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Canada bans fruit-flavored cigarettes 

Canada has banned the manufacture, importation and sale of most flavored cigarettes and small cigars, which have been slammed as little more than an enticement to get children to start smoking.

The law, which came into effect on Thursday, was backed by both government and opposition lawmakers. It also bans tobacco advertising in newspapers and magazines, closing a loophole that had allowed ads in publications that claimed they were read only by adults.

Anti-smoking groups said fruit-flavored cigarettes were marketed like candy to lure young smokers, but the industry complained the law was too broad and would unfairly restrict importation of U.S.-grown burley tobacco.

Lawmakers in U.S. tobacco-growing states have complained the law will cost U.S. jobs, and a U.S. Senator has been blocking the appointment of a White House trade official in a bid to make the Obama administration put pressure on Canada.

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VIDEO: Englishman Helps U.S. Tobacco Fans Dodge Taxes  

From his kitchen table in England, Jack Basharan is helping thousands of American smokers avoid paying U.S. taxes on tobacco.

Jack's mail order, grow your own tobacco business has blossomed since April, when the American government raised tobacco taxes to more than a dollar per pack of cigarettes. Jack's revenue shot up more than 10,000 dollars.

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• Canadian bill worries Kentucky tobacco growers 

An hour and a half after hearing testimony, a Canadian Senate panel in Ottawa last week approved an anti-smoking bill that Kentucky burley tobacco growers fear may be bad for their business.

The bill, known as "The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act," passed the Senate Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee on a voice vote and without amendments. It now awaits final action in the Canadian Senate.

The measure is intended to ban flavored tobacco products in Canada, but burley growers are worried that the bill will end the export of American burley to Canada.

Burley is one of three kinds of tobacco mixed together with additives for blended tobacco. Some Kentucky lawmakers, led by Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-1st District, have written to American and Canadian officials that because the pending bill in the Canadian Parliament prohibits many of the additives used in blended tobacco, the measure effectively bans burley.

With 85 percent of U.S. burley exported, the implications of the Canadian action and possible similar actions by other nations are enormous, the Kentuckians warned.

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PICARD: Note to MPs: Our kids are more important than your re-election  

Does the shamelessness of tobacco companies - and politicians for that matter - know no bounds?

After a summer of fierce lobbying by the tobacco giant Rothmans Benson & Hedges - namely, a threat to close a factory in Quebec City that employs 300 people - an important bit of health legislation is now at risk.

The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act, Bill C-32, has passed second reading in the House of Commons with the support of all the major political parties.

But now it's stalled in the Senate, where an amendment to gut a key provision of the bill is being proposed, and the move has the backing of a powerful Quebec Conservative MP, Maxime Bernier. Amended or not, final passage of the bill could be threatened by these political machinations.

Honestly, how many times will we fall victim to the blackmail of tobacco companies? And how can our politicians be so naive as to buy into the illusory promises of job creation from a dying (not to mention lethal) industry? . . .

To pretend that this provision of the law will result in a massive curtailment of production at the Quebec City factory of Rothmans Benson & Hedges and job losses that could result in the plant closing is at best disingenuous. And to argue that without the legislation there might be an expansion of the plant is so fantastical that only a politician up for imminent re-election could believe it.

But let's just say, for the sake of argument, that it is true, that the plant's future is threatened by the new law.

Tough. Our children are worth it.

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Quebec Tories back away from changes to flavoured-tobacco bill 

Canada's rookie health minister appears to have won a political tug-of-war with her Quebec colleagues over contentious changes to flavoured-tobacco controls.

The Quebec wing of the Conservative caucus had pulled for amendments that would ban some flavours and additives in cigars and cigarettes but not others.

But Leona Aglukkaq tugged back harder.

"I met with the Quebec caucus and they're in support of the legislation as is," she said Wednesday.

Bill C-32, also known as the Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act, would ban all flavours and additives in tobacco products except for menthol. . . .

But Tories from Quebec pushed for changes after Rothmans warned it might have to rethink plans to expand its Quebec City plant - jeopardizing some 330 jobs - if the legislation passed without amendments.

