March, 2012:

Government of Canada Legislation

Mar 9th, 2012

Clear the Air says: the cost of treatment for tobacco related diseases in Hong Kong in 1998 was calculated as HKD 5.3 billion per year (University of HK Dept of Community Medicine report). Now in 2012 that cost will be far higher.

Clear the Air queries why this seemingly tycoon friendly Hong Kong Administration has failed to emulate USA and now Canada to sue the tobacco companies for the substantial costs of medical treatment of tobacco related diseases.

Meanwhile the Canadian Province of Alberta has divested from tobacco stocks’ investments with others expected to follow.

The Governments of Norway and New Zealand have already divested from tobacco investments.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is in the process of like divestment also, having realised it is unethical, contrary to the FCTC Treaty

binding Hong Kong SAR and a poor long term investment which can only profit from the death and suffering of its citizens.

We trust the Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund will soon follow suit.

89% of Hong Kong people do not smoke and would not tolerate third parties investing their contributions in tobacco stocks whilst these lurid despicable companies will always continue to addict Hong Kong youth in the search for profits and replacement smokers.

Download PDF : Copyright

BC joins smokin’ hot lawsuit – BC News – Castanet.net

Mar 9th, 2012

by Editor.

No comments yet

http://www.castanet.net/news/BC/72204/BC-joins-smokin-hot-lawsuit

BC joins smokin’ hot lawsuit

by The Canadian Press – Story: 72204
Mar 9, 2012 / 8:17 pm

British Columbia and five other provinces are teaming up to sue Canadian tobacco firms for health-care costs.

B.C., New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island are retaining a national legal team to help them prosecute Canadian tobacco companies.

An official in B.C.’s Justice Ministry said Friday the provinces are looking to save costs and add clout to their cases by working together.

The statements of claims, where the province’s are seeking recovery of billions of dollars worth of health costs associated with smoking illnesses and cancers, are similar, said the official.

He said the provincial governments also believe that because of the many common elements of the claims, combining forces with other provinces and co-ordinating legal resources will bring their cases to trial faster.

Every Canadian province and Nunavut have adopted legislation that seeks recovery of medicare costs against the tobacco industry, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Earlier this year, Ontario filed a lawsuit against Canadian tobacco companies seeking $50-million in damages.

Fourteen years ago, B.C.’s former New Democrat government became the first in Canada to attempt to sue tobacco companies, but the lawsuit was rejected by the courts as too broad.

Eight years ago, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled the B.C. Liberal government’s Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act is constitutionally valid legislation, paving the way for a lawsuit that seeks to recover $10 billion in health-care costs from tobacco companies.

In 1999 in the United States, the tobacco industry agreed to pay $246 billion over a 25-year period for health-care costs that resulted from the use of its products.

The Canadian Cancer Society reports that tobacco products are the leading preventable cause of disease and death in Canada, killing 37,000 Canadians annually. It says tobacco products are responsible for about 30 per cent of cancer deaths and for 85 per cent of lung cancers.

Lung cancer kills more than 20,000 Canadians a year.

The B.C. government lawsuit alleges tobacco manufacturers failed to warn consumers of the dangers of smoking and targeted children in their advertising and marketing.

The suit said tobacco companies should be held liable for the tobacco-related illnesses that cost British Columbia an estimated $500 million a year in health costs.

Tobacco companies have responded previously to the B.C. lawsuit, saying the government is in danger of spending millions of dollars on a lawsuit, but not receiving any money if it wins.

Canadian tobacco companies can’t afford to pay huge legal settlements, said the industry. The Canadian companies can’t withstand settlements anywhere near the magnitude of their U.S. counterparts, who have been ordered to pay hundreds of millions, said the industry.

B.C.’s lawsuit names Imperial Tobacco Canada, Rothmans, Benson and Hedges, JTI-Macdonald, the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers’ Council and several foreign tobacco companies.

Surgeon General report: exec-summary

Mar 9th, 2012

by Editor.

No comments yet

The new Surgeon General’s report, Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults, contains an extensive discussion of the effects of smoking in movies on young people. The bottom line: ‘The evidence is sufficient to conclude that there is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in the movies and the initiation of smoking among young people.’ (Page 6)

Significantly, the 36 page long section, ‘Images of Smoking in Movies and Adolescent Smoking,’ is in Chapter 5, ‘The Tobacco Industry’s Influences on the Use of Tobacco Among Youth.’ The Surgeon General is effectively putting smoking in the movies in the same category as conventional cigarette marketing activities. Indeed, the summary of Chapter 7, ‘A Vision for Ending the Tobacco Epidemic,’ concludes, ‘Greater consideration of further restrictions on advertising and promotional activities as well as efforts to decrease depictions of smoking in the movies is warranted, given the gravity of the epidemic and the need to protect young people now and in the future (page 7).

