MANILA, Philippines – A tobacco exporting firm has come to the succor of tobacco farmers in La Union and Pangasinan by donating cement for the rehabilitation of an irrigation system that was heavily damaged by typhoon Pepeng.

The Universal Leaf Philippines Inc. (ULPI) through its president Winston Uy recently turned over 300 bags of cement to Rosario, La Union Mayor Bellermin Flores. The cement will be used to reconstruct eroded intake canal sections of an irrigation system serving a wide expanse of tobacco farming areas in neighboring Rosario and Sison (Pangasinan) towns.

It was learned that 800 tobacco farmers belonging to several irrigation associations are relying on the water coming out of the damaged irrigation system for the sustenance of their crop.

ULPI’s donation is part of an overall effort of the various sectors of the tobacco industry including the National Tobacco Administration which had separately conducted relief operation drives in the provinces and Metro Manila for victims of devastation inflicted by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng.

Uy said that with the irrigation system rehabilitated, the leaf farmers are guaranteed of having enough water supply for their crop in the forthcoming tobacco planting season.

ULPI is one of the country’s leading exporters of leaf tobacco and supplier of a big cigarette manufacturing company.

By Teddy Molina, November 16, 2009
Philstar

As Roger Federer sets out to win his fourth consecutive Swiss Indoors title in Basel, a debate has reignited over tobacco sponsorship in sport.

The tournament, which has been sponsored by Swiss luxury brand Davidoff since 1994 and starts on Monday, is one of the last in the world to be sponsored by a tobacco company – and health campaigners aren’t happy.

“First of all, linking sport and tobacco is utterly perverse,” Jürg Hurter, president of Pro Aere, Switzerland’s largest organisation against passive smoking, told swissinfo.ch.

“Second, the tobacco industry – who aren’t idiots – try to get around tobacco promotion laws by sponsoring sporting events or by branding various products.”

Pascal Diethelm, director of the anti-smoking group OxyRomandie, said last year “players drowned in an advertising soup for Davidoff”.

“At the end of the match the young ball boys and ball girls received a medal from Roger Federer in recognition of having served the cause of Davidoff so well. Each medal bore the Davidoff logo in order to make sure that these potential smokers would know which cigarette brand to choose,” he said.

Davidoff’s cigar and cigarette brand is owned by Britain’s Imperial Tobacco, the world’s fourth-largest tobacco company.
Lasting relationship

“This discussion is like the Loch Ness monster – it comes back every year!” Jürg Vogel, a member of the Swiss Indoors organising committee, told swissinfo.ch.

“Davidoff sells not only tobacco but also perfumes and other accessories. I think you have to see the whole picture. We’re very happy to have this sponsorship – it’s one of the longest in the ATP [Association of Tennis Professionals] tour and I think it’s good for the tournament as well as for the sponsor. We hope the relationship will continue.”

Vogel denied reports that Eurosport, a satellite and cable network, had dropped the Swiss Indoors because of its connection with Davidoff.

“The Davidoff Swiss Indoors has been promoted to the new World Tour 500 Series and as a result had to give the television rights for overseas broadcasting to the ATP. That was the only reason we left Eurosport.”
Tobacco black list?

The situation has come about because while tobacco advertising has been banned in the European Union since August 2005, non-EU Switzerland leaves the decision to the country’s 26 cantons. Only one, Solothurn, has banned both tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

Nevertheless it appears unlikely that Switzerland is going to become a tobacco sponsorship paradise – a sanctuary for cigarette firms – and end up on a “tobacco black list”.

“I don’t see such a big danger, because every event has to look at its image and the image for the other partners – usually there’s more than one sponsor,” Heinz Rütter, a socio-economist, told swissinfo.ch.

In Basel, title sponsor Davidoff is joined by three main sponsors and nine national sponsors.

“Also, usually the authorities are somehow involved in events – either they provide security or a stadium or they make a financial contribution – and if that’s the case, they will also want to be part of the decision-making process,” he said.

“They might do this for the image of the region but also to motivate people to do sport. Governments all around the world support sport – one reason is integration, but health is also very important.”
« Governments all around the world support sport – one reason is integration, but health is also very important. »

But is smoking being picked on unfairly? After all, McDonald’s spends millions on sporting events, and alcohol and CO2-spouting cars appear everywhere. Indeed, on October 29 it was announced that Federer himself was joining up with Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli…

“It’s a very good question. Many products have negative aspects. Maybe it’s a question of measure,” Rütter said.