The Quebec Conservative caucus, led by former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier, deemed the legislation too broad.

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美国风味香烟禁令今起生效 

新华网华盛顿９月２２日电（记者任海军）美国食品和药物管理局２２日宣布，一项禁止生产销售风味香烟的联邦禁令当天开始生效。根据这一禁令，美国境内将严格禁止生产、进口和销售糖果味、水果味及丁香味香烟。

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Kevin Libin: How Ottawa bungled the easiest health law ever  

the Conservatives’ attempt to ban the candied smokes, via Bill C-32—the Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act — appears to have been sabotaged. And the culprit is the last place you’d think to look: it’s none other than the people at Health Canada. . . .

Thanks to some subtle language tucked into the bill, C-32 goes far, far beyond what Harper had in mind. Though the prime minister made it clear he wasn’t gunning for the kind of tobacco targeted at adults (just look at the name of the bill), C-32 does exactly that: by including tobacco that has any flavouring whatsoever, it outlaws such brands as Marlboro, Camel, Winston, and Gaulois, all of which use a blend of tobacco so coarse-tasting that sweetener is added to make each lungful just tolerable. Anyone who’s ever smoked one of those brands knows just how un-candy-like the taste is. Clearly banning grown-up foreign smokes — which has the potential to trigger a trade dispute and the loss of hundreds of Canadian tobacco-related jobs — isn’t what the government had planned. And so the question on the minds of many in Ottawa right now is, how did Health Canada let this happen? Those of a more conspiratorial mind are asking whether the bureaucrats at Health Canada — believed by many to be a bastion of anti-tobacco zealotry — tried to pull a fast one, while their political bosses weren’t looking. . . .

While the implications of the C-32 seemed to elude most Canadian politicians as the bill was rushed through the House this summer, U.S. politicians and trade groups pointed out that banning American tobacco, but not Canadian strains, violates NAFTA. Southern Congressmen and Senators — including House Majority Whip, James Clyburn — complained to the Ottawa, and to the State Department, demanding Washington take action to respond to the “unfair assault” on the American industry, threatening the Tories’ record as free-traders.

Certain Canadian groups are just as alarmed. Associations representing Duty Free retailers told a Senate committee recently that they were never once consulted by Health Canada while staff there were crafting this legislation. If they had, the department would have learned, of course, that the U.S. makes sold at the border and airports mean little for Canadian consumption: they’re purchased almost entirely by foreigners on their way back home. Other retailer groups — which frequently include members of immigrant groups that had, till now, been part of the Conservative ethnic outreach effort — are just as livid about the possibility losing some of the world’s biggest cigarette brands, especially since market for them will almost certainly migrate to Canada’s billion-dollar cigarette black market anyway.

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Media central to plan to end smoking  

The mass media has a vital role to play in making the programme for a Smoke-Free Viet Nam effective, experts said at a workshop last Saturday.

Around 50 reporters from various publications in the country attended the media awareness workshop organised by the Tobacco Control Programme of the Viet Nam Steering Committee on Smoking and Health and the American Cancer Society.

Experts from the US and the Philippines shared experiences on writing news and stories that can draw the attention of readers and improve awareness and understanding of influences of smoking.

Truong Trong Hoang, director of the city's health education and communication centre, said that the media should continuously work to improve public awareness and encourage people to protect their own health and that of their families.

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The leading players in the North American tobacco market include Altria Group, Inc., Reynolds American Inc and Lorillard 

This databook provides key data and information on the tobacco market covering two countries in North America. This report is a comprehensive resource for market, category and segment level data including value, volume, distribution share and company & brand share.

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Triple heart threat cuts decade off lifespan: study 

Middle-aged male smokers with high cholesterol and blood pressure die, on average, a decade sooner than peers without any of these heart disease risk factors, according to a study published Friday.

Many studies have shown that not smoking, eating healthily and exercising cut heart disease rates.

But few have tackled the problem from the other end: to what extend is life expectancy shortened by having these heart disease risk factors?

