Tobacco.org

• Isle Of Wight Tells Smokers To Butt Out 

The Isle of Wight is turning into a smoke-free zone for the day, becoming the first island in the UK to try to stamp out the scorned cigarette.

An arm stubs out a cigarette on the Isle of Wight's Needles

The move is to mark the second anniversary of the nationwide smoking ban in public buildings.

The Isle of Wight hopes it might lead to other UK cities doing the same and maybe even help create a smoke-free British Isles.

"We are delighted to lend our support to this campaign," said the IoW's assistant tourism director John Metcalfe.

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• A heavier cost to lighting up  

Of all the impediments thrown at smokers over the years, the one that arrives today could have one of the biggest impacts.

Florida's cigarette tax, long among the nation's lowest, in keeping with its Southern neighbors, is rising by $1 per pack.

Combined with a 62-cent-per-pack federal increase that took effect just 12 weeks ago, cigarettes in Florida are now pushing $6 per pack -- a price that is proving persuasive even to longtime smokers.

"I think the government is putting a real burden on the backs of smokers," Gerry Nodeen, who started smoking in the 1970s, said Tuesday outside a Sarasota smoke shop. "I'll probably think about quitting instead of paying the extra money."

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• In pictures: Greece smoking ban 

However, following a last-minute amendment to the law, thousands of restaurants and bars over 70 sq m (750 sq ft) will be able to build sealed-off smoking areas, as long as they remain "totally separate".

And smaller restaurants, like this one, can choose to ban non-smokers instead.

Smoking has long been ingrained in Greek culture. Actress, singer and later Greek Culture Minister Melina Mercouri was often pictured with a cigarette.

Aristotle Onassis, pictured here with Maria Callas, was also a famous smoker.

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• Pubs are reeling from smoke ban as habits change 

. Jo O'Donnell has met with doctors and landlords to see how the rules have affected smoking - and drinking - habits across the North East

TWO years after smoking was banned in bars, pubs in the North East are reporting huge losses in custom and alcohol sales.

Across the country pubs and clubs are calling time and closing at a rate of 50 a week.

And now the full impact of the change has been felt, landlords say they have been let down over promises non-smokers and families would pour in to their clean-aired taverns.

The smoking ban came just months before the economy peaked, then came the recession damaging sales at a time when supermarkets are offering more cheap drink offers. . . .

Mr Le Clercq said: “Foody-gastro pubs, where they sell more on a plate than in a glass, are not affected and custom has increased.”

One such pub is The Beacon Hotel, Earsdon Road, in Whitley Bay. Bar worker and smoker Ewan Sutherland, 27, of North Shields says the hotel has got busier since the ban.

He said; “It is a good thing for the Beacon and good for all pubs, and the working atmosphere is better as you’re not breathing people’s smoke.” . . .

Meanwhile, pro-smoking campaigner Derek Platten, 56, of Gosforth, Newcastle, opposes the total smoking ban and has set up his own political party called the We Can Smoke Party (WCSP).

He said: “The smoking ban is only right if the Government is prepared to ban the sale of tobacco products, but they don’t because they know they wouldn’t get away with it.”

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• Opposition To Iowa Smoking Ban Burning Out  

Her acceptance of the ban but uneasiness about government intrusion appears to be a common thread among some residents in a state that last year banned smoking in most workplaces, restaurants and bars.

A coalition of bar owners challenged the ban in court but later dropped their lawsuit. Others have called for lawmakers to revise the law, but Democratic leaders who hold majorities in the Legislature have been adamant that no changes will be made in the near future.

Iowa is among 22 states that prohibit smoking in bars and restaurants, though its law exempts casinos, fairgrounds and veterans organizations. Bans will take effect in four other states this year, and three states ban smoking in restaurants, but not bars.

Despite vocal complaints from some bar owners, compliance with the law has been high, said Lynn Walding, the administrator for the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division.