“With smoking, the economic impact on health is so big [SFr10 billion ($9.8 billion) a year, according to the Federal Health Office]. Society has made a big point of that – in Switzerland they’ve [voted to ban] smoking in restaurants.”

He added: “We’re going in that direction with other products: we have carbon dioxide restrictions on cars, but the connection is not so great that we try to ban them.”
Role models

So how has local lad Federer, who was once a ball boy at the Swiss Indoors, ended up in the anti-smoking crosshairs?

Two years ago OxyRomandie sent an open letter to the world number one – signed by more than 500 international health experts – calling on him to either pull out of the tournament or ask that the organisers to cut all ties with Davidoff and the tobacco industry. He declined to respond.

So should top players such as Federer – who incidentally also supports Cool and Clean, a government-backed programme to keep tobacco, alcohol and cannabis out of sport – boycott the tournament?

“I’d naturally be very happy if Federer said ‘I’m not going to take part in a Davidoff tournament – nor in any other sponsored by a deadly industry’,” said Hurter at Pro Aere.

“I can’t second-guess the thoughts of Federer, who’s a nice chap. I’m simply not happy that a deadly product is allowed to sponsor a sporting event – and is even in the title.”

Thomas Stephens, swissinfo.ch

Roll-ups are making a comeback, as recession-hit smokers switch from expensive cigarettes to cheaper hand-rolled tobacco.

Customs officials cleared 159,605kg of rolling tobacco for distribution in the first nine months of this year, a 38% increase on 2008. They attributed the surge to a rise in the use of roll-your-own tobacco by smokers striving to cut costs.

A survey published last week found that Irish people are smoking more than ever, with one third of the population still lighting up, the highest rate in 11 years.

Despite hikes in tobacco tax, the ban on smoking in the workplace and a law against shops displaying cigarettes for sale, the number of smokers has risen since 2007, when 29% of the population smoked, the EU’s Help campaign found.

A 25g pack of rolling tobacco costs €8.74 but, according to Vincent Jennings, chief executive of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association, a thrifty smoker could roll as many as 150 cigarettes from it. Twenty cigarettes cost €8.45, though a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice last week found that Ireland’s policy of setting a minimum price for tobacco products distorts competition.

“I always smoked Marlboro Lights and it’s only in the last year that I switched to rollies because I couldn’t keep paying out €8.45 a pop,” said John Murphy, 33, who works in sales and advertising. “I used to spend €100 a week on cigarettes and now I spend €16.

“Ireland’s culture of overcharging is a disgrace and if they continue to rip us off I’m going to buy it on the streets.”

Customs seized 3,144kg of roll-your-own tobacco in the first nine months, double the amount in all of 2007. Illicit tobacco products now account for 30% of consumption, the highest figure in the EU.

Convenience stores say they are losing about €80m a year and are not benefiting from higher rolling-tobacco sales as much as they should be, Jennings says. “One member found that when a local gang got in on the act, his tobacco sales went down to 25% of what they had been,” he said.

Imperial Tobacco, maker of Golden Virginia, is enjoying a 15% increase in sales of the brand leader and has introduced discount brands such as Gold Leaf. Deirdre Healy of John Player & Sons, Imperial’s Irish business, said: “Unlike cigarettes, which are a standard size, roll-your-own gives greater flexibility to control spending by rolling a cigarette as small or as large as you like.

“Rolling tobacco has always been lower in Ireland than in the UK, accounting for about 2% of the market. But because of the times, we have increased our orders month-on-month.”

A recent analysis of smoking in the UK discovered a cultural shift in the use of tobacco, with more than one in four adult smokers using pouch tobacco.

One in five white-collar professionals who smoke now use roll-ups, as do one in five female smokers compared with one in 50 in 1990, suggesting that the roll-up, favoured by actors such as Jeremy Irons and Kate Winslet, is now hip.

“Rolling tobacco has become fashionable in certain quarters,” Jennings said. “I think, though, that for most smokers, it’s an inconvenience and they only go for it because of the value for money.”

