Tobacco.org

Cheap cigarettes fuel heavy smoking 

Plane-loads of cheap cigarettes flown in from Eastern Europe are fuelling heavy smoking among Ireland's Polish community.

Integration Minister Conor Lenihan insisted a huge difference in price was partially to blame for Polish migrants smoking more than Irish people.

The Research Institute for A Tobacco Free Society agreed

Jump to full article »

Cigarette smugglers intercepted  

A LATVIAN gang smuggling cigarettes to the Irish black market was intercepted by Customs officials at Dublin airport yesterday.

The officials seized 112,000 cigarettes as they targeted passengers disembarking from a flight into Dublin from Riga.

The operation is one of a series of strikes carried out by the Customs against Irish and Eastern European gangs

Jump to full article »

• Cigarette smuggling costs exchequer €100m 

A big increase in cigarette smuggling from eastern Europe and former Soviet republics will cost the exchequer more than €100 million in lost taxes this year.

New figures obtained by The Sunday Business Post show that seizures of smuggled tobacco product have risen by more than 40 per cent since last year. More than 74 million cigarettes are expected to be seized by the end of the year, compared to 52.3 million last year.

A spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners said that cigarette smuggling was a ‘‘major contributory factor’’ to the anticipated loss to the exchequer.

Jump to full article »

• East European immigrants with cancer 'could swamp the NHS'  

The Health Service could be "overwhelmed" by cancer sufferers from Eastern Europe, a leading doctor has warned.

There are almost twice as many smokers in Poland and neighbouring countries than the UK, which means they have far higher rates of lung and other cancers.

It comes as a new documents showd the bill for treating health 'tourists' amounts to at least £62 million a year.

It says NHS trusts are ignoring guidelines aimed at preventing foreign patients abusing the NHS, a document said. . . .

Recent data suggests up to half of all Polish men smoke. Lung cancer kills more men in Eastern Europe than any other form of the disease. In the UK, on the other hand, more men die of prostate cancer.

The NHS's Cancer Plan is based on needs identified in 2000.

Dr Collingridge said it may have to be drastically rewritten to take into account the different needs of Eastern European patients.

Jump to full article »

Smoking ban sends Imperial on foreign mission  

Imperial Tobacco is looking to spread its wings into high-growth markets in eastern Europe and the US as fewer consumers in the UK and Germany buy cigarettes.

The world's fourth-largest cigarette company has continued to grow market share in its core markets as more customers turn to its budget brands Lambert & Butler, Richmond and Windsor Blue. Yet, with the smoking ban set to come into effect in England next summer, Imperial is looking at its growth options in new regions. The company hopes to capitalise on its premium brands such as Davidoff and West as it increases its presence in countries such as Russia.

The company established a manufacturing plant in Turkey last year and has taken a 1.5 per cent market share in the world's sixth biggest cigarette market.

Jump to full article »

UPDATE 3-Gallaher H1 profits rise, sees improving H2 

British tobacco company Gallaher Group Plc (GLH.L: ) posted a 4 percent rise in first-half profits on Wednesday and forecast an improving second half, but its shares slipped as its growth fell short of its rivals.

The company, whose cigarette brands include Benson & Hedges, Silk Cut and Mayfair in Britain, said its problem areas in Europe such as Austria, Spain and Poland should improve in the second half as competitive pressure eases and stability returns.

"Looking ahead those areas that showed profits down are now showing improvements and we expect to hit our expectations for the year," said Chief Executive Nigel Northridge in a conference call after the results.

Jump to full article »

Gallaher calls recovery in problem markets in second half 

Gallaher Group PLC's chief executive Nigel Northridge said a recovery is in progress in the tobacco group's four problem markets, which have seen a downturn caused chiefly by fierce price competition, hurting profits this year.

Western Europe's fourth-biggest tobacco maker has suffered in Austria, Spain, Poland and Sweden in the last year, as a combination of government tax hikes and price fights among low-cost brands hit profits and skewed market shares.

This year analysts have penciled in adjusted earnings per share growth of only 3-4 pct for the maker of Benson & Hedges, Silk Cut and Mayfair cigarettes. The group has a long term target of high single digits.

Jump to full article »

Profits up as Gallaher looks east 

Gallaher, Britain's second-largest tobacco company, said its profits rose 15% in the first half of the year as it sold more cigarettes in central and eastern Europe.

The group, which makes brands such as Silk Cut and Benson & Hedges, said total sales were up 2.1% to £4.03bn for the six months of the year to June 30, sending pre-tax profits up to £259m from £225m during the same period last year.

Gallaher has been expanding into central and eastern Europe to make up for the decline in smoking in western Europe caused by increased taxes on cigarettes and bans on smoking in public places. In Europe sales were up 2% and in the former Soviet Union they were up 19%.

"Gallaher made good progress in the first half of the year, in spite of challenging conditions created by additional taxation and increased price competition in some European markets," the company said.

Jump to full article »

Gallaher 1st-Half Profit Gains 17% on Eastern Europe (Update3) 

Gallaher Group Plc, the maker of Benson & Hedges cigarettes in Europe, said first-half profit rose 17 percent as the company sold more tobacco in eastern Europe and former Soviet countries.

