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A Saudi citizen has filed a lawsuit against two tobacco companies asking for $10 million (SR37.5 million) in compensation for the health damages he suffered from smoking.
This is the second lawsuit from the Kingdom and considered the first personal case against tobacco companies in the Middle East, said Abdullah Seruji, executive director of the Smoking and Drugs Awareness Association.
He said a court in Jeddah has accepted the lawsuit from Abu Abdullah, a businessman.
The victim had throat cancer and went though a major surgery in King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. . . .
Seruji noted that Saudi citizens are no less important than American or European citizens where they file lawsuits against tobacco companies and win huge financial compensations.
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The government's failure to impose higher taxes on tobacco products in the past four years has widened the gap between government earnings and the cost, borne by citizens, of treating diseases and of losing productivity due to premature deaths linked to smoking.
Government data showed that from 2000 to 2002, government excise tax from tobacco products averaged P18.92 billion a year. In those years, smoking's health and economic cost to the population was at P46 billion a year, according to estimates made by epidemiologist Dr. Antonio Dans of the University of the Philippines. It was more than double the amount of tobacco excise taxes collected.
In succeeding years, from 2003 to 2006, the health and economic cost increased to more than six times the excise tax collection. Government earnings averaged P23.26 billion annually, while health and economic cost averaged P148.5 billion, based on estimates by the World Health Organization.
There are no official figures available for the succeeding years, but given the pattern of health and economic cost tripling every three or four years, Newsbreak estimates that the average amount could have increased to P445.5 billion in 2007 and in 2008. That would be more than 17 times the P25.28 billion annual average excise tax collection in those two years. . . .
"Smoking decreases the productivity of the Filipino workforce once they get afflicted with smoking-related diseases. If they die prematurely due to these diseases, it will cut their future income streams," said health economist Stella Quimbo of the University of the Philippines.
"On top of this, the healthcare costs for these diseases are substantial. The aggregate cost of these diseases in terms of health care and productivity losses is the impact on the economy," she said. . . .
Chemotherapy costs a patient P12, 000 to P15, 000 every session, which is usually done once or twice a month.
At the LCP, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office shoulders the hospital fees and medicines of indigents.
Healthcare costs for lung cancer amounted to P403 million in 2003, according to WHO.
Chain Effect
Aside from treatment expenses, many lung cancer patients missed more days of work . . .
Deaths from lung cancer, especially at a young age, deepen productivity losses. With the country's life expectancy of 67 years, a lung cancer patient who dies at 40 loses 27 potential years when he could have earned more than P2.4 million. . . .
SEATCA'S Dorotheo explains the chain effect of getting sick from smoking: "If a smoker gets sick, there is not only the huge cost of healthcare borne by the patient and his family, but also the income lost by the patient who is unable to work, the income lost by family members who need to watch over the patient, and the use of human and other resources of the healthcare provider, such as government hospitals, that could have been focused on other patients' needs instead for a highly preventable disease."
Patrick Basham has taken on one of the most intriguing deals in Washington -- how Philip Morris USA came to support Food and Drug Administration oversight -- in a new book titled Butt Out! How Philip Morris Burned Ted Kennedy, the FDA & the Anti-Tobacco Movement.
Basham is a director at the Democracy Institute, a Libertarian public-policy research group in Washington. He is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and an adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. . . .
Both Philip Morris and the anti-tobacco groups, mostly prominently the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, have denied those allegations for years. . . .
A. Though the alliance between anti-tobacco activists and the nation's largest tobacco company has been probed by some journalists, the public denials have tended to convince those who have not dug deeply enough. As I provide chapter and verse on how this unholy alliance has developed and worked, perhaps this will galvanize opposition to this travesty of public-health legislation.
Q. What do you think is the biggest revelation to come from your book?
A. That Philip Morris is really smart at pursuing its corporate interest and that Sen. Ted Kennedy, Rep. Henry Waxman, and their anti-tobacco partners are really dumb at pursuing the public's interest.