Sunday Times
October 25, 2009

Whether it be TCU, Fort Worth or the state of Texas, I generally enjoy living in a clearly conservative atmosphere. The drawback, however, is that the most conservative individuals often fail to keep up with the times.

I was very disappointed to see a prominent Texas politician, Representative Lamar Smith, speak out against the U.S. Department of Justice’s directive to federal prosecutors regarding medicinal marijuana use in a Tuesday New York Times article. Smith, the senior U.S. House of Representatives House Judiciary Committee member, criticized a Justice Department document recommending that prosecutors – only in states whose laws permit medical marijuana distribution and consumption – not waste their time on dispensaries or individuals who appear to be complying with the state laws that apply to them, whom sometimes prosecutors still go after anyway.

It’s about time we re-evaluate federal tactics in the “war on drugs,” because our government is losing to the unprecedented sophistication and relentless desire of Mexican and South American drug cartels. A zero-tolerance policy on drugs such as cocaine, which the medical and scientific communities conclusively agree to be extremely dangerous and detrimental to an individual’s health, is certainly worth spending tax dollars to enforce. On the contrary, there is much debate as to the medical value of marijuana, as well as the relative mildness of adverse health impacts to casual users, compared to smoking tobacco.

I find the issues of medical and casual marijuana use similar to the issue of underage drinking among college-age students. When outdated laws prevent people from doing something completely reasonable, as well as safe enough for an adult to decide whether or not to do, those laws need to change.

Every state has separate alcohol laws because of differing moral values regarding alcohol consumption. Marijuana is very similar to alcohol in this sense, yet even more stigmatized and taboo. Therefore, as states decide to decriminalize and completely legalize marijuana if they choose, the federal government shouldn’t make negative light of those differing state laws.

Regardless of the unique laws each state decides to make about marijuana use, it should certainly carry a special tax similar to alcohol and tobacco. This would not only discourage abuse of marijuana, but would also produce a significant amount of government revenue, which could be used to enforce and prosecute arrests made with more dangerous drugs.

While our government needs to continue to re-evaluate the laws in effect, the Justice Department’s newest directive is an understandably cautious, yet appropriately progressive, step in the right direction in Federal drug policy.

By John Andrew Willis, 10/27/09

A Swiss antismoking campaign group is concerned that weak legislation in the country is being exploited by Imperial Tobacco to sponsor a tennis tournament and promote its brand of cigarettes and other products. The company is the fourth largest tobacco company in the world.

Switzerland is a sanctuary for the tobacco industry, said Pascal Diethelm, director of the antismoking group OxyRomandie, ahead of the Davidoff Swiss indoor tournament, which starts on 31 October as part of the Association of Tennis Professionals World Tour 500. The tournament, which is one of the last tobacco sponsored tennis events in the world, is being used by the company to intensively advertise its Davidoff brand, on court hoardings and the uniforms of line judges and ball girls and boys, said Mr Diethelm.

The last time the tournament was held in Basel in 2008, the “players drowned in an advertising soup for Davidoff,” he said.

He added, “At the end of the match the young ball boys and ball girls received a medal from Roger Federer in recognition of having served the cause of Davidoff so well. Each medal bore the Davidoff logo in order to make sure that these potential future smokers will know which cigarette brand to choose when they start smoking.”

OxyRomandie is appealing to the federal tribunal, Switzerland’s supreme court, against a ruling from the Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television that Swiss television is allowed to show the tournament even though Swiss law bans tobacco advertising on television.

After pressure from a similar tobacco control group in France, the French based television sports channel Eurosport, which was the official international media partner of the tournament, has refused to broadcast it. Even so, the tournament is expected to be broadcast in 70 or 80 countries and to attract one billion people worldwide because the organisers have replaced Eurosport with the German sports channel DSF.

Unesco has also reacted after the tournament’s organisers sent a press release that announced the charity as its beneficiary of corporate donations made on the basis of the number of aces served during the round of qualifying matches on 1 November. Unesco said that it was not consulted about its participation and was not in a position to accept funds raised from an event related to the tobacco industry. It has asked to have its name withdrawn from all communications. Unesco is part of the United Nations Ad Hoc Interagency Task Force on Tobacco Control, which was established in 1999 to intensify support for tobacco control worldwide.

