Tobacco.org

• Zyuganov calls for state monopoly on alcohol, tobacco  

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov called for nationalising Russia’s mineral and resource sector and key industries by introducing a progressive tax on high incomes.

He also suggested that the government should regain all control over alcohol and tobacco production in the country.

Zyuganov believes this will help “concentrate necessary resources in order to support such leaders in overcoming the crisis as construction, agriculture, automobile industry, light and textile industries, small and medium-size business”.

As supporting measures, he suggested introducing moratorium on the growth of tariffs for the services of so-called natural monopolies, which, in his opinion, has “become a way of turning people’s pockets out and destroying industry

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Stricter limits on tobacco products crossing border into Latvia approved 

Latvian Saeima passed in the final reading amendments to the law on excise tax today, stipulating that from now on stricter limits will apply to the amount of tobacco products that private individuals from third countries can bring with them to Latvia; furthermore, persons will not be able to bring the allowed amount of tobacco products across the border of Latvia more often than one time per day.

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The market for tobacco in Russia increased at a compound annual growth rate of 3.4% between 2003 and 2008 

This databook provides key data and information on the tobacco market in Russia. This report is a comprehensive resource for market, category and segment level data including value, volume, distribution share and company & brand share. This report also provides expenditure and consumption data b the historic and forecast periods.

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Cigarettes, Cancer and Money  

According to the American Cancer Society, about 5.5 million people died in the world last year over smoking-related diseases and ailments. The number may increase to 6 million during the current year. Many of those, who were killed by smoking, were natives of developing states, but it does not mean that developed states may turn a blind eye on the problem.

The latest report from the American Cancer Society was not a confession. The scandals connected with the activities of tobacco corporations continue to occur on a regular basis. Tobacco kings gathered for a summit in 1988 in Florida and approved a program of actions to neutralize anti-smoking activities of the World Health Organization.

As a result, tobacco kings began holding active advertising campaigns in third world countries to compensate the declining profit in the countries of the golden billion as many people prefer to quit smoking there. . . .

There are incidents when clerks of some of China’s provinces are forced to purchase a certain amount of cigarettes every month.

The situation in the Russian Federation is better to a certain extent. Sixty percent of Russian men and 30 percent of Russian women smoke nowadays. Smoking has a very young age in Russia: up to 72 percent of young people under 30 smoke regularly, Moneytimes.ru reports.

The governments of many Western countries take decisive steps to restrict smoking in public places and ban the advertising of tobacco products. In developing states, tobacco makers feel free at ease. As a rule, developing states only try to imitate the struggle against smoking.

Some cigarette makers resort to hidden ways of promotion.

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New Reports Find Alcohol and Tobacco Deaths in Russia Too High 

Drinking and smoking account for higher death rate in Moscow

New studies find that about a million people in Russia die each year from alcohol and tobacco related illnesses. And in several recent years, more than half of all Russian deaths between the ages of 15 and 54 were caused by alcohol.

In Russia, deaths outnumber births these days.

The World Health Organization says a Russian man can expect to live to just under 60. In the United States, male life expectancy is 75. United Nations figures show Russia's population is declining by half a percent a year.

A study published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, finds alcohol and tobacco consumption account for Russia's higher death rate compared to western Europe. . . .

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's popularity dropped when he imposed drinking regulations in the 1980s.

The present government has instead launched an advertising campaign calling on Russians to take care of themselves, and reminding them of the risks associated with heavy smoking and drinking.

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• Marlboro to unveil first new cigarette brand in two years 

Cigarette brand Marlboro is set to launch a new brand in the UK.

It is the first NPD launch for Philip Morris Ltd since 2007, when it announced Marlboro Silver.

Marlboro's product portfolio includes Marlboro Red, Marlboro Gold, previously called Marlboro Lights, and Marlboro Menthol.

A trial of the product in Russia came in packs styled like cigarette lighters, with an opening at the side.

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• Russian Tobacco Makers Relaunch Iconic Soviet Cigarette Brands 

The Russian tobacco market has been showing a curious trend recently. The cheapest and premium class cigarette brands currently enjoy the biggest demand in Russia. Many tobacco companies focus their efforts on the inexpensive segment and resume the production of Soviet brands, BFM.ru business portal said.

“According to our estimates, the reduction of the Russian tobacco market during the first half year made up 3-4 percent,” Kingsley Wheaton, the managing director of British American Tobacco Russia (BAT Russia) said. The sales of cheap cigarettes are growing, but they are growing in the premium segment of the market too, he said.

Another participant of the Russian tobacco market – Philip Morris – also reported a growth in the sales of its low price segment cigarettes (Bond Street).

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• | Russian army rations to swap cigarettes for candy: general  

Russia will no longer include free cigarettes in its food rations for servicemen but will compensate by providing them with candy, a top general said Thursday.

"We are no longer buying cigarettes for the armed forces and are replacing them with caramel and sugar," Lieutenant-General Dmitry Bulgakov was quoted by news agencies as saying.

He specified however that Russia was not banning smoking in the military.

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REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT PARALLEL CIVIL SOCIETY SUMMIT 

And I think that the leadership here in Russia, both civil and governmental, understand this. I had lunch with President Medvedev this afternoon, and we started talking about health issues and the continuing high mortality rate among Russian men in particular. And we talked about alcoholism and we talked about smoking. And we talked about the fact that government programs can be initiated, but to the extent that there's been success in the United States around reducing smoking levels, it's not only a matter of changing laws -- it's also been changing attitudes, so that people feel that they need to change. And they internalize these different attitudes. That's something that civic society can do in a way that government never can.

