ASH Daily News for 10/12/2001

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ASH Daily News
10 December 2001


HEADLINES

Britain is centre of European cigarette smuggling racket.
Smuggling move scares City
PM tries to micro-manage NHS reforms.
Sir Paul Nurse and Tim Hunt to be presented Nobel Prize today

Andy Rowell, writing for the Independent on Sunday, reveals that Britain is now the prime destination for smuggled cigarettes in Europe, according to a leaked report of the World Customs Organisation (WCO)

As illegal cigarettes swamp the UK, HM customs reported record number of seizures. 2.8 billion cigarettes were seized by customs officers last year; with only ten percent of the total trade in contraband tobacco being intercepted, it is estimated that tens of billions of smuggled cigarettes are being smoked in the UK.

A vast majority of the cigarettes furnishing the black market are manufactured in the UK, exported onto the grey market abroad and then smuggled back into the country.

Some industry critics claim that tobacco manufacturers are facilitating the flourishing illegal trade. ASH maintains that the manufacturers “may be aiding and abetting smuggling in order to ensure they retain a share of the lucrative black market by not stopping exports that reach smugglers.”

Clive Bates, director of ASH, asks: “Why do the UK tobacco companies ship so many billion cigarettes to regions such as Eastern Europe and the Baltic states where they are hardly smoked, and the most obvious customers are the Mafia who will bring them back to the UK illegally?”

The UK tobacco companies strenuously deny these claims. Imperial Tobacco’s communications manager Liz Buckingham said: “We have no evidence that any of our wholesalers, distributors or salespeople have supplied smuggling gangs.”

Gallaher issued a statement stating: “We deplore cigarette smuggling.”


Full text of Independent on Sunday article: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=109140
Source: The Independent on Sunday, 9 December 2001


Smuggling move scares City

Following British American Tobacco’s announcement last week that it was to cease supplying surplus stock to distributors who sell it on to organised smugglers, shareholders and City analysts received the news with some dismay.

BAT’s announcement outlined effects their efforts to curtail the smugglers would haveon business: profits are expected to be down by £500 million next year with a 3% drop in volumes.

The company is itself being investigated by the Department of Trade and Industry for involvement in smuggling tobacco products. However. amidst all the talk of the financial fallout, the irony of a British American Tobacco announcing measures to engage in a drive against smuggling was fortunately not lost on health campaigners. “BAT makes hundreds of millions of pounds in profits from cigarettes sold on the black market by smugglers,” stormed Clive Bates, director of ASH. “This announcement shows that tackling smuggling hurts their bottom line and that explains why it has never done much to tackle smuggling and plenty to encourage it.”

BAT officials hotly deny this.

The stock market reacted to news of BAT announcement and shares slipped by 17.5 pence on the day and continued to slide. By the time trading stopped on Friday, BAT shares were at 548.5p, a long way from the 635p high on September 17.

Source: Sunday Business, 9 December 2001


PM tries to micro-manage NHS reforms.

The Health Secretary, Alan Milburn seems to be increasingly caught between the crossfire between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer over funding NHS reforms. Senior civil servants say the prime minister is attempting to ‘micro-manage’ the reforms.

Mr Milburn has been presented with a 47 page “contract from the new delivery unit set up Mr Blair after the general election. It contains more than 100 targets and milestones that Downing Street expects to be hit during the coming year. These include the requirement of ensuring that the NHS helps the 40,000 people attempt stopping smoking through the provision of a network of smoking cessation services across the country.

Source: Financial Times, 10 December 2001


Sir Paul Nurse and Tim Hunt to be presented Nobel Prize today

Sir Paul Nurse, Director General of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and Tim Hunt are to be presented the Nobel Prize today, which is also the centennial anniversary of the award.

A article in the Observer details at length the careers and of the two laureates.

Sir Paul Nurse has recently written to the Health Secretary Alan Milburn in a joint letter in which he complained that the Labour government was not doing enough to honour its manifesto pledge to ban tobacco advertising. In the article, he revealed the less than satisfactory reply from the Department: the plans to reduce smoking incidence in lower-social groups from 32 percent to 26 percent by 2010. “That does not sound to me as a huge advance,” said Sir Paul.



The text of the letter to the Health Secretary from Sir Paul Nurse:

Sir, Since 1997, the Government has been promising - in two election
manifestos and numerous public statements - to ban tobacco advertising.
Smoking-related disease is Britain's biggest preventable killer, causing
120,000 deaths per year. The Government's own figures show that banning
tobacco advertising could save 3,000 lives per year and save the NHS £40
million per year. Despite this, the legislation remains as far away as ever.

There is, however, now a chance to bring in a tobacco advertising ban, and
it can be done without disrupting any of the Government's other legislation.
On Friday, the House of Lords is debating a Private Member's Bill to ban
tobacco advertising. However, it will not become law unless the Government
supports it.
There is no point in pumping cash into the NHS if you allow tobacco
companies to fill the cancer, respiratory and cardiac wards by promoting
smoking. It is not often that ministers have the chance to do something that
will make a major difference to health, be popular with the public and cost
almost nothing. Mr Alan Milburn should act now to meet his Government's
long-standing commitment and give the Bill wholehearted support.


Yours sincerely,
GEORGE ALBERTI.
President, Royal College of Physicians,
MARK BRITTON,
Chair of Trustees, British Lung Foundation,
CHARLES GEORGE.
Medical Director, British Heart Foundation,
GORDON McVIE,
Director General, The Cancer Research Campaign,
PAUL NURSE,
Director General, Imperial Cancer Research Fund,
11 St Andrews Place, NW1 4LE.
October 30.


Full text of Observer article: http://www.observer.co.uk/life/story/0,6903,615654,00.html
Source: The Observer, 9 December 2001



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