The World Health Organization’s framework convention on tobacco control, which came into force in February 2005, has been ratified by 166 member countries of the United Nations. Notable exceptions include Switzerland and the Czech Republic. The treaty demands that countries take measures to reduce the demand for tobacco, including putting limits on advertising, promotion, and sponsorship.

Mr Diethelm described prospects for a change in the law on tobacco advertising in Switzerland as “quite bleak.”

“We are campaigning for ratification [of the WHO framework], which is a medium term objective,” but this will not happen before 2013 at the earliest, he said. “The Swiss system of direct democracy is such that Switzerland will have to first adopt legislation compatible with WHO’s convention before being able to ratify, otherwise citizens or other groups might challenge the constitutionality of the ratification, for example, by launching a national referendum. A defeat in a referendum could have severe consequences because it could freeze tobacco control for at least 15 years. This would also create a situation where the tobacco multinationals would not miss exploiting, in their enterprise of making Switzerland a sanctuary from which they plan and launch their worldwide operations.”

By Zosia Kmietowicz, Bmj

The sales, which were supposed to start at 7.30am at the country’s three auction floors, were only conducted at the Tobacco Sales Floor (TSF) from 3pm after government officials had convinced growers to sell while they looked into the emotive issue of the exchange rate.

Among the officials that addressed the growers, some of whom had become restive due to the delayed start, were Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo, Acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono.

Chinamasa told the growers that the government was close to concluding the pricing mechanism of this year’s crop, and pleaded with the farmers to be patient with them.

“We want you to give us time to work on the pricing mechanism while you continue to sell your crop,” Chinamasa told the growers, who were camped at the TSF auction floors.

“Don’t worry about how much gets into your account. Just worry about the US dollar price. Try to negotiate with the buyers to get a good bargain of the US dollar price.”

He promised to get back to growers with an answer in a few days’ time, saying the government was committed to the viability of the tobacco sector.

He said from the discussions they had had so far, indications were that the government would yet again award farmers viable and competitive prices that would ensure continued growth of the cash crop.

Gono told the farmers never to doubt the government’s commitment to the growth of the tobacco industry.

“We are almost there,” he said about the negotiations they were having. “The reason why we have not reached an agreement is that we want the truth on many things, including correct calculations on the inputs costs incurred by growers.”

Gono said the government would once again reward growers handsomely to encourage them to go back to the farms and increase next year’s production.

The government offered viable prices to growers last year, resulting in them increasing production from 54 million kg to an expected 80 million kg this year, he said.

He said the government would announce its position in about seven days.

Meanwhile, the RBZ governor announced that the 15 percent foreign currency retention scheme for tobacco growers had not been scrapped as earlier reported.

He blamed the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board for misleading the central bank into believing that growers preferred being paid all their money in local currency.

“It’s a lie. We didn’t withdraw the facility. In fact, I am inclined to increase it from 15 percent to 20 percent.”

He said the central bank would continue to support tobacco growers, including providing them concessionary funds to boost production.

The government, Gono said, would also pay farmers their outstanding bonuses for the crop they sold last year.

“What you must do now is to fight tobacco smuggling. We hear that tobacco is going to Malawi and others are involved in side-marketing. I want to warn those smuggling tobacco outside the country that their days are numbered,” he said.

Some of the crop that was sold on Tuesday fetched as much as US$2, 95 per kg with some growers already expressing happiness with the price.

“The prices are reasonably fair,” said Tobacco Growers’ Trust chairman Wilfanos Mashingaidze.

TIMB acting chief executive Andrew Matibiri said he was happy that the floors had opened.

“I am looking forward to the rest of the selling season and I would like to encourage growers to bring more of their crop to the auction floors,” he said.

Earlier, tobacco growers interviewed said they wanted a viable exchange rate or parallel market rates because they acquired most of their inputs based at black market rates. The exchange rate is currently pegged at $250 to the US$.

Tobacco is one of Zimbabwe’s top foreign currency earners. ‘ New Ziana.

Southerntimesafrica

Stores owners explained that they earn 40% from all tobacco sales because of contraband cigarettes.
Statistics showed that in 2007 that 21% of all cigarettes being sold were illegal, and then they grew to 32% in 2008. But in 2009 illegal cigarettes raised more than 50%.