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• Shisha smoking guidance 'needed' 

The smoking ban needs updating to offer shisha bar owners clearer advice, Harrow Council in west London has said.

The bars, where herbal tobacco can be smoked through a communal pipe, tend to have an awning open to the street.

But the law on outdoor smoking shelters means those with roofs should be at least 50% open, so air can circulate. . . .

As in any place of work, smoking is banned on the premises of all shisha bars, which are also known as hookah bars.

Councillor Susan Hall, Harrow's portfolio holder for the environment, said: "These cafes are becoming increasingly popular across London, but the legislation on smoking in public places wasn't framed with them in mind.

"It needs to be updated so all councils have clear guidance on what these cafe fittings should look like.

"We can then balance the right of customers to sit and enjoy the authentic shisha experience while continuing to deliver clean and safe streets."

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• The Taliban and Tobacco 

As government sanctions restrict traditional sources of terrorist financing, Pakistani militant groups increasingly rely on proceeds from counterfeit cigarette production and smuggling, intelligence sources say. Although income figures are rough estimates at best, profits from the illicit cigarette trade account for as much as 20 percent of funding for these militant groups, second only to heroin production, according to terrorism experts in Pakistan. "Taliban and other militant groups do not have to do much," says Ikram Sehgal, a senior defense and security analyst who heads SMS Security, Pakistan's leading private security company. "They simply receive taxes on a regular basis from owners of illegal and legal cigarette factories and later for the safe passage they provide to the convoys."

Sahib Ayub Afridi: local philanthropist, convicted drug smuggler, and top cigarette counterfeiter in Pakistan.The Afridi case is part of a broader trend of terrorism groups relying on contraband to finance their activities, experts say. Even if efforts to cut the region's booming heroin production are successful -- an unlikely prospect -- the lucrative tobacco trade suggests how hard it will be to stanch funding to terrorists and insurgents in areas far from government control. The world's longest-running civil wars are fueled by contraband according to a 2002 study by Stanford University's James Fearon. Cocaine smuggling has largely propelled FARC's 40-year insurgency in Colombia. Diamonds have funded civil wars in Sierra Leone and Angola. Opium has led to drawn-out conflicts in Afghanistan and Burma.

In the badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border, the challenges are particularly daunting.

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• When Cracking Down Seems Impossible 

The raid had reaffirmed a precedent for an industry accustomed to minimal accountability. “The seizure was a media show,” said José Ortiz, CEO of Tabacalera del Este (Tabesa), the top cigarette factory in Paraguay. Tabesa is reportedly owned by Horacio Manuel Cartes, a high-powered businessman whose holdings include a soccer club. The company’s cigarettes are routinely seized from smugglers in Argentina and Brazil, according to customs officials in those countries. But the cigarettes in Pindoty Porã were legal, Ortiz said, as long as local cigarette taxes had been paid and the sticks were on the Paraguayan side of the border.

José Ortiz, CEO of top Paraguayan tobacco manufacturer Tabesa. “We don’t know where our cigarettes are consumed, and it’s not our problem,” he says. Marina Walker Guevara/ICIJThe investigation remains open and customs may ultimately fine the wholesaler for attempted smuggling. But the case illustrates the virtually impossible task of cracking down on crime and contraband in a country where law often takes a back seat to power and cash. Paraguay ranked near the bottom — 138th among 180 countries — of Transparency International’s 2007 Corruption Perception Index.

The tobacco industry in Paraguay is virtually unregulated. Government agencies involved in its oversight cannot even seem to agree on the number of factories operating in the country. The minister of taxation, Gerónimo Bellasai, told ICIJ that tax evasion by tobacco factories is “very high,” but in March his team was still trying to figure out how to track company sales. A basic step to improve traceability, officials say, is to update the country’s arcane cigarette tax stamp system. Currently tax stamps — square pieces of white paper that are easily photocopied — are affixed on master cases of 10,000 cigarettes rather than on individual packs. But even this can be hard to accomplish. “When there’s a lot of money on the other side, the tax authority always loses,” Bellasai said. . . .

