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Research and Markets: Tobacco in Argentina  

The Tobacco in Argentina report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data (2002-2007), allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be the new legislative, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts to 2012 illustrate how the market is set to change.

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Smokefree Innotec to Market Its Product in Argentina 

Smokefree Innotec, Inc. (Pink Sheets:SFIO) (www.smokefree-innotec.com) today announced that it has entered into a Letter of Intent with LTI News Industries, a Buenos Aires, Argentina-based company specializing in the distribution of a wide variety of consumer products, to market and distribute the World's first, completely smoke-free cigarette in Argentina. It marks the first such marketing arrangement for its "tobacco innovation" in South America. Bill Whalen, V.P. of Marketing and Sales for Smokefree Innotec, stated, "This represents our first entry into the huge Latin American market and we look forward to expanding our relationship with LTI to include other countries in which LTI has a presence." Smokefree Innotec expects to launch its product under the Rauchless™ imprint in the German- speaking countries early in Q4, with other brand-names in two or three further markets to be added in the months following.

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• ARGENTINA: Tobacco Treaty Unratified, Six Years On 

Six years after signing the global World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Argentina is the only Latin American country that has not ratified it, for fear of losing tens of thousands of rural jobs in seven provinces.

The WHO convention, the first global public health treaty, was signed in 2003 by then President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007). But parliamentary ratification is still pending. . . .

But these provisions, accepted by other tobacco-producing nations, are staunchly opposed in Argentina by the tobacco industry and farmers, and ratification has been blocked in Congress by the representatives of tobacco-producing provinces.

"Until there is a replacement activity for tobacco growers, of which there are around 26,000 small producers around the country, ratification of the convention is unlikely," Senator Sonia Escudero from the northwestern province of Salta, one of Argentina’s main tobacco-growing areas, told IPS.

"Our provinces are among the poorest in the country, and if we lose the 60,000 jobs that tobacco production provides, it would be complete chaos," she said.

But civil society organisations pressing for ratification of the treaty downplay those arguments.

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Argentine coach pays cash to smoke on the field  

Argentine football officials are smoking out a top coach who has paid hundreds of dollars in fines for lighting up on the bench during games.

Colon coach Antonio Mohamed has paid a combined US$750 in penalties after twice being caught smoking during Argentine league matches - and he says the extra cost is worth it.

But Argentina's Football Association said Friday it won't just fine Mohamed, but will suspend him for several games the next time he smokes a cigarette on the field.

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Passive Smoking: 30 Minutes Is Enough To Cause Observable Changes In The Arteries 

Those who are habitually exposed to passive smoke run a cardiovascular risk almost as high as those who smoke; people who do not smoke but inhale second hand smoke suffer a 30% increased risk of cardiovascular disease. But the most alarming factor is the speed with which passive smoking damages the cardiovascular apparatus. Trials which will be discussed at the XVI World Congress of Cardiology have shown that 30 minutes' exposure to tobacco smoke is enough for changes to occur in the arteries of the non-smokers which increase cardiac risk.

"We know that just 30 minutes' exposure to second hand tobacco smoke is enough to produce an observable change in the arterial function of non-smokers," states Dr. Joaqu?Barnoya, Research Director of the Cardiovascular Surgery Unit of Guatemala and Professor at the Washington University of St. Louis, U.S.A. "Passive tobacco smoke directly damages the endothelium, which is the internal wall of the arteries, responsible for their dilation and contraction."

The prevention of modifiable cardiovascular risk factors is the central subject of the XVI World Congress of Cardiology to be held in Buenos Aires from the 18th - 21st May 2008

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[独家]戒烟难？阿根廷西班牙流行戒烟软件 

国际在线专稿：对烟民们来说，戒烟是件痛苦的事——既饱受烟瘾的折磨，又背负着戒烟的重任。据阿根廷《国家报》3月8日消息，目前，阿根廷、西班牙正流行一种名叫Quitómetro的戒烟软件。通过这种软件，戒烟者可以详细地了解到戒烟的成果和进度，从而更加有效地完成戒烟。

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Health Minister Challenges Argentineans To Cut National Smoking Rate By 50 Percent  

Argentinean Health Minister Gines Gonzalez Garcia has challenged the nation to reduce its smoking rate by 50 percent in 2016.

Speaking at the second Argentine Health Congress in Mendoza province, Garcia said liberating Argentineans from the addiction of nicotine addiction 9 years hence will coincide with the country's bicentennial year of independence.

Although 33 percent of the nation's 40.3 million population light cigarettes, the country's smoking rate had gone down from 39.8 percent in 1999.

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• World No-Tobacco Day in LAC: Argentina Targets Homes and Cars 

How did Argentina celebrate World No-Tobacco Day? Besides events emphasizing kids (including the release of balloons in the national colors in a busy downtown Buenos Aires intersection - see picture), Health Minister Ginés González García announced the official launch of a new component to the National Tobacco Control Strategy entitled "Homes and Automobiles Free of Tobacco Smoke."