As I show in my "scorecard of who won and lost," Philip Morris got virtually everything it wanted, while the anti-tobacco leadership in Washington struck out. . . .
Q. What role is there for smokeless tobacco products in society?
A. I'm finishing a second book on the smokeless tobacco issue.
Scientific evidence suggests it can be a very safe and viable alternative for those who need nicotine but don't want the risks associated with smoking.
It's unfortunate that both the federal government and the anti-smoking movement won't provide truthful information to smokers about smokeless products, instead leading smokers to believe that all tobacco products are equally dangerous, which is simply untrue.
An electronic cigarette or "e-cigarette" is an alternative to smoked tobacco products, such as cigarettes, cigars, or pipes. It is a battery-powered device that provides inhaled doses of nicotine by delivering a vaporized propylene glycol/nicotine solution. In addition to nicotine delivery, this vapor also provides a flavor and physical sensation similar to that of inhaled tobacco smoke, while no tobacco, smoke, or combustion is actually involved in its operation. . . .
When a user inhales through the device, air flow is detected by a sensor, which activates a heating element that vaporizes a nicotine solution stored in the mouthpiece.[1] It is this vapor that is inhaled by the user. An LED on the opposite end of the device is also activated during inhalation, which serves as an indicator of use, and simulates the glow of actual burning tobacco. . . .
Liquid nicotine solution, or "eLiquid"[citation needed] for electronic cigarettes is available in a variety of different flavors and nicotine concentrations. Nicotine concentrations range from high doses (to mimic the content of regular cigarettes) to midrange and low doses (that mimic the nicotine content of "light" and "ultralight" cigarettes). Solutions are also available without any nicotine or without propylene glycol at all.[citation needed]
Some flavor varieties attempt to resemble traditional cigarette types, such as regular tobacco and menthol, and some even attempt to mimic specific cigarette brands, such as Marlboro or Camel. Solutions are also available with other flavorings, such as strawberry, orange, mint, vanilla, caramel, coffee. . . .
Due to the relative novelty of the technology and the possible relationship to tobacco laws, electronic cigarette legislation and public health investigations are currently pending in many countries.
* In Australia, the sale of electronic cigarettes containing nicotine is illegal.[8],[9]
* In Austria and Denmark, electronic cigarettes are considered medical devices
“My little cat … I’m going crazy without you …. You have repeatedly betrayed me, I think …. Little cat, when are you coming? ... I love you, little cat.” On Jan. 4, 2001, Dusanka Pesic Jeknic, representative of the Montenegrin trade mission in Milan, Italy, was speaking on the phone at her home in the southwest of the city. Milo Djukanovic, at that time president of Montenegro, was calling from the capital Podgorica. Billions of people around the world had just hailed the New Millennium. Dusanka, nicknamed “Duska,” the beautiful 41-year-old widow of the late foreign minister of Montenegro, was alone, far from her country. And she spoke out freely about everything: love, tobacco, and crime.
Eight years after Jeknic’s loving conversation with her president, transcripts of her phone calls, wiretapped by the Italian police for 20 months, are attached to hundreds of thousands of court records filed by the prosecutor’s office in Bari, in southern Italy. Here, in the Apulia region’s capital, facing Montenegro across the Adriatic Sea, prosecutors Giuseppe Scelsi and Eugenia Pontassuglia have at last wrapped up their long-running investigation of Djukanovic, Jeknic, and six other Montenegrins and Serbs, as well as seven Italians allegedly tied to organized crime. Their indictment charged the group with, among other offenses, mafia association aimed at illicit trafficking of tobacco, a serious crime in Italy. The indictment and an accompanying 409-page report by Italy’s anti-mafia unit, the DIA, which have not before been made public, provide an extraordinary look inside what may be one of Europe’s biggest smuggling operations in recent years — a tale of corruption, murdered witnesses, and a billion dollars in money laundered through Swiss banks.
