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World No Tobacco Day

World No Tobacco Day, 31 May 2016

May 31st, 2016
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Clear the Air says:

The rest of the world is starting to follow the WHO directive, except here, where the clocks are winding back instead of forward.

Hong Kong Health Bureau officials, having learned the Ombudsman is chasing their lack of effort and political will, have now decided they will press for

– Oops not plain packaging-

they will (following 3rd world country India who already did it) press instead for an 85% graphic health warning (replacing outmoded 50% current) on the packet, but the whole idea is to take away the glitzy colors which Big Tobacco uses on its ‘Silent Salesman’ packet, its remaining legal advertising gullible youth attractant fly paper

Whiskers middle class citizen food truck promoting Tsang took in HKD 6.297 bn last year in excise tobacco tax to the concrete pouring fund, and doled out a meagre HKD 160 million for tobacco control whilst HK continues to subvent the costs of smoking related health care as tobacco executives with impunity continue to smuggle (not control their supply chains) their own brands to get more market share =more deaths = defeat tobacco control existing flimsy methods.

Earlier, last month on May 20, France and Britain each began the implementation of plain packaging under new laws. Ireland is also preparing to introduce the measure this year; Hungary and Norway are in the process of developing laws to implement plain packaging; Singapore is undertaking a public consultation with a view to introducing plain packaging; and several other countries, including New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey, have either expressed an intent to implement the measure or are in the policy development process. Canada follows Australia’s lead and has sued Big Tobacco and won, CAD 15 billion for recovery of health care costs – why not here ?

Get ready for plain packaging

Plain packaging of tobacco products can save lives by reducing demand for tobacco products, and is recommended in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. “Plain packaging reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products. It kills the glamour, which is appropriate for a product that kills people,” says WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan.

Canadian Cancer Society praises federal consultation on tobacco plain packaging

May 31st, 2016
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http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/canadian-cancer-society-praises-federal-consultation-on-tobacco-plain-packaging-581415001.html

The Canadian Cancer Society commends Minister of Health Jane Philpott for launching a formal consultation toward implementing tobacco plain packaging in Canada.

The consultation document, announced today on World No Tobacco Day, provides a detailed outline of how plain packaging may be required in Canadian regulations.

“Plain packaging is highly effective and is supported by extensive research,” says Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst, Canadian Cancer Society. “If plain packaging were not effective, then tobacco companies would not be so strongly opposed to it. It is precisely because plain packaging will reduce sales that tobacco companies are objecting so loudly.”

“It is encouraging that the government is looking not only to eliminate tobacco-company promotion on packages, but also to standardize the shape of the package and to ban slim cigarettes,” says Cunningham. “Slim and superslim cigarettes target young women and associate smoking with weight loss, sophistication and glamour.”

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in Canada, including about 30% of all cancer deaths. Among women alone, the number of lung cancer deaths is double the number of breast cancer deaths. Smoking kills 37,000 Canadians every year. The 2014 Canadian Community Health Survey found that 18% of Canadians (more than 5 million people) are smokers.

“Plain packaging is a key tobacco control measure to advance public health in Canada,” says Cunningham. “Today’s announcement of a formal consultation brings us closer to the day when plain packaging will be in effect to protect youth.”

“Tobacco companies should not be able to use the package as mini-billboards to promote tobacco,” adds Cunningham. “Tobacco is a highly addictive, lethal product and should not be sold in packages made to be more attractive. It is essential to provide protection from tobacco-industry marketing tactics, especially for children.” A growing number of other countries are requiring plain packaging, which will make it easier for Canada to do so. The international trend is very positive.

What are other countries doing?

Plain packaging was required in Australia in 2012, implemented in the UK and France as of May 20, 2016, will be implemented soon in Ireland and is under formal consideration in New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Slovenia and other countries.

What is plain packaging?

Plain packaging prohibits brand colours, logos and graphics on tobacco packages. Graphic health warnings and pictures still appear, but the rest of the package is a standard colour for all brands, such as the drab brown required in Australia. Package dimensions are standardized, eliminating slim and superslim packs as well as other attractive package formats recently introduced by tobacco companies.

About the Canadian Cancer Society

The Canadian Cancer Society is a national, community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is the eradication of cancer and the enhancement of the quality of life of people living with cancer. When you want to know more about cancer, visit our website at cancer.ca or call our toll-free, bilingual Cancer Information Service at 1-888-939-3333.

Mapped: The countries that smoke the most cigarettes

May 31st, 2016
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/world-according-to-tobacco-consumption/

To mark World No-Tobacco Day, we’ve mapped the world according to cigarette consumption.

