Tobacco.org

• Govt targets chewing tobacco 

WHILE the government prepares to tighten its control over cigarettes through new laws on their promotion and labeling, tradition appears to be winning the battle to discourage a different type of tobacco addiction.

"I have never heard that chewing tobacco causes mouth cancer," said Oum Touch, 87, a nun who lives at Wat Lanka who picked up the habit of chewing tobacco from her mother.

Roughly 600,000 women in Cambodia, most middle-aged or older, chew tobacco, while the majority of men prefer to smoke it, according to Dr Yel Daravuth, national officer for the World Health Organisation's Tobacco Free Initiative.

But while most women are aware that smoking is unhealthy, knowledge about the adverse effects of chewing tobacco is still thinly spread.

"Research by the WHO shows that chewing tobacco can cause women to develop lung and mouth cancer," Yel Daravuth said during a workshop earlier this month, calling on the government to initiate education campaigns that warn against the habit.

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• WHO left holding breath for tobacco control law 

Cambodia will not meet a WHO deadline for all cigarette packages sold in the Kingdom to bear graphic health warnings by early 2009 because a law on tobacco control has not yet been passed, says Sung Vinn Tak, head of the tobacco health unit at the National Center for Health Promotion.

The country ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control requiring health warning messages and graphics to appear on cigarette packages in November 2005.

"To try to meet the deadline, we will soon issue a government directive," Sung Vinn Tak said. "We have created the directive to ask all cigarettes companies to comply even though we don't have a law in place yet."

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• Calls for Cambodia to draft anti-tobacco laws 

An alliance of non-government organisations called the Cambodia Movement for Health are urging the parliament to speed up passage of draft anti-tobacco legislation.

The Mekong Times reports the group is also stressing that stronger tobacco laws won't harm the economy.

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• Lawsuit Limits, General Re, Peregrine in Court News (Update1) 

Japan Tobacco Inc.'s Canadian unit and a former tobacco executive will conclude a hearing tomorrow urging a judge to overturn an order requiring them to stand trial. The company is facing charges it helped defraud the Canadian government of about C$1 billion ($1 billion) in the 1990s by avoiding taxes through cigarette-smuggling operations into the U.S.

The Canadian government has asked Ontario Superior Court Judge Ian Nordheimer at the same hearing to overturn the part of the May 30 ruling and order six other tobacco executives to stand trial.

The case is Regina v. JTI-MacDonald Inc., Ontario Provincial Court (Toronto).

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• Tobacco smuggling in 2006 cost nations $40 billion 

The illicit trade in tobacco last year cost governments $40 billion in lost tax revenues and amounted to 10.7 percent of the world trade in cigarettes, experts told a global health conference here Monday.

'Smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes are sold at lower prices than legal products, contributing to higher consumption and greater rates of smoking-related illness and death,' said Luk Joossens, senior policy advisor of the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), in his opening address to a global conference on tobacco-related issues.

'The illicit tobacco trade also deprives governments of billions of dollars of tax revenue reducing funding available for public health and other programmes,' said Joossens.

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• Tobacco control policy to receive enormous support in Cambodia 

A recent survey by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) showed that a tobacco control policy will receive enormous support in Cambodia, local media said on Wednesday.

Over 90 percent interviewers supported the government's adoption of a law on tobacco control, according to the survey of a sample of 144 staff members from the ministries of Education, Youth and Sport, Women's Affairs, and Defense across the country.

It also found that more than 96 percent of the respondents wanted a ban on cigarette advertising, reported Cambodian daily newspaper the Koh Santepheap.

The survey aimed to encourage the government to push for an immediate adoption of such a law, reported another Cambodian daily newspaper the Kampuchea Thmey.

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• Over 70,000 Cambodians die of smoking annually 

Cambodia loses 38 million U.S. dollars and over 70,000 lives each year due to cigarette smoking, according to a recent survey jointly conducted by Ministry of Health and World Health Organization.

From 1996 to 2006, 82 percent of rural men, 62 percent of urban dwellers, and 82 percent of youth nationwide were cigarette smokers, said the survey.

Meanwhile, 54 percent of men and seven percent of women in Cambodia were cigarette smokers, it added.

