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July 19th, 2016:

Tobacco campaigner pushing for plain packaging

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/390862/tobacco-campaigner-pushing-plain-packaging

A world-renowned anti-tobacco campaigner has arrived in New Zealand to push the Government on introducing plain tobacco packaging.

While plain packaging for tobacco is likely to be in place early next year, the Government is consulting on the move, including design for packs.

Ahead of the cut-off for consultation at the end of this month, Kylie Lindorff, chair of Cancer Council Australia’s tobacco issues committee, this week flew in to help drum up support for the measure, which she wanted introduced as soon as possible.

Since standardised packaging was enforced in Australia in 2012, there had been an increase in people wanting to quit smoking, along with an ongoing reduction in smoking up-take.

A post-implementation review of standardised packaging in Australia concluded the tobacco standardised packaging measure had begun to achieve its public health objectives of reducing smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke, and was expected to continue to do so into the future.

“Research conducted after the implementation of standardised packaging in Australia has shown the tobacco industry is still finding way to advertise to consumers,” said Ms Lindorff, who will be giving a seminar on packaging in Auckland tomorrow .

“For instance, brand and variant names of tobacco products flourished after standardised packaging was adopted in an attempt to remind smoker of the supposed brand differences their old decorated packs conveyed. New Zealand should learn from this and restrict brand and variant names.”

Cancer Society Auckland’s chief executive, John Loof, said he hoped the Government would learn what had happened in Australia.

“Standardised packaging has proven to be effective and legally viable in Australia,” he said.

“The longer we wait, the further removed we are from achieving the Government’s goal of a Smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025.”

Tobacco use remained the leading cause of preventable death in New Zealand, with 4500 to 5000 deaths every year.

While plain packaging moves had been challenged via the World Trade Organisation, the Government has expressed confidence in being able to progress with the measures, which have already been introduced in several other countries.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), signed in February, also allows tobacco-control measures, so New Zealand could advance anti-smoking policies without risking a legal challenge.

In a separate move, hefty excise increases announced in this year’s Budget would push up the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes from about $20 now to around $30 in 2020.

New Zealand ready to move on standardised tobacco packaging

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE1607/S00059/new-zealand-ready-to-move-on-standardised-tobacco-packaging.htm

The New Zealand government’s consultation on the draft standardised tobacco product packaging will close at the end of July. Chair of Cancer Council Australia’s Tobacco Issues Committee and renowned global authority on standardised tobacco packaging, Kylie Lindorff is visiting New Zealand to encourage the Government to implement the measure as soon as possible.

Standardised packaging was enforced in Australia in 2012 – the impact of which has seen an increase in people wanting to quit smoking and an ongoing reduction in smoking up-take. A post-implementation review of standardised packaging in Australia concluded the tobacco standardised packaging measure had begun to achieve its public health objectives of reducing smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke and it is expected to continue to do so into the future.

Lindorff is supporting New Zealand to follow Australia’s lead and tighten the regulations they have adopted. “Research conducted after the implementation of standardised packaging in Australia has shown the tobacco industry is still finding way to advertise to consumers – for instance, brand and variant names of tobacco products flourished after standardised packaging was adopted in an attempt to remind smoker of the supposed brand differences their old decorated packs conveyed. New Zealand should learn from this and restrict brand and variant names,” commented Lindorff.

Cancer Society Auckland Chief Executive, John Loof, trusts the Government will learn from what has happened in Australia and not delay this measure any longer.

“Standardised packaging has proven to be effective and legally viable in Australia. The longer we wait, the further removed we are from achieving the Government’s goal of a Smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025,” he said. “Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in New Zealand, with 4500 to 5000 deaths every year”.

Lindorff will be in Auckland on Wednesday 20 July 2016 to give a seminar on standardised tobacco packaging hosted by Cancer Society Auckland and Hāpai te Hauora.

EU: Tobacco giant PMI won’t start smuggling after deal ends

https://euobserver.com/economic/134403

It almost looked like the anti-smuggling agreement between the European Union and tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) would expire without any public acknowledgement.

After 12 years of cooperation, the increasingly controversial agreement expired on 9 July without any press release or public announcement.

On Monday (18 July), the EU commissioner responsible for the file, Kristalina Georgieva spoke to EUobserver to explain her decision not to renew it.

In her office in the commission’s Berlaymont building in Brussels, decorated with purple furniture, Georgieva said that it was the right decision in 2004 to sign the agreement, and it was the right decision in 2016 to let it expire.

“When we signed the agreement there was a lot of support for it in the European Parliament, among the public, and rightly so. Because it was a legal victory for the EU at the time when there was nothing else to fight illegal smuggling with. But today this is no longer the case,” she said.

The EU-PMI deal was agreed as part of an out-of-court settlement after PMI was accused of smuggling its own goods to avoid paying taxes.

More than a year ago, Georgieva promised MEPs an assessment report into the cost and benefits of the agreement, which made the EU, its member states and PMI partners in the fight against illegal tobacco smuggling.

It included reporting obligations for PMI, and payments into EU and member state coffers of around €1 billion during the 12-year period.

No Eureka moment

In February, the commission published the long-awaited assessment report that contained few strong arguments for renewing.

In March, the EU parliament adopted a text in which it urged Georgieva, one of the commission’s vice-presidents, not to renew the agreement.

“I wouldn’t say that was a moment when the light bulb came,” she said, adding that the picture became gradually more clear when laying out the pros and cons of continuing with the agreement, and talking to “numerous people”.

