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Assailed by the western world's laws, taxes and anti-smoking mores, the global tobacco industry has little choice but to keep pushing eastward into Asia.
Tobacco bosses learned this week that some Asians are ready to push back.
This week, more than 500 screaming protesters converged outside TabInfo Asia 2009, the region's largest tobacco summit in years. More than an expo, the event is also a strategy session conducted in secrecy.
"As rules, regulations, and perceptions of tobacco change around the globe, Asia Pacific has become one of the world's most important tobacco markets," according to promotional materials.
The event, set up by the Raleigh, N.C.-based Tobacco Reporter magazine, invited major industry players gathered to discuss "operating in a world of bans" and "ingenious ways of operating in an increasingly regulated, plain-pack, dark market environment."
"Asia is the fastest growing tobacco market in the world. They can't afford to ignore this region," said Prakit Vathesatogkit, executive secretary of the Bangkok-based Action on Smoking and Health Foundation.
"We can't really stop them from coming," Prakit said, "but we can try to stop them from circumventing regulation."
On Wednesday, the summit's first day, attendees were beset by a loose coalition of Southeast Asian anti-smoking protesters. Outside the event doors, a 500-plus crowd of mostly college students screamed at men in suits entering Bangkok's largest convention center.
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THE BIG ISSUES. THE BIG PLAYERS THE BIG EXHIBITION. THE BIG CONGRESS. It's all here at the Asia Pacific area's premier tobacco event
Bangkok - the commercial centre and capitol of Thailand - a city famous for gold-spired temples, long-tail boats, three-wheel tuk-tuks, and fiery curries. From November 11th to the 13th, Bangkok will also be the host for the hottest event on the Asia Pacific tobacco market's calendar.
WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT MARKETS
As rules, regulations, and perceptions of tobacco change around the globe, Asia Pacific has become one of the world's most important tobacco markets. That's why TABINFO ASIA holds a spot as one of the most noteworthy and important tobacco events of the year. TABINFO ASIA attracts not only a large number of participants, but also a very diverse representation of industry players - up and down the supply chain. The expanded list of participants makes this a must-attend event for networking, showcasing, discovering, buying, and selling.
THE BIG ISSUES
The Congress at TABINFO ASIA is focused on The New Landscape of Tobacco as key industry leaders tackle the big issues head on. Everyone attending will have a unique opportunity to participate in the discussion in order to make this a truly impactful event.
In this industry - and especially in this region - you cannot afford to miss a thing.
Thailand may have a reputation for indulging visitors in their various vices, but smoking is no longer one of them. On Tuesday, more than 600 fired-up protesters invaded a convention center in Bangkok in an attempt to smoke out representatives of the global tobacco industry, who were holding a conference in a country with some of the strictest tobacco controls in Asia.
"They've come here because they want to target women and children in Asia with products that kill," says Bangorn Ritthiphakdee, director of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, a civil-society group, referring to attendees of Tabinfo 2009, a three-day conference organized by Tobacco Reporter, a U.S.-based magazine. "Their presence is a nightmare. We came to tell them they are not welcome here." (Watch a video about France's smoking ban.)
The tobacco industry sees Asia as its most promising market, says Bangorn. Though Thailand has strict controls on smoking in public places and bans advertising of tobacco products, more than 14 million of its 65 million people are smokers. In Southeast Asia, 125 million -- or 31% of adults -- smoke, and China alone has some 350 million smokers. The alliance claims that 2.4 million people in Asia die each year from tobacco-related causes, the equivalent of 6,575 people a day.
Billed as "the biggest tobacco exhibition in Asia," Tabinfo 2009 has been years in the making. Nonetheless, the meeting apparently caught Thailand's government by surprise.
Indonesians should turn their attention away from Malaysian theft of their culture to American maltreatment of a rather different national icon – the kretek cigarette.
As of October 1 it will become a criminal offense in the supposedly free United States to sell kretek, the clove-enhanced cigarette dear to most Indonesian smokers and increasingly to foreigners. Indonesia should take this behavior to the World Trade Organisation. The country which in the name of free trade has for decades ensured that its tobacco companies are foisted on the world has the temerity to ban somebody else's exports to the US. . . .
