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December 21st, 2015:

Regulators urged to scrutinise e-cigarettes

Dec 21st, 2015
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http://www.herald.co.zw/regulators-urged-to-scrutinise-e-cigarettes/

Harvard researchers recently examined 51 separate liquid vaping flavours, and their findings are downright frightening. It may not be the most highly publicised “war,” but the US government and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have been waging war against tobacco for more than five decades. The results have been nothing short of impressive, with campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco use leading the adult tobacco use rate in the US to drop from 42 percent in the mid-1960s to 18 percent as of 2013.

The push-back against the US tobacco industry has threatened the growth prospects for giants like Altria, with its signature Marlboro brand, and Reynolds American, maker of Newport. These tobacco product giants have relied on their incredible pricing power and the addictive nature of nicotine to keep their bottom lines strong. Between 2008 and 2013, overall consumer prices rose by a tame 8,2 percent, according to the US Department of labour. Meanwhile, cigarette prices rose an astounding 50percent in that same time frame – more than any other product measured.

The other growth avenue for the tobacco industry is tobacco alternatives, a niche dominated by electronic cigarettes. An electronic cigarette works by heating a flavoured liquid containing nicotine into a vapour, which the user then inhales. This allows users to satiate their nicotine craving while consuming less of the harmful chemicals often found in smoked tobacco. But there have been questions surrounding the safety of electronic cigarettes since day one.

To begin with, regulators are worried that the tobacco industry could be catering to a new, and young, generation of nicotine addicts with flavours like bubble gum and cotton candy. Altria and Reynolds American have been clear that this is not their intention, but it clearly has regulators worried.

Further, the nicotine-containing liquids come in thousands of flavours, and not a single one is governed by the Food and Drug Administration.

Some view this as a good thing for the electronic-cigarette industry, because it means there are few barriers to expansion. Then again, a lack of regulation has left some wondering what’s actually in these solutions beyond nicotine and whether the solution is safe to inhale over the long run.

A recent study conducted by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health offered an insight into the composition of the flavoured liquids – and let’s just say that electronic-cigarette users won’t be happy about the findings.

The study, which was published in the online journal Environment Health Perspectives, analysed a sample of 51 electronic-cigarette liquids for the presence of three flavouring chemicals – diacetyl, 2,3-pentanedione, and acetoin – all of which are known to have adverse effects on users’ lungs. Researchers attached each electronic cigarette to a lab-built and sealed device that drew air through the e-cig for eight seconds, with a break of between 15 and 30 seconds between each draw. Researchers then analysed the air stream for the aforementioned three flavouring chemicals.

The findings showed that 47 of 51 liquids tested (92 percent) contained at least one of the three chemicals. Specifically, 39 of 51 (76 percent) contained an above-laboratory-limit amount of diacetyl, a chemical known to cause bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as popcorn lung, and other respiratory diseases in users. Popcorn lung, which is named after workers who developed the disease after working in popcorn factories and inhaling diacetyl, causes inflammation and scarring of the air sacs of the lungs. It can ultimately result in the need for a lung transplant.

What’s notable is that the researchers’ findings on diacetyl occurred in flavours such as cotton candy, cupcake, and fruit squirts – in other words, flavours that would likely appeal to younger people. That’s concerning, given that there are no regulations covering the industry. As Taylor Hays, director of Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Centre, told USA Today: “There are no FDA regulations on these products. It’s the Wild West of e-cigarettes.”

It should be noted that researchers from Harvard can’t conclusively link the chemicals found in the vapour tested with popcorn lung or any number of other diseases in electronic-cigarette users. However, the correlation is certainly worrisome and worthy of additional follow-up.

If the study from Harvard demonstrates anything, it’s that the FDA has an ever-growing reason to get involved in the regulation of the electronic-cigarette industry. The FDA has been weighing whether or not to classify electronic cigarettes as a tobacco product for some time now. Doing so would allow it to regulate the industry, including the chemical composition of the vaping liquid produced.

This isn’t to say that liquid vaping producers would need to change anything so much as they would need to disclose any known harmful chemicals on their packaging.

Additionally, the FDA would work hard to ensure that there’s consistency in the chemical composition of the liquids produced from one batch to the next.