The report reviews the ‘Historical Links Between the Tobacco Companies and the Movie Industry’ (pages 565-566) and concludes that lowering young people’s level of exposure to on-screen smoking leads to lower risk of smoking (page 593) and and endorses an R rating for smoking as a way to reduce the level of exposure (page 598).

The report also discusses the varying response to the issue of smoking in the movies by studio, and names names (page 570), noting that as of 2010 three studios had policies in place that had nearly eliminated smoking in their youth-rated movies (Disney, Time Warner, Universal) while the others had not (Viacom, News Corp., Sony, and the independent producers).

The ‘fact sheet’ that goes with the report states, ‘Youth who are exposed to images of smoking in movies are more likely to smoke. Those who get the most exposure to onscreen smoking are about twice as likely to begin smoking as those who get the least exposure. Images of smoking in movies have declined over the past decade; however, in 2010 nearly a third of top-grossing movies produced for children — those with ratings of G, PG, or PG-13 — contained images of smoking.’

The full 36MB report, fact sheet and supporting materials are available at:

http://surgeongeneral.gov/library/preventing-youth-tobacco-use/exec-summary.pdf

State tobacco monopoly makes 320m yuan a day

Mar 8th, 2012

by Editor.

No comments yet

Critics say profitability of cigarette industry is reason government won’t seriously crack down on smoking

Will Clem in Shanghai
Mar 08, 2012

China’s state-run tobacco monopoly rakes in more than 320 million yuan (HK$393 million) in profits every day, according to figures released for the first time this week that expose the sheer magnitude of the mainland’s tobacco industry.

The China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) amassed net profits of almost 118 billion yuan in 2010, a windfall that anti-smoking campaigners say explains officials’ lacklustre attempts to enforce anti-smoking legislation.

The figures show the company as being one of the mainland’s most profitable organisations that year, beating the Bank of China’s profits of 110 billion yuan and coming close to China Construction Bank (SEHK: 0939, announcements, news) ‘s 135 billion yuan.

The cigarette giant’s financial details were included in a report that the Industrial Bank filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange ahead of a planned sale of a 5.2 billion yuan stake to CNTC. The report did not give the company’s statistics for last year, but listed its assets at almost 970 billion yuan.

Anti-smoking campaigners say the figures show the enormous revenue value of the tobacco industry to the government – on top of 753 billion yuan in tax last year.

The mainland is home to an estimated 300 million smokers, the largest number in any single country.

Dr Wu Yiqun , vice-director of the Think Tank Research Centre for Health Development, said CNTC’s financial figures were “tragic” but unsurprising.

“Our NGO has been investigating the domestic tobacco industry for several years, so we already had a good idea of the figures involved,” she said.

“This figure is higher than what we had estimated, but not a total shock. What really bothers me is not the statistic of 322 million yuan [in daily profits], but what lies behind it. That huge figure comes from the destruction of public health, and to put it bluntly, it is held up by a mountain of bones.”

Wu said that, despite six years of government attempts to curb smoking, cigarette sales had continued to increase year after year.

According to the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, last year’s tobacco tax take was up 22.5 per cent from 2010, which in turn was up almost 17 per cent from the year prior.

“It has been a very difficult process, and almost impossible to make any progress,” she said, adding that the organisation was currently lobbying delegates of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference to push for stricter legislation.

“Our single hope is that relevant government departments can take notice of the scale of the problem, but so far we are not optimistic.

“There is a commitment to a smoking ban in the 12th five-year plan, and we must hope that can be achieved.”

She said that the decision to include Professor Xie Jianping , deputy director of CNTC’s Tobacco Research Institute, as one of 54 scientists added to the Chinese Academy of Engineering last December, showed that officials were not serious about clamping down on smoking.

“That award sent exactly the wrong message,” Wu said.

China ratified the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, pledging a smoke-free public environment by January of last year, but little progress has been made.

Tougher national legislation was passed in May, but a survey by an environmental group in November found that just one in five restaurants in Beijing were obeying the rules.

Shanghai implemented a city-wide smoking ban covering most public places in 2010, but it is not strictly enforced.

The Shanghai Health Promotion Commission admitted last week that just 66 institutions and five individuals were fined for breaching the rules last year.

william.clem@scmp.com

Singapore, a tobacco-free nation? Maybe one day

Mar 7th, 2012

by Editor.

No comments yet

Health Ministry has “long-term goal of banning smoking in all public places”, says Amy Khor

Updated 02:19 PM Mar 07, 2012

http://www.todayonline.com/Hotnews/EDC120307-0000157/Singapore,-a-tobacco-free-nation?-Maybe-one-day

SINGAPORE – The Republic is rolling out further efforts to lower the smoking rate here, with a vision of “eliminating tobacco from Singapore one day”.

