Smoking steady despite quit aids

Sales of products to help smokers kick the habit have soared in the past 12 months, but the trend has done nothing to dent cigarette sales, a report has said.

The Grocer said sales of quitting aids such as Niquitin and Nicotinell increased by 10% to £97 million a year.

However, neither surging sales of the products nor the outdoor smoking ban had shown any signs of slowing the "long-running slow and steady sales growth" of the tobacco category. Official HMRC figures revealed tobacco sales rose to £11.3 billion in 2009, an increase of 3.3% on the previous year, the trade magazine said.

Six of the top 10 cigarette brands were in growth in 2009, according to Nielsen data seen by the magazine. Leading brand Lambert & Butler saw sales slip 2.5% but second-placed Mayfair grew 4.8% while Marlboro sales were up 0.7%.

The roll-your-own category, widely expected to benefit from the economic downturn, continued to show the strongest growth in the tobacco sector.

The boost in sales of quitting aids was unlikely to have been caused by a sudden upturn in the number of people trying to break the habit.

Instead, heavy advertising alongside official NHS guidance and more products on the market contributed to the upturn, the magazine said.

GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Niquitin, agreed that sales had been helped by the Government's anti-smoking campaign.

A spokeswoman said, "Smoking cessation underwent something of a renaissance in 2009, after a quiet period following Smokefree legislation. The Government invested heavily in promoting its smoking cessation services locally and nationally, which looks to have made an impact."

Source: The Press Association, 19 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bPZqxs

Taiwan to include tobacco in film rating scheme

Taiwan is planning to change its movie rating system to take account of characters who smoke, the government said Saturday, as part of a bid to reduce the number of youngsters taking up the habit.

The Department of Health wants to make tobacco use one of the criteria for deciding what age rating to give a film, a move that could mean some animated movies are out of bounds for children.

"Smoking (in movies) has a much worse impact on health than sex and violence," the department said in a statement posted on its website.

Taiwan has looked to tighten anti-smoking rules in recent years. The island banned smoking in all indoor public places in early 2009.

It has also outlawed all cigarette advertisement and imposed a "health tax" on cigarettes, a move the health department credits with helping to cut smoking by 10 percent.

Lung cancer has long been a leading cause of death in Taiwan, which has about five million smokers out of a total population of 23 million, according to government figures.

Source: AFP, 20 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/ajECAL

Bulgaria set to ease tough public smoking ban

Bulgaria's ruling party has proposed watering down a new smoking ban in the country with the second highest percentage of smokers in the European Union.

The center-right GERB party, which won general elections last July, said its proposed relaxation of a ban on smoking in all public places would avoid hurting the tourist industry during tough economic times.

The proposed changes have the support of the Socialists but some of GERB's rightist allies in parliament said they would vote against them.

According to a draft submitted to parliament, restaurants and cafes smaller than 100 square meters (1,000 sq ft) in size will decide whether to allow smoking while larger establishments would be required to designate separate non-smoking halls.

Similar measures were imposed as part of a partial smoking ban in 2005 but have been widely ignored. Smoking will remain forbidden in all public buildings and on public transport.

The Balkan country of 7.6 million people has the second highest percentage of smokers in the EU after Greece. More than half of men and about a third of women smoke, surveys show

Source: Reuters, 19 February 2010 
Link: http://bit.ly/aNK5B5

Italians smoke less as recession, prices hit disposable income

Cigarette sales in Italy fell the most since 2005 last year as the recession and rising prices hit consumers’ disposable income, according to data compiled by research institute Ricerche per l’Economia e la Finanza, or REF. 

Italians bought 89.1 million kilograms (196.4 million pounds) of cigarettes, 3.1 percent less than in 2008, the Milan- based institute said today. It was the biggest drop since Italy banned smoking in offices and public places in 2005, REF said.

The decline was due to “a range of factors” including the “erosion of wages caused by the economic crisis, the growing illegal trade and prices rising above inflation,” REF said.

The purchasing power of Italian households slipped 1.6 percent in 2009 as the worst recession since World War II reduced disposable income by 1.5 percent, national statistics institute Istat said in a Jan. 11 report. The $2.3 trillion economy emerged from the recession in the third quarter.

Italy’s inflation rate gained 1.4 percent in January from a year earlier as energy costs increased after crude oil prices climbed almost 80 percent from a year earlier.

Source: Bloomberg, 19 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/aJVbCN

USA: Cigarette makers take racketeering case to top court

The government and three cigarette makers separately asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to review a racketeering verdict against major tobacco companies that was upheld by an appeals court last year.

Altria Group Inc's Philip Morris USA unit and two co-defendants filed to overturn the verdict, while the government argues the appeals court wrongly denied the disgorgement of billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains by the tobacco industry.

In May, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed a trial judge's verdict against the cigarette makers, finding they violated federal anti-racketeering laws by conspiring to lie about the dangers of smoking.

If the Supreme Court agrees to take the case, it could redefine the reach of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Besides Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, the appeals court ruling was challenged by Lorillard Inc, home of the Kent and Newport brands, and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco unit of Reynolds American Inc, maker of Camel and other cigarettes.

The case was filed in 1999 by the Clinton administration, which originally sought $289 billion in damages. During the original trial, which began in 2004, the Justice Department under the Bush administration scaled back its demands to $14 billion for anti-smoking campaigns.

The government had also sued Vector Group Ltd's Liggett Group, British American Tobacco Plc and its Brown & Williamson unit and two now defunct industry groups: the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that the companies broke the law and could no longer use expressions such as "low tar" or "light" in their cigarette marketing. But she said she did not have the authority to force them to fund a smoking cessation program.

The appeals court found that Kessler was limited to "forward-looking" remedies aimed at future racketeering violations but properly precluded imposing smoking-cessation and public-education remedies.

"There is a lot of risk here for the industry," said Edward Sweda, senior attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.

Sweda said that if the Supreme Court agreed with the government, cigarette makers might find themselves ordered to cough up hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars, for anti-tobacco advertising.

In its petition to the Supreme Court, the government argued that the appeals court had "eviscerated the relief available" in the biggest civil racketeering case ever brought by the United States.

The ruling "thwarted" the trial court's efforts to craft appropriate relief "to remedy the ongoing effects of fifty years of unlawful racketeering activity - unlawful acts that have harmed and continue to harm the lives and health of many millions of Americans," the government stated.

The tobacco companies argued in their petitions that the government had improperly invoked the racketeering statute and that the appeals court was overly deferential to Kessler.

"Given the critical underlying legal issues in this case, we strongly believe it is ripe for review by the Supreme Court," said Michael Robinson, a spokesman for Lorillard.

The