However, if the FDA gets involved you can almost count on slower growth for the industry.

Each new flavour would need to go through extensive testing to be approved for retail sale. Further, increased levels of transparency and the use of potentially harmful components in vaping liquid and/or the vaping process could harm sales. — Reuters.

The fixer who helped expose a ‘clean’ BAT

Dec 21st, 2015
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http://sbeta.iol.co.za/business/international/the-fixer-who-helped-expose-a-clean-bat-1962408

London – The British American Tobacco (BAT) e-mail was for internal consumption only and never meant for outside eyes.

Paul Hopkins is “not your normal run-of-the-mill employee,” a senior company manager wrote, “but then he doesn’t do run-of-the-mill jobs for BAT.”

Run of the mill for Paul Hopkins during his 13-year tenure at BAT involved being shot at, saving the lives of board directors, providing security to VIPs and evacuating employees from war-torn countries.

It also involved fixing “various delicate issues” related to BAT and the tobacco industry. These ranged from unusual “reputational” issues, including retrieving container-loads of cigarettes sold to Iraq in breach of UN sanctions – and obscuring the fact that a BAT finance director, who died in a Nairobi hotel room, had passed away after a drug-fuelled orgy with two prostitutes.

Hopkins took such things in his stride. As a veteran of the Irish Army, including nine in its special forces unit, the Army Ranger Wing, he saw service with UN peacekeepers in Lebanon and Somalia.

What his military career had not prepared him for was the bribery and corruption in the corporate world. When he questioned BAT’s order to “facilitate” payments to law enforcement agents and government officials, he was told it was the “cost of doing business in Africa”.

Fruits of corruption

Such was BAT’s appetite for the fruits of corruption, he became good at it. Documents seen by The Independent show he facilitated payments on BAT’s account to cripple anti-smoking laws in several East African countries, “incentivised” law enforcement to arrest tobacco smugglers, as well as running a sophisticated corporate spying operation involving “black ops” to put rival cigarette-makers out of business.

At BAT’s behest, he cultivated a network of informants in the police and government throughout East and Central Africa, where he headed the AIT (anti-illicit trade) team. Their job was to take out smugglers who were undercutting BAT brands such as Pall Mall, Dunhill and Lucky Strike and 555.

He helped secure the arrest of Rwanda’s richest businessman Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa in London. Ayabatwa, who heads the cigarette-maker Mastermind, one of Africa’s biggest manufacturers and a major BAT rival, was wanted by the South African tax authorities as well as Interpol. BAT told its teams to close down his operations.

Through his network Hopkins learnt Ayabatwa, wanted for fraud and tax evasion in South Africa, was about to board a UK-bound flight. After a tip-off to Scotland Yard Ayabatwa was arrested. He was later released after agreeing to pay a $7.1 million (R107m) fine.

Deal with problem

As Hopkins’s skills became more widely appreciated he was asked to do more than just combat smuggling. When a senior British-born BAT finance director was found dead in one of Nairobi’s finest hotels after a company conference, Hopkins was asked to deal with the potential “reputational” problems. These surrounded the fact the executive who was married with two children, had returned to his hotel with drugs and two prostitutes after an evening of clubbing. He ensured the Kenyan police did not charge the sex workers as well as arranging that the autopsy report made no mention of the drugs found in the dead executive’s body.

However, a BAT spokesperson said: “All companies in the BAT group are required to operate in line with the group’s standards of business conduct and are obliged to ensure that all 57 000 employees around the world understand them and abide by them. Whenever we learn that there is the possibility there may have been a lapse in these standards, our policy is to take all appropriate action. This includes, where relevant, co-operating fully with the authorities. We do not tolerate corruption in our business anywhere in the world.”

The company’s appetite for such methods did not lessen even after the UK’s Bribery Act came into force in 2011. BAT updated its guidelines of the Act’s tough new provisions and sent a summary to employees to sign and return confirming they were aware of the new standards and legal obligations.

Nevertheless, senior managers continued to order him to facilitate payments to achieve BAT’s ends.

