Voices of Tobacco Victims, a support group of cancer survivors and medical practitioners, led by Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Hospital doctors have asked the state election commission (SEC) to ban political funding by tobacco companies ahead of the civic elections in the state. “We insist that the election commission immediately ban funding by tobacco companies to political parties. We met chief minister Prithviraj Chavan recently to seek the government’s support to our campaign. Political parties are known to go soft on tobacco companies at the central, state and local levels as they get funds from them,” Pankaj Chaturvedi, associate professor, head and neck department, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, said.

According to Chaturvedi, around 90% patients diagnosed with cancer of the head and neck, have a tobacco-use history. Around 50 % suffer from advanced stage cancer and despite treatment survive for about a year, he said.

In Pune, anti-tobacco groups which had supported Anna Hazare’s agitation against corruption, want political parties to take a stand on tobacco addiction. “The PMC had announced a ban on sale of tobacco products, including hookahs, at eating joints. Hookah parlours have come up in Kondhwa, Baner, Kharadi, Bavdhan, Paud Phata, Deccan and Camp. We want political parties to take stand,” Ketan Jamkar, a youth activist from India Against Corruption, said. Political parties taking funds and supporting tobacco industry should be banned from contesting elections, he added.

Medical practitioners across the state have joined ‘Voice of Tobacco Victims’ (VOV) forum. Patients who have lost a part of their body to cancer have come together to speak about the adverse effects of tobacco on their lives and families. The organization has already approached political parties and the state EC and will soon submit a memorandum to the latter.

India has ratified the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2004 and is obligated to adopt and implement effective legislation aimed at reducing tobacco use and tobacco smoke exposure.

One of the FCTC’s guiding principles is that participation of civil society is required in achieving the objectives. VOV, by submitting its demand to the election commission, is taking forward this agenda in the civic polls.

Additional chief secretary of the SEC Chand Goyal said, “There is a demand to ban political funding by tobacco companies and the issue is being discussed at the central and state election commission levels. However, there are technicalities in the decision-making process of the central election commission.”

Satej Patil, minister of state for home and minister for FDA, said political parties must take a stand on funding by tobacco companies. “Tobacco is big menace and unless we make it a political issue we are not going to save the next generation. In fact, there should be consensus within the political fraternity to avoid funding from tobacco companies,” Patil said.

“General elections are a platform to spread the message. We want to mobilise the community and to take up the fight against political funding by tobacco companies,” Bapu Mane, a cancer patient from Pune, said. He has lost a major portion of his cheek to cancer even though he has undergone two surgeries.

Akkatai Gaikwad, who chewed mishri (roasted tobacco), said cancer patients can raise awareness about the tobacco industry – its goals, size and operation, strategies to promote products, and to implement strong tobacco control policies by gaining influence and credibility with policy makers and the public.

According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the tobacco industry in India is divided into three distinct and powerful sectors: Bidis (hand-rolled in tendu leaves), smokeless tobacco (mainly chewing tobacco) and cigarettes. Bidis take up 48% of the market, smokeless tobacco occupies 38% and cigarettes 14% of the market share.

Vilas Baba Jawal, an anti-tobacco campaign activist from Jawalwadi in Satara district, said, “Local elections are important for the anti-tobacco campaign in our taluka. We need zilla parishad and gram panchayat members to support the campaign and not sabotage it. We have asked candidates in local elections to take an oath that they will not take any help from tobacco traders.”

Jawali has already become the first taluka in the state to ban alcohol. Thirteen licensed liquor shops have been closed down officially in six villages. Now, with the women of Nandgane stopping the use of any kind of tobacco, particularly the use of mishri, the taluka is well on its way to becoming tobacco-free as well.

Anti-addiction agenda

City youths want the civic body to initiate action against eateries providing tobacco products, especially hookahs and want political parties to make addiction a poll issue.

The civic body says it can only cancel food licences of restaurants and bars operating hookah bars if traces of intoxicants are found in the molasses collected from these places.

The FDA said there was no special provision or act to help the FDA check hookah bars, the police blamed the PMC for ‘inactiveness’, saying that the state government had issued a notification that the health department of the PMC should enforce the Tobacco Act, 2003.

Survey paints gloomy picture

According to the global adult tobacco survey of 2010, 35% of adults in India use tobacco in some form or the other. Among them, 21% use smokeless tobacco, 9% smoke, and 5% smoke as well as use smokeless tobacco. As per this report, the estimated number of tobacco users in India is 274.9 million.

The Future Fund is mocking the Government’s anti-smoking laws by continuing to hold a $150 million stake in tobacco companies, the Greens say. The $75 billion fund, which was set up in 2006 to help pay federal public servants’ pensions, also owns $180million of shares in businesses involved in making nuclear weapons. General manager Mark Burgess told the Senate’s finance committee yesterday the fund took its environmental, social and governance responsibilities very seriously and had employed specialist advisers to deal with the issues.

