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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• 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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• 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.

• 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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• Russia disputes ownership of Bulgarian tobacco company 

The Southeast European Times is reporting that Russia intends to take back a number of companies abroad that were once the property of the former Soviet Union, including Bulgarian cigarette maker Bulgartabac, Vladimir Kozhin, head of Russia's Presidential Property Management Department, said on Thursday April 9.

Bulgartabac is a Bulgarian tobacco holding company and one of the leading tobacco products producers in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as a major European cigarette producer. Established in 1947 and based in Sofia, it includes 22 joint-stock subsidiary companies in the tobacco-growing regions of the country. . . .

"We are investigating ... and if we find out that the company was once ours, but in a not very legal way has come into foreign hands, we will launch a procedure for its return," Kozhin said, quoted by the Southeast European Times.

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• Made to be smuggled: Russian contraband cigarettes 'flooding' European Union 

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Europe is being flooded by smuggled Russian-made cigarettes worth at least $1 billion a year, an international investigation has discovered.

A network of factories and routes has been put together across Europe since 2004, following large-scale smuggling routes previously supplied by major multinational tobacco companies. The new underground smoking trade involves only one brand, Jin Ling, which is turning up in more cities and countries across Europe every month.

Jin Ling, virtually unknown to the authorities three years ago, has grown so rapidly that law enforcement officials say it now rivals Marlboro as the top smuggled brand being seized in the European Union.

The organization behind this fast expanding black market, the Baltic Tobacco Factory (BTF) of Kaliningrad, Russia, has links to two of the world’s largest tobacco companies. Its factory network in Russia and Ukraine was previously owned and run by subsidiaries of Japan Tobacco International (JTI) Group, the world’s number three producer.

The investigation has identified a network of Russian and East European companies, including five factories believed to play roles in manufacturing the contraband cigarettes being smuggled to the West. . . .

Jin Ling cigarettes have no legal market in any European country, according to customs officials. The brand is never advertised and cannot be bought in shops. It is only sold illegally — smuggled by gangs who hope to pocket immense profits by selling unlicensed, untaxed cigarettes on black markets across Europe.

“Jin Ling is the most disturbing new development anywhere in the world in the illegal tobacco trade,” according to Luk Joossens, a World Health Organization expert in tobacco smuggling. “They are flooding into Europe.” . . .

ICIJ’s team has pieced together the unique story of the world’s first-ever cigarette brand designed and manufactured only for smuggling. . . .

Baltic Tobacco Factory’s headquarters is in Kaliningrad, a slice of Russian territory annexed by the Soviet Union after World War II and wedged between Poland and Lithuania. The freewheeling Russian exclave is known as a hotspot for smuggling and organized crime. . . .

Both RJR, Kazakov’s former supplier, and Gallaher, BTF’s former home, are now part of Japan Tobacco International (JTI). JTI acquired RJR’s non-U.S. tobacco operations in 1999 and bought Gallaher in 2007. In 2004, BTF joined JTI — as well as Philip Morris — in forming the Moscow-based Tobacco Industry Development Council. The industry group’s stated intent was to lobby for more favorable taxes on filtered cigarettes.

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Jin Ling
From the ICIJ story: "[T]the world’s first-ever cigarette brand designed and manufactured only for smuggling."

• Going undercover: Inside Baltic Tobacco’s smuggling empire 

ICIJ’s reporters went to Russia to uncover the truth about the billions of black market Jin Ling cigarettes turning up across Europe. They quickly learned that packets of Jin Ling could not be purchased even in the shops, markets, or street stalls of the Russian city where they are made, Kaliningrad. But Jin Ling was available to smugglers, in huge quantities, from its manufacturer, the Baltic Tobacco Factory.

Kaliningrad can be a dangerous place to ask questions about smuggling. The Russian territory, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, went into rapid and cataclysmic decline after the break up of the Soviet Union, but has since profited immensely from its close proximity and excellent transport to the European Union. It has also gained a reputation as a haven for smugglers and money launderers, and for a police force accommodating to smugglers’ interests. The city is home to a noisy night life and frontier atmosphere, with luxury limousines a frequent sight on the streets.

Russian journalists working in Kaliningrad know that to openly ask about the cigarette contraband trade is a risky business. In 2006, after criticizing the police — including the protection they give to smugglers — the local Novye Kolesa newspaper was raided and its newspapers confiscated. . . .

