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ASH Daily news for 10 May 2011

HEADLINES

  • Imperial's profits grow despite consumer pressures

    Half year results from Imperial Tobacco show cash-strapped smokers are making their own cigarettes rather than buying them in packs.

    The company behind cigarette brands such as Davidoff and Gauloises and Golden Virginia tobacco, posted earnings growth ahead of expectations in the half year to 31 March as growth in emerging markets drove sales higher.

    Earnings per share were up by 7% from the same period a year ago to 88.4p, against analysts’ estimates of a rise of about 5.5%. Total revenues rose to £13.7bn from £13.37bn.

    “Spain remains difficult but we made gains elsewhere in the EU and our growth in emerging markets outside the EU was excellent,” said chief executive Alison Cooper.

    In the UK, where stick volumes were down by 2% to 54.8bn, economy cigarette and rolling tobacco sales have been strong as smokers seek value. Customers in German, where stick volumes have been stable at 116.7bn, are also economising. Spain, whose economy is struggling severely, saw stick volumes declining by 16% to 65.1bn, with the cigarette market falling 18% and the tobacco market climbing 18%.

    In the rest of the EU, stick volumes were down by 4% to 380.7bn, with cigarettes down 6% and tobacco up 6%.

    Emerging markets growth was strong, with profits up by more than 30% in Eastern Europe, by 20% in Asia Pacific and by just under 10% in Africa.

    Source: Sharecast, 10 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/lldTOT

  • Scotland: No spot fines so far for 'proxy' buying cigarettes for teens

    Five weeks ago new laws came into force giving trading standards officers the power to issue fixed penalty notices.

    A new poll shows there is major support for the new measure that means it is now an offence for an adult to buy cigarettes for a child.

    An estimated 47,000 under 18s smoke and around 15,000 young people take up the habit each year in Scotland.

    Fife Council and all three Tayside local authorities said they had not issued any fixed penalty notices.

    Geoff Bates, team leader with Fife Council's trading standards department, said, "We have not handed out any notices yet but we will follow up any complaints that we receive and we will follow the Scottish Government's enforcement guidelines."

    Polling for ASH Scotland shows that a huge majority of people think it is socially unacceptable for anyone under 18 to smoke and that there is major support for the new measure that means it is now an offence for an adult to buy cigarettes for a child.

    "Our polling shows that Scots support measures that aim to stop youngsters smoking," said Sheila Duffy, chief executive of ASH Scotland. . "I am pleased that 83% of respondents to the ASH Scotland YouGov poll think it is socially unacceptable for an under 18 to smoke.

    Source: Thecourier.co.uk, 6 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/lzLGWW

  • USA: Tax loophole stokes handmade cigarettes


    Thanks to a $30,000 automated roll-your-own machine from an Ohio manufacturer and a bargain tax rate on pipe tobacco created by Congress, smokers can take a box of pre-made cigarette tubes, 8 ounces of tobacco and 15 minutes to produce a carton of freshly rolled cigarettes for under $30 — less than just the federal and state tobacco taxes they would pay for a pre-made carton.

    Although the machines have been around for years, state and federal tax officials now are trying to stub out the controversial RYO Filling Machine that automates the cigarette rolling process.

    In March, the Michigan Department of the Treasury warned 300 smoke shop owners that using the machine on their premises constitutes the illegal manufacture of cigarettes. That follows a similar federal ruling, which has been stayed by a restraining order filed by the machine manufacturer, RYO Machine Rental LLC of Girard, Ohio.

    Even if the RYO machines are banned, the low tax rate on pipe tobacco means plenty of smokers will continue to light up on the cheap. Metro Detroit smokers who skip the RYO machines and roll their own cigarettes at home already are saving even more — assembling a carton of cigarettes for as little as $13.


     

    Source: detnews.com, 9 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/iCTte8

  • USA: Ohio levies $2.2M in fines for smoking ban, $1.5M remains uncollected

    The Ohio Department of Health and the attorney general's office have collected only one-third of the $2.2 million in fines levied for facilities that have violated the state's smoking ban since enforcement began four years ago, according to state data.