The hypocrisy of the US is stunning. According to a study by Frank J. Chaloupka and Adit Laixuthai for the National Bureau of Economic Research, the US in the 1980s and 1990s used Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act to force open the cigarette markets of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand. "Estimates from fixed-effects models indicate that the market share of US cigarettes in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand increased dramatically after the agreements as consumers switched from the brands produced by domestic monopolies to the brands of US cigarette producers," Chaloupka and Laixuthai wrote. "In addition, simulations based on the regression results indicate that per capita cigarette consumption in 1991 in the four affected countries was nearly 10 percent higher than it would have been had the markets remained closed to U.S. cigarettes." . . .
In fact smoking disease patterns suggest that American-style flue-cured, Virginia tobacco with chemical additives which are the most dangerous cigarettes – certainly compared with the air-cured black tobacco ones such as France's traditional Gauloises and Gitanes.
The ban on kretek is discriminatory. One can be sure that if cloves were grown in the US there would be no such ban. As it is, Indonesians might think a reasonable riposte would be to ban all US-brand name colas until the kretek ban is lifted. After all, who knows what noxious substances are in Coca-Cola? The formula is a secret.
Laos government officials have launched a smoke-free Vientiane to help address health and environmental concerns in the lead-up to the 25th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in December.
Vientiane Vice-Mayor Somvandy Nathavong said the new initiative will target local businesses and people, in particular students and teenagers. . . .
The Vientiane Administration office worked in conjunction with the ministry of public health to organise the ceremony, which was supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Laos, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance and Lao-Vietnam Insurance company in Vientiane.
Thailand's reputation as a Southeast Asian country with strong anti-smoking laws faces a direct challenge from the tobacco multinational companies that are due to gather in the Thai capital in November for a major industry congress and exhibition.
The organizers of the cigarette promotion gathering, TABINFO Asia 2009, are not leaving anything to the imagination as to why Bangkok has been chosen as the venue for the Asia-Pacific region's "own dedicated tobacco show".
"The Asia-Pacific region has not escaped the global credit meltdown. But its cigarette market remains more buoyant than elsewhere," declares the Tobacco Reporter trade publication in its
website. "The region remains one of the world's most promising cigarette markets."
Participants are promised an event, which runs from November 11-13, that will feature "The Big Issues. The Big Players", trumpets the conference website. It will offer "a very diverse representation of industry players up and down the supply chain. The expanded list of participants makes this a must-attend event for networking, showcasing, discovering, buying, and selling".
The market opportunities of four countries in the region - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand - are already being highlighted by the trade publication to swell the number of cigarette enthusiasts for the Bangkok trade show. . . .
The choice of a developing country as a venue for this flagship event for tobacco multinationals comes at a time when the tobacco market in the developed world is shrinking due to a battery of tobacco control policies and the world's dominant cigarette producers are looking to the developing world to boost their fortunes.
This trend is reflected in the places where the tobacco industry has gathered every two years prior to Bangkok. The 2007 tobacco trade fair was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil; in 2005 it was the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
For most of the past 25 years, Hong Kong-based, British-born doctor Judith Mackay has been the tobacco control movement in Asia. . . .
Her success is based on her ability to convince the right person with the right power to make changes that will save lives. And she is happy to take advantage of non-democratic regimes.
"That is one of the reasons I was so active in the 1980s. Once you had democracies, you have white papers and green papers, you had public debates and forums and it went on forever," the 65-year-old said from her Hong Kong home.
"I found I could jump over quite a few fences in one go," added Mackay, who has been a senior policy adviser to the World Health Organization for more than 10 years.
Her vigour has inevitably drawn the attention of the tobacco industry -- she was once described by a trade organisation as one of the three most dangerous people in the world. . . .
wing professionalism of the Asia's anti-tobacco movement, boosted by a grant from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's foundation.
It funds her position at the World Lung Foundation working on cutting tobacco use in low- and middle-income countries, with a focus on Asia.