In recorded conversations with his director Gary Fagan, Hopkins openly reports back on these payments to senior Kenyan Revenue Authority (KRA) officials in return for confidential tax details belonging to a rival cigarette-making firm.

Hopkins would then send the information to Fagan from a bogus email via Fagan’s wife’s email. Fagan, who was BAT’s East and Central Africa’s area director, continues to work for BAT in Africa.

In telephone conversations and emails, Naushad Ramoly, BAT’s regional legal counsel who authorised the payments, never questions Hopkins when he talks about “paying off” people and even takes an active part in one meeting to discuss obtaining a confidential KRA contract. It was when BAT used Hopkins’s carefully built network to enable another department to make bribes that a row resulted and he left the company.

Hopkins was ordered to let the Corporate and Regulatory Affairs (Cora) department use his covert system to make £30 000 payments to “consultants” in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Comoros Islands. The payments were made, but his contractors were alarmed to discover they were directly paying “sitting government ministers or employees in their respective countries”.

“I feel it is crucial that you are aware of the fact that, contrary to Cora’s stating they are purely consultants, they are not,” one warned Hopkins in writing.

In fact they were illegal payments to two members and one former member of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a UN initiative aimed at reducing the toll of tobacco-related deaths. BAT paid the insiders to subvert the FCTC proposals before they became law in those countries.

However, when Hopkins raised his concerns internally BAT’s management became silent. He escalated his concerns to London who sent a “whistleblowing” team down to interview him. Despite promises of confidentiality, news of what he had done quickly spread.

The Cora official, who made the payments authorised by her manager, left the company but shortly afterwards Hopkins, after 13 years of service, found himself the subject of a campaign of “harassment”.

His expenses were slow to be paid, his electricity at home cut off after BAT overlooked paying the bill and crucially his work permit was mysteriously delayed and his immigration file vanished.

Colleagues who supported him also suffered. One discovered a promotion he had previously been congratulated on suddenly evaporated. The colleague was later suddenly let go.

Hopkins himself was told he was also under threat of redundancy despite routinely exceeding all his targets. He was placed on gardening leave as rumours circulated he had been sacked.

When Hopkins tried suing BAT for unfair dismissal a London tribunal ruled his contracts, said to be governed by the laws of England and Wales, did not permit him to sue in the UK.

Details of BAT’s bribery first emerged during those hearings. Now Serious Fraud Office officials are examining the allegations it seems likely the secrecy BAT sought to cloak its African operations in may yet be lifted in court. for the region – The Independent

Tobacco case ‘should encourage plain packaging here’

Dec 21st, 2015
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http://www.voxy.co.nz/politics/tobacco-case-should-encourage-plain-packaging-here/5/240578

The MÄ ori Party is delighted that tobacco giant Philip Morris has lost one of its legal bids in Singapore to overturn Australian’s plain packaging laws. Philip Morris has initiated at least three international challenges against Australia which was the first country in the world to introduce plain packaging.

MÄ ori Party Co-leader Marama Fox says the legal action brought by international tobacco companies has dissuaded the New Zealand Government from passing similar legislation here.

“Dame Tariana Turia introduced a plain packaging Bill into Parliament more than two years ago and we are still sitting on our hands.

“I’m encouraged to hear the Trade Minister Todd McClay say he believes New Zealand is well positioned to defend a legal challenge if we were to pass plain packaging legislation here.”

Mrs Fox says the MÄ ori Party is hopeful that the Bill will be passed by Parliament next year.

MÄ ori Party Co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell says the Australian example has shown how stripping the branding off cigarettes packets has reduced smoking rates.

“The number of new smokers has dropped dramatically and if we want to prevent rangatahi from picking up smoking this appears to be an effective strategy,” he says.

According to the Ministry of Health, around 5000 individuals die each year from smoking or second-hand exposure.

MÄ ori Party Co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell says New Zealand has an international reputation for its smokefree reforms.

“The Government, with the support of the MÄ ori Party, has committed to a Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025.

“If we’re going to reach this target we need to show some courage. We should be doing everything we can to eliminate the harmful effects of smoking on our whÄ nau.”