Net income increased to 185 million pounds ($350 million), or 28.1 pence a share, from 158 million pounds, or 24.2 pence, a year earlier, the Weybridge, England-based company said today in a statement. Profit was expected to be 181 million pounds, according to the median estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

European tobacco makers have sought to expand beyond western Europe, where smoking bans, rising prices and health warnings are curbing consumption. Gallaher has boosted market share in nations such as Russia and Kazakhstan, and bought Liggett-Ducat Ltd., Russia's No. 1 cigarette maker, in 2000.

Former Soviet nations were ``once again the star performer for Gallaher,''

Jump to full article »

Gallaher Says First-Half Profit Up 

Gallaher Group PLC, Britain's second-largest tobacco company, said first-half profit rose 17 percent as the company benefited from rising sales in eastern Europe.

Net income rose to 185 million pounds (US$351.5 million; euro273.9 million), from 158 million pounds in the same period a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Sales rose 2.1 percent to 4.03 billion pounds (US$7.66 billion; euro5.97 billion).

Gallaher, which makes brands such as Mayfair and Silk Cut in Britain, has been expanding into eastern Europe to maintain sales growth as western European governments increase taxes on cigarettes, impose bans on smoking in bars and restaurants and more people give up the habit.

Jump to full article »

Tough west Europe to cap Gallaher profit rise 

Tobacco company Gallaher is set to post a 4 percent rise in half-year profits in the week ahead as growth in the former Soviet Union offsets tough trading in other European markets, analysts said on Friday.

Gallaher (GLH.L), whose cigarette brands include Benson & Hedges, Silk Cut and Mayfair, warned in late June of tough markets in Austria, Poland and Spain while a Swedish tax rise in January led to stocking up in late 2005 and poor growth in early 2006.

The world's fifth-largest cigarette group is expanding into the former Soviet Union, which provides 10 percent of group profits but over half of volumes. It hopes the move will offset the effects of mature European markets like Britain, Ireland, Sweden and Austria which account for around 70 percent of profits.

Jump to full article »

• Cytisine for Smoking Cessation: A Literature Review and a Meta-analysis 

Cytisine is an agonist of nicotinic receptors; in particular, it binds strongly with 42 nicotinic receptors. Cytisine has been used to treat tobacco dependence for 40 years in Eastern Europe. The objective of this study was to review the literature on the effect of cytisine on smoking cessation. . . .

Research conducted during the past 40 years suggests that cytisine is effective for smoking cessation. Thus, an apparently effective smoking cessation drug that has been used for decades in Germany and Eastern European countries remained unnoticed in other countries. Most of the articles reviewed herein were never cited in the English-language literature. Despite the existence of 3 placebo-controlled trials, recent reviews of the efficacy of smoking cessation drugs omitted cytisine2, 14-15 and little research on cytisine has been conducted in recent years.

Jump to full article »

• Smuggling 'will increase in Europe next year' 

The European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF) of the European Commission expects smuggling to increase next year as more countries join the European Union.

Speaking at a workshop in Dubai, Ian Walton, Director of the Customs Unit at the OLAF, said that tobacco represents 10 per cent of the smuggling in Europe.

"Since tobacco taxes in Ukraine are very low, there are huge tobacco smuggling operations to Poland, Germany and the UK."

Walton also expects smuggling and commercial fraud to increase when Romania and Bulgaria join the EU. He said that most complaints came from China.

Jump to full article »

• Tobacco company considered funding a film to promote smoking in eastern Europe -- Dobson 332 

Previously secret documents show that British American Tobacco (BAT) considered investing in a £2.25m (€3.3m; $4.2m) action film, with a heroine who smoked, for distribution in eastern Europe, according to a new report (European Journal of Public Health 2006 Apr 5, doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckl041).

In return for providing money to make the film, the company would have cigarette marketing opportunities in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, says a letter from the film’s producer cited in the report. British American Tobacco would have had the right to position its chosen brand in the film.

The report cites examples of other interest in using films to promote tobacco smoking in several eastern European countries, after the political collapse of the Eastern bloc, including an executive who suggested that films in Hungary could reach a young urban market.

“About the same time the company also considered using movies as the medium in Romania to launch its Lucky Strike brand in that market,” say the report.

According to the report, internal tobacco industry documents show that in the late 1990s, the company evaluated becoming an investor in a film which had the working title Aquarius, later called Indian Poker. . . .

The report says a change in strategy is required for tobacco control in movies. It says protocols should lay down what is permitted rather than what is prohibited. That, say the authors, will reduce opportunities for cigarette companies to devise new means to subvert regulatory intent.

A British American Tobacco spokesman said, “We didn’t do it [finance the film], and now under our international marketing standards we wouldn’t even contemplate it.”

Jump to full article »

• Movie Moguls: British American Tobacco's covert strategy to promote cigarettes in Eastern Europe 

Results: A small collection of internal corporate documents from British American Tobacco show that in the late 1990s the company evaluated investing in a movie destined for Eastern Europe. By being an investor, BAT could influence the alteration of the movie script to promote BAT's brands, thus providing marketing opportunities without a clear violation of movie product placement restrictions.

Conclusion: Future protocols to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control should seek to curtail more than just payment for tobacco product placement. More restrictive provisions will be needed to hinder creative strategies by the tobacco industry to continue tobacco promotion and trademark diversification through movies.

Jump to full article »