"Bloomberg has brought business management into tobacco control. It is not an option to run over deadlines, like some academics and governments," she said.
"You are now offered a career path in tobacco control. Before, there was nobody to employ you."
Myanmar is asking the Philippines for zero duty access for the exports of tobacco and cigarette products. Similar requests were also filed by Myanmar to Thailand and Malaysia.
The Tariff Commission will conduct a public hearing today on the Myanmar request along with the review of the expiring zero duty rates on imported cement and wheat.
At present, Tariff Commission official said that tobacco and cigarette products are included under the ASEAN Integration System of Preferences and as such ASEAN slapped tobacco with three percent tariff and cigarette at five percent.
The AISP is a scheme where ASEAN 6 gives unilateral import duty exemption to products of export interests to the CLMV ( Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam ).
Many East Asians get a red face when they drink alcohol. This is the result of a genetic condition that also increases drinkers' risk of esophageal cancer. Transcript of radio broadcast: 12 May 2009 . . .
The cause is a genetic difference that they are born with called an ALDH2 deficiency. It prevents their bodies from processing alcohol the way other people do.
But the effects might be more serious than just a red face. Researchers warn of a link between this condition and an increased risk of cancer of the esophagus from drinking alcohol. A new report appeared in March in the journal PLoS Medicine, published by the Public Library of Science. . . .
Philip Brooks is a researcher at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the United States. He says it is important to educate people about the link between the alcohol flushing effect and esophageal cancer.
He says doctors should ask East Asian patients about their experiences with facial flushing after drinking alcohol. Those with a history of it should be advised to limit their alcohol use. They should also be warned that cigarette smoking works with the alcohol in a way that further increases the risk of esophageal cancer.
IT WILL take more than the global financial crisis to slow down Dermtek Sdn Bhd, the exclusive distributor of Nicogel for Asia, as it is on an aggressive mode this year.
By using Malaysia as its production hub, the company plans to sell the cigarette-alternative product to 10 countries in Asia by year-end.
"We are looking at Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, India, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam. We will start by repackaging the gels into sachets and sell it directly to these countries.
"After that, we will be appointing distributors for each country. We may also look into having an equity stake in the overseas company," Dermtek director Alastair Campbell told Business Times in Kuala Lumpur recently.
The company, which imports the gels from the UK and then repackages it into sachets in its plant in Shah Alam, also has high hopes for the Malaysian market.
My husband John and I moved from the UK to Hong Kong in 1969. I worked in medical research and then as a doctor on an intensive care ward before focusing on women's health issues. In the early Eighties, there was a huge drive by the tobacco industry to get Asian women addicted to cigarettes.
At that time, 60 per cent of Asian men were smokers . . .
I had been writing a health column for a newspaper for a while, and filed an article calling for a ban on advertising. Immediately, the tobacco industry and its supporters descended on me, trying to discredit my argument. In 1982, I received a letter from a press officer working for the tobacco industry, whom I'd never met. He wrote: "I enclose some documents which will soon be released by our client. I thought you might be interested to see them for yourself". It read: "The anti-smoking lobby in Hong Kong is largely anonymous, unidentifiable, entirely unrepresentative and unaccountable. The tobacco industry comprises identifiable, legal, accountable, commercial organisations." I couldn't believe what I was reading, and made it my mission to fight my cause to the end.
I left clinical medicine and started the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control . . .
A Smokers' Rights Group in the United States in the Nineties called me "nothing more than an evil-possessed, power-lusting piece of meat" and threatened to "utterly destroy me". The FBI took up my case and interpreted this as a death threat. This was just one example of the extreme abuse I have suffered for trying to take on the pro-smoking lobby. . . .
Finally, however, I have gained recognition: I received the Time 100 award in 2007 for my work, and this year was honoured with a lifetime achievement award from the British Medical Journal. My one-woman campaign has now spread, and today we are an army rather than a general. The cause has finally reached the international agenda, but it has been a right royal battle getting it there.
The South East Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) has urged giant cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris International and all cigarette companies to halt all of their advertisements and sponsorships in Southeast Asian (ASEAN) countries.
