Silk Cut 'targets girls' with super-slim packs in female-friendly packaging

Tobacco companies have been accused of using 'increasingly cynical' marketing ploys to target girls and young women.

In the latest attempt to attract smokers, Silk Cut is launching a range of super-slim cigarettes in packaging that resembles a perfume box.

The move follows similar campaigns in America where women are targeted with female-friendly packaging, often featuring pink colours and floral imagery.

Action on Smoking and Health said Silk Cut's use of the words 'super-slim' was an attempt to make a link between cigarettes and weight loss in the minds of teenage girls desperate to stay slim.

Martin Dockerell, of ASH, said: 'This has been done successfully in the States for many years and it's a relatively new development in the UK.

'In the States there has been a long tradition of products marketed at women, particularly young women, with boxes that are somehow more female-friendly.

'In the UK, the only legal advertising left is on the packet, so manufacturers are desperate to reach new smokers through the design of the packet.'

He added: 'Packaging is extremely important marketing device and by changing the pack you can increase your market share. They also know that smokers are highly susceptible to the packaging and the brand identity.'

Gallaher, the Japanese owned company that produces Silk Cut, describes its new brand, which goes on sale next month, as bringing 'elegance and quality' to the super-slim cigarette sector.

Studies have shown that teenage girls who are concerned about their weight are more likely to take up smoking. Under the age of 15 girls are more likely to smoke than boys.

Tobacco firms have tried to link smoking with slimness and glamour for nearly 100 years. In the 1920s, adverts urged women to 'Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet'.

In America, the popular brand Virginia Slims has a brand called Super Slims and is about to launch a sleek pink 'purse pack' aimed at women.

'Wrapping cigarettes in attractive packaging is one of the last marketing tools left for tobacco companies,' said Elspeth Lee, head of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK.

Source: The Daily Mail, 20 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/5kbnh9

China: Smoking a timebomb

One hundred million men in China may die of smoking-related diseases such as cancer from 2000 to 2050, researchers said in the British medical journal the Lancet. 

An aging population, tobacco use and an increasing rate of fat and salt intake are leading to more heart disease, stroke and cancer in China, the studies said. The proportion of deaths from those diseases rose to 74 percent in 2005 from 47 percent in 1973.

Families will be ``squandering life savings in desperate attempts at treatment,'' doctors led by Xiao Shuiyuan at Central South University in Changsha, China, said in their report. ``Hypertension and tobacco can be targeted health priorities.

The study on smoking is among 19 papers to be presented today in Beijing at a Lancet meeting on changes to China's health system. The journal has gathered 63 scientists from 10 countries to expand collaboration with colleagues in China and increase sources of information.

China's economic boom of the past three decades widened the health gap between rich and poor, according a separate study in the Lancet. A lack of government investment in health care has forced individuals to spend more, hurting the poorest people the most, the journal said.

Tobacco use is one of the world's biggest public health threats, killing 1 in 10 adults, or 5.4 million a year globally, according to the World Health Organization. More than 1 billion people on the planet smoke, the Geneva-based organization says.

The report said, "One in three smokers in the world is a Chinese man, with 60 percent of the country's males practicing the habit."

Source: Bloomberg, 20 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/5fyhfw

German heart specialist received research grant from tobacco industry foundation

The work of several leading German medical scientists has been sponsored by the International Philip Morris Research Foundation. Johannes Spatz, public health specialist and antitobacco activist in Berlin, made the discovery in a search of the internet archive of the tobacco company Philip Morris. 

An official question by the Green Party in the Berlin Senate has publicly highlighted that the cardiologist Eckart Fleck, from the Berlin Heart Centre, had received a grant of 937 000 (£744 000; $1.28m) in 2003 to sponsor his work, analysis of the development of atherosclerosis, with the help of magnetic resonance imaging and histochemistry.

Professor Fleck is known for publicly warning of the dangers of smoking for the heart. He denies any commercial links with the tobacco industry and any influence on the choice of the research topic and the research itself.

Critics such as Dr Spatz agree that there was no direct dependence, but say that scientists such as Professor Fleck were ignorant about the underlying strategy of the tobacco industry to keep close links with relevant research topics and stay in touch with opinion leaders in the discipline. Therefore, they say, all research institutions and organisations in Germany should follow the example of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg and other medical societies that abstain from receiving tobacco industry grants.

Apart from Professor Fleck, 16 other German scientists were found to be sponsored by the International Philip Morris Research Foundation, most of them working in the fields of occupational health, toxicology, nutrition physiology, or cardiology.

Their names are listed in an internal document in the extensive internet archive of Philip Morris. The company had to open its archive to avoid higher compensation payments after a US court judgment against it in 1998.

The thoracic surgeon Thomas Kyriss, from Stuttgart, who has been involved in the analysis of the Philip Morris documents, says that in the late 90s the tobacco industry changed from direct funding of pro-tobacco research projects to a more sophisticated policy of supporting high powered research of relevant projects of the future (BMJ 2008;337:a1887).

Dr Kyriss points towards a publication on the research funding strategy by the US public health specialist Norbert Hirschhorn in Tobacco Control (2001;10:247-252).

