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CONVENTIONAL cigarettes could be outlawed by this time next year and replaced by self-extinguishing cigarettes.
State and territory emergency services ministers meeting in Canberra yesterday supported moves to amend the Trade Practices Act and force tobacco companies to make the change.
It is estimated that between 60 and 70 Australians die each year in domestic fires caused by smouldering cigarettes.
Anecdotal evidence suggests further deaths and millions of dollars of property damage are caused by bushfires ignited by butts thrown from cars. . . .
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland, who chaired yesterday's meeting, said tobacco companies were on notice to meet the early 2009 deadline -- self-extinguishing cigarettes had been introduced overseas and manufacturing techniques would be available to domestic producers.
A spokesman for British American Tobacco (BAT) said the company supported the introduction of reduced-fire-risk cigarettes but said the industry would require sufficient notice of the standard it would have to meet.
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CIGARETTE smugglers taking advantage of the porous southern Sudan and northeastern DR Congo borders are reaping big from the large number of consumers in the West Nile region.
This is threatening to push the largest local producer, British American Tobacco (BATU) out of market.
Such is a reason that prompted the trade state minister, Nabeta Igeme to travel to Arua and Koboko on spot assessment of the problem.
In company of BATU’s top managers, the minister randomly visited kiosks, which he found selling smuggled cigarettes.
A Kenyan tobacco company is set to build a Sh7.6 billion processing plant in the Sudan, an official said yesterday.
Mastermind Tobacco Kenya Ltd will start building the factory in Khartoum next March, Mr Michael Ngugi told the Nation in Bungoma.
The firm also bought a subsidiary company - Malawi's Continental Tobacco - in April for about Sh15 billion.
Mr Ngugi said: "We are spreading our wings and have registered a subsidiary firm in Tanzania and will put up a plant in Dar es Salaam in a year".
The number of people dying from stomach cancer dropped sharply across Europe between 1980 and 1999, figures show.
Death Rates fell by half in the European Union, by 45% in Eastern Europe and by 40% in Russia.
Writing in Annals of Oncology, experts said the decline looks set to continue into the near future. . . .
"These include a more varied and affluent diet and better food conservation, including refrigeration," said Professor Carlo La Vacchia, from the Instituto Mario Negri in Milan, who was also involved in the study.
"In addition, there is better control of Helicobacter pylori infection - a bacterium linked to stomach cancer - and reduced levels of smoking, at least in men. . . .
"The causes of stomach cancer are complex, but people can help to reduce their risk by not smoking and by eating fresh fruits and vegetables."
THE Campaign Palace Melbourne has launched a hard-hitting new TV campaign for Quit Victoria.
The TVC opens with the number 131,848, with a voice-over explaining that the figure corresponds to the number of Australians who have died from smoking-related illnesses over the past seven years.
The agency's senior copywriter Andrew North described the campaign as a "no-brainer".
"So much so that Quit produced it ahead of the rest of the campaign that we are developing," he said.
With the soaring cigarette sprices, an increasing number of Sudanese smokers are shifting towards the use of snuff and other tobacco alternatives.
While for a packet of 10 cigarettes a smoker used to pay no more than Sudanese 300 pounds in 1997, one now has to pay 1,000 pounds, the country's minimum wage, for the same amount. . . As to the use of ''hubble-bubbles'' as an alternative of cigarettes which is also a growing practice in the East African country, Dr. Mahdi has kept his reserved position.
''Hubble-bubble tobacco is harmful, but less harmful than cigarette smoke and snuff,'' he said. . . Despite the high cost of cigarettes in Sudan, cigarette companies have not complained of lower sales.