeo events.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) announced last week that U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company (and their new parent company ALTRIA - AKA Philip Morris) will be ending their sponsorship agreement with the PRCA at the end of this year.

Hopefully this signals the start of a tobacco-free era for professional rodeo. Rodeo has been around since the 1800's. Tobacco sponsorship of rodeo began in 1986.

A number of organizations including, Buck Tobacco, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Oklahoma Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT), Montana REACT, and many others have been instrumental in sending out the message - Rodeos Are For Families - Not Big Tobacco.

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• Tobacco sponsorship of tennis tournament goes ahead because of weak Swiss legislation, says campaigning group  

A Swiss antismoking campaign group is concerned that weak legislation in the country is being exploited by Imperial Tobacco to sponsor a tennis tournament and promote its brand of cigarettes and other products. The company is the fourth largest tobacco company in the world.

Switzerland is a sanctuary for the tobacco industry, said Pascal Diethelm, director of the antismoking group OxyRomandie, ahead of the Davidoff Swiss indoor tournament, which starts on 31 October as part of the Association of Tennis Professionals World Tour 500. The tournament, which is one of the last tobacco sponsored tennis events in the world, is being used by the company to intensively advertise its Davidoff brand, on court hoardings and the uniforms of line judges and ball girls and boys, said Mr Diethelm.

The last time the tournament was held in Basel in 2008, the "players drowned in an advertising soup for Davidoff," he said.

He added, "At the end of the match the young ball boys and ball girls received a medal from Roger Federer in recognition of having served the cause of Davidoff so well. Each medal bore the Davidoff logo in order to make sure that these potential future smokers will know which cigarette brand to choose when they start smoking."

OxyRomandie is appealing to the federal tribunal, Switzerland’s supreme court, against a ruling from the Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television that Swiss television is allowed to show the tournament even though Swiss law bans tobacco advertising on television.

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The Good Life—that is the art of living. A culture of its own that revolves around taking time, perceiving the world with all the senses in order to experience the fine nuances of pleasure.
Davidoff's "The Good Life" campaign. The Davidoff Swiss indoor tennis tournament is under fire.

Govt amends 'workplace' clause  

While Government is seeking a complete ban on smoking in public and workplaces, it wants to make sure that private residences are not captured in the Tobacco bill which has penalties ranging from a $10,000 fine to $500,000 fine and imprisonment.

Government has therefore amended the definition of workplace to specify it only includes homes "where such residences or vehicles are also used for commercial purposes".

Speaking in the Tobacco bill in the Senate yesterday, Health Minister Jerry Narace stated: "This amendment is to ensure that the definition of workplace does not capture domestic workers, as our policy is not to make private residents subject to this Bill, other than when such residences are used for commercial purposes". . . .

Under the bill there would be a complete ban on smoking in public transportation terminals, workplaces, retail establishments, including bars, restaurants and shopping malls, clubs, cinemas, concert halls, sports facilities, pool and bingo halls, publicly owned facilities rented out for events; and any other facilities that are accessible to the public.

The bill also prohibits any person from smoking within 15 metres of any place that caters primarily to children, such as schools, children's playgrounds and amusement parks.

The bill also prohibits the publicising of the name of a sponsoring entity where tobacco sponsorships, tobacco advertising and promotion are present. "As such, tobacco companies are permitted to sponsor events but they cannot take any overt credit for such sponsorship," Narace said.

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全运会正式回函：烟企捐款已全部退还 

上周四，第十一届全运会组委会社会捐赠办公室明确向本报表示，不再接受烟草企业的捐款，并决定退还之前收到的所有来自烟草企业的捐款。昨日，《每日经济新闻》记者从组委会获悉，所有烟企捐款已全部退还。

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十一运会开幕当日 组委会退还烟草公司捐赠资金 

新华网济南10月16日体育专电(记者刘宝森、吴俊宽)在第十一届全运会开幕当日，十一运会组委会有关部门向中国疾病预防控制中心控烟办公室回函，表示已将烟草公司的捐赠资金全部退还有关企业。

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全运会被曝接受烟企巨额捐款 控烟办称将敦促全额退回 

7月底，上海世博会退回2亿元烟草捐款的事件刚刚平息，近日又有消息称，有烟草公司向将于10月16日开幕的第十一届全运会支付巨额捐款。

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Take Action 

TAKE ACTION AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL

Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association ends its national sponsorship agreement with big tobacco

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) announced in early October that the US Smokeless Tobacco Company (USSTC) will not renew their national sponsorship agreement with the PRCA after 2009. Take action now: use the language in the materials below to call the media's attention to this historic event, praise the PRCA for this decision, and encourage them to seek a healthy sponsor to replace big tobacco!

* Press release congratulating the PRCA for ending its sponsorship agreement with USSTC

* Open letter congratulating the PRCA for ending its sponsorship agreement with USSTC, sent to PRCA Commissioner Karl Stressman on October 15, 2009 . . .

Buck Tobacco has partnered with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in a grassroots email campaign to ask PBR to enter the mainstream with the help of partners who better complement their positive message. Visit the Campaign's website where you can send letters to PBR leadership and sports journalists and make your voice heard on this important issue!

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• Grassroots Activists Congratulate Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association for Ending Tobacco Sponsorship  

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) announced last week that the US Smokeless Tobacco Company (USSTC), which recently merged with Altria Group, will not renew their national sponsorship agreement with the PRCA after 2009.

"We applaud the PRCA for ending tobacco sponsorship of its rodeos," said Andrea Craig Dodge, director of the Buck Tobacco Sponsorship Project. "Tobacco marketing including sampling booths, scoreboards, banners, and ads give young rodeo audience members the message that using tobacco is part of being an adult cowboy or rodeo fan."

For several years, a number of tobacco control advocates and community members have called for an end to tobacco sponsorship of rodeos. "Rodeo has been around since the 1800's - long before tobacco sponsorship of rodeos began in 1986," said "Cowboy Ted" Hallisey, director of Cowboy Ted's Foundation for Kids. "Without big tobacco, rodeos will move into mainstream sports because they will be more comfortable for children and families to attend," he said.

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