Tobacco.org

Ecuador leading Latin America in tobacco taxation 

Ecuador has become a Latin American leader in tobacco taxation after increasing taxes on 24 November.

Increasing the price of tobacco products is recognised as the most effective way to cut consumption.

The increase is in the form of a specific tax of US$0.08 on each cigarette unit, applied to all brands and packaging, which translates to an average increase of 20 per cent in the final price.

According to Rocio Vaca Bucheli, President and Executive Director of the Ecuadorian Foundation for Respiratory Health (FESAR)-Anti Tobacco Alliance, in Quito, the tax share of tobacco is now 77.4 per cent, up from 64 per cent in 2010.

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Research and Markets: Cigars in Ecuador - a Comprehensive Guide to the Size and Shape of the Market at a National Level 

There is a special zone in the coastal region of the country where people, due to historical tradition and mainly big agriculture producers and fruit exporters, are more habituated to consuming cigars. Cigars are considered niche products demanded mostly by these kinds of population segments, who have high contact with foreign people and habits and are amongst the upper-income groups in Ecuador. Cigar consumers are predominantly males ranging in age from 45-60 years old and influenced by North...

The Cigars in Ecuador report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data 2006-2010, 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 2015 illustrate how the market is set to change.

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• Ecuadorian Parliament Passes Tobacco Regulation Bill 

The Ecuadorian Parliament passed Tuesday Tobacco Control and Regulation Bill with 104 votes in favor and 20 against, containing strict rules for smokers and sellers of these products.

The new provisions include the ban on smoking in all enclosed spaces in public institutions and health and education departments.

The consumption of cigars and cigarettes is prohibited in enclosed areas that are places of work, care and access to the public, or in the public transportation system.

Sale of tobacco is prohibited in child care centers, public and private educational institutions

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• Tobacco smoking in seven Latin American cities: the CARMELA study  

Methods

The Cardiovascular Risk Factor Multiple Evaluation in Latin America (CARMELA) study is a cross-sectional epidemiological study of 11 550 adults between 25 and 64 years old in Barquisimeto, Venezuela; Bogota, Colombia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Mexico City, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Santiago, Chile. Tobacco smoking, including cigarettes, cigars and pipes, was surveyed among other cardiovascular risk factors.

Results

Santiago and Buenos Aires had the highest smoking prevalence (45.4% and 38.6%, respectively); male and female rates were similar. In other cities, men smoked more than women, most markedly in Quito (49.4% of men vs 10.5% of women). Peak male smoking prevalence occurred among the youngest two age groups (25–34 and 35–44 years old). Men and women of Buenos Aires smoked the highest number of cigarettes per day on average (15.7 and 12.4, respectively). Men initiated regular smoking earlier than women in each city (ranges 13.7–20.0 years vs 14.2–21.1 years, respectively). Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke at workplace for more than 5 h per day was higher in Barquisimeto (28.7%), Buenos Aires (26.8%) and Santiago (21.5%). The highest prevalence of former smokers was found among men in Buenos Aires, Santiago and Lima (30.0%, 26.8% and 26.0% respectively).

Conclusions

Smoking prevalence was high in the seven CARMELA cities, although patterns of smoking varied among cities. A major health and economic burden is inevitable in urban Latin America unless effective comprehensive tobacco control measures recommended by the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control are implemented.

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León Febres Cordero, Former Leader of Ecuador, Is Dead at 77  

León Febres Cordero, a pistol-wielding, chain-smoking, horse-breeding businessman who served a tumultuous term as Ecuador’s president in the 1980s and later exerted broad influence over the country’s political life for nearly two decades, died Monday in Guayaquil, his hometown. He was 77.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, said Pascual del Cioppo, an official in Mr. Febres Cordero’s Social Christian Party. Newspapers in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and Guayaquil noted that Mr. Febres Cordero also had emphysema and had survived five heart bypass operations and three bullet wounds over the years. . . .

“My best friends are my cigarettes and my pistols,” he once told The Associated Press. “They don’t ask for anything, and they’re always ready.”

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Former Ecuadorean President Febres Cordero dies  

Former President Leon Febres Cordero, the colorful, right-wing leader who dominated Ecuadorean politics for almost two decades and was dubbed the "owner" of the nation by his opponents, died on Monday. He was 77.

Close friend and political confidant Alfonso Harb said Febres Cordero - who survived five heart bypass operations, two bouts with cancer and three bullet wounds - died of complications from pulmonary emphysema caused by a lifetime of chain-smoking.

Sporting a mane of white hair and a cigarette hanging from his lip, the leader known simply as "Leon" or "Lion," was an old-fashioned, bare-knuckled Latin American strongman who towered over Ecuador's right for half a century.

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Ecuador seizes failed-bank owners' stocks  

Ecuador's government said Monday it would seize a family business group's stock shares in 58 companies to help recover debts generated by the collapse of the family's former bank.

The action comes a little less than a month after authorities seized 200 businesses linked to the family of William and Roberto Isaias, who fled to the United States in 2000 shortly after their bank collapsed. The two face embezzlement charges in Ecuador. . . .

Other stock shares being seized include those in agricultural, automotive, real estate, tobacco and communications businesses, the agency said Monday. The government did not specify what percentage of shares the group allegedly owns in each company.

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Ailing Ecuador Leader Still Calls Shots 

A painting of Jesus looks down on former President Leon Febres Cordero's king-sized bed. On the floor are eight pairs of cowboy boots and a pile of saddles. Hanging on the wall are two repeating shotguns and two submachine guns.