"The tobacco industry, for instance, is interested in following up the research on biomarkers for the early detection of cancer risks to developing strategies to conceal the risks of passive smoking," said Dr Kyriss.

Another point of criticism is the selection of the peer reviewers who decide on the research grants given by Philip Morris. Dr Kyriss says that they are not truly independent because of close connections to the tobacco industry.

Source: BMJ, 15 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6h4da3

Cigarette display ban

Shopkeepers across the South West are warning that new controls on the sale of cigarettes could force some of them out of business. 

The Department of Health is considering a ban on the display of cigarettes in shops to try to curb the number of smokers.

Campaigners and researchers have urged ministers to take a tough stance on the sale of tobacco, dubbing point-of-sale displays the "silent salesman".

Shopkeeper Dave Haggett tells the Politics Show: "Our main concern is that if you sell from under the counter, you take freedom of choice away.

Cancer Research UK claims banning vending machine sales, checkout displays and introducing plain packaging is vital.

One former smoker says: "I'm not sure it'll do any good - banning displays. A stricter enforcement of the new age limit to buy cigarettes, up from 16 to 18, is probably more important."

A recent study by Stirling University found that nearly half of teenagers were aware of checkout marketing. Researchers found that the likelihood of a child taking up smoking increased by 35% for every tobacco brand they know.

The Cancer Research UK study, which was based on a review of previous research, also pointed out that removing packs from checkouts could cut brand impressions by over 80%.

Jean King, of Cancer Research UK, says: "We've come a long way - introducing smokefree laws and making it illegal to sell cigarettes to under 18's - but the job isn't done."

"The evidence is clear and strong support from the public is there - we need to put tobacco out of sight and out of mind to protect all young people."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: "Protecting children from smoking is a government priority and taking away temptation is one way to do this. If banning brightly-coloured packets and removing cigarettes from display helps save lives, then that is what we should do - but we want to hear everyone's views first."

Deborah Arnott, Director of ASH, Action on Smoking and Health, told the Politics Show: "In Iceland they've brought in a ban on the display of tobacco products and smoking among 15-year-olds has dropped from 19% to 14%."

Source: BBC One, 17 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/5dnkny

Waves of smuggled cigarettes flood Europe from Russia

Russia is accused of allowing Britain and Europe to be flooded with a wave of cut-price smuggled cigarettes. The most recent UK seizure was this month, at Coventry.

An incriminating video, extracts from which are published by the Guardian, was shot by undercover journalists at a huge cigarette factory in Kaliningrad.

The video is likely to lead to diplomatic repercussions, worsening already strained relations between Russia and the UK.

It shows that the Baltic Tobacco Company (BTC), apparently Russian-owned, is manufacturing on a large scale a previously obscure cigarette brand called Jin Ling. The firm is selling them by the container-load to smugglers at 20 US cents a packet. Smuggled Jin Ling, resembling the US Camel brand in appearance, are coming to light across Europe from Lithuania to Venice. They have been seized in Dover, Chelmsley Wood in Birmingham and Heanor in Derbyshire.

Last year 500,000 were found in Denmark on a ship bound for the UK.

This month's UK Jin Ling seizures were hidden in a truckload of reels of cable in Coventry, British Customs said. A Polish citizen was among those arrested.

"Jin Ling is the most disturbing new development anywhere in the world in the illegal tobacco trade," said Luk Joossens, a World Health Organisation specialist.

EU countries seized 258m smuggled Jin Ling cigarettes last year. Officials at the EU's anti-fraud office in Brussels have set up an international task force as a result.

Austin Rowan, who heads the unit, said: "The smuggling of Jin Ling has become a huge problem in the EU, causing substantial losses to both national and EU budgets."

Evidence has come to light that British American Tobacco (BAT), the giant UK firm, was selling Brazilian tobacco to the Russian factory.

BAT now said this was an "oversight" which "has immediately been put right".

A BAT spokesman said: "Our anti-illicit trade team is aware of allegations around the Jin Ling brand made by BTC.

"Regrettably, our subsidiary Souza Cruz was not aware until now. We can confirm consequently that no more tobacco will be supplied."

Video evidence about what is going on in Kaliningrad has been obtained by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a non-profit group which includes East European reporters.

They went in to the factory under cover, posing as would-be Romanian buyers. A container-load of Jin Ling, which are never officially marketed in Europe, was offered for less than £60,000.

It would be worth at least £1.5m in the UK, if smuggled packs of cigarettes were sold at half the legitimate price in Britain.

Russian journalists working in Kaliningrad have learned that to openly ask about the cigarette contraband trade is a risky business. In 2005, local newspaper Novye Kolesa criticised the protection given to smugglers by local officials.

The paper also said that a police commander's family was operating a duty free shop supplying smugglers plying the Polish border. In response, the newspaper was raided and closed down.

Ironically, the development of a smuggling route between Kaliningrad and Britain may have been first stimulated by mainstream British tobacco firms, according to MPs.

In 2003, commons public accounts committee chairman Edward Leigh said of Imperial Tobacco's former activities: "They persisted in exporting large volumes to places like Kaliningrad when they must have known that the cigarettes could not possibly be for those domestic markets."

Source: The Guardian, 20 October 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6ew9wo