From 1994 to 2002, smugglers shipped up to one billion cigarettes a month from the Montenegrin port of Bar to the Italian city of Bari and nearby. . . .
At the center of this case is a hidden bit of history, say prosecutors, of how tobacco smuggling became a state enterprise in Montenegro . . .
Djukanovic is now prime minister of that “Tortuga.” Re-elected in March, he leads a country where for nearly 17 of the past 18 years he has served as either prime minister or president. And he is pushing hard for Montenegro to join the European Union, which is now considering the country’s membership. To that end Djukanovic counts on his main supporter, Italy’s premier Silvio Berlusconi, who in March lauded him during a state-visit in Podgorica. . . .
Affiliated with Serbia until 2006, Montenegro is now fully independent, but some EU nations, notably Belgium and Germany, remain skeptical that the country is ready to join the West. Djukanovic has said that the smuggling is a thing of the past . . .
Starting June 3, Bari Judge Rosa Calia Di Pinto will hold a preliminary hearing to decide whether or not the evidence gathered by prosecutors is enough to put the indicted on trial. The judge will hear a story of a “mafia war” stretching into 10 countries: not only Italy and Montenegro, but also Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Aruba, and the United States. So far, two key witnesses and five others mentioned in the case have been murdered.
Sex, lies, the Italian mafia, millions of packs of Marlboro cigarettes, and billion-dollar profits are all rolled into the plot of one of Europe's largest smuggling operations in recent years, where trials in both Italy and Switzerland are under way. At the center of it all: the head of state for one of Europe's smallest but most beautiful countries, the coastal nation of Montenegro, the backdrop to the 2006 James Bond film, "Casino Royale."
Based on hundreds of pages of wiretap transcripts, law enforcement reports, and indictments, the scandal sounds like a screenplay. Between 1994 and 2002 tobacco smuggling became a state enterprise of Montenegro, allegedly controlled by Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and an inner circle of Montenegrin officials, according to newly released Italian court records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a project of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. . . .
The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, has been very supportive of Djukanovic.
"We value our relationship with Montenegro and consider the second newest country in the world a close friend and ally," a state department official told ABC News. "We have excellent relations with the government of Montenegro, including Prime Minister Djukanovic."
Four cigarette distribution and manufacturing companies have been raided, including one in north Mississippi, in the last two months as authorities continue a two-year investigation into an alleged tobacco black market.
Besides the Magnolia State, the black market network is believed to have ties to South Carolina and Kentucky, according to an FBI statement released Friday.
On May 26, a task force of federal, state and local law enforcement agents searched Global Distributing in Tupelo. The most recent raid was conducted Thursday at Holley Sales Group, a distribution company in Anderson, S.C. The FBI did not disclose what, if anything, was seized in those searches.
While the investigation has not yielded any arrests, "a number of subjects have been interviewed," the FBI statement said.
Sweeping changes in how the government controls tobacco content and marketing are likely to be approved in the U.S. Senate next week despite a strong last-ditch effort by tobacco interests and skepticism from some experts that smokers won't kick their habit.
The bill, passed overwhelmingly by the U.S. House in April and due for a Senate vote as early as Tuesday, would give the Food and Drug Administration broad new authority over tobacco.
"It's a massive move in public policy," said Andrew Taylor, professor of political science at N.C. State University. . . .
Tobacco brought in $686 million in receipts to North Carolina last year, the top cash crop in the state. Tobacco farmers roamed Capitol Hill this week in their Sunday best, visiting aides to Southern senators and hoping for good feedback. They weren't encouraged.
"Oh no, we're not having that kind of impact," said Pender Sharp, who grows 500 acres in Wilson. "We just want to put a face to the bill they're voting on, and talk about the impacts in the community."
State Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler worries that as the FDA shuffles the chemical makeup of cigarettes, the result could influence how farmers grow and cure their leaf.
Farmers could be forced to ditch tobacco varieties that have been engineered to resist disease, for example.