In response to a question from Greens health spokesman Richard Di Natale, Mr Burgess said the fund held $147 million in tobacco stocks in December last year, and its holdings hadn’t changed significantly since.

”I think the board’s comfortable on that issue,” he said.

Senator Di Natale responded, ”So you’re comfortable that the board has a ‘strong commitment’ to environmental, social and governance issues, and yet … has $147million invested in tobacco? That, in your view, demonstrates a commitment to sound social practices as far as investment goes?”

The fund has, however, dumped shares in 10 companies that make cluster bombs, anti-personnel mines that Australia has banned.

It sold $74 million of the stock this year, which included stakes in weapons-makers such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.

In a letter to the committee, the fund explained the decision by saying it had commissioned ”expert research” to examine whether it should exclude the companies from the fund on the basis of their activities.

Senator Di Natale told The Canberra Times yesterday it was remarkable the fund continued to invest in tobacco and nuclear weapons, while at the same time saying its investment decisions were guided by environmental, social and governance concerns.

”If they’re prepare to invest in those industries, what industries won’t they invest it?

”I think most of the Australian community would say a government that’s working hard on its plain-packaging reforms is undoing a lot of its good work by investing in the same companies that are fighting that legislation.”

The Greens senator said the Future Fund should follow the example of Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund by using its clout to discourage unethical businesses.

”Norway has already prohibited the investment of tobacco,” Senator Di Natale said. ”The first thing our fund should do is stop investing in entities that produce weapons or tobacco, or that engage in serious and systemic human rights abuses, severe environmental damage or gross corruption.”

Construction of broadband infrastructure and investment in industry, education and tourism were among the projects for which nearly $49 million in funding was approved by the Virginia Tobacco Commission on Thursday. In education, the biggest non-scholarship program approved for Southwest Virginia was $600,000 to help Emory & Henry College start a doctor of physical therapy program in Marion. This was short of the $1.1 million requested.

Speaking to the commission, College President Rosalind Reichard said, “We find that it will be probably difficult for us to start that program up next fall without additional funding.”

After the meeting, however, she said she believes the college can raise the funds – and will go ahead with its plan to open next fall.

“We’ve got to do it,” she said. “We’ll find a way.”

Among the other highlights in education, Virginia Intermont College was awarded close to $150,000 to help with expansion plans and Virginia Highlands Community College was awarded $110,000 for a cadaver lab.

David Matlock, vice president of institutional advancement for the community college, said the lab will enable Southwest Virginia students in the health care field to compete on par with those from Northern Virginia.

The commission approved a significant amount for the development of fiber-optic infrastructure: $1.8 million for Bristol Virginia Utilities, $2.5 million for the Virginia Coalfield Coalition and $1 million for the Scott County Telephone Cooperative.

It approved a $2.2 million research and development grant for a company called CavitroniX, which is working through the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center and Clean Energy R&D Center to develop new products in Southwest Virginia.

Edwin Rogers, director of the energy center, said the company plans to locate a facility in either Bristol, Washington County or Smyth County to make a product that improves the efficiency of oil furnaces, ultimately creating 48 jobs by 2015.

The commission also approved money for industrial development projects in Russell, Scott and Smyth counties, and $300,000 for People Incorporated to make small business loans in Southwest Virginia.

In Washington County, the commission approved $147,500 for a road project at the county fairground and $43,350 for restoration work at White’s Mill, a historic grist mill outside Abingdon.

In Wise, the commission approved $1.25 million for the restoration of the Wise Inn, an old downtown hotel that has been promoted as a way to help draw industrial prospects to the coalfield region.

There was some controversy in the area of tourism, as the tobacco commission approved some projects and tabled others to consider how it sorts through requests. Parks and clinics were among those delayed until a later meeting.

Speaking for the commission’s Southwest Economic Development Committee, Sen. Phillip Puckett said they will be discussed later this year in terms of whether they fit into the commission’s strategic plan.

During the public comment period of the meeting, J.B. Swiger of Scott County made a case for why they should be considered.

“If you’re going to invite the tourists in and they go to the Carter Fold [or another area attraction] and there’s nothing else for them to do, they leave and go … back home,” he said. “This is a very vital project.”

Chairman Terry Kilgore said after the meeting that many communities have parks and the commission can’t afford to help fund one in every town. In order to draw tobacco commission funding, he said, “It needs to be able to bring tourism to the area.”

Two projects that did receive funding are the construction of a water park at the Breaks Interstate Park, which was approved for $500,000, and the Spearhead Trails initiative, which received $200,000 toward the creation of a multi-use trail system.

