Tobacco.org

• Norway Aims to Ban Tobacco From Its Investment Portfolio 

Norway's Government Pension Fund -- Global, often called the oil fund, is one of the world's largest sovereign-wealth funds, valued at about 2.3 trillion Norwegian kroner, or about $350 billion. The Nordic nation of 4.8 million people invests its surplus oil and gas wealth abroad . . .

A national Council of Ethics reviews the fund's holdings in more than 7,000 companies based on strict guidelines imposed in 2004. It reports ethical breaches to the government . . .

"We have tried to...further clarify the fund's role as a responsible investor," said Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen as she presented a white paper on her review of the guidelines to parliament. . . .

The government wants to introduce measures such as excluding tobacco-industry investments, putting a greater focus on the environment . . .

The ministry also said it was preparing to put 20 billion kroner over five years from the fund into companies engaged in environmental technologies in emerging markets.

The presentation of the white paper came as the finance ministry said it will review the fund's investment strategy after it lost 633 billion kroner on global financial markets last year.

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• Norway Proposes to Exclude Tobacco From Wealth Fund (Update1) 

Norway proposed excluding tobacco producers as part of an overhaul of ethical guidelines for its $310 billion sovereign wealth fund.

“There’s no healthy way to use tobacco,” Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen said today at a press conference in Oslo, without naming specific companies. “There has notably been a lot of attention directed at how tobacco companies target developing countries.” . . .

At the end of 2008, the fund owned shares in tobacco companies including Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, British American Tobacco Plc, Europe’s largest cigarette maker, as well as in Swedish Match AB and in Philip Morris International Inc.

“We’ll go through all the companies in the portfolio and slowly liquidate our positions,” Halvorsen said.

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Norway reviews €75bn loss in wealth fund 

The Norwegian government is to review the operations of its sovereign wealth fund after it lost €75bn on investments last year. . . .

The Ministry of Finance also proposed today (Friday) that the fund should no longer be allowed to invest in tobacco companies and that it should commit Nkr20bn over five years for environmental investments.

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• Tobacco display ban looms in Norway; Nordic Travel Retail Group focuses on challenge to a key category 

A ban on tobacco display in Norwegian duty free could be in force by October this year, if, as expected, new tobacco legislation is voted into law by the country's Parliament. The planned new legislation was one of the key issues discussed this week at the latest meeting of the Nordic Travel Retail Group, which represents the interests of concessionaires, brand owners, airports, airlines and ferry operators in the Nordic region. . . .

Norwegian travel retail is likely to have to implement a model similar to that in place in another Nordic state, Iceland. Retailers would have to create a stand-alone room in their stores for tobacco, with frosted, not clear glass, so customers could not see inside. No advertising would be permitted.

Nordic Travel Retail Group Chairman Erik Thomsen told The Moodie Report: "Both Travel Retail Norway and the Nordic Travel Retail Group have made representations on this issue to decision-makers, but there is no chance of an exemption for duty free. . . .

Last week's meeting also heard from JTI Corporate Affairs & Communication Worldwide Duty Free Santiago Llair�. He said the industry needed to coordinate its response to challenges such as display bans, and highlighted other issues, such as labelling, that could affect the business.

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Maternal Smoking in Pregnancy and Externalizing Behavior in 18-Month-Old Children: Results From a Population-Based Prospective Study 

Results: We documented a threshold effect of smoking 10 cigarettes or more per day during pregnancy on subsequent externalizing behaviors among 18-month-old children, even after adjusting for relevant confounders (odds ratio 1.32, 95% confidence interval 1.03-1.70). The child's sex did not moderate these effects (odds ratio 0.98, 95% confidence interval 0.83-1.16).

Conclusions: Maternal smoking during pregnancy increases offspring's subsequent risk for externalizing behavior problems at 18 months of age. The pattern of risk does not differ between boys and girls.

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• Health consequences of sustained smoking cessation  

OBJECTIVES ---To estimate the risk of dying from all causes and from specified smoking-related diseases in people who were ex-smokers at two consecutive examinations . . .

RESULTS --- With sustained never smokers as reference, the sustained ex-smokers had adjusted relative risk (95 % CI), of dying from any cause, for men 0.97 (0.80 to 1.18), for women 0.98 (0.65 to 1.48). Corresponding risk for ex-smokers who resumed smoking was for men 1.59 (1.32 to 1.91), for women 1.40 (1.08 to 1.81). For the specified smoking-related diseases, the risk in sustained ex-smokers was not significantly different from the risk in sustained never-smokers, except for lung cancer in men. For ex-smokers who resumed smoking, the corresponding risk was on the whole significantly higher.

CONCLUSIONS ---A more valid and favourable picture of ex-smokers’ risk will be obtained if exposure is being based upon people with two consecutive examinations, years apart. The study confirms clearly the large health benefit of quitting smoking for good.

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• Smokers see decline in ability to smell, rise in laryngitis, and upper airway issues 

As Americans prepare for a day without cigarettes and tobacco products as part of the American Cancer Society Great American Smokeout (R) (November 20), new research gives them more reasons to extend that break to a lifetime, according to the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF). Among the new research presented at the organization's annual meeting in September 2008 are studies that link cigarette smoking and upper airway symptoms ("smoker's nose"), the loss of smokers' ability to smell common odors, and most alarming, the role second-hand smoke plays in the rise of cases of "environmental laryngitis."