To find out, researchers led by Robert Clark from the University of Oxford sifted through data from 19,000 male British civil servants who were examined in the late 1960s . . .

In the United States, for example, uncontrolled hypertension has fallen since 1999 by only 16 percent, high blood cholesterol by 19 percent, and tobacco use by just over 15 percent, says the American Heart Association.

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• In Canada, cigarettes have gone into hiding  

TORONTO -- At first glance, it looks like cigarettes have disappeared from Canadian stores.

There are no advertisements or signs for cigarettes in retail outlets in most of the nation's provinces. And the behind-the-counter racks of various cigarette brands, so familiar in the United States, are nowhere to be seen.

While cigarettes are still sold, they have largely disappeared from view -- an effort by the nation's provincial governments to discourage smoking among young people and help adults quit.

"The principle is indeed out of sight, out of mind," said Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society.

Canada's move to hide cigarettes at their point of sale is being watched closely by U.S. anti-tobacco advocates as a potential weapon in the just-starting federal regulation of tobacco products.

"In convenience stores in the United States, we are bombarded with tobacco branding images," said Paul Billings, vice president for national policy and advocacy at the American Lung Association in Washington. "These measures to reduce the attractiveness and reduce the availability of tobacco products do have a positive impact on reducing tobacco use."

The new anti-smoking law passed by the U.S. Congress this year gives the federal Food and Drug Administration the authority to minimize tobacco-marketing tools that may affect consumption of the product, particularly by youths . . .

Health Canada's annual Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey shows that the nation's smoking rate for the most at-risk group, those 15 to 24 years old, has dropped from 29 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2008.

Perley said it is difficult to pinpoint the impact of any one anti-smoking measure, but studies will be done on the effectiveness of the retail display bans.

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美研究表明“二手烟”可引发脂肪肝 

新华网洛杉矶９月１２日电（记者高原）美国一项最新研究显示，长期吸入“二手烟”可引发脂肪肝。这说明，禁烟不仅有助于预防心血管疾病、肺部疾病和癌症，还能减少肝脏疾病。

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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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Rum and cigars at stake in family's bid to win compensation from Cuba 

But now a court in Miami may hand two of Cuba's most prized assets – the trademarks for Havana Club rum and Cohiba cigars – to the family of a man executed on the island half a century ago.

Bobby Fuller, a former US marine who owned a sugar plantation in Cuba, was shot by firing squad in October 1960, less than 24 hours after his arrest and trial for alleged disloyalty to Castro's communist revolution.

In 2007 his brothers and sisters were awarded a $100m settlement for wrongful death against the Castro regime by a Miami court.

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SUNG-SOO: [Viewpoint] Legal clarity lost in the smoke  

In Korea, the court ruled in 2007 that cigarettes were faulty products, and that even if cigarettes contain nicotine, which might be addictive, the addictiveness is not so great that it makes quitting with one’s free will impossible. The court decided that the correlation between smoking and lung cancer was not enough to confirm an independent causal relationship between the two.

The astronomical compensation in the U.S. case can largely be credited to the unique judicial system and culture of the United States.

Unlike Korea, courts in the United States award punitive damages, which punish the wrongdoers by ordering them to provide compensation in excess of the actual damage.

In calculating punitive damages in these cases, the court takes into account not only the damage caused to the plaintiff but also the potential risk that all smokers may develop cancer and the health hazards to non-smokers.

Therefore, it is possible that this method of calculation goes against the principle of fair compensation for damages and the constitutionally defined ban on excessive punishment.

However, we should not overlook the fact that there had been considerable friction between regional courts and the Supreme Court of the United States until the Oregon State Supreme Court decided to award compensation for punitive damages. . . .

In contrast, in Korea, Germany, France and Japan trials are decided by professional judges, and an evidence-based approach is valued above all.

It would be difficult for countries with this kind of “continental” legal system to embrace punitive damages, born in the unique social and cultural climate of the United States.

More fundamentally, we do not have a national consensus to introduce the concept of punitive damages.

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