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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Anti-Smoking Commercials Target Sports Fans Watching TV 

For one in three sports fans, watching the game and lighting up a cigarette go hand in hand. And those are the fans an anti- smoking group hopes to reach during the World Series.

[ WEB LINK: ( Tobacco Free Wellness Program ) ]

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Why Do So Many Baseball Players Chew Tobacco? 

Have baseball players always used smokeless tobacco?

Yes. In the mid-19th century—baseball's formative years—chewing tobacco was enormously popular in the United States. Early ballplayers likely chewed tobacco for the same reasons as other American men, but they soon discovered baseball-specific benefits. It spurs saliva production and lubricates the mouth in the dusty infield environment. When fielding gloves came into vogue in the 1870s and 1880s, players moistened the leather with spit. Pitchers used the juice from a chaw to prepare the notorious spitball, which was widely permitted until 1920.

It's not surprising that chewing tobacco has become identified with baseball. Both pastimes came of age when America was

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Top athlete joins fight to stop girls smoking 

TRIATHLETE Helen Jenkins has urged the Welsh Assembly Government to do more to prevent teenage girls from smoking.

Helen, the 2008 world triathlon champion, who lives in Bridgend, has become a patron of the anti-smoking charity Ash Wales.

One of her first jobs as a non-smoking role model has been to meet teenage girls from Cardiff and Caerphilly during a visit to the Senedd.

And the 25-year-old has called for the Assembly Government to take more action as it emerged that almost one in four teenage girls in Wales smokes.

Helen said: "To learn that nearly one in four 15-year-old girls are regularly smoking is staggering.

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• 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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VOSS/SHUCART: Bowling proprietors against Proposition N  

After years of watching 37 other states enact policy on restricting smoking in public places, St. Louis County voters will decide on Nov. 3 if Proposition N should be passed to ban smoking in some public places on Jan. 1.

Opinions are strong, for and against. But voters are being asked to make a decision on a weak and confusing referendum because it doesn’t totally ban smoking. The proposal passed by the St. Louis County Council exempts casinos, bars with limited food sales and Lambert Airport.

The owners of St. Louis County’s 21 bowling centers oppose Proposition N with the opinion that if smoking is to be banned, it should be prohibited statewide in all public places.

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VIDEO: Bowling Alleys Speaking Out Against Proposed County Smoking Ban  

With an estimated 20 percent of business at stake, bowling alleys are becoming the battlegrounds for the St. Louis County smoking ban on next week's ballot. The proposed ban has several exemptions for casinos and bars but not for bowling alleys. So owners and users are being very vocal when it comes to a smoking ban, especially since it is only a short drive to other locations where you can smoke and bowl in the same place.

Bowling a couple frames is a favored past-time. For many knocking down pins goes with lighting up smokes.

"A lot of them smoke studies show 20-30 percent of bowlers do smoke," argues Tom Shucart of Hazelwood Bowl.

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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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VIDEO: Bowling Alleys Speaking Out Against Proposed County Smoking Ban 

With an estimated 20 percent of business at stake, bowling alleys are becoming the battlegrounds for the St. Louis County smoking ban on next week's ballot. The proposed ban has several exemptions for casinos and bars but not for bowling alleys. So owners and users are being very vocal when it comes to a smoking ban, especially since it is only a short drive to other locations where you can smoke and bowl in the same place.

Bowling a couple frames is a favored past-time. For many knocking down pins goes with lighting up smokes.

"A lot of them smoke studies show 20-30 percent of bowlers do smoke," argues Tom Shucart of Hazelwood Bowl.

If a majority of voters in St. Louis County say yes to Proposition "N" next week, smoking at Hazelwood Bowl and most other public places would be illegal by 2011. With the Ford plant across the street gone, Shucart fears a smoking ban will chase many of his remaining customers away as well.

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SAPAKOFF: Tobacco still stains the majors 

For my couch time, Major League Baseball does its postseason almost as well as "The Office" does body language.

Brilliant. Except for all the spittin' and chewin' or, worst of all, both in one quick camera shot.

How does that look in HD? . . .

But MLB holds fast to a disgusting tradition, something not allowed in most workplaces or public buildings throughout America.

You don't see it in the NBA, NFL, NHL or college sports. You don't see it at bookstores or restaurants. Even stodgy NASCAR got rid of its Cup race tobacco sponsorship.

Only big league baseball, thanks to a stubborn union and inept owners bent on ruining all their good publicity with close-up shots of outfielders stuffing bad stuff into their mouths. . . .

Francona is not the only one.

One of your favorite players, maybe someone you know or have met, might have trouble with this image-ruining habit.

Next time you meet such a player, instead of spewing praise, remind them that doctors and the American Dental Association have weighed in. . . .

Too bad it's too late for some.

Jack Krol was the manager of our Charleston Rainbows for three seasons, 1988-1990, and briefly served as interim manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1978 and 1980. In 1993, the same year minor league baseball banned smokeless tobacco, the long-time chewer had part of his tongue removed.

Krol, a great guy, died of oral cancer in 1994. He was 57.

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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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• No smoking rule enforced 

The third Asian Indoor Games (AIG), to be held in Viet Nam next Thursday, will be a non-smoking Games.

The events' organising board and World Health Organisation (WHO)'s Viet Nam branch office signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the capital yesterday to make this AIG the third one to be non-smoking.

Organisers and the WHO have agreed that cigarette smoking and sports do not belong together; tobacco in any form is not allowed at the events.

No smoking at the event is in alignment with government regulations banning of smoking in public places. Tobacco advertisements and tobacco company sponsors are also not allowed at the events.

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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.

• New Survey Finds One in Three Sports Fans Smoke, Five Out of Six Smoke While 

A new survey conducted by the American Legacy Foundation(R) (Legacy) finds that the majority (63 percent) of sports fans surveyed are current or former smokers and 76 percent of them have smoked while watching or attending sporting events. The study examines whether sports fans were exposed to secondhand smoke while watching sports; smoked while watching sports at certain venues; or whether those who quit smoking relapsed while watching a game. The survey also examined whether watching sports was a trigger for fans who smoke.

The survey also indicated that 60 percent of sports fans have been exposed to secondhand smoke in the past year while watching or attending sporting events and that 36 percent of sports fans who smoke or used to smoke are extremely or very tempted to smoke while viewing sporting events in their own homes. When the score of the game is close, nearly one third are extremely or very tempted to light up.

Starting this week and through the winter, many smokers will be exposed to new quit smoking messages through the EX(R) national smoking cessation campaign. Legacy, along with the National Alliance for Tobacco Cessation (NATC), announced today that the next round of new ads in its two-year old EX campaign are now being featured during FOX Sports' broadcast of Major League Baseball's American League Championship Series (ALCS) and World Series.

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姚明受聘出任控烟大使 携手多位名人投身公益 

腾讯体育讯 北京时间10月14日消息，效力于休斯敦火箭的中国球员姚明日前接受中国控烟协会邀请，成为最新控烟形象大使，这是姚明在公益事业上做出的又一贡献。

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