A labour-intensive bidi-making project that is expected to generate around 40,000 jobs in chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal’s home district – Hamirpur – was cleared on Saturday by a high powered single window authority chaired by the CM. The project proposal of West End Tobacco Pvt Ltd, along with eight other new proposals and 21 expansion plans, was given a clearance today, said a spokesman of the industry department.

The tobacco company will set up 80 bidi manufacturing units across Hamirpur district, he said. People, mainly women, had been earlier trained by the tobacco company for manufacturing of “poor man’s” cigarette.

Along with the tobacco project, all fresh proposals are expected to bring in investments valued at Rs 707 crore, the spokesperson said.

Proposal of Nitin Lifescience Ltd to invest Rs 24 crore for setting up a new unit near Poanta Sahib in Sirmaur district was also given a nod.

A proposal by Eco Polyfibres for making a polyster unit in Una district was approved; Virtue Irrigation’s Rs 17.5-crore project in Baddi was also sanctioned.

Pan Asia Bio-Tech plans to invest Rs 53 crore for a new bio-tech facility, proposals by Council Sciences and Maharaja Whiteline of investing Rs 21.75 crore and Rs 8.76 crore respectively have been cleared.

The tobacco industry urged a federal judge Wednesday to block the implementation of graphic warning labels on cigarettes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is requiring tobacco makers to place stronger warnings and graphic pictures on the top half of cigarette packages starting in September 2012. The images include pictures of diseased lungs, a body on an autopsy table and a man blowing cigarette smoke out of a tracheostomy hole in his neck that will be combined with stronger wording such as “smoking can kill you.”

Five tobacco companies, including Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) and Lorillard Inc. (LO) have sued the FDA in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia arguing that the graphic images violate the First Amendment’s free speech clause. The industry has said it would accept stronger text warnings in place of current warnings on the sides of cigarette packages.

Altria Group Inc. (MO), the parent company of Philip Morris USA isn’t a party to the lawsuit or any other lawsuit but the company has expressed concerns about the graphic warning requirements.

Steve Callahan, an Altria spokesman said, “We continue to work constructively with the FDA, but reserve our rights and options to protect the company’s interests.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, the other tobacco companies asked a judge to temporarily block the implementation of the graphic warning labels while the case proceeds about whether the graphics are legal. Industry lawyers argued the companies would soon have to start spending “tens of millions of dollars” to purchase and test new equipment capable of printing the new labels.

The judge in the case, Richard J. Leon, said he would try to make a decision by the end of October about whether to delay the implementation of the graphic warnings.

The new cigarette warnings stem from a 2009 law that gave the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco. Included in the law is a requirement for graphic images to go on cigarette packaging and advertising. In 2010 another federal court in Kentucky ruled that the government had the authority to regulate cigarettes. That case is on appeal.

In the Washington D.C. federal case, tobacco companies argue that the graphics “are designed to shock, disgust, and frighten adult consumers of cigarettes” and are unconstitutional.

Noel Francisco, a lawyer who argued on behalf of the tobacco companies, said the images don’t meet a legal test that allows the government to require companies to place certain “factual, non-controversial” information on products.

“Shocking, color graphics don’t even remotely deliver a factual, non-controversial message,” Francisco told Leon.

Mark Stern, a lawyer for the FDA, said the agency followed steps outlined in the 2009 tobacco law when coming up with the graphic images.

“Just because some of the images may be disturbing doesn’t mean they don’t accurately portray the risks of smoking,” Stern said.

The Colorado Department of Health is urging R.J. Reynolds to stop marketing dissolvable tobacco products in the state. Tobacco that melts in your mouth comes in strips, orbs and sticks. The state’s medical chief said it’s bad news. “There’s no safe use of tobacco,” said Dr. Chris Urbina, chief medical officer of the Colorado Department of Health.

NEWS found the dissolvable tobacco in several Denver-area stores.
While it’s legal to sell, the Department of Health issued a resolution Wednesday, asking the company to remove the product from Colorado stores. Board members fear its marketing will get children addicted.
“It’s very colorful. The sticks look like toothpicks,” said Urbina.
7NEWS took those concerns to the tobacco company itself.
“These products are not candy. They’re not mints. They’re tobacco, and they’re clearly labeled,” said company spokesman Richard Smith.
State lawmakers would have to pass a law to prevent this type of tobacco from being sold, so this request from the board has no teeth.
“We believe they’re a viable option for adult tobacco consumers to consider,” said Smith.
Besides Denver, the products are being tested in Charlotte, N.C.
The company would not reveal how many Denver-area stores carry the products.

