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March, 2010:

Reply to Vines – Letters to the Editor, SCMP

Mar 11th, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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antique typewriter

From: James Middleton [mailto:dynamco@netvigator.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 5:07 AM
To: ‘Letters to the Editor'; ‘john.lee@scmp.com‘
Subject: Reply to Vines

Your correspondent Stephen Vines (SCMP March 5) states ‘Business is booming in bars where a blind eye is turned to smoking. The crackdown has also led to an enormous increase in sales of counterfeit cigarettes and smuggled tobacco.’

Hong Kong laws need changing to fall in line with first world countries where the onus is on premises’ managers to enforce no smoking laws within or lose their licences ; the current legislation is deliberately flawed and has no such requirement. After the 50% tobacco tax increase last year the sale of duty paid cigarettes here dropped by more than 30% (3.79 billion in 2008 – 2.88 billion in 2009) whilst revenue from excise tax increased 2% above 2008.

Meanwhile the stepped up enforcement by Customs Department  against illicit tobacco increased arrests by 91% in 2009 above 2008 but found less seizures since the syndicates reduced volumes (109 million sticks 2007, 79 million in 2008 versus 59 million in 2009) for fear of being caught. Your correspondent should as a prudent journalist do some research before he continues to bitch and moan based on flawed facts and his stated ‘enormous increase’ is actually a significant decrease.

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Action on Smoking and Health Report

Mar 11th, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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ash logoDownload ASH’s report on:

The Effects of Increasing Tobacco Taxation: A Cost Benefit and Public Finances Analysis here.
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Smoking is bad for your car’s health

Mar 11th, 2010
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scene from the movie I-SpyFirst published: March 7, 2010

Source: The Mirror

Cigarette sparks car fireball with two girls inside

A parked car with two girls inside exploded in flames early yesterday when
one of them lit a cigarette.

The pair, aged 19 and 20 years, suffered severe burns to their hands and
faces as they escaped from the blazing vehicle.
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Tobacco tax hikes “good for the health”

Mar 11th, 2010
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tobacco tax stampFirst published: March 6, 2010

Source: Reuters via Kate Kelland’s blog

LONDON (Reuters) – Raising tobacco taxes by 5 percent above inflation in Britain would help 190,000 smokers to kick the habit and save the nation’s health system over 20 million pounds a year, campaigners said on Saturday.

A report by an independent economist for the anti-smoking group ASH said tax hikes would also cut smoking-related absence from work, saving 10 million pounds a year, and boost annual government tax revenues by more than 500 million pounds.

“An above-inflation rise in the price of tobacco is good for the health of the individual as well as for the health of the country,” said Howard Reed, the economist who wrote the report.
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GE plans new American export: outdoor smoking ban

Mar 9th, 2010
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GE smoking ban

First published: March 4, 2010

Source: Reuters

General Electric Co is known for exporting American products like washing machines and jet engines, and the biggest U.S. conglomerate is getting ready to ship out another American trend – the outdoor smoking ban.

The world’s largest maker of jet engines this week told employees that it plans to ban smoking on all GE property – both indoors and out – worldwide starting in March 2011.

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Tobacco control efforts targeting young people

Mar 9th, 2010
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say no

First published: March 5, 2010

Source: HKSAR Government

Hong Kong (HKSAR) – Following is a question by the Hon Chan Hak-kan and a reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (March 3): Question: The Financial Secretary announced a 50% increase in tobacco duty in the Budget for the last financial year. The Secretary for Food and Health later told the media that he hoped that the increase in tobacco duty would encourage smokers, particularly young smokers, to quit smoking, with the aim of reducing the number of smokers by 10% to 20%. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) of the respective numbers and percentages, in the past three years, of the people in the groups listed below who smoke, and the average number of cigarettes smoked by each smoker per day, together with a breakdown of such figures by gender:

(i) the population in Hong Kong; (ii) those aged 11 to 18 of the population; and (iii) those aged 10 or below of the population;

(b) whether it knows at which locations and through what channels underage smokers obtain cigarettes; what measures the Government will adopt to prevent them from obtaining cigarettes from those locations and channels, and whether it will increase the penalties for the offence of selling cigarettes to underage persons; and

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Youth tobacco-control measures effective

Mar 9th, 2010
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teen smokerFirst published: March 3, 2010

Source: Hong Kong’s Information Services Department

The percentage of smokers in the 15-19 age group in Hong Kong dropped from 3.5% in 2005 to 2.4% in 2008, showing the tobacco-control measures aimed at young people have been largely effective, Secretary for Food & Health Dr York Chow says.

He told lawmakers restricting access to cigarettes solely by legislation will not produce significant effects because young people can still get cigarettes from multiple channels including their friends and family.
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Progress Up in Smoke?

Mar 9th, 2010
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up-in-smoke

First published: March 5, 2010

Source: Bangor Daily News

For the first time in more than a decade, Maine’s youth smoking rate has gone up, according to a statewide survey. Anti-smoking advocates make a persuasive case that raising the cigarette tax would stop this trend. Lawmakers must be persuaded that a one-year increase is a trend and they must be committed to using the extra tax revenue — $26 million — for smoking cessation, not to help fill the state’s budget gap before they consider raising the tobacco tax.

In 1996, Maine has one of the highest teen smoking rates in the country when 39 percent of high school students said they were smokers. Through a variety of steps, the rate was cut by more than half to 14 percent.
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Plain packs: tobacco industry bares its butts to bluff Rudd

Mar 9th, 2010
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plain cigarette packSource: Croakey

Kevin Rudd has foreshadowed an imminent major announcement about prevention. The “P” word has featured in almost every speech on health since Labour took office and the three-volume Preventive Health Task Force report provides a wish list of policies that are causing high anxiety in the junk food, alcohol and tobacco industries. In other words, policies that move beyond “prevention” being a motherhood confection to be liberally sprinkled over political health-speak, and into the realm of making a difference.

A key, cost-free recommendation in the tobacco sub-committee’s report is that Australia should become the first country to require “plain”, unappealing cigarette packs. Packs would all look the same, except for the garish health warnings, being distinguished only by their brand names.
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Clear The Air’s Anti-Tobacco crusader questions Financial Secretary in phone-in

Mar 9th, 2010
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rthk phone-inJames Middleton, head of the Anti-Tobacco committee at Clear The Air, questions Hong Kong SAR’s Financial Secretary John Tsang about the 2010 budget,  just after 9 am (9:11) in RTHK’s phone-in program.

Fast forward the audio 6 minutes 38 secs into the 26.58 section to hear the exchange.

Hear the audio here.
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