Tasmanian plans to lift legal smoking age to 21 or 25 could be world first

Dec 21st, 2015
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-21/state-plan-to-lift-tasmanias-legal-smoking-age-above-18/7044622

Civil Liberties Australia (CLA) says a plan by the Tasmanian Government to lift the legal smoking age as high as 25 could leave the state with the strictest tobacco laws in the world.

The Tasmanian Government revealed an ambitious plan that could result in Tasmania becoming the only state in Australia to raise the legal age for smoking above 18.

It is part of a five-year preventative health plan to try and make Tasmania Australia’s healthiest state by 2025.

The strategy has a specific focus on reducing Tasmania’s high obesity levels and smoking rates.

About 20 per cent of Tasmanians smoke, the second highest rate in Australia, and Health Minister Michael Ferguson said the Government wanted to stop young people lighting up.

“We are proposing that we lift the legal smoking age potentially above 18, to potentially 21 or potentially 25,” he said.

“[In Tasmania] we have unacceptably high rates of smoking, we know that every cigarette is doing you damage and, despite our best efforts through public health over a number of years, we’re still nowhere near we’re we need to be.

“We have over 20 per cent of Tasmanians regular smokers, we have very high rates of youth smoking and one-third of young teenage mothers smoking during pregnancy.

“We’ve got to own up to this and be willing to have a genuine community debate.”

Around Australia, people under 18 cannot buy, smoke or possess cigarettes and health professionals agreed raising the legal age, especially in Tasmania, was a step in the right direction.

CLA Chief executive Bill Rowlings said it was a surprising move to look at tobacco laws without considering other health factors.

“If you’re going to look at what age people are entitled to do things, you’ve got to look at driving and at drinking alcohol and other measures,” he said.

“If this is a health-based initiative, the big issue at the moment is domestic violence, and domestic violence is far more driven by alcohol-related problems then it is by tobacco.

“I think we should have a very broad-ranging debate on what the proper ages are for various activities.”

PLAN IS UNWORKABLE, SAYS BUSINESS SECTOR

The Tasmanian Small Business Council describes the plan as unworkable.

Executive director Robert Mallett said educational programs were preferable to a framework that puts the burden on retailers.

“The likelihood that a 22-year-old or a 25-year-old will intimidate a young 18-year-old standing at the counter of a country grocery store is high,” he said.

“What would that person do? You’d supply the product, wouldn’t you, rather than be intimidated by a much older person when you’re saying, ‘Can I have a look at your ID?'”

Mr Mallett was concerned such a proposal would be a burden to business.

“Tobacco products are a legal thing to sell and for lots of small businesses, especially in rural and remote areas, it’s a significant part of their daily income,” he said.

“It’s a major part of their convenience offering… it’s going to have a significant effect on their viability.

“The last thing we’re going to do is stop our regional areas from having any sort of good-quality businesses just for some idiot sort of policy like this.”

MORE YOUNG TASMANIANS TAKING UP SMOKING

Penny Egan from the Cancer Council said the percentage of young people smoking in Tasmania was much higher than other states.

“In the cohort of young people between 18 and 24, we know that about 32 per cent of those people are smoking,” she said.

“That’s double what that same cohort is doing in other states and territories.

“We need to get rid of that addiction [and] putting up the age may be one of the answers.”

An idea backed by the Australian Medical Association’s Tasmanian branch secretary Tim Greenaway.

“The important thing to realise is 100 per cent of habitual smokers have started smoking by the age of 25,” he said.

“Two-thirds of all smokers will die from smoking-related diseases and smoking causes more deaths than drug and alcohol abuse combined, so we must target smoking.”

The State Government’s entire health plan will not be put out for public consultation until the middle of February 2016.

WE SHOULD NOT CONDONE SMOKING AT ANY AGE: DEAN

Tasmanian MLC Ivan Dean said the State Government’s idea gazumped his plan to ban smoking for everyone born from the year 2000.

His bill is currently being considered by a Parliamentary Committee.

He was not convinced the State Government’s proposal would be more effective in reducing smoking rates.

“It really doesn’t change what we’ve got now,” he said.

“We’re saying at 18 years of age smoking is OK for you, that’s the anomaly in the law and that’s what raising it from 21 or 25 will do as well.

“It indicates or supports smoking at some age.”