"The danger of cigarette smoking is not as cruel as that of rampant disease like cholera, but it goes into our body slowly, destroys our health and finally leads to death," Lim Thai Pheang, president of the Institute of Public Health of Cambodia, was quoted by local media as saying.

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• Panel: Smoking Ban Hurts Casino Revenue  

Smoking bans are snuffing out casino revenue, but more marketing and investment can lure customers back, a panel of experts told a gambling conference.

Since the Canadian province of Ontario imposed a smoking ban in public places in May, casinos along the border with the United States have suffered a revenue drop of 10 percent to more than 20 percent, said Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. vice president Karl Gagesch.

"Short-term pain," Gagesch told the conference Tuesday. "Long term, we think we're going to be OK."

The largest impact has been at Casino Windsor, which laid off more than 300 employees over the summer as American smokers stayed in Michigan and New York to gamble, he said. Visitation was also hurt by a strong Canadian dollar and tougher border security, he said. . . .

A similar smoking ban at three racinos, or race tracks that also offer slot machines, in Delaware also had a negative impact, with slot machine revenue down 10 percent to 19 percent since the ban was imposed in 2002, said Richard Thalheimer, an economist and president Thalheimer Research Associates.

Slot revenue has since rebounded, he noted, mainly because of the introduction of more slot machines.

Karen Blumenfeld, a member of the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution (GASP), heralded the panel's openness to adapting to a wave of anti-smoking legislation sweeping the country.

"It's not the gloom and doom," she said. "I'm very relieved that the industry is now embracing these changes."

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• Chewing tobacco in noodles sickens 30  

Thirty Cambodians suffered food poisoning after eating homemade noodles contaminated with chewing tobacco that had dropped into the batter from the cook's mouth, police said Monday.

The victims, mostly children, began vomiting after eating noodle soup for breakfast Friday in a village in Banteay Meanchey province . . .

Sieng Sang, an avid tobacco chewer like many poor Cambodian women, said she had not realized a wad had dropped into the flour as she was talking.

Police gave her a lesson in hygiene and told her to be more careful when opening her mouth while cooking, Yort Ray said.

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• Cambodian men, women smoke too much: WHO 

Cambodia's men and women have the dubious distinction of being the heaviest smokers among five Southeast Asian countries surveyed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Xinhua says.

Fifty-four percent of Cambodian men surveyed said they smoked, compared to 53 percent in Indonesia, 50 percent in Vietnam, 49 percent in Malaysia and 39 percent in Thailand, The Cambodia Daily reported Thursday, citing the WHO report.

Cambodia's women also smoked the most, but at a lower overall rate. Six percent of Cambodian women said they smoked, compared to four percent in Indonesia, three percent in Malaysia and Vietnam and two percent in Thailand.

"Compared to other countries in the region, Cambodia is the most open for tobacco ads," WHO's Yel Daravuth said.

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• Regional monks move to ban smoking 

Moves are afoot to ban cigarette smoking among Buddhist monks in Thailand and provide them with advice on how to kick the habit, following a three-nation seminar on Buddhism and tobacco control which concluded that tobacco was an addictive substance and thus violated the five core Buddhist principles.

The 2nd Seminar on Buddhism and the Control of Tobacco Consumption ratified the resolution of the 1st seminar, held in 2003, which described tobacco as an addictive substance harmful to health. Tobacco, according to the seminar, not only had a negative effect on personal health, the economy and society, but also ran counter to the five core principles which every Buddhist, whether monk or layperson, should follow.

Reporting on the seminar, Dr. Naowarat Charoenkha, assistant dean for international relations and training from Mahidol University's Faculty of Public Health, said that this would necessitate a programme to encourage monks and prospective ordinands to break their cigarette habit, as well as a drive to make temples into tobacco-free zones.

According to a year-long study of smoking among Thai monks, conducted by researchers from Mahidol and Rangist universities, found that 24.4 percent of monks and novices across the country were smokers. This figure concealed huge regional disparities, rising as high as 40.5 percent in the eastern and central regions, while dropping to only 14.6 percent in the north.

A recent study in Cambodia, meanwhile, suggested that 36 percent of its monks are smokers. Although no clear evidence on smoking among monks has yet emerged from Laos, the Laotian delegates to the seminar emerged equally committed to the idea of tobacco control.