Those countries shown in darker colours smoke the most; those in lighter ones the least.

cig-per-adult

As with alcohol consumption, Eastern European countries dominate. Montenegro, where 4,124.53 cigarettes are smoked per adult per year, according to 2014 figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO), is the top of the pile, while Belarus, Macedonia, Russia, Slovenia and Bosnia also make the top 10.

The 20 countries that smoke the most

  1. Montenegro
  2. Belarus
  3. Lebanon
  4. Macedonia
  5. Russia
  6. Slovenia
  7. Belgium
  8. Luxembourg
  9. China
  10. Bosnia and Herzegovina
  11. Czech Republic
  12. Kazakhstan
  13. Azerbaijan
  14. Greece
  15. South Korea
  16. Austria
  17. Jordan
  18. Ukraine
  19. Estonia
  20. Hungary

Lebanon and China are the most tobacco-dependent non-European countries. Few regular visitors to Greece will be surprised to see it at 14th. Other popular summer holiday destinations not far from the smokers’ summit include Croatia, Turkey and Italy.

Britons, conversely, consume far fewer cigarettes – just 827.48 per adult per year – placing it 73rd on the list. The US is slightly higher, at 58th.

Residents of Guinea should be proud of the fact that they smoke the least of all those countries to feature in the WHO’s list. The Pacific nations also fare well, with the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Vanuatu among the 10 most tobacco-free countries.

There is also a clear relationship between wealth and tobacco consumption. Many of the world’s poorest countries can be found in the lower reaches of the rankings. Those with no data appear in grey on the map above.

The 20 countries that smoke the least

  1. Guinea
  2. Soloman Islands
  3. Kiribati
  4. Rwanda
  5. Samoa
  6. Democratic Republic of the Congo
  7. Vanuatu
  8. Suriname
  9. Malawi
  10. Tonga
  11. Mozambique
  12. Nepal
  13. Afghanistan
  14. Lesotho
  15. Trinidad and Tobago
  16. Burundi
  17. Tanzania
  18. Liberia
  19. Niger
  20. Sao Tome and Principe

New Zealand, Norway Plan to Require Plain Packs for Tobacco

May 31st, 2016
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-31/new-zealand-backs-plain-cigarette-packaging-in-smoking-clampdown

New Zealand and Norway intend to force tobacco companies to remove branding on cigarette packets and other tobacco products as more countries follow the lead of Australia across the world.

The New Zealand government, which aims to become a smoke-free nation by 2025, is proposing plain cigarette packaging with all tobacco imagery removed and with prominent and gruesome health warnings covering at least 75 percent of the front of the packs. The Norwegian government will send a bill to parliament in June that would strip tobacco products of logos, Health Minister Bent Hoeie said at a conference in Oslo Tuesday.

Australia has led the way in plain packaging after legal challenges failed to overturn new tobacco branding laws there. The U.K., Ireland and France were the first European countries to back the measure, which prompted legal challenges from cigarette makers including Philip Morris International Inc. and British American Tobacco Plc.

“The louder they scream, the more effective the measure must be,” said Douglas Bettcher, a World Health Organization director who spoke in Oslo on the occasion of World No-Tobacco Day. “The tobacco industry’s nightmares are in fact lifesavers.”

Brand names will be allowed in New Zealand but regulations will standardize printing and placement, Associate Health Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga said. The regulations are expected to take effect after legislation is passed later this year, he added.

New Zealand announced last week that the tax on tobacco will be increased by 10 percent each year for the next four years, driving the price for a standard pack of 20 cigarettes up to around NZ$30 ($20).

Norway will require cigarettes and snus — a form of smokeless tobacco — to be sold in dark green packs. Young people in the country have been smoking less though their use of snus has increased dramatically in the past decade, according to the government.

“It will look like the addictive and dangerous product it is,” Norwegian Health Minister Hoeie said. “We are moving toward a smoke-free generation. Someday tobacco will look as unbelievably outdated as smoking in airplanes.”

Sudarsan’s sand art on Odisha beach on World No Tobacco Day

May 31st, 2016
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On the occasion of ‘World No Tobacco Day’, internationally acclaimed Odisha-based artist Sudarsan Patnaik along with his students created a sand sculpture at the Puri beach to spread awareness about the dangerous consequences of smoking.

In the sculpture, tobacco has been termed as “Killer”, as it leads to heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, and cancer.

Patnaik took to twitter to share the image of the beautiful sand art. “On the occasion of #WorldNoTobaccoDay my students created SandArt at PuriBeach in Odisha today,” he tweeted along with the pic.