Mr Dean said he did not want to see his plan ignored by the State Government.

“It’s still on the table and it will be coming back before the Parliament in early 2016,” he said.

But Mr Ferguson said it would still be considered when presented to Parliament.

“I think we all applaud the intent of that bill,” he said.

“It’s subject to a parliamentary process and the Government will absolutely reserve judgement on how it will respond to that.

“But it’s well documented — I mean, there are difficulties with that proposal.”

Tobacco industry lobbying: the scandal of the century

Dec 21st, 2015
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Smoking age could be raised to 25 in Australian state Tasmania

Dec 21st, 2015
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/smoking-age-could-be-raised-to-25-in-australian-state-tasmania-a6781161.html

State has country’s second highest smoking rate

Australian state Tasmania could raise its legal smoking age to 21 – or 25.

Unveiled as part of the government’s Healthy Tasmania proposal, it is hoped the plan will reduce the state’s high smoking rate – which is only second behind the Northern Territory, despite being one of the least populated states.

The consultation draft has been put forward by the state’s health minister, Michael Ferguson. It is included in the state’s five year preventative health plan in a bid to make Tasmania the healthiest Australian state by 2025.

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2013 found 19.3 per cent of Tasmanian adults smoked daily, while the national average rate was 13.3 per cent.

If successful, the move would be a first for Australia, while several US cities have already increased the legal smoking age to 21. Needham in Massachusetts changed the age to 21 in 2005 and New York City followed in 2013. Hawaii will also up the age from January 1, 2016.

In a statement accompanying the report, Mr Furgeson said: “We have unacceptably high rates of smoking.

“International evidence supports raising minimum legal smoking age as a means of targeting the most at-risk age category for smoking uptake.

“Studies show that most smokers take up the habit before the age of 25.

Tobacco fields no place for kids

Dec 21st, 2015
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https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/12/21/tobacco-fields-no-place-kids

A 16-year-old tobacco worker in North Carolina outside the mobile home where she lives with her mother, three sisters, two brothers, and nephew in North Carolina. Since she turned 12, she has spent her school summer vacations working as a hired laborer on tobacco farms to help support her family. “With the money that I earn, I help my mom. I give her gas money. I buy food from the tobacco [work] for us to eat,” she said. “Then I try to save up the money so I can have my school supplies and school stuff like clothes and shoes.”

A 16-year-old tobacco worker in North Carolina outside the mobile home where she lives with her mother, three sisters, two brothers, and nephew in North Carolina. Since she turned 12, she has spent her school summer vacations working as a hired laborer on tobacco farms to help support her family. “With the money that I earn, I help my mom. I give her gas money. I buy food from the tobacco [work] for us to eat,” she said. “Then I try to save up the money so I can have my school supplies and school stuff like clothes and shoes.”

I first met “Elena” two years ago at a pizza parlor in eastern North Carolina. She was 13 at the time, about to finish eighth grade and begin her second summer as a hired laborer on tobacco farms.

I was in North Carolina investigating hazardous child labor on tobacco farms in the United States, where under federal labor law, it’s legal to hire 12-year-olds to work on tobacco farms.

A 16-year-old tobacco worker standing in a tobacco field in North Carolina wearing her work clothes. “I don’t feel any different in the fields than when I was 12,” she said. “I [still] get headaches and … my stomach hurts. And like I feel nauseous…. I just feel like my stomach is like rumbling around. I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

A 16-year-old tobacco worker standing in a tobacco field in North Carolina wearing her work clothes. “I don’t feel any different in the fields than when I was 12,” she said. “I [still] get headaches and … my stomach hurts. And like I feel nauseous…. I just feel like my stomach is like rumbling around. I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

I asked Elena how she felt while she worked in tobacco, and she said, “Sometimes I felt like I needed to throw up. I felt like I was going to faint. I would stop and just hold myself up with the tobacco plant.”