Speaking today in Parliament at the Committee of Supply debates, Minister of State for Health Amy Khor said that while efforts ranging from education to taxes and legislation had brought smoking rates here down to 15 per cent – “one of the best in the world” – Singapore could not afford to let its guard down.

“To bring us to the next stage in tobacco control, beyond top-down legislative measures, we will focus on stronger, ground-up efforts that together, will de-normalise tobacco use and establish smoke-free living as the social norm,” she said. “We will also work with NEA on the long-term goal of banning smoking in all public places other than designated smoking areas.”

Responding to a query from Minister of Parliament Janil Puthucheary, in which he asked if the Ministry of Health would consider articulating a vision of being a “tobacco-free nation”, Ms Khor said: “We share Dr Janil’s vision of eliminating tobacco from Singapore one day, but when that day will come, we cannot be sure.”

To that end, from March next year, the Health Ministry will ban misleading terms on tobacco product packaging and labelling, and lower cigarette tar and nicotine limits. Graphic Health Warnings will be replaced with a new set to ensure continued impact.

A Blue Ribbon movement was launched last week to promote smoke-free environments, while the Health Promotion Board is working with youth networks on a “Live it Up Without Lighting Up” movement. Some success has been seen, Ms Khor said, with the rates of youths aged 13 to 16 years old smoking on at least one day in the past month decreasing from 11 per cent in 2000 to 6 per cent in 2009.

China’s Tobacco Monopoly Bigger by Profit Than HSBC, Wal-Mart

Mar 6th, 2012

by Editor.

No comments yet

By Bloomberg News

March 6 (Bloomberg) — China National Tobacco Corp., the nation’s cigarette monopoly, may be larger by annual profit than HSBC Holdings Plc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to a rare release of the company’s financial data.

The state-owned tobacco company had net income of 117.7 billion yuan ($18.7 billion) in 2010 on sales of 770.4 billion yuan. Industrial Bank Co. released the figures in a statement late yesterday because China National Tobacco is buying a 5.2 billion yuan stake in the Shanghai-listed lender.

Authorities in China, home to a third of all the world’s smokers, have been criticized by groups including the World Health Organization for not doing enough to prevent tobacco use.

Critics say the tax revenue the government derives from the industry — more than $95 billion last year — has hindered efforts to discourage smoking.

“It would be better if they could also disclose more information about the health impact of their products, which we lack in China,” Wan Xia, a Beijing-based researcher at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences who is studying the effects of smoking in the country, said in a telephone interview. She said the figures released by Industrial Bank are the first she’s seen for China National Tobacco’s profit.

About 1 million Chinese die from tobacco-related illnesses every year, according to the WHO.

HSBC reported $16.8 billion of profit for its most recent fiscal year and Wal-Mart posted $15.7 billion. Figures for 2011 weren’t given for China National Tobacco.

18th Biggest

Its 2010 figures would make China National Tobacco the world’s 18th largest company by profit, one spot ahead of American International Group and just behind JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It would be the world’s 30th largest company by sales, just behind Allianz SE.

China National Tobacco made more in profit in 2010 than the combined total for Philip Morris International Inc., British American Tobacco Plc, and Altria Group, Inc., the world’s three- biggest listed tobacco companies, according to the figures.

China, the world’s most-populous nation is home to more than 350 million smokers. Almost three in every five men smoke.

The volume of cigarettes sold in China is expected to rise at an average 14 percent annually during the five years through 2015 to hit 1.8 trillion yuan in retail sales, researcher Euromonitor International said in a July report.

China has previously only disclosed annual sales and tax revenue figures for the tobacco industry and not specifically for China National Tobacco. The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, which also runs China National Tobacco, said in January that the nation’s tobacco industry’s net income before taxes rose 22.5 percent to 753 billion yuan, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency.

For Related News and Information:

Aggressive Hermosa Beach outdoor smoking ban to begin

Mar 6th, 2012

by Editor.

No comments yet

http://www.easyreadernews.com/47035/hermosa-smoking-ban-4/

Hermosa Beach Mayor Howard Fishman

Mayor Howard Fishman lauds the city’s outdoor smoking ban on the Pier Plaza, one of the affected areas. Photo by Robb Fulcher

Hermosa Beach City officials and public health agency representatives gathered on the Pier Plaza to promote perhaps the most aggressive outdoor smoking ban in the region, which begins Thursday, March 1 (see map below).

The ban, approved by the City Council four months ago, nixes smoking at all of Hermosa’s outdoor dining areas, the popular Pier Plaza, the city pier, the Strand, the greenbelt parkway, and all city parks and parking lots. Smoking already is outlawed on the city-owned beach.

“With our outdoor lifestyle, the small minority who smoke in public places threatens the health and safety of the majority of our residents, visitors and workers who don’t smoke,” Mayor Howard Fishman said.

The ban will provide “a breath of fresh air” to diners, residents and visitors, Fishman said.