One argument in favour was that the new legal tools that are supposed to bring tobacco companies in check will not come into force until a few years.

“What determined that it is best to let it expire, was when we took a very careful look into what it has delivered so far and what is the risk of the regulatory gap,” said Georgieva.

She said she believed the risk of PMI smuggling its own cigarettes to avoid taxes “is very minimal, if not none”.

“Why? Because Philip Morris says so, they have committed very publicly that with or without the agreement they will continue the same practices,” she said.

She said the tobacco sector is also something of an oligopoly, with only four major companies selling most cigarettes in Europe, and the other three companies have similar agreements that run until 2022 and 2030.

Georgieva called it “the peer pressure factor”.

“In that peer group, in this particular sector, it is unlikely that the company would behave worse than its peers,” she said.

Track-and-trace
But the “most important” element of the agreement was that it convinced tobacco companies to introduce some kind of track-and-trace system. That way, if a smuggled product is found, its origins can be traced back to the factory.

Track-and-trace is part of the new tobacco products directive, and also part of an international treaty backed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The directive went into force in 2014, although the commission is still due to present detailed track-and-trace rules, which are expected next year.

The WHO’s Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products will enter into force once 40 countries have ratified it – so far 18 have done so.

“We are very much on the view that 2022 is realistically the target year for the protocol to be into force,” said Georgieva.

The EU is a signatory and ratified the text last month. Because the EU is not a country, its ratification does not count as one of the 40. But were all EU member states to ratify, the treaty would enter into force globally.

Belarus
However, Georgieva said she wanted to focus her efforts on convincing countries where tobacco smuggling is “most pervasive”.

“I’m thinking of Belarus,” the Bulgarian politician said.

“Cigarettes are being bought legally in Belarus and they are smuggled into the European Union. In Belarus they are much much cheaper,” she said, although she was quick to add that in the eastern European country there was “a very strong commitment to fight illegal trade”.

Once the WHO protocol comes into force, it may spell trouble for the three remaining tobacco agreements.

The WHO has said that the deals are in conflict with the treaty to which the protocol is a supplement, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

But Georgieva said the commission’s legal service had a different interpretation, and that both the existing agreements, as well as a renewed PMI deal, would have been legally possible.

“This being said, we did take also this into account – that there is difference in interpretation – and that although we feel we are on sound legal ground, given that what matters is not just the legality of it, but what matters is our collective sense of justice and doing the right thing, and so we did not prolong,” she added.

Successful
Although the agreement has gained several vocal opponents in the last two years, Georgieva said she wanted to stress that the PMI agreement has been “successful”.

“We cannot establish a direct causal consequence between: here is the agreement and here is the shrinking [of PMI goods being smuggled], but the fact is that 85 percent less tobacco products are smuggled,” she said.

“One of the things we need to learn as a human race is that when something is done, to call it quits. To say: great, we have achieved what we have been able to achieve, there is no need to continue.”

Testing on Animals Is Shameful, Says Tobacco Industry Editor

http://www.peta.org/blog/testing-animals-shameful-says-tobacco-industry-insider/

Countless animals will suffer and die now that newer tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes, will be required to have Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in order to enter or remain on the market—and one tobacco industry expert isn’t pleased one bit.

In a scathing op-ed, George Gay, an editor for industry publication Tobacco Reporter, writes of the inherent deficiencies of experimenting on animals:

Have you ever tried to get a puppy to sit down with a cup of coffee and vape? No, the puppy will be tested under hugely stressful circumstances that, in respect of inhalation studies, will see her constrained, with a mask covering her mouth and nose through which vapor will be delivered, probably in ludicrous quantities and for periods that, in the case of a cancer study, might last her whole life.

Gay writes that it is “shameful” to test on animals in order to demonstrate the health risks of tobacco to humans and that those who find it acceptable “have a ridiculously inflated view of their own importance.”

Why should countless nonhuman animals be subjected to barbaric experiments so that we can snuggle under a totally threadbare security blanket as we take up what, with all due respect, is a fairly dumb habit.

This dumb habit is also not one that other animals take up freely. In laboratories, experimenters force rats into tiny canisters so that cigarette smoke can be pumped directly into their noses for hours on end. When the experiment is over, the animals are killed and dissected.

Rats squeezed into inhalation tubes

Rats squeezed into inhalation tubes

“[M]umbo-jumbo,” Gay asserts. Different animals have different reactions to toxins, and, as the rat experiment shows, animals in laboratories aren’t exposed to cigarette smoke in the same manner or time frame as human smokers are. “These experiments are ancient vestiges of a primitive body scientific and should be cut off.”

But what’s the alternative? Paraphrasing PETA’s own Joseph Manuppello, Gay points to the recent successes of cutting-edge technology:

[S]tudies that use in vitro methods have the ability to assess potential modified-risk tobacco products more quickly and to provide more specific, actionable and human-relevant data than do animal studies. In vitro models could also better reflect genetic and environmental differences within the human population.

In addition to in vitro technology, manufacturers can also effectively use human-based research methods and the existing body of knowledge from human epidemiological and clinical studies to ascertain health concerns associated with tobacco. These non-animal methods are humane, more relevant to humans, and usually take less time and money to complete.

What You Can Do

Testing tobacco products on animals has already been banned in Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom. Write to the FDA to request that it follow the lead of agencies in these progressive countries by banning tobacco tests on animals:

Center for Tobacco Products
Food and Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Ave.
Document Control Center
Bldg. 71, Rm. G335
Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
AskCTP@fda.hhs.gov