The chief of the Brazilian federal police in Guaíra, Érico Saconato, says there is little political will in his country to fight smuggling. Marina Walker Guevara/ICIJBrazilian and Argentine customs and police officials say they are frustrated by Paraguay’s lack of commitment to stop cigarette smuggling. But they also acknowledge faults in their own governments’ enforcement. . . .

Meanwhile, Paraguayan cigarette manufacturers are earning stunning profits while denying any involvement in smuggling or counterfeiting (Brazilian law enforcement officials, however, link the Paraguayan factories directly to the illicit trade). Those who pursue civil charges against factory owners face endless judicial battles. British American Tobacco has repeatedly sued a tobacco company owned by former presidential candidate Osvaldo Domínguez Dibb for counterfeiting several of its brands. Some lawsuits have slogged though courtrooms for as long as 11 years.

Tabesa’s CEO Ortiz was blunt when asked about Paraguay’s quid pro quo: “We give them money,” he said of politicians during election time. “And all we ask is to be left alone.”

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• Secondhand Smoke Threatens Casino Workers’ Health  

New research suggests that casino workers face a higher risk of heart disease and lung cancer because they work in buildings filled with tobacco smoke.

By one scientist’s calculation, six of every 10,000 nonsmoking casino employees in Pennsylvania will die each year because of exposure to secondhand smoke.

The estimate does not rely on the tracking of individual casino workers over time, nor does it compare them to workers who have not had smoke exposure. Still, the findings suggest a significant risk to the health of the workers, said study author James Repace, a Washington D.C.-area consultant who studies the effects of secondhand smoke.

Casino workers “are really the most exposed group in society now,” Repace said. “The only other group that’s exposed so much is bartenders,” but many states have banned smoking in bars and restaurants.

The Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute — which has studied the risk of secondhand smoke to flight attendants when airlines allowed smoking — funded the study. The casino findings appear online and in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

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• Ukraine’s ‘Lost’ Cigarettes Flood Europe 

garettes -- at $1.05 per pack -- making the country a bonanza for smugglers, whether by glider or more mundane pathways on the ground. Cars and trucks filled with Ukrainian-made Marlboros and Viceroys get waved through border checkpoints by customs guards who seem more than eager to accommodate, for a price. Loads also move by bus and train, bound for other European countries where high taxes make packs cost as much as $5 (Germany) or $10 (United Kingdom).

The backbone of this underground commerce -- the acquisition of the cigarettes themselves -- is by far the easiest part of the entire operation. The world's four leading multinational tobacco companies, Philip Morris International, Japan Tobacco International (JTI), Imperial Tobacco, and British American Tobacco (BAT), have produced billions of excess cigarettes in Ukraine, fueling a teeming black market that reaches across the European Union. Today, Ukraine is rivaled only by Russia as the top source of non-counterfeit brand cigarettes smuggled to Europe, EU officials say.

The booming trade in tobacco smuggling has major consequences, say industry experts. The growing traffic pushes huge supplies of cheap, untaxed, and unregulated cigarettes into the rest of Europe, undercutting otherwise successful attempts to curtail smoking. Worse, officials say, the trade is boosting organized crime gangs, who find the soft penalties and big profits hard to resist. . . .

Attracted by high smoking rates and the potential for rapid returns on investments, multinational tobacco companies rushed to acquire the state-run cigarette factories after the Soviet regime collapsed in 1991. Today, the big four tobacco companies -- Philip Morris, BAT, JTI, and Imperial -- control 99 percent of the Ukrainian cigarette market.