Notably, World No Tobacco Day is observed around the world every year on May 31. It is intended to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption around the globe. The day is further intended to draw attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and its negative health effects.

Tobacco foes fight youth-targeting tactics

May 31st, 2016
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Big Tobacco is frequently accused of searching for new ways to hook younger smokers.

Tuesday, May 31 is both World No Tobacco Day and the statewide launch of the Seen Enough Tobacco campaign.

Anthony Billoni, Director of Tobacco-Free WNY, says his group is working to raise awareness of youth-targeting strategies used by the tobacco industry.

“We know that tobacco kills one in two users, so they’re basically killing off half of their customer base,” Billoni said. “They call the youth ‘replacement smokers,’  replacement tobacco users.’”

Seen Enough Tobacco is using social media, digital advertising and a children’s book titled “Jack and Jill (and Tobacco)” to get its message out to the community. The
campaign’s new website, seenenoughtobacco.org, is a resource for learning how to protect children from tobacco marketing.

A recent CDC study reports that smoking among U.S. high school students is at its lowest level in 22 years. However, according to Billoni, tobacco companies are working
harder than ever to appeal to young people.

“The fact is that still, kids are becoming addicted,” he said. “A low number is not a zero number. We still are concerned about kids that are yet to become addicted that are getting addicted, and that’s what we’re working toward.”

Billoni also noted that 􀃖gures showing a decline in tobacco usage are skewed by a rise in electronic cigarette usage, most of which contain nicotine as well. E-cigarettes were originally marketed as a smoking alternative which help smokers quit, but a trend in recreational e-cigarette use among teens presents an issue.

Many young people who do not smoke cigarettes choose to “vape” and Billoni fears that, once addicted to the nicotine in e-cigarette juice, they will eventually turn to cigarettes. Big Tobacco reportedly spends over $500,000 a day in New York State marketing in places where opponents say children can see the targeted messages.

Top 10 facts about tobacco

May 31st, 2016
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TODAY is World No Tobacco Day, which has been celebrated on May 31 every year since it was created by the World Health Organisation in 1988.

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/675324/Top-10-facts-about-tobacco

  1. The word tobacco comes from a Caribbean language but it is unclear whether it meant a tube of tobacco leaves or the pipe they were smoked in.
  2. The island of Tobago was once called tavaco or tobaco, possibly for its cigar-like shape.
  3. The annual tax revenue from tobacco in the UK is more than £12 billion
  4. Around a third of the world’s adult population are smokers.
  5. It was been calculated that every cigarette a person smokes reduces their expected life span by 11 minutes.
  6. Worldwide, 15 billion cigarettes are smoked every day.
  7. In 1604 King James VI wrote A Counterblaste To Tobacco, attacking the practice of smoking.
  8. He described it as a “Custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs.”
  9. In 1665 pipe-smoking was compulsory among pupils at Eton as a defence against the plague.
  10. Rodrigo de Jerez, a crewman of Columbus, was the first known European smoker. He was thrown in jail for it as exhaling smoke was seen as satanic.

On World No Tobacco Day, UN urges plain packaging of tobacco products to save lives

May 31st, 2016
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http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=54094#.V08XNvkrLct

As the global community marks World No Tobacco Day, the United Nations is advocating for the use of plain packaging of tobacco products in an effort to save lives by reducing demand for such products, which kill nearly 6 million people every year.

“Tobacco use is one of the largest causes of preventable non-communicable diseases, including cancers, heart and lung disease,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in hismessage on the Day, which is observed annually to highlight the health risks associated with tobacco use and to advocate for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption.

“On this World No Tobacco Day, I call on Governments around the world to get ready for plain packaging,” he added.

As laid out in the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the plain packaging of tobacco products entails restricting or prohibiting the use of logos, colours, brand images or any promotional information other than brand and product names displayed in a standard colour and font.

Noting that tobacco also “diverts valuable household income,” Mr. Ban said that plain packaging reduces the “attractiveness of tobacco products, restricts tobacco advertising and promotion, limits misleading labelling, and increases the effectiveness of health warnings.”

In his message, the UN chief also highlighted that Sustainable Development Goal 3 aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.”

As part of that approach, he noted that Governments have committed to strengthen the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in all countries to reduce the proportion of people who use tobacco.

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control entered into force in February 2005. Since then, it has become one of the most widely embraced treaties in the history of the UN, with 180 Parties, covering 90 per cent of the world’s population.

Along those lines, Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, noted in hermessage on the Day that tobacco packaging is a form of advertising and promotion that often misleads consumers and serves to hide the “deadly reality of tobacco use.”

