Tobacco.org

• Fighting big tobacco ($$) 

In a rare challenge to one of the mainland's most powerful institutions, a scholar has proposed the scrapping of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and allowing private companies to compete on an equal basis in this lucrative sector. Zou Fangbin, an economics professor at the Guangdong University of Business Studies, says the monopoly discriminates against smokers and tobacco farmers, gives excessive wages and benefits to STMA officials, and encourages corruption and smuggling.

Established in January 1984, the STMA is one of the two biggest cigarette producers in the world, with Altria - the parent company of Philip Morris - in terms of sales revenue. . . .

One of the best-known anti-tobacco campaigners in the mainland is Yang Gonghuan, deputy director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the Ministry of Health.

"The issue is not the monopoly but the separation of the government from the tobacco producers, as demanded by the World Health Organisation," she said.

"How can someone supervise an industry in which he has a financial stake?"

She referred to article five, section three of the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Beijing has signed: it took effect on January 1. . . .

In its latest report on tobacco, published on May 31, Dr Yang's centre said the STMA was not implementing regulations set out by WHO convention.

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LETTER: A state of ignorant bliss? ($$) 

Alex Lo's incisive article ("Ban smoking, but don't rewrite history", June 18) on smoking and social taboos is an elegant show of a disquieting reality: social morality is always premised upon the regulation of pleasure.

Think of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which is a diagnosis of postmodernity. In his utopia, all contraband intoxicants have been removed and replaced with "soma", an officially approved drug that dispels anxiety, without any side-effects. . . .

Smoking is perhaps the purest insurrectionary act that one could commit in public. It is a flagrant transgression of this deification of the body. To smoke, with full knowledge that one is courting death, is to flout the prohibitions that power places upon enjoyment, to reject the substitute satisfactions that propagate guilt and self-disgust.

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PRICE: I'll shed no tears for fate of Joe Camel 

The president and I have a few things in common: a vastly underappreciated game of basketball (long abandoned, in my case), a wife who looks capable of winning arm-wrestling matches (and has, in my wife's case -- just not, ahem, against me), and a history with tobacco we'd both like to forget. . . .

No matter what you might think about Obama's health care efforts, it's tough to deny one overarching philosophy: A wellness strategy will ultimately deliver better results than the reactive, ultra-expensive fix-'em-when-they-start-bleeding approach we have now. The government's move to regulate tobacco products like the drugs they are is an important step in that direction.

Obama's not going to take your cigarettes, but he eventually might cause you to want them a little less urgently. Complain about ever-expanding federal government, if that's the way you feel about it, but don't confuse that issue with this. Celebrate the fact that we're finally treating tobacco companies with all the apprehension, fear and mistrust they so richly deserve.

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Struggling venues may turn a blind eye to smoking ban ($$) 

Come Wednesday, smoking will be banned in all indoor areas at workplaces and in public spaces - and bars, nightclubs, clubs, saunas, massage parlours and mahjong parlours will no longer be exempt.

Many such venues are ready to comply, but several establishments could be a bit hazy when it comes to the spirit of the law, the Sunday Morning Post has learned.

Several venue owners and members of an association said they feared business would plummet as a result of the ban, and they would take a fairly lenient enforcement stance.

Chin Chun-wing, vice-chairman of the Bar and Club Association, a group which represents about 200 bars in the city, said he believed members would lose 50 per cent of their business as a result of the ban, the financial downturn and swine flu.

"We have to remove ashtrays, but honestly, if we find customers smoking, we can't do much as business has already been very bad. We can't stop them smoking and drive them out of there. We won't do anything. We don't want to annoy smoking customers, especially those drunken ones, who might react very unexpectedly," Mr Chin said.

Mr Chin did say, however, that his group members would let offenders know about the smoking ban.

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Activists advocate tougher laws to close loopholes on lighting up ($$) 

Even with the smoking ban going into full effect this week, anti-smoking advocates say there is still a lot more work to be done in the city.

First, the smoking ban was not completely effective, said James Middleton, chairman of the anti-tobacco committee Clear the Air. "I think overall most Hong Kong people are law-abiding and will comply."

Still, the government needs more tobacco control inspectors, a law to ban smoking at venue entrances and outside seating areas and fines for landlords.

"At the moment, there's no onus on the landlord," he said. "They don't put the legal onus on the landlord."

The burden was on the person smoking - and it would be the locals who would face the brunt of the penalties, as tourists can fly out before paying their fines, he said.

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LETTER: CARDIN: Congress taking steps to protect people from tobacco 

As a co-sponsor of the Family, Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, H.R. 1256, I believe that this is one of the most important public health steps we can take to improve the health of Americans and to try and prevent a new generation of nicotine addicts. . . .

Too many Americans have suffered the consequences of their addition to tobacco. Too many families have watched as relatives have died from lung cancer or other diseases associated with tobacco.