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• Smuggling Made Easy 

Last September, Guaíra made headlines across Brazil when 15 people were murdered at a makeshift riverside warehouse. The killings were the result of a vendetta among drug smugglers and, officials here say, they weren’t all that unusual. Just 150 miles north from the notorious Tri-Border Area, where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet, Guaíra is today a major weapons and drugs corridor in the region. But no product, police say, is more widely smuggled through this city, and more profitable to smugglers, than Paraguayan cigarettes.

Dozens of motor boats crammed with tobacco cross the Paraná River daily from the neighboring Paraguayan city of Salto del Guairá. The smugglers feed an illicit trade that injects billions of cigarettes into Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and other large Brazilian cities, where the cheap, untaxed Paraguayan sticks account for 20 percent of the entire cigarette market. Guaíra sits at the heart of this trade, a strategic gateway and a place where many residents — up to half its population, locals say — rely directly or indirectly on smuggling for their livelihood. A few reap millions from the illicit trade. Guaíra’s most famous criminal son, Roque Fabiano Silveira, made a fortune and a name, trafficking Paraguayan cigarettes thousands of miles away. . . .

The tale of Roque Silveira is emblematic of the criminal nature and global reach of the teeming Paraguayan cigarette industry, one that experts and law enforcement officials say is, largely, set up for and devoted to transnational smuggling. Fifteen years ago cigarette manufacturing was minimal in Paraguay, one of South America’s poorest countries and a place notorious for corruption and trading in counterfeit goods. Today Paraguay, a landlocked, California-sized country, ranks among the world’s top producers of contraband cigarettes, responsible for 10 percent of the world’s contraband tobacco, experts estimate.

Paraguay’s factories churned out 68 billion cigarettes in 2006

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• SMALERA: Lost in the Weed: We stopped subsidizing tobacco farming. The result? Tobacco farming’s on the rise.  

But the bill Obama signed is actually the second half of a legislative push, or maybe a putsch, that Philip Morris and its parent, Altria (MO), have been shepherding through Congress for more than a decade. In 2004, President Bush signed the first half of the legislation, which had to do with tobacco production rather than consumption. That bill, the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004, eliminated the quota system for tobacco farmers that had been in place since the 1930s. Similar to its other crop insurance programs, the government had created a system to guarantee a minimum price for tobacco farmers by limiting the amount that could be grown each year.

In what is a familiar refrain, the buyout was sold to Congress and anti-smoking groups as something that was necessary to help impoverished small tobacco farmers get out of the business. . . .

In 2004 it was Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, who tried to pull back the curtain. He said at the time, "The House buyout plan is an incredible rip-off of the taxpayer, mostly to benefit a handful of large tobacco interests and tobacco companies." . . .

The South, after a few years of production declines adjusting to the new market dynamics, is again growing plenty of tobacco. And tobacco acreage, after declining following the buyout, has jumped up by more than 20 percent, including in some states where tobacco hasn't been farmed in 100 years, like Ohio and Illinois.

According to one story on the buyout, some farmers have stopped growing commodity crops like corn and wheat to switch to the wildly more profitable tobacco crop. . . .

So, five years later, the first prong of the tobacco legislation effort spearheaded by Philip Morris USA and supported by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has consolidated, boosted, and industrialized American tobacco farming and removed the price supports that made American tobacco exports unattractive on the open market. The only problem is that now that Philip Morris International is using so much American tobacco, its profits had fallen last quarter due to the stronger American dollar. But before some congressman jumps to Big Tobacco's rescue, as they seem to love to do these days, I should note that the dollar is already weakening once again.

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• South Florida Cigarette Smuggling Funds Terrorism  

In less than five minutes, the brutal attack left Quinsey and Azimkar dead, the two pizza deliverymen and a pair of guards clinging to life, and the historic 1998 peace agreement between Irish Catholics and Protestants imperiled.

The bullets rang out thousands of miles away, but investigators now believe the assault had its origin in an anonymous cargo ship docked at a bustling South Florida port.