    Smoking is prohibited in most indoor, public places under the ban, which went into effect in 2007. State and local health officials have issued more than 2,300 fines totaling more than $2.2 million since May 2007, but about $1.5 million had not been paid as of April 30, according to a report by the Dayton Daily News, which analyzed the data.

    The newspaper found the percentage of fines collected drops each year. It was 81 percent in 2007 but just 26 percent last year.

    The agencies involved in collecting the fines say they do what they can to get the money.

    Most places comply with the ban, but some officials argue the holdouts would change their ways if the state collected the fines more aggressively. The concerns come as Gov. John Kasich was calling for significant cuts in anti-tobacco money in his two-year budget proposal, the newspaper said.

    "I think for an enforcement program to be effective, there has to be a hammer," Montgomery County Health Commissioner Jim Gross said. "And it's pretty clear right now this program does not have an effective penalty system to change that behavior."

    The number of complaints statewide has decreased each year, from nearly 22,000 in Ohio in 2007 to about 6,800 last year.

    Source: USA: Ohio daily Reporter, 8 may 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/ivWDLD

  • Somalia: Islamists ban tobacco, alcohol in Somalia district

    Islamist rebels have banned the use of tobacco and cigarettes in a district outside the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

    The Shebab militants also banned trading in tobacco and alcohol in the Afgoye district, which is home to several hundred thousand displaced people, even outlawing smoking in private homes.

    "I’m conveying to you an order that people in the district cannot smoke cigarettes and use tobacco," local Shebab official Sheikh Abu Ramla told a public gathering in Afgoye.

    "Anyone found disobeying these orders will be jailed for one month and also face a fine of three million Somali shillings ($100)," he said.

    "We are also warning the business community in the region against trading in tobacco and cigarettes which is forbidden in Islam," Ramla said.

    Afgoye is northwest of the capital and home to hundreds of thousands of Somalis who had fled the fighting between the Islamists and pro-government forces.
     

    Source: Capital FM Kenya, 9 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/l8dnC7

  • USA: CA: Court OKs ex-smokers' suits against tobacco firms


    The California state Supreme Court has ruled that a former cigarette addict can seek damages from tobacco companies for her cancer despite having failed to sue for earlier smoking-related illnesses.

    California law authorized suits against tobacco companies in 1998, after a decade in which the companies enjoyed legal immunity. But many of the suits have been bogged down in federal courts in disputes over whether they were filed in time.

    State law requires someone injured by a defective product to sue within two years of the time the victim learned or should have learned of the injury.

    The California Supreme Court removed one obstacle to tobacco suits by ruling in 2007 that the two-year deadline started running when former smokers learned that they were ill, and not merely that they were addicted.

    But federal judges dismissed other suits in which the plaintiffs did not go to court within two years of suffering any smoking-related ailment. One such case involved Nikki Pooshs, 70, who smoked from 1953 to 1987.

    She sued Philip Morris and other tobacco companies in San Francisco in 2004 after being diagnosed with lung cancer, saying the companies had concealed the addictive nature and health hazards of their cigarettes.

    A federal judge dismissed the suit, saying Pooshs' two-year clock had started running when she was diagnosed with a noncancerous lung disease in 1989. She also came down with a gum disease a year or two later, and she had known that both illnesses were smoking-related, the judge said.

    Pooshs appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which then asked the state's high court, the top authority on California law, to interpret the timetables.

    On Thursday, the justices ruled unanimously that someone diagnosed with a new disease, not caused by previous illnesses, has two years to sue from the date of the diagnosis. Assuming that Pooshs' lung cancer was not caused by her earlier ailments, the ruling reinstates her lawsuit.

    Philip Morris USA, lead defendant in the case, said the ruling addressed "a narrow technical point" unrelated to the merits of the lawsuit, and would apply only to "a very small fraction of cases filed."

    Source: San Francisco Chronicle , 6 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/kJxADv