To investigate the Baltic Tobacco Factory company (BTF) in the high risk environment of Kaliningrad, ICIJ’s reporters went undercover in June 2008, with one posing as a Romanian smuggler setting up a new route to the EU. They carried concealed video and recording equipment to witness all that they saw and heard. (Their video report is available online.) . . .

From Kaliningrad, a team of ICIJ reporters followed the route of Jin Ling cigarettes and their containers on their journey to the west. Thirty kilometers south of Kaliningrad, at the Polish border crossing of Bagrationovsk, Jin Ling was widely available. Just outside the shabby town, parts of which have been left unrepaired since 1945, smuggling is big business. As at other border crossings between Russia and the EU nations of Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania, cigarettes are not only smuggled through in full container loads; they are also broken down into small quantities by armies of personal smugglers and their managers.

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• Russia fourth largest smoking nation -- UN  

Tobacco epidemic carried away 100 million human lives in the 20th century and today smoking causes the premature death of 5.4 million people.

Unless decisive measures are taken, the figure will go up to 8 million in 2030, says a report on the global tobacco epidemic that was published here Thursday.

Experts of the World Health Organization say more than two thirds of smokers live in ten countries – China, India, Indonesia, Russia, the U.S., Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany, and Turkey.

Russia is ahead of the U.S. in what concerns the number of smokers although it has a much smaller population.

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• Russia To Debate Ban On Smoking In Restaurants, Bars 

(Dow Jones)- Russian lawmakers are this week debating a bill that mimics the tough, anti-tobacco legislation implemented across much of Europe in recent years, potentially eradicating smoking in many of the country's restaurants and bars.

The move - proposed by members of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's political party - would follow Russia's entry last spring into the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

That treaty requires a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship within five years, bigger health warnings on cigarette boxes and the gradual prohibition of smoking in public places.

If passed, advocates say the new restrictions could help stem the decline in Russia's 140 . . .

The Duma is this week discussing the crucial second reading of amendments to the 2001 Federal Law on smoking, which at the time outlawed cigarettes in the workplace and on planes. The latest amendments - drawn up by nine deputies from Putin's United Russia party, which dominates the Duma - seek to extend the smoking ban to cafes, bars and nightclubs.

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• Russian Building Fire Kills 23 Elderly Residents 

A fire swept through an apartment building for the elderly in a small village in northern Russia on Saturday evening, killing at least 23 people, a local official said.

The building in the town of Podyelsk, in the Komi region, was quickly engulfed in flames and was fully ablaze when rescuers arrived on the scene, said Konstantin Bobrov, a spokesman for the regional government.

Mr. Bobrov said that at least 26 people were inside at the time of the blaze, and that rescuers were able to save three. According to preliminary information, "careless smoking" was the likely cause of the fire, Mr. Bobrov said.

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• “Key to the Future”: British American Tobacco and Cigarette Smuggling in China 

Background

Cigarette smuggling is a major public health issue, stimulating increased tobacco consumption and undermining tobacco control measures. China is the ultimate prize among tobacco's emerging markets, and is also believed to have the world's largest cigarette smuggling problem. Previous work has demonstrated the complicity of British American Tobacco (BAT) in this illicit trade within Asia and the former Soviet Union.

Methods and Findings

This paper analyses internal documents of BAT available on site from the Guildford Depository and online from the BAT Document Archive. Documents dating from the early 1900s to 2003 were searched and indexed on a specially designed project database to enable the construction of an historical narrative. Document analysis incorporated several validation techniques within a hermeneutic process. This paper describes the huge scale of this illicit trade in China, amounting to billions of (United States) dollars in sales, and the key supply routes by which it has been conducted. It examines BAT's efforts to optimise earnings by restructuring operations, and controlling the supply chain and pricing of smuggled cigarettes.

Conclusions

Our research shows that smuggling has been strategically critical to BAT's ongoing efforts to penetrate the Chinese market, and to its overall goal to become the leading company within an increasingly global industry. These findings support the need for concerted efforts to strengthen global collaboration to combat cigarette smuggling.

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• Russia passes new restrictions on tobacco  

Russia's lower house of parliament on Wednesday approved legislation to lower tar and nicotine content in cigarettes and to place large health warnings on the packs.

But some health advocates say the measure passed by the State Duma flies in the face of guidelines of the international tobacco control agreement that Russia joined this year.

The legislation, which still must be approved by the upper house and signed by the president before taking effect, allows cigarette makers to continue to identify some brands as "light" or "low-tar."

Dmitry Yanin of the Russian consumer rights group Konfop called those terms "misleading." If that language were removed, the legislation would "introduce important and useful tobacco control measures," he said in a statement.

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