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ASH Daily News for 19 October 2007

Retailers not complying with new legal age for buying tobacco

At the beginning of October the legal age for buying tobacco rose from 16 to 18.

But an investigation has revealed that most shops across Sussex were ignoring it and selling cigarettes to underage smokers without asking for ID.

Vicki Lowe, 16, of Uckfield, has smoked ten cigarettes a day for two years. She was sent into her corner stores and supermarkets across the county and served a packet of cigarettes nine out of 11 times.

She said the change in law could make her stop if it was strictly enforced, but she was unlikely to give up if it remained so easy to buy tobacco.

She said a friend gave up when the new regulations came in but when he discovered it was still going to be easy to find cigarettes and no one around him was giving up, he started again.

Vicki said that if she did give up she did not think she would start smoking again when she turned 18 as she now knew how hard it was to give up.
She said: "Even though I am a smoker I think it is really bad that they are flouting the law like that."

City centre manager Soozie Campbell said the new regulations put a lot of extra pressure on the retailer.

She said: "It makes things really difficult for traders because they have to make a judgement about whether they make a sale or not every time they serve anyone cigarettes."

"It is absurd to ask a 71-year-old for ID but the converse of that is a lot of young people look older than they are."

"There is an age gap which is marginal and it is putting a lot of pressure on the trader to make that judgement and risk offending and upsetting people." 

Helen Atkinson, the Department of Health's regional tobacco policy manager for the south-east said, "All new regulations had teething problems when they were introduced, but with time, I don't think there will be problems enforcing the new smoking age."

She said the new age limit was in line with alcohol and would soon become automatic for retailers.

She added: "The legislation has been introduced to stop young people becoming addicted to nicotine. The younger a smoker starts the more likely they are to be killed by their addiction, and someone who starts smoking at 15 is three times as likely to die from cancer due to smoking as someone who starts in their mid-20s."

"We therefore need to cut smoking as much as we can and the change in age is just part of a whole raft of measures being introduced, such as the smokefree legislation and new marketing campaigns," she said.

"Whenever you have any kind of change there are cultural problems shifting awareness but that doesn't mean we don't evolve."

David Lepper, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: "I don't see how it is so difficult to ask for ID."

"I think it is the same thing as serving alcohol. When that first became law there was a lot of complaining from off-licences about how difficult it was," Mr Lepper said.

He added: "Once an example had been made of those who were serving under-age drinkers by taking away their licences, they soon realised they had to comply with the law."

"It is wrong that any retailer should have to put up with abuse but on the other hand they are in the front line of enforcing the law and I am sure it is going to get easier. The new law sends out a clear signal to young people that starting smoking at an early age can seriously damage their health."

Source: The Argus, 19 October 2007
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3537al

EU clears Imperial's buy of Altadis

The European Commission has given the green light for Imperial Tobacco to purchase Franco-Spanish competitor Altadis.

Citing its fair competition rules, the EU's executive Commission said the clearance was conditional on Imperial giving up some of its rolling and pipe tobacco and cigar brands, which it had agreed to.

"In light of this commitment, the Commission has concluded that the proposed transaction would not significantly impede effective competition."

Imperial Tobacco will pay 12.8 billion euros (18.2 billion dollars) for the maker of Gauloise cigarettes. The amount comes to 16.2 billion euros if Altadis' debt is taken into consideration.

The EU's executive body said the new entity would have had too large a stranglehold on the markets for rolling tobacco in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain; in pipe tobacco in Finland and France, and cigars in Greece.

In each case Imperial Tobacco has agreed to give up one or several brands in order to appease Brussels' competition concerns.

The Commission said that in the area of cigarettes the merged entity would continue to be faced with several powerful and efficient competitors, such as Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Japan Tobacco.

In buying Altadis, Imperial Tobacco will become the fourth biggest tobacco company in the world, after Altria (Philip Morris), BAT and Japan Tobacco.

Source: AFP, 17 October 2007
Link: http://tinyurl.com/ytj3bz

Smoking gaining popularity among Korean teens

The number of teenagers who smoke is growing rapidly, while smoking is falling among adults. The smoking rate among teens had been falling since 2000 before turning upward again in 2005.

The Korean Association of Smoking and Health said that smoking by middle school boys dropped from 7.4 percent in 2000 to 2.4 percent in 2004  but rose to 5.3 percent in 2006. The rate increased from 0.9 percent in 2002 to 3.3 percent in 2006 for middle school girls, and from 2.4 percent to 5.2 percent for high school girls. For high school boys, the rate fell slightly from 23 percent in 1988 to 20.7 percent in 2006. In some particularly bad cases, the lungs of teenage smokers were found to be in the same condition as elderly people.

According to the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), teens who smoke tend to drink four times as much as those who don't.

The government spends W30 billion (USD=W918) annually on anti-smoking and health campaigns, but most of them target male adults with only a tenth of the budget targeting teenage smoking.

Source: English Chosun 19 October 2007
Link: http://tinyurl.com/2928xs

Cigarette ends are the new bane of Brighton

A litter survey has revealed a 43 per cent rise in the amount of cigarette butts dropped on pavements since the smoking ban was introduced.

Wedeged between paving slabs, in between plant pots and floating in drains, these are just some of the hiding places for cigarette ends.

Keep Britain Tidy has published the first research of the increase of cigarette rubbish after the ban and reveals cigarette ends now account for 40 per cent of the country's litter.

Around 200 million butts are dropped every day in the UK, amounting to 122 tonnes of rubbish.

Responding to the survey, 98 per cent of councils said their towns and cities have a problem with smoking related litter and 83 per cent reported an increase since the ban.

Keep Britain Tidy's senior marketing manager Ginette Unsworth said "The fact that the number of dropped cigarette ends is rising is no surprise because people are concerned about the fire hazard of using a normal litter bin."

"With England being the last country in the UK to bring the ban in it had the benefit of hindsight. It knew the problems encountered by other nations. If this had been exploited further, the level of cigarette litter may not be in such a sorry state."

Cigarette ends can take up to 12 years to biodegrade fully due to the cellulose acetate they contain.

The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 specifically listed cigarettes, cigars and smoking products as being litter.

Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) has urged local authorities to issue more smokers who drop their rubbish with fixed penalty notices.

A spokeswoman said: "It is an issue which needs to be addressed quickly. Businesses certainly need to provide more cigarette stubbing bins for smokers and local authorities should make more on the spot fines."

She added: "If fines were enforced people would soon get the message that it is not socially acceptable to throw their ends on the floor."

Authorities have launched campaigns to discourage littering and some have increased street cleaning.

Brighton and Hove City Council said it has been working with pubs, bars and clubs to clean up.

A spokesman said: "We don't have any statistics on how much more litter it involves. Street sweepers are largely taking it in their stride."

Hastings Borough Council has also been working closely with licensees and has issued 11 fixed penalty notices for smoking related litter.

Adur District Council has joined forces with Arun District Council and Worthing Borough Council to publicise Keep Britain Tidy's "No butts, stub it, bin it campaign."

A spokeswoman said: "We hope this campaign will help reduce cigarette litter, it's about awareness and education."

Arun District Council has seen an improvement in the problem since it publicised the campaign.

A spokesman said: "Cigarette litter got worse after July 1 in certain areas but after these were targeted by advertising and have improved significantly. We've had an overall improvement of more than 50 per cent in areas targeted by adverts and bins."

Worthing Borough Council recorded a 60 per cent reduction in dropped cigarette ends days after it launched a campaign in six problem areas.

Source: The Argus, 18 October 2007
Link: http://tinyurl.com/3cuvbq