A gray-haired 57-year-old Cutler Bay man with no criminal history named Roman Vidal sold millions of cigarettes that had been smuggled to Dublin criminals who funded the terrorist group that killed Quinsey and Azimkar, investigators say. The charges are just the latest link between black-market U.S. smokes and violent terrorist groups around the world.

It's the first cigarette smuggling case in Florida with explicit ties to a terrorist organization, but at least four major rings around the country have been busted in the past seven years with proven connections to Hezbollah, the Iraqi Kurdistan Workers Party, and North Korean weapons runners. A four-month-long New Times review of court filings and interviews with investigators reveals exactly why smuggling smokes may be the best racket for America's enemies. . . .

For the average smoker, those under-the-table, tax-free packs might seem like a bargain. But as the recent history of cigarette smuggling vividly illustrates, when you buy black-market smokes, you never know whose paycheck you're signing. . . .

In 1999, Garcia was called to Atlantic City to help Lou Calvarese — a hefty agent with a long undercover FBI résumé. Calvarese introduced him to May and Charles Liu, a Los Angeles Chinese-American couple with an incredible operation.

Though most smuggling operations involve actual commercial cigarettes, the Lius contracted with four factories in China that produced quality knockoffs of Marlboros, Camels, and other major brands. . . .

That meeting was just the beginning of a massive six-year operation. Garcia would eventually infiltrate the highest levels of the Lius' international smuggling network, a staggering chain involving nearly 100 people in China, the United States, and Canada. Garcia eventually learned that the operation had ties to North Korean weapons smugglers.

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For the average smoker, those under-the-table, tax-free packs might seem like a bargain. But as the recent history of cigarette smuggling vividly illustrates, when you buy black-market smokes, you never know whose paycheck you're signing.
Text from yet another trenchant, well-researched and well-written article on cigarette smuggling, this time from a small South Florida paper. The big mainstream media orgs are getting drubbed on this subject.

• China’s Marlboro Country 

Ringed by thickly forested mountains, illicit cigarette factories dot the countryside: carved deeply into caves, high into the hills, and even buried meters beneath the earth. By one tally, some 200 operations are hidden in Yunxiao, a southwestern Fujian county about twice the area of New York City. Over the past ten years, production of counterfeit cigarettes in China has soared, jumping eightfold since 1997 and making China the world leader in fake smokes. Chinese counterfeit cigarette factories now churn out an unprecedented 400 billion cigarettes a year, enough to supply every U.S. smoker with 460 packs a year. Yunxiao -- once famed for its bright yellow loquat fruit -- is the trade's heartland: the source of half such production, officials say.

Today, China's fake cigarettes fuel a multi-billion dollar black market and are even more hazardous for smokers, yet the industry is little-known. From New York delis to London storefronts, China's brand rip-offs are now sold in cities around the world. While a pack of fake Marlboros costs $0.20 to make in China, in the United States, it can fetch up to twenty times that amount, even when sold at cut rates. Spurred by global crime rings, the counterfeit trade has exploded, propping up addiction and robbing governments of billions in annual tax revenue. Officials can only guess at the size of the industry here in the United States, but to give a sense of scale, from 1999-2005, one ring smuggled a billion fake cigarettes into Los Angeles and New Jersey. Fully 99 percent of the U.S. counterfeit market is supplied by China, and up to 80 percent of that in the European Union. Meanwhile, Chinese government efforts to stop the trade are met by street riots, machete-armed manufacturers and retaliation killings.

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• Ireland first to ban tobacco advertising 

Ireland will become the first country in the EU to remove all tobacco advertising from retail outlets tomorrow.

The changes mean that all tobacco products in shops are stored out of view, within a closed container or dispenser, only accessible by retail staff. A sign must be shown to advise that tobacco products are sold at the premises.

Retail staff may use a pictorial list to inform a customer aged over 18 who wishes to buy tobacco products as to the products that are available.

Self-service vending machines will be prohibited except in licensed premises and registered clubs.

All retailers of tobacco products must register with the Office of Tobacco Control.

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