“We are gravely concerned that countries in the ASEAN region remain being fat cash cows for the world’s largest tobacco companies,” SEATCA Senior Policy Advisor Mary Assunta said in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post on Monday.
“Philip Morris International (PMI) is celebrating its handsome profits, but this is very bad news for public health, as it means there will be more addicted adolescents and more diseases and deaths in the region,” she said.
“The company has a ruthless disregard for life. It continues to vigorously fight tobacco control efforts in developing countries. More profits for Philip Morris mean more deaths for us in Asia.”
There are about 125 million smokers in the ASEAN region, from which the industry milks its profits and is seeking more smokers among youngsters in the region, the alliance said.
Of South-East Asia's 125 million cigarette smokers some 46 per cent are in Indonesia, the only country in the region that has no legislation banning cigarette advertisements, the South-East Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) said Monday. The anti-smoking group said Indonesia has become a "cash cow" for Philip Morris International (PMI), the owner of Indonesia's PT HM Sampoerna Company which last year claimed 30 per cent of the Indonesian market and an estimated revenue of 1 billion dollars.
"More profits for Philip Morris means more deaths for us in Asia," SEATCA Senior Policy Advisor Mary Assunta said.
Some 63 per cent of Indonesian men smoke, with an estimated 200,000 dying each year of smoking-related diseases, SEATCA claimed.
SEATCA faulted Indonesia for having the weakest anti-smoking legislation in South-East Asia.
For the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (Seatca), smoke is getting into its eyes, so to speak.
It is gravely concerned over the current trend of Asean countries -- home to 125 million smokers -- continuing to be cash cows for the world's largest transnational tobacco companies.
Seatca senior policy advisor Dr Mary Assunta said the industry was seeking more smokers among Asia's young, especially in Indonesia, the region largest cash cow where 46 per cent of Asean's smokers reside, and the fourth largest market in the world.
"While many countries in the region are tightening up tobacco control legislation, the industry has launched an all-out attack, especially in Indonesia," she said in a statement issued by the Bangkok-based organisation today.
She said for Indonesia, the smoking epidemic was a tragedy of colossal proportions as about 200,000 Indonesians die annually from smoke-related diseases and there were now about 60 million smokers, half of whom would die prematurely in the coming years.
"An even bigger tragedy is that the tobacco industry's plan for Indonesia is to increase smoking and tobacco sales in the coming years. Hence, the industry is fighting tobacco control efforts in Indonesia viciously," she said.
In the 25 years that Judith Mackay has been fighting the tobacco industry, she has been described as dogmatic, meddlesome, puritanical and "psychotic human garbage." Jane Parry finds out the truth
Judith Mackay typically starts her day with a session of t’ai chi. Her teacher is strict and demands high standards from her students, but the discipline suits Mackay, as does t’ai chi’s emphasis on harmony and balance.
Mackay, originally from Yorkshire, has lived in Hong Kong for 42 years, and credits living in an Asian society with teaching her about the value of negotiation over confrontation. Despite her reputation as a terrier at the heels of the tobacco industry, she sees herself as an advocate for good rather than an adversary of harm. She sees herself as a promoter of public wellbeing, helping governments and individuals to make decisions that are in the interests of good health.
The shift from activist to advocate happened in the 1980s, when she started working with governments in Asia, particularly China, as a World Health Organization consultant. Since then her name has long been synonymous with persuading governments in the region to adopt tobacco control.
When Mackay turned her attention fully to tobacco control in 1984, she worked alone. . . .
Dr Mackay subsequently became active in the women’s movement, and the transition from working in a hospital to working in tobacco control came with the realisation that smoking was a bigger threat to women’s health than gynaecological problems.
Her first role in tobacco control in 1984 was as founder and director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control. Then in 1987 to 1989 she was the founding director of the Council on Smoking and Health, subsidised by the Hong Kong government, after which, in 2001, she became a senior policy adviser for the WHO Tobacco-Free Initiative, a position that she still holds. In 2006 she began working with the World Lung Foundation on the Bloomberg Initiative.
At 65, Mackay shows no signs of putting her career on the back burner