Jump to full article: Reuters, 2009-10-29
Intro: Philip Morris International joined with U.S. tobacco industry groups on Thursday to ask President Barack Obama's administration to challenge Canada's new law banning flavored cigarettes and small cigars.
Their request comes even as the administration takes its own steps to ban candy, clove and other flavored cigarettes.
"Canada's ban on blended cigarettes violates its WTO (World Trade Organization) obligations and could impose serious economic hardship on U.S. growers of burley tobacco," Roger Quarles, president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association, said in a statement.
"We are asking USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) to review our arguments and to take a strong stand for U.S. burley growers and American jobs," he said.
Philip Morris, which markets its tobacco products in approximately 160 countries, joined the burley growers and several other tobacco associations in asking USTR to press Canada on the issue at a WTO meeting on "technical" trade barriers next week in Geneva.
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