“Now, WHO is drawing attention to the role of plain packaging of tobacco products as part of a comprehensive approach to tobacco control, including comprehensive bans on advertising, promotion and sponsorship and graphic health warnings. We do this for a very good reason: plain packaging works,” she stressed.

WHO: World No Tobacco Day 2016 – Get ready for plain packaging

Dr. Chan highlighted that new evidence from Australia, the first country to fully implement plain packaging, shows that changes to tobacco packaging there led to more than 100,000 few smokers in the country in the first 34 months since implementation in 2012.

“The evidence tells us that plain packaging reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products,” Dr. Chan said. “It restricts tobacco advertising and promotion. It limits misleading packaging and labelling. And it increases the effectiveness of health warnings.

The Director-General said that the strength of the evidence had been “rigorously tested,” including recently in the High Court of England and Wales, which rejected all 17 of the industry’s challenges to the United Kingdom plain packaging law.

In doing so, the court stated that some of the tobacco industry evidence was “wholly untenable and resembled diatribe rather than expert opinion,” Dr. Chan said.

The decision came in the same week that arbitrators revealed that they refused to hear a Philip Morris claim against the Australian law on grounds that the company had engaged in an abuse of process in bringing the claim.

“These results are a cause for celebration, but governments must remain vigilant,” the Director-General said.

“We have seen over and over again how industry, fuelled by its deep pockets, has been able to develop new strategies in an attempt to protect profits generated from its deadly products. In the case of plain packaging, it has been the target of a massive tobacco industry misinformation campaign dating as far back as 1993,” she added.

WHO had stood up against that campaign, replacing falsehoods with the facts, Dr. Chan said.

“While plain packaging represents a power tool for tobacco control, it also builds upon other measures that governments have at their disposal to curb tobacco use. It is recommended that plain packaging be used as part of a comprehensive multi-sectoral approach to tobacco control,” the Director-General said.

“On this World No Tobacco Day, we are telling the world to get ready for even more comprehensive tobacco control,” she concluded.

World No Tobacco Day, 31 May 2016: Get ready for plain packaging

May 31st, 2016
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http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2016/world-no-tobacco-day/en/

Recent moves to introduce plain (standardized) packaging of tobacco products can save lives by reducing demand for tobacco products, according to WHO and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Secretariat (WHO FCTC).

Plain packaging of tobacco products restricts or prohibits the use of logos, colours, brand images and promotional information on packaging other than brand and product names displayed in a standard colour and font style.

In December 2012, Australia became the first country to fully implement plain packaging. On 20 May 2016, France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland each began implementation of plain packaging. Ireland is also preparing to introduce the measure, while other countries are exploring the option.

How plain packaging works

“Plain packaging reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products. It kills the glamour, which is appropriate for a product that kills people,” says WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. “It restricts tobacco advertising and promotion. It limits misleading packaging and labelling. And it increases the effectiveness of health warnings.”

Plain packaging is recommended in WHO FCTC guidelines as part of a comprehensive approach to tobacco control that includes large graphic health warnings and comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

Australia’s story

Smoking in Australia has been steadily declining for years. Australia introduced plain packaging, in conjunction with new and enlarged health warnings, in 2012. Between December 2012 and September 2015, there was an additional 0.55 percentage point fall in smoking prevalence among those aged 14 and above attributable to the packaging changes, according Australia’s post-implementation review. This equates to more than 108,000 people quitting, not relapsing or not starting to smoke during that period.

Dr Oleg Chestnov, WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and Mental Health, says Australia’s plain packaging results demonstrate the great potential of the measure. “Plain packaging can reduce consumption of tobacco products, as clearly seen in Australia. It offers a powerful tool to countries as part of a comprehensive approach to tackle the scourge of tobacco use,” says Dr Chestnov.

The theme of this year’s World No Tobacco Day – Get ready for plain packaging – highlights this new trend in global efforts to control tobacco products, which kill almost 6 million people annually, notes Dr Douglas Bettcher, WHO’s Director for the Prevention of NCDs.

Defying the tobacco industry

“Plain packaging is going global as more and more countries seek the important health gains it can bring to communities,” says Dr Bettcher. “The tobacco industry has been getting ready for plain packaging for some time, conducting massive misinformation campaigns to block the measure.”

“So it is encouraging to see more and more countries defy the industry’s tactics and implement plain packaging to reduce demand for tobacco products and put the health of their populations first.”

To mark World No Tobacco Day, WHO is launching a new guide to plain packaging of tobacco products, which gives governments the latest evidence and guidance on implementing the measure.