This past July – more than two years later – I went back to North Carolina and interviewed Elena again. She was taller and more confident. She had gotten her braces removed, and finished two years of high school. But she was still spending her summers working in the tobacco fields. “I don’t feel any different in the fields than when I was 12,” she told me. “I get headaches and my stomach hurts. And I feel nauseous. I just feel like my stomach is like rumbling around. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Sofia,” a 17-year-old tobacco worker, in a tobacco field in North Carolina. She started working at 13, and she said her mother was the only one who taught her how to protect herself in the fields: “None of my bosses or contractors or crew leaders have ever told us anything about pesticides and how we can protect ourselves from them….When I worked with my mom, she would take care of me, and she would like always make sure I was okay.…Our bosses don’t give us anything except for our checks. That’s it.”

“Sofia,” a 17-year-old tobacco worker, in a tobacco field in North Carolina. She started working at 13, and she said her mother was the only one who taught her how to protect herself in the fields: “None of my bosses or contractors or crew leaders have ever told us anything about pesticides and how we can protect ourselves from them….When I worked with my mom, she would take care of me, and she would like always make sure I was okay.…Our bosses don’t give us anything except for our checks. That’s it.”

The symptoms she described – headaches, nausea, dizziness – are consistent with acute nicotine poisoning, or “Green Tobacco Sickness,” which happens when workers absorb nicotine through the skin while handling tobacco.

The long-term effects of absorbing nicotine through the skin are uncertain, but research on smoking suggests exposure to nicotine during adolescence can be linked to mood disorders, and problems with memory, learning, impulse control, and attention later in life. Pesticide exposure has been associated with reproductive health problems, cancer, neurological problems, and other issues.

“Sara” (left) and “Susana,” 16-year-old twin sisters who worked together on tobacco farms in 2015, sit in their bedroom in the clothes they wear to try to protect themselves in tobacco fields. They described working near areas where pesticides were being applied. Susana said, “We are just working … and the worker is on the tractor spraying almost very close to us. But they don’t take us out of that area. They don’t even warn us that it is dangerous. Nothing. We are just working and we cover ourselves well because the smell is very strong, and we get sick with the smell of that spray.” Sara said, “I feel dizzy, very dizzy because the smell is unbearable. It’s very strong and my stomach begins to feel stirred. I feel as if I am going to faint right then and there from the smell.”

“Sara” (left) and “Susana,” 16-year-old twin sisters who worked together on tobacco farms in 2015, sit in their bedroom in the clothes they wear to try to protect themselves in tobacco fields. They described working near areas where pesticides were being applied. Susana said, “We are just working … and the worker is on the tractor spraying almost very close to us. But they don’t take us out of that area. They don’t even warn us that it is dangerous. Nothing. We are just working and we cover ourselves well because the smell is very strong, and we get sick with the smell of that spray.” Sara said, “I feel dizzy, very dizzy because the smell is unbearable. It’s very strong and my stomach begins to feel stirred. I feel as if I am going to faint right then and there from the smell.”

Even though Elena is 16 now, she says still gets sick in the tobacco fields. And even though she looks like a young woman, she is still a child under international law.

Each year, an unknown number of children work long hours as hired workers on U.S. tobacco farms, exposed to nicotine, toxic pesticides, extreme heat, and other dangers. My colleagues and I interviewed 141 children ages 7 to 17 for a report last year documenting hazardous child labor in tobacco farming. We urged the U.S. government and the world’s largest tobacco companies to ban anyone under 18 from hazardous work in the crop.

The U.S. government and Congress haven’t changed the law or regulations to protect child tobacco workers. But last year, two of the largest U.S.-based tobacco companies banned children under 16 from working on farms in their supply chains. This was an important step forward, but they left out 16- and 17-year-olds.

“Alejandro,” a 17-year-old almost six-feet-tall, has been working in tobacco farming since he was 14. He told Human Rights Watch he often loses his appetite while working in the fields, a symptom associated with nicotine exposure: “You don’t feel like eating … Sometimes when I eat, I don’t know, my stomach don’t take it…. And then the food that I eat makes me feel sick.”

“Alejandro,” a 17-year-old almost six-feet-tall, has been working in tobacco farming since he was 14. He told Human Rights Watch he often loses his appetite while working in the fields, a symptom associated with nicotine exposure: “You don’t feel like eating … Sometimes when I eat, I don’t know, my stomach don’t take it…. And then the food that I eat makes me feel sick.”