Febres Cordero has survived five bypass heart operations, two bouts with cancer, three bullet wounds and a chain-smoking habit. At 75 he might be expected to take to a rocking chair. But the political power broker known as "the owner" of Ecuador has no intention of fading away. . . . .

"My best friends are my cigarettes and my pistols. They don't ask for anything and they're always ready," he said with a big grin

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NGOs Call on Governments to Ratify Global Tobacco Treaty on World No Tobacco Day 

Today, an international coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are joining health advocates, students and the city of Quito to celebrate World No Tobacco Day in Ecuador's capital. The coalition began a three-week tour of Latin America last week to urge the governments of Brazil, Ecuador and Costa Rica to ratify the global tobacco treaty. Corporate Accountability International is working closely with the Zero Tobacco Network (Brazil), Tribuna Ecuatoriana de Consumidores y Usarios (Ecuador), ALERTA (Costa Rica) and other members of the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT) to coordinate the Latin America Treaty Ratification Campaign.

At each stop on the tour, public health, consumer and corporate accountability advocates from around the Americas are calling on key government officials to support the world's first public health treaty

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International NGOs Call on Brazil, Ecuador and Costa Rica to Ratify Global Tobacco Treaty 

Today, an international coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is launching a campaign to call on the governments of Brazil, Ecuador and Costa Rica to ratify the global tobacco treaty. Corporate Accountability International is working closely with the Zero Tobacco Network (Brazil), Tribuna Ecuatoriana de Consumidores y Usarios (Ecuador), ALERTA (Costa Rica) and other members of the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT) to coordinate a Latin American Ratification Campaign Tour from 24 May through 4 June.

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Anti-smoking treaty tops 100 signatures 

Earlier this week Ecuador become the 100th country to sign the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The following day Congo lifted the number to 101.

"With their signatures, 100 governments which represent 4.5 billion people have underscored their intention to become a party to the convention and thus protect their populations from tobacco-related diseases," said WHO Director-General Dr Lee Jong-wook. "I commend these countries, urge the remaining ones to sign and encourage all signatories who have not yet ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to do so."

The treaty comes into forces when 40 countries have ratified the deal. At the moment only nine have done so but as India is one of them, they represent one billion people...

The important name missing from for the treaty is that of the United States of America.

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• Big Tobacco Beats Back RICO Claims 

Lawyers for five U.S. tobacco companies have persuaded the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to adopt a 225-year-old common law principle that bars three Latin American countries from suing them in U.S. courts.

That principle, called the revenue rule, prohibits one country from trying to enforce its own revenue laws in another country's courts.

In the defense's brief, Goodwin Proctor's Kenneth J. Parsigian, who represented the tobacco companies, cited cases from 225 years of Anglo-American jurisprudence

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• Tobacco Companies Win Smuggling Appeal 

Tobacco manufacturers have won an appeal challenging lawsuits by the governments of Belize, Ecuador and Honduras that claim the companies conspired to smuggle cigarettes into their countries to boost profits and evade taxes.

The racketeering suits against Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard and Liggett boil down to attempts to enforce foreign tax claims in U.S. courts, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided, upholding an earlier ruling by a Miami federal judge throwing out the lawsuit.

The court ruled that the strategy violates 18th century English common law and cannot be pursued. The ruling Friday did not address whether the companies smuggled cigarettes.

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Rendez-vous with . . . Angela Pinoargote, about tobacco control in Ecuador 

I work mostly with kids in schools in the Province of Manabi. We have just started a new campaign on the theme "Instead of smoking, feel yourself at life". . . A tobacco control Act was passed by Congress in 1998 but there is no enforcement. The government is too concerned about collecting tobacco taxes to enforce the law and about 6,000 people work for the tobacco companies. . . There is one national corporation but Philip Morris holds 80% of the market: they bought out local companies. They are also involved in growing tobacco and this development is detrimental because farmers will grow tobacco instead of food crops.

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• Latin American Nations Claim Tobacco Cos. Violated RICO 

A centuries-old common-law rule may bar three Latin American nations from suing American tobacco companies under RICO in U.S. courts.

According to Kenneth J. Parsigian, who argued for the tobacco companies Tuesday before a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nations of Belize, Ecuador and Honduras don't have the right to sue his clients.

"No court anywhere in history, anywhere in the world, has ever allowed a claim like this to go forward," said Parsigian, of Boston's Goodwin Proctor.

The three countries have accused five tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Phillip Morris Cos. Inc. and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., of setting up "elaborate criminal schemes to move their tobacco products into the hands of smokers, well below the radar screen of [the countries'] regulatory infrastructure." According to the plaintiffs, the companies sold tobacco in the Latin American nations tax-free by moving it through shadow companies and smugglers.

They filed a complaint in a Florida state court, alleging money laundering and mail and wire fraud, among other things. . .

Perwin said his clients' right to recourse in the U.S. courts is established under the plain language of RICO.

"[The revenue rule] is obviously superseded by the plain meaning of the federal statute," he said. "The plain meaning of the statute covers our claim. No doubt about it."

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No court anywhere in history, anywhere in the world, has ever allowed a claim like this to go forward.
Kenneth J. Parsigian, who argued for the tobacco companies before a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals against the suit by Belize, Ecuador and Honduras.

[The revenue rule] is obviously superseded by the plain meaning of the [RICO] federal statute. . . No doubt about it.
Joel S. Perwin, lawyer for the Latin American nations.