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• Cambodia to sign UN pact on tobacco control: ministry 

Cambodia will sign on to a UN tobacco control agreement, the health ministry said, adding that it had asked Phnom Penh authorities to begin dismantling the city's prominent tobacco advertising.

"The prime minister has said he will sign" the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, secretary of state for the ministry of health Ung Phirun told AFP Wednesday, without giving details. . . .

A WHO spokesman told AFP it had not been formally told of the decision.

"This would be a welcome move as a very positive indication of the government's intention to take action on tobacco control, but we have to make sure that ratification of the treaty follows signature," he said.

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• Tobacco wars: Singapore the picture of health 

Smoking will not be the same in Singapore a year from now, when the city-state's latest anti-smoking policy shows its face. All cigarette packets will have to bear graphic pictures warning smokers about the dangers of their habit.

This decision makes Singapore a leader in Asia. Only two other countries - Canada and Brazil - have opted to use such visually graphic means to control the spread of tobacco use.

Singapore's move comes on top of the fact that the country already enjoys the honor of becoming, in 1971, the first Asian country to ban tobacco advertisements.

Little wonder such an initiative by this Southeast Asian nation - which is known for its strong government controls and social-engineering policies to achieve a high standard of living - is winning applause from the region's anti-smoking lobby. . .

Currently, an estimated 14 percent of Singapore's 4.1 million population smoke, with males dominating the trend. "However, Singapore is observing a worrying up-trend in the number of young female smokers," said Choo Linn. "The smoking rate in females aged 18-24 years has increased from 2.8 percent in 1992 to 8 percent in 2001."

But if Singapore's efforts illustrate the extent to which Southeast Asian countries are pushing ahead to get people kick the cigarette habit, the situation in Cambodia suggests the other end of this trend.

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• Monks kicking the habit 

Cambodia's Buddhist monks, dragged last year into the front line of the southeast Asian nation's fight against smoking, are proving surprisingly adept at kicking the habit, campaigners say.

Around 1,000 saffron-robed monks were urged 12 months ago to quit smoking in a bid to get the general public in deeply impoverished Cambodia to follow suit.

Of that trial group, only 13 percent have lit up again -- a very impressive level of abstinence, said Yel Daravuth of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency on Friday.

The U.S.-funded missionary group now wants to roll out its smoke-free monks project across the rest of Cambodia, where around a third of monks and two thirds of the male population are avowed puffers.

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• Holy Smoke 

Like many other developing countries, Cambodia is taking the brunt of the aggressive marketing techniques of big cigarette companies. As cigarette consumption falls in the industrialised countries, the multinationals are looking to countries like Cambodia as expanding markets for the future.

Chea Savoeun, Minister of Cults and Religion, explains: "Cambodia is being seen as a new country. In the Khmer Rouge period there was nothing - no currency, no habitation, no transport. Now our Cambodia is developing, therefore everything - every business, every import - is new. The foreign companies want to introduce the famous products from their country, such as Alain Delon cigarettes, into our country. Everything is new - two decades ago there was nothing!"

But these companies face a challenge from an unusual quarter there. Religion, in the form of Buddhism, is fighting back. . .

Buddhist monks are now spearheading the campaign to persuade Cambodians to give up tobacco - a tough assignment in a country with one of the highest rates of smoking in the world and smoking even prevalent in the Buddhist monasteries. There are no health warnings on tobacco products in Cambodia, and no bans on sales to minors.

Soeun Than, Chief Monk at Samrong Andet Pagoda outside Phnomh Penh, explains the religious standpoint: "There were no cigarettes around during the Buddha's lifetime. But he did say you should avoid addictive or harmful substances. When you smoke, you not only hurt yourself you're also hurting other people. So, avoid it!" . .

BAT has encouraged farmers to give up growing staple foods and concentrate on tobacco. They help the farmers with technical advice and improved curing methods, and growing millions of saplings to replace the trees cut down to cure the tobacco. But of course it'll take years for the sapling to grow into trees. And even that won't replace ecosystems lost to tobacco growing.

Another problem is corruption. As even Cambodian customs officials admit, four-fifths of the cigarettes Cambodia imports are openly smuggled into neighbouring countries. Dr Lim Thai Pheang, National Centre for Health Promotion, puts it bluntly: "We have a choice: either we have health or we have tobacco. The government may get money from the sale of cigarettes today, but the cost tomorrow, in terms of health will be far greater.

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