Other companies that buy tobacco from the United States ban children under 18 from the most dangerous tasks in tobacco farming, but some have loopholes that allow 16- and 17-year-olds to do hazardous work in certain circumstances. None of the companies have policies sufficient to protect all children from danger on tobacco farms.

We went back to North Carolina during the tobacco season this year to find out what was happening to the teenagers excluded from protection. Almost all of the teenagers we interviewed for a new report described the same symptoms Elena did: nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness. Many also described being exposed to pesticides while they worked, and said they felt immediately ill after working near spraying.

An 18-year-old tobacco worker who started working in tobacco farming when he was 15. “We leave here at 5 a.m. and get there at 6 a.m. We get back at 6 or 7 p.m.,” he said. “I usually don’t eat until 10 or 11 [a.m.], and the smell [of the tobacco] and an empty stomach, you can’t hold it in. You vomit. It happened to me a couple days ago.”

An 18-year-old tobacco worker who started working in tobacco farming when he was 15. “We leave here at 5 a.m. and get there at 6 a.m. We get back at 6 or 7 p.m.,” he said. “I usually don’t eat until 10 or 11 [a.m.], and the smell [of the tobacco] and an empty stomach, you can’t hold it in. You vomit. It happened to me a couple days ago.”

Sixteen-year-olds are not the same as adults. Most of us probably intuitively know it’s true, remembering what we were like at 16. But research on the teen brain has shown that the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain used for problem-solving and controlling impulses, continues developing throughout the teenage years and into the early 20s. The prefrontal cortex is particularly susceptible to the effects of stimulants like nicotine.

Most of the children I interviewed had no idea that the work they were doing could have long-term consequences for their health. No one had ever trained them on the hazards of tobacco farming and how to protect themselves.

Dr. Sara Quandt and Dr. Thomas Arcury are faculty at Wake Forest School of Medicine. “Children are not small adults,” Dr. Quandt said. Dr. Arcury added, “If we think about children as children, because that’s what they are, we’re putting them to work in the nation’s most hazardous industry: agriculture. We’re putting people who are not only biologically immature, but behaviorally immature and asking them to work with adults. We’re putting them into a situation in which they are exposed to pesticides, they’re exposed to machinery and sharp tools, they’re exposed to the heat.”

Dr. Sara Quandt and Dr. Thomas Arcury are faculty at Wake Forest School of Medicine. “Children are not small adults,” Dr. Quandt said. Dr. Arcury added, “If we think about children as children, because that’s what they are, we’re putting them to work in the nation’s most hazardous industry: agriculture. We’re putting people who are not only biologically immature, but behaviorally immature and asking them to work with adults. We’re putting them into a situation in which they are exposed to pesticides, they’re exposed to machinery and sharp tools, they’re exposed to the heat.”

Even with better training, research suggests that the most mature 16- and 17-year-old children may not be well-equipped to navigate dangerous situations – like pesticides being sprayed in the field next to them — when adults are in charge. Studies have shown teens feel less vulnerable to harm and do not always take the same safety precautions as adults, even when they have received the same training.

Despite the evidence, some companies appear to believe that 16-year-olds should be allowed to work in tobacco fields. Teenagers should have access to safe jobs where they can develop work ethic and skills and add to their family’s income. But not on tobacco farms, where they’ll be exposed to toxins that could have lasting consequences on their health.

Tobacco farms are no place for children. Even though 16- and 17-year-olds may look fully grown, they are not adults. And they deserve protection.

Dr. David Tayloe, Jr., a pediatrician in North Carolina, told Human Rights Watch that, “Green Tobacco Sickness is all about exposure of the skin to green tobacco…. And so the nicotine that’s on the plant, in the plant, gets secreted out the pores of the plant, can be absorbed by the skin of a human being. And the nicotine can make you sick.”

Dr. David Tayloe, Jr., a pediatrician in North Carolina, told Human Rights Watch that, “Green Tobacco Sickness is all about exposure of the skin to green tobacco…. And so the nicotine that’s on the plant, in the plant, gets secreted out the pores of the plant, can be absorbed by the skin of a human being. And the nicotine can make you sick.”