Violators of the ban can be fined $100 to $500, and after a third police citation, a misdemeanor criminal charge can be sought. Fishman said officials hope to avoid citations, and proponents of the ban have predicted it will be self-enforcing.

“Though California has some of the strictest laws in the nation regarding tobacco control, state law falls short when it comes to protecting the public from secondhand smoke in outdoor public gathering area. It has been left to cities to address this issue and to take necessary steps to more fully protect the health, safety and welfare of its residents and visitors from the well-documented harms of second and third hand smoke,” said Councilman Jeff Duclos, the city’s mayor pro tempore.

Public health officials have identified third-hand smoke as solid residue that settles onto furniture, clothing and other surfaces.

“We also cannot ignore that fact that the overwhelming majority of Californians – nearly 87 percent according to one report – are non smokers. They are entitled by law to full and equal enjoyment of public accommodations,” Duclos said.

“Something like 70 percent of smokers would quit if they could,” said Duclos, adding that the outdoor smoking ban could provide extra “incentive” to kick the habit.

Lisa Santora, chief medical officer of the Beach Cities Health District and a Hermosa resident, said she could now bring her 1-year-old son to the pier without subjecting him to possible health problems.

Santora, who is pregnant, said she could now dine on the Plaza without increasing the risk of a lower birth weight or premature birth for her unborn child.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am,” said Craig Cadwallader of Surfrider Foundation. “This has been a long struggle.”

Councilman Jeff Duclos speaks about the ban. Photo by Robb Fulcher

The ban was also backed by the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence-South Bay.

Banners announcing the ban were being hung on the Strand and throughout the city, and volunteers began carrying posters, table tents and coasters to restaurants with outdoor dining. County officials shouldered the costs of those materials.

Beer garden ban to stop social smokers

Mar 6th, 2012

by Editor.

No comments yet

http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/health/534985/beer-garden-ban-to-stop-social-smokers.html

Extending smoking ban legislation to include areas outside pubs and bars could help to curb the rise of social smoking, says new research.

A study has found that while the number of people smoking has dropped overall, the number of people who smoke intermittently and describe themselves as ‘social smokers’ has risen.

Campaigners have described people who light up on pavements and patios as ‘anti-social’ and argue that introducing a smoking banon beer gardens could improve public health.

‘Introducing smoke-free outdoor bars could reduce social smoking by removing cues that stimulate this behaviour and changing the environment that facilitates it,’ says Professor Janet Hoek from the University of Otago in New Zealand.

During a study conducted at the University of Otago, researchers found that 12 out of 23 occasional smokers strongly supported the idea of banning smoking in outdoor areas, indicating that it would help them cut down or quit social smoking altogether.

Participants said that although smoking and drinking went ‘hand in hand’, they only smoked on nights out and considered themselves non-smokers.

‘This small study highlights some interesting points about what triggers social smokers to light up,’ says Jean King, Cancer Research UK’s Director of Tobacco Control, but more needs to be done to discourage smoking.

‘Given that a quarter of all cancer deaths are due to tobacco, Cancer Research UK believes one key measure that would reduce the attractiveness of smoking would be to remove all branding and colourful designs on packs.’

Mountain View City Council approves stringent smoking ban

Mar 6th, 2012

by Editor.

No comments yet

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/mountain-view-smoking/nHc3Z/

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. —

Some Mountain View bar and restaurant owners tried to challenge a proposed new smoking law Tuesday night. They arrived at City Hall armed with a petition signed by 1,000 people.

The Mountain View City Council still voted 4-3 to ban smoking within 25 feet of outdoor patios and windows and doorways of work places.

Some smokers in a patio of the Mollie Mcgees Bar on Castro Street were trying to be sensitive to the concerns of non-smokers.

“We’ll all have to be outside in a parking lot or have to be walking up and down Castro Street smoking. None of us wants to do that, because we’re aware that smoking bothers some people,” said James Neal of Mountain View.

The John Akkiaya, the owner of Don Giovanni Restaurant located next to the bar, said he’s all for the ban.

“The people they see no smoking in the bar or the patio and they say ‘The hell with it. Let’s quit.’ And I hope a lot of people quit smoking because of that,” said Akkiaya.

At City Hall, about 20 people spoke their mind about the smoking ban. Both sides said it was a matter of individual rights.

“Everybody agrees second hand smoke is bad. I don’t think you will find anyone here who will disagree with that,” argued bar owner Rob Graham. “But the infringement of our rights as business owners and property owners, you’re creating this precedent.”

“I also have rights and I have the right to not have my life shortened by people who are using their rights,” countered Mountain View Judy Gordon.

The smoking ban will go in effect in 90 days and is essentially focused downtown Castro Street. Only people walking down the street and not stopping will be allowed to smoke.

Opponents said they will try to take this issue to the voters.