“Most governments are committed to curbing the tobacco epidemic and reducing tobacco-related harm, such as deaths from cancers, heart and lung diseases,” says Dr Vera da Costa e Silva, Head of the WHO FCTC Secretariat. “It is vital they have access to evidence-based, effective guidance that can support their efforts to protect the health of their populations.”

Editor’s note

Tobacco-related illness is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced. Approximately 1 person dies from a tobacco-caused disease every 6 seconds, equivalent to almost 6 million people a year. This is forecast to rise to more than 8 million people a year by 2030, with more than 80% of these preventable deaths occurring among people living in low-and middle-income countries.

Tobacco use is one of the largest preventable causes of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Tobacco control represents a powerful tool in improving health in communities and in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG target 3.4 is to reduce premature deaths from NCDs by one-third by 2030, including cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, cancers and diabetes. NCDs accounted for the deaths of 16 million people under the age of 70 years in 2012 – 82% of which occurred in developing countries.

The WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) entered into force in 2005. Parties are obliged to take a number of steps to reduce demand and supply for tobacco products. Actions addressed in the Convention include protecting people from exposure to tobacco smoke, banning tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, banning sales to minors, requiring health warnings on tobacco packaging, promoting tobacco cessation, increasing tobacco taxes and creating a national coordinating mechanism for tobacco control. There are 180 Parties to the Convention.

For more information, contact:

Paul Garwood
Telephone: +41 22 7911578
Mobile: +41-79 603 72 94
Email: garwoodp@who.int

Christian Lindmeier
Telephone: +41 22 79 11948
Mobile: +41 795 006 552
Email: lindmeierch@who.int

Packham: For World No Tobacco Day, new packaging is goal

May 30th, 2016
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http://www.rgj.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/05/26/goal-world-no-tobacco-day-2016-new-packaging-regulations/85014150/

Sponsored by the World Health Organization and observed worldwide on May 31 each year, World No Tobacco Day highlights the health risks of tobacco use and promotes effective actions to reduce tobacco consumption. This year, World No Tobacco Day calls on countries worldwide to implement plain (standardized) packaging of tobacco products.

A key aim of World No Tobacco Day is to educate people about the work WHO undertakes in fighting the global tobacco epidemic. A large part of this work is educating the public about the manipulative tactics tobacco companies continue to use to “dupe” people into smoking their products.

Plain packaging of tobacco products is a proven tobacco control measure that restricts or prohibits the use of logos, colors, brand images or promotional information on packaging other than brand names and product names displayed in a standard color and font style.

Led by Australia and multiple nations in Western Europe, plain packaging represents an important demand-reduction measure that reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products. It also restricts use of tobacco packaging as a form of tobacco advertising and promotion, limits misleading packaging and labeling, and increases the effectiveness of health warnings. As such, plain packaging builds upon other evidence-based measures as part of a comprehensive approach to tobacco control.

According to WHO estimates, cigarette smoking kills nearly 6 million people around the world each year. In the United States, cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke remain the largest preventable cause of death and disease and is responsible for nearly 480,000 deaths each year – a figure that exceeds the number of Americans killed by alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.

Closer to home, World No Tobacco Day provides an opportunity for policymakers and the public to address the unfinished business of tobacco control and prevention in Nevada.

Recent data from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids documents tobacco’s toll on the next generation of Nevadans. Currently, 10.3 percent of Nevada high school students smoke, nearly 1,800 Nevada kids under the age of 18 will become daily smokers this year, and an estimated 41,000 healthy kids in Nevada will die prematurely from smoking.

While Nevada has made considerable progress in curbing tobacco use, 370,000 adults in Nevada still smoke (17 percent of all adults) and smoking is responsible for a staggering $1.1 billion in preventable medical care costs each year.

In the current budget year, the State of Nevada will collect $213 million in revenue from the 1998 tobacco master settlement agreement and tobacco taxes. However, Nevada will spend a miserly $1 million on programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit this year – a figure well below the annual funding level of $30 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to implement a comprehensive tobacco control program.

Let’s use World No Tobacco Day as a wake-up call to the global epidemic of tobacco use and the considerable unfinished work of tobacco control that remains in Nevada.

Additional information on World No Tobacco Day can be found at www.who.int/campaigns/no-tobacco-day/2016/en/; information on the toll of tobacco in Nevada can be found at www.tobaccofreekids.org.

John Packham, Ph.D. is director of health policy research at the University of Nevada School of Medicine and currently serves as the president of the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition.

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