The new campaign will not only employ print, radio and television ads [such as the TV ad "cunita" ("the cradle") provided below — click the image to view in a pop-up window — which tells about the good and productive life the baby will have — if the parents stop smoking around him in the home.] to try to persuade adults to stop smoking in their homes and vehicles for the sake of their kids' health (and that of non-smoking relatives and friends).

It will also employ educational programs targeted at kids in school and young adults in university about the health dangers of secondhand smoke

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The role of public policies in reducing smoking prevalence and deaths: the Argentina Tobacco Policy Simulation Model 

CONCLUSIONS: Tobacco control policies can substantially reduce smoking rates, which can save many lives. Without such policies, deaths from smoking, and associated medical costs, will increase. The ATPSM is expected to provide guidance in filling the most important information gaps pertinent to both modeling and policy-making in Argentina, e.g., the lack of data on initiation and cessation rates, and the need for studies on the impact of policies. Similar models might be developed for other Latin American countries.

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Effect of Cigarette Smoking on the Oxidant/Antioxidant Balance in Healthy Subjects. 

the main objective of this study was to establish the changes in the oxidation/antioxidation balance induced by cigarette smoking.

Methods: Thirty healthy subjects (15 smokers and 15 nonsmokers) of both sexes were studied. The smokers group had smoked a mean of 14 cigarettes per day for an average of 4.5 years. Fasting serum levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), a marker of oxidative stress, nitric oxide (NO), reduced glutathione (GSH), and vitamin C (ascorbic and dehydroascorbic acids) were measured. . . .

Conclusions: Our results suggest that exposure to cigarette smoke increases NO synthesis, such that NO may act in a compensatory way as an inhibitor of lipid peroxidation. Smoking also activates other antioxidative mechanisms such as involving vitamin C. These protective mechanisms appear to be enough in preventing accumulation of oxidative products such as MDA and avoiding oxidative damage.

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Tobacco, Voices From The Fields 

"Tobacco, Voices From The Fields" ("Tabaco, Voces Desde El Surco") about the life of tobacco farmer and workers in Jujuy, Argentina, was developed within the framework of the Tobacco Prevention Research and Training Program at the Institute of Regional Science and Technology (ICTER). A study was conducted to assess youth’s perspectives about smoking. 287 youth were interviewed in urban and rural areas of the province of Jujuy, Argentina. Another 63 interviews were conducted among adult health professionals and teachers, rural workers, businesspeople and policy makers.

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Maradona Under Sedation For Treatment of Alcoholism  

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Argentine soccer hero Diego Maradona remained sedated in a clinic yesterday for treatment of alcoholism and excessive eating and smoking.

A day after Maradona was taken by ambulance to the Guemes Sanatorium in Buenos Aires, clinic director Hector Pezzella said the 47-year-old former star was under sedation . . .

Maradona's physician, Alfredo Cahe, said the soccer great was taken to the clinic late Wednesday for health problems brought on by overeating, drinking and "the quantity of cigars he smoked."

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LETTER: SMOKING IN MEXICO 

Regarding “In Mexico City, Regional Flavors Unchanged by the Big City” by Mark Bittman: Upon reading the article, I immediately noticed a patron smoking in one of the photographs. In spite of Mr. Bittman’s glowing reviews, I’ll pass on these restaurants. Having just returned from dining in many of Buenos Aires’s wonderfully smoke-free restaurants, I hope that Mexico City will soon join the parade of international cities that ban smoking in their public eating establishments. All those delicious Mexican flavors should not be tainted by cigarette smoke.

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• Tobacco advertising banned in Buenos Aires City 

Public advertising of tobacco in Buenos Aires City has been banned as from the first day of 2007, under municipal law 1799 passed in late 2005, amid a drive to curb smoking-related illnesses in Argentina that according the national government kill 40,000 people a year.

The city last October banned smoking in cafés and restaurants smaller than 100 square metres after banning smoking in state premises in 2005. Other cities like Tucumán, Santa Fe and Córdoba have enforced similar legislation.

Buenos Aires City ban means a severe blow for public advertising as tobacco firms reportedly rank among the top 10 advertisers.

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• Argentine farmers won't kick tobacco habit  

The South American country has joined the list of nations cracking down on smoking and its tobacco farmers have long been encouraged to replace at least some of their tobacco crops with alternatives ranging from pigs to pine trees.

But in the verdant province of Misiones, tobacco is still the most profitable crop for small farmers, and growing tobacco lets them join a union that gives them health insurance and the power to negotiate better prices with tobacco companies.

"Tobacco isn't as bad as people think because it gives us a livelihood," said Da Rosa, sitting on the veranda of his cottage surrounded by rain-splashed orange trees, bright green tea bushes and young tobacco plants.

"There are a lot of heavy anti-smoking campaigns but cigarette sales are still the same and in the grand scheme of things, they won't stop people smoking," he said.

The nearby town of San Pedro lies some 800 miles north of Buenos Aires at the heart of the tobacco-producing region of Misiones, named after the missions established by Jesuits in the area in the 17th century.

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