Dave Bryans, Ontario Convenience Stores Association president said: “It’s growing in double digits every day. Today it’s a crisis for convenience stores, neighborhoods, schools and society.”

Researchers showed in a recent study that some 13% of high school students who are daily smokers regularly smoke illegal cigarettes. For example in Ontario was found that nearly 22% of youth smokers usually light up illegal cigarettes. Young people who smoke contraband cigarettes also smoke significantly more than their peers who smoke other brands, the study found also.

Bryans added that those cigarettes are sold from original reserves. And the cheap price makes it even more luring for young people to experiment and pick up the habit.

And not only children but even adults are turning to the contraband cigarettes because of their low prices.

But for convenience stores it’s having a major impact on sales. For example at Bridgeport Variety in Port Colborne, owner Joe Lyu said some 80% of his sales come from tobacco and he has seen a 40% drop in those sales.

Today contraband cigarettes began a serious problem which needs to be solved for not to hurt the small business of convenience stores and especially to not affect the children’s health.

For example Canada is being plenty with untested, unregulated and untaxed cigarettes which are also robbing the government of more than $1 billion every year.

Contraband cigarettes are more of “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for convenience stores, argued researchers.

Not only tobacco products are sell at low prices but also a lot of chain stores and gas stations sell groceries and other products with a policy of low margins for to get a higher volume of customers.

CNN is reporting that tobacco companies are trying to get around new laws banning the use of terms such as “Light”, “Mild”, and “Low Tar”, by color codling packaging.

CNN did an informal survey and people tended to rate Pall Mall Blue as having lower tar and being milder than Pall Mall Red.

RJ Reynolds argued that people have a right to be able to choose the brand and style of cigarette they are wanting to purchase.

Further, big tobacco has filed suit against the government to nullify the ban on labels such as low tar and light. So it appears the fight may go on a while.

At issue, is the government’s perspective that suggesting that one cigarette is “lighter” may suggest that it is healthier when there is no evidence that that is the case.

Certainly, people should have a right to choose, but misleading marketing is potentially very harmful to consumers. Perhaps a way to distinguish more accurately might be to go with Cancer Accelerator Version 1, and Cancer Accelerator Version 2.

Claims by the House of Representatives that the deletion of a section that identifies tobacco as an addictive substance in the newly endorsed health bill was a “technical error” have been blasted as “unlikely.”

“With the large number of staff they have in the House, a technical error is unlikely to occur. It’s only normal that everybody is questioning whether it happened by accident or by design,” Ade Irawan, a researcher at Indonesia Corruption Watch, told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday.

Former lawmaker Hakim Sarimuda Pohan — who was a member of House Commission IX for health — on Wednesday said that bribes were common during the legislative process, where interested parties would lobby legislators to create laws that favored them.

He said tobacco companies were particularly active in lobbying legislators debating the previous Health Law in 1992.

“There was widespread opposition to the stipulation that tobacco was an addictive substance,” Hakim said. “And during the assembly meeting last month the effort to scrap the stipulation re-emerged.

“I just didn’t think any legislators would stoop so low as to scrap a section that had been passed in an assembly meeting. That’s like a betrayal of the Constitution,” Hakim, an anti-tobacco activist, told a media workshop on Wednesday.

Ribka Tjiptaning, former chairwoman of the special committee tasked with drafting the health bill in the House, brushed off the matter as a technical error, saying the House had delivered an older draft of the bill to the State Secretariat.

She did concede, however, that a number of legislators, including herself, were against the inclusion of the section because banning tobacco products would hurt farmers.

She denied suggestions the section had been deliberately deleted and said the bill, which has been heavily criticized as transferring responsibility for health from the government to the public, was a positive step forward toward improving health services for patients.

“So it is better to stop the debate about the missing section,” she said.

Tulus Abadi, chairman of the Indonesian Consumer Foundation, urged the House of Representatives’ Honorary Council, as well as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), to investigate the matter.

“This issue has tarnished, damaged and betrayed the democratic legislative process,” Tulus said.

“We also urge President Yudhoyono not to sign the law unless the draft is the one that was endorsed during the assembly meeting, with the section intact,” he said.

October 15, 2009 Thejakartaglobe