Xu Hengrui scored 526 points in law entrance examination at Renmin University, one of China’s most prestigious universities. The university acceptance, however, has been intrigued by rumors of huge donation to the university by his father, Xu Wenlin, the influential chairman of a Chinese tobacco company. Renmin University issued a statement denying Xu Wenlin’s involvement in the school’s board of directors and the alleged donation.

Communist-party owned newspaper, Guanming Daily quoted a university spokesman saying the young Hengrui has been recommended by the child’s local education department.

Xu’s score, 31 points higher than what is required coupled with impressive performance during the panel interview qualified the child to study with the country’s brightest.

His father told Chinese media that Xu dropped out of school after two years of studying at Mile No.1 Middle School, and has since been home-educated by China’s top-caliber educators.

“After the second grade, the boy felt that the school was not fast enough for him and his father arranged for him to live in Kunming and hired many excellent teachers to tutor him,” the spokesman told Beijing News.

The government has introduced an 11 per cent excise tax on common cigarettes on the local market contrary to the general perception that the 2011- 2012 National Budget had no tax increases. Local tobacco companies and smokers will now feel the pinch as the new taxes will push cigarette prices up. The latest increment, contained in government’s proposed Excise Tariff (Amendment) Bill, dated June 28, will increase the tax burden on cigarettes to nearly 60 per cent, according to local tobacco companies.

With the new tax, the cost of low segment cigarettes will likely increase from Shs75 to Shs100 per stick while premium brand will rise from Shs200 to Shs250 per stick according to tobacco industry players.

But even before Parliament discusses the proposed Bill, the Uganda Revenue Authority has already been mandated to start tax collection starting July 1. Mr Lawrence Kiiza, a director in the Ministry of Finance, admitted government had increased the taxes but argued that the cigarette rate had not been revised for more than five years. “We also want to be in line with other states within the East African Community. We have to remain at par with them to be able to balance up and to avoid smuggling. But the excise duty was adjusted by Shs2,000,” he said.

Asked why they never waited for parliamentary approval, Mr Kiiza said the provisional collection order is guaranteed at the beginning of the financial year. Local players yesterday warned that with a tax burden averaging at 43 per cent, cigarette products are already one of the highly taxed products in Uganda, but which carries the lowest excise duty rates in East Africa.

Firms not amused
The five key tobacco companies to be affected are BAT Uganda, Continental Tobacco Uganda, Leaf Tobacco and Commodities, Uganda Tobacco Services and Premier Tobacco. In the June 8 Budget speech, Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka proposed excise changes in respect of sugar and kerosene. It is still unclear why there has been a sudden change of heart to “sneak” cigarettes into the Excise Tariff Bill 2011. Some sources, however, told Daily Monitor that after budget reading, anti-tobacco NGOs and the World Health Organisation pressured the government to raise taxes on cigarettes up to 70 per cent as a way of discouraging the practice.

Reacting to the development, the leading local tobacco company, BAT Uganda, said it was neither contacted nor consulted on the matter. “We support over 30,000 farmers and spend over Shs20b a year on farmer support in West Nile, Bunyoro-Mubende, North Kigezi and Middle North,” said BAT Uganda’s Finance Director, Mr Paul Sine. “It is very disappointing that a company that provides 80 per cent of tobacco taxes worth over Shs50b has not been consulted by the ministry on such a huge increment.” The tobacco industry argues that making cigarettes unaffordable to a majority of smokers only creates an opportunity for illicit trade to thrive.

Lost revenue
Statistics show that out of the two billion sticks of cigarettes consumed in Uganda, at least 400 million are illicit sticks imported from mainly Kenya, Southern Sudan and DR Congo. Because of cigarette smuggling, the government loses revenue worth Shs22 billion annually.

A jury in St. Louis found tobacco companies to not be liable for the cost of treating patients with smoking-related illnesses who were unable to pay for their medical bills. 37 hospitals sued the Lorillard Tobacco Company, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Philip Morris, and other cigarette manufacturers in 1998, alleging that the nicotine content of cigarettes was manipulated and the health impact of smoking misrepresented. In excess of $455 million of damages was sought.

The hospitals claimed the actions of the industry led to increased spending on health care that was not reimbursed. The tobacco companies disavowed responsibility. The jury sided with the companies by a margin of 9-3 on Friday after six days of deliberation.

Murray Garnick, associate general counsel for Altria, parent of Philip Morris, said the jury had agreed that “that ordinary cigarettes are not negligently designed or defective.” The hospitals have yet to decide whether to appeal. The case was the third of its kind to reach trial. The tobacco industry triumphed in the first, in Ohio in 1999. The second, in New York, initially produced a $17.8 million award to a health insurer but this was reversed on appeal in 2004.