The first study, presented by Norwegian researchers, reveals that among 2,294 patients being evaluated for obstructive sleep apnea, snoring, or nose-related issues, smokers were 12 to 27 percent higher than non-smokers in 8 of the 13 possible symptoms. The researchers believe that quitting smoking should be a primary therapeutic measure for patients with these upper airway ailments.

In another study, Brazilian researchers examined the link between smoking and loss of smell. In a clinical study examining 56 healthy volunteers, current and former smokers in the group had greater trouble smelling butanol, an alcohol used widely in odor testing because of its distinct and powerful smell. The authors believe this confirms that smokers will experience altered ability to smell as they continue the habit.

A third study cites second-hand tobacco smoke as one of the primary causes of what the authors term "environmental laryngitis," along with allergens and air pollution. The study, authored by researchers at the University of California-Davis, indicates through animal models that exposure to second-hand smoke can trigger laryngitis symptoms

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Smokers to pay more for insurance 

Norwegian life insurance companies now want smokers to pay twice as much in premium for their life insurances as non-smokers do.

Even those who smoke only one cigarette a day may now expect to pay 50 per cent higher premiums for their life insurances.

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• ”Strict smoking policy is very effective”  

Stavanger municipality can probably expect to see a 10 per cent decline in the number of smokers, if town counsellor’s proposal is implemented by the end of next year.

”The great majority will abide by the ruling. A minority will be even more bound to their smoking habit in order to win back their freedom to smoke,” says research leader, Karl Erik Lund from Sirus (The State Institute for Drug Research)

Lund is one of the world’s leading tobacco experts.

Together with 14 tobacco researchers from all over the world, he has documented the effect of stricter smoking regulations, as an assignment from the World Health Organization (WHO). The final report will be presented next year at a world conference in India.

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• ”Strict smoking policy is very effective”  

Stavanger municipality can probably expect to see a 10 per cent decline in the number of smokers, if town counsellor’s proposal is implemented by the end of next year.

”The great majority will abide by the ruling. A minority will be even more bound to their smoking habit in order to win back their freedom to smoke,” says research leader, Karl Erik Lund from Sirus (The State Institute for Drug Research)

Lund is one of the world’s leading tobacco experts.

Together with 14 tobacco researchers from all over the world, he has documented the effect of stricter smoking regulations, as an assignment from the World Health Organization (WHO). The final report will be presented next year at a world conference in India. However, the research group has chosen to publicize some of the finds. . . .

Karl Erik Lund thinks Stavanger has little to lose by banning all smoking outside, and within working hours.

”The net effect will be positive. The odds are very great that this will result in reduced smoking and better health. There are also those who try to calculate the business/economical side of this – reduced sick-leave, reduced cleaning and so on,” says Lund.

Positive

The director of the Ministry of Health’s tobacco department, Hege Wang, thinks the initiative from Stavanger municipality is very positive.

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The impact of a minimal smoking cessation intervention for pregnant women and their partners on perinatal smoking behaviour in primary health care: a real-life controlled study  

The objectives of this study were to investigate parental smoking behaviour during pregnancy after introduction of a prenatal, structured, multi-disciplinary smoking cessation programme in primary care, and to compare smoking behaviour among pregnant women in the city of Trondheim with Bergen and Norway.

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• Smoking riskier to women's hearts than men's 

Women typically get heart disease much later than men, but not if they smoke, researchers said Tuesday.

In fact, women who smoke have heart attacks nearly 14 years earlier than women who don't smoke, Norwegian doctors reported in a study presented to the European Society of Cardiology. For men, the gap is not so dramatic; male smokers have heart attacks about six years earlier than men who don't smoke.

"This is not a minor difference," said Dr. Silvia Priori, a cardiologist at the Scientific Institute in Pavia, Italy. "Women need to realize they are losing much more than men when they smoke," she said. Priori was not connected to the research.

Dr. Morten Grundtvig and colleagues from the Innlandet Hospital Trust in Lillehammer, Norway, based their study on data from 1,784 patients admitted for a first heart attack at a hospital in Lillehammer.

Their study found that the men on average had their first heart attack at age 72 if they didn't smoke, and at 64 if they did.

Women in the study had their first heart attack at age 81 if they didn't smoke, and at age 66 if they did.

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• Mom's smoking tied to oral birth defect 

Pregnant women who smoke or regularly breathe second-hand smoke may be raising the odds that their baby will be born with a cleft lip, a new study shows.

Cleft lip and cleft palate are among the most common types of birth defect. They arise when the tissues that form the roof of the mouth and the upper lip do not fuse properly, sometime between the fifth and ninth week of pregnancy.

In the current study, Norwegian researchers found that women who smoked more than 10 cigarettes per day during their first trimester were nearly twice as likely to have a baby with a cleft lip as nonsmokers were.

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Not much drinking or smoking  

Young people in Norway smoke and drink less often than most of their contemporaries abroad, according to a survey of 41 industrialized countries.

Some 8 percent of Norwegian 15-year olds smoke on a daily basis. The average for all the countries studied is 14 percent. This places Norway in sixth place, behind the United States, Sweden, Israel, Canada and Portugal.

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European Commission approves acquisition of Skandinavisk Tobakskompagni businesses 

The European Commission today announced its decision to approve British American Tobacco’s acquisition of the cigarette businesses of Skandinavisk Tobakskompagni A/S (ST) and certain of its snus and roll-your-own tobacco interests.

Approval has been given by the European Commission on the condition that British American Tobacco agrees to divest a small number of local brands, primarily in Norway.

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