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• Obama rejects Russians' invite to light up  

Russia is a smoker's delight - ashtrays in hotel elevators, cheap cigarettes readily available. The Tuesday edition of the Moscow Times, an English-language paper, urged the American president to use his time here to re-embrace the habit he's trying to kick. . . .

Mr. Obama said he offered advice to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on reducing the smoking rate in Russia.

"We talked about the fact that government programs can be initiated, but to the extent that there's been success in the United States around reducing smoking levels, it's not only a matter of changing laws - it's also been changing attitudes, so that people feel that they need to change," Mr. Obama told a gathering of civil society activists Tuesday afternoon.

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• O'FLYNN: An Insider’s Guide to Moscow for Mr. Obama 

But while standing there, take a deep breath. Can you smell it? It's the whiff of a smoker's nation. You are among friends, smoking friends, so enjoy yourself. You can smoke in restaurants, bars, and even while halting cars for bribes while working as a traffic policeman.

If you don't have any cigarettes on you, just say, "Mozhno strelnut u vas sigaretu?" or "Can I cadge a cigarette off you?" to any passerby. A pack only costs the equivalent of $1.25, so people will happily share.

Your two hosts may not smoke, but they are an anomaly. If you take a look at their team, you will spot the yellowing fingers and the nervous twitch as a meeting goes on too long. Ask for a smoke break, and you will have the team on your side -- and be able to find out who is sleeping with whom from the gossip in the smoking area.

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Can you smell it? It's the whiff of a smoker's nation. You are among friends, smoking friends, so enjoy yourself.
Travel advice for President Obama from the Moscow Times' Kevin O'Flynn.

Study blames alcohol for half 1990s Russian deaths 

A new study by an international team of public health researchers documents the devastating impact of alcohol abuse on Russia — showing that drinking caused more than half of deaths among Russians aged 15 to 54 in the turbulent era following the Soviet collapse.

The 52 percent figure compares to estimates that less than 4 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by alcohol abuse, according to the study by Russian, British and French researchers published in Friday's edition of the British medical journal The Lancet.

The Russian findings were based on a survey of almost 49,000 deaths between 1990 and 2001 among young adult and middle-aged Russians in three industrial towns in western Siberia, which had typical 1990s Russian mortality patterns.

Professor David Zaridze, head of the Russian Cancer Research Center and lead author of the study, estimated that the increase in alcohol consumption since 1987, the year when then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's restrictions on alcohol sales collapsed, cost the lives of 3 million Russians who would otherwise be alive today. "This loss is similar to that of a war," Zaridze said. . . .

Some researchers have blamed the crumbling of the Soviet health care system, increased smoking, changes in diet or a loss of jobs that raised stress levels for the mysterious rise in deaths.

Many others, like Zaridze and his team, pin the blame squarely on increased drinking, which the report says roughly doubled in Russia between 1987 and 1994 . . .

"If you look at the dynamics of death and the dynamics of alcohol consumption in Russia, it is obvious that all these sharp increases and decreases of the mortality level are caused by increases and decreases in alcohol consumption," Zaridze said.

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Madge's 'no smoking zone'  

FITNESS fanatic Madonna has banned smoking roadies from coming within 50ft of her - to the confusion of cigarette mad Russians.

The obsessed star has told workers on the Russia leg of her world tour that they'll be sacked if she even sees them with fag.

And she has sent promoters a list of high handed demands for her August 2 concert in St Petersburg this summer, reports Russian daily newspaper Tvoi Den.

Her fag ban has baffled Russian promoters.

One crew member said: "Everyone here smokes. If she gets rid of everyone with a cigarette in their hand she'd better learn how to put the stage up herself."

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Scope of smoking in RF requires urgent measure 

One thousand people in Russia die prematurely every day of diseases caused by tobacco smoking, Olga Borzova, head of the Committee on the Protection of Health of the State Duma lower house of parliament, told Itar-Tass on the eve of the World No Tobacco Day marked on Sunday.

In Russia, Borzova said, from 50 to 70 percent of men are tobacco smokers, or twice as many as smoking women. People in Russia smoke more than 100 packs of cigarettes per capita a year," the committee chief specified. She emphasized, "The obtaining situation requires urgent measures".

Borzova recalled that the accession of the Russian Federation to the the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2008 "was the expressiob of the political will of our State". The Committee on the Protection of Health, in conjunction with the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development, does a large amount of work to bring the domestic anti-tobacco legislation fully into line with the international norms, the Member of Parliament said.

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• FEDYASHIN: World No Tobacco Day, futile attempt to curb smoking 

We advise our readers to go out on May 31 and to see how many smokers are there. Anyone who comes to Russia or any other former Soviet republic will be in for a big surprise. Those going to China or India will be horrified and will realize that World No Tobacco Day is something far-fetched. . . .

It appears that tobacco health warnings are a sign of despair. Although this will now be the twenty-first World No Tobacco Day, the ranks of smokers continue to swell. The WHO estimates that global tobacco consumption has soared by 20% since 2003, primarily in Africa and Asia, which have been targeted by transnational tobacco companies over the last nine years.

China leads the global smoking spree. . . .

Contrary to a widespread opinion, the U.S. government has not declared a federal ban on smoking in public places. Only 25 states have banned smoking on the local level. In 12 more states, adults are allowed to smoke in bars, restaurants and casinos. Although some municipal councils have banned smoking in 13 remaining states, no federal smoking ban is envisaged there.

The WHO estimates that at least five million will die from tobacco-related causes throughout 2009 worldwide, and that this figure will reach 8-10 million by 2020, unless smokers' ranks are reduced. Smoking may claim a billion lives in the 21st century.

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