It's time to stop the marketing of tobacco that is intended to create a new generation of smokers.

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Wang Xisan - Rekindling the Lost Art of Painting Inside Snuff Bottles 

If you got a chance to visit an antiques store in China, snuff bottles may be one item of interest to you. They were used by the Chinese people during the Qing Dynasty to store powdered tobacco. It soon became an object of beauty and a way to represent social status. What arouses the most interest are the pictures painted from the inside. The delightful and varied scenes only cover an area of an inch or two and are painted using a brush inserted into the neck of the bottle. Undoubtedly, this requires an extremely skilful and steady hand. On today's show, we'll meet one of the top contemporary artists able to paint inside bottles. His name is Wang Xisan.

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No EU can not smoke outdoors!  

EU zealots will this week demand a ban on smoking OUTSIDE pubs and offices.

Brussels chiefs want to outlaw beer garden ciggie areas - and even extend the ban to open air concerts like this weekend's Glastonbury festival.

The European Commission says the current bar on smoking in enclosed public places does not go far enough. It says non-smokers in outdoor areas are still in danger from passive smoking.

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A few last gasps of freedom for smokers before full tobacco ban comes into effect ($$) 

Summonses, however, won't instantly be given to offenders because the tobacco control inspectors never rush to the scene when they're called with a complaint.

Instead, the inspectors will plan for an operation before inspecting and investigating any venue, said Ronald Lam Man-kin, head of the Tobacco Control Office, the agency in charge of overseeing enforcement.

The time it takes inspectors to show up "depends upon the complexity of the situation", he said. "We may have a site inspection beforehand. It can vary from a few days to a week."

Dr Lam added: "It's not an instant response. It's impracticable." He said his office "is adopting our usual mode of operation enforcement".

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'I might just stay home and smoke' ($$) 

At the stroke of midnight on Tuesday, June 30, smoking will no longer be permitted in bars, nightclubs, clubs, massage venues, mahjong parlours and bathhouses.

But Christen Ho, 29, said she was comfortable with the ban, which she said would help her quit smoking. "I intend to quit anyway, so this can help a little bit," Ms Ho said in a pub.

The full ban may worry some pub managers, but Warren McInnes, manager of The Keg on D'Aguilar Street in Central and a non-smoker, said he felt great about the whole thing.

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Tobacco through the centuries 

6,000 BC: First cultivation of the tobacco plant in the Americas.

1 BC: Indigenous Americans begin smoking, chewing and using tobacco in enemas.

AD 600-1,000: Mayans create smoking's first pictorial record on a pottery vessel. . . .

2002: In the largest payment to a single plaintiff in history, Philip Morris pays $28 billion in damages to a 64-year-old woman with lung cancer.

June 22, 2009: President Obama signs the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, approved by Congress on June 12, placing regulation of tobacco under power of the FDA.

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Conference Committee slashes Tobacco Control Program even more 

The Wisconsin Senate early Friday passed its version of a state budget that raises taxes on smokers by $300 million, then slashes a successful program by 55 percent that is reducing youth smoking and helping smokers quit.

The Wisconsin Senate early Friday passed its version of a state budget that raises taxes on smokers by $300 million, then slashes a successful program by 55 percent that is reducing youth smoking and helping smokers quit.

Budget negotiators had already cut the program 40 percent – eight times more than the average cut for state agencies and programs. In secret negotiations again last night, Democrats who control the Legislature slashed another $5 million, leaving the program at only one-tenth of what the Centers for Disease Control recommends.

“Lawmakers also want to cut a half billion dollars from Medicaid – and tobacco-related diseases are the single most expensive cost to the Medicaid program,” said Maureen Busalacchi, executive director of SmokeFree Wisconsin. “So cutting the program that reduces smoking is not logical. How that math works is a mystery.

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Opinion split on tobacco oversight  

Is the tobacco tin half full or half empty? . . .

"I really think it set back our tobacco-control movement about 30 years," said Mark Welsch of Omaha, president of GASP, or the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution. . . .

Other anti-tobacco groups working in the Midlands saw the new law in a positive light.

"It's not a compromise. It's not a bill written by Philip Morris," said Michelle Bernth, spokeswoman for the American Lung Association in Nebraska. "We're very happy with the result."

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• Tobacco industry experts weigh in on the new law 

ROCES: June is national No Smoking Month  

We cannot let the month pass without taking advantage of the month's focus on raising the awareness about the ills of smoking. Recently, we heard about a historic vote in the US Senate . . .

Maybe the same restrictions can be done here. But the last news we heard on the anti-smoking campaign is not too good. The reports say that our legislators failed to pass into law the Graphic Health Warning Bill before the deadline set by the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), . . .

The sooner we get the appropriate legislations to back up our crusade against smoking, the better. Businessmen should stop looking for more profits in selling cigarettes and think of the common good. We call on our officials in the Senate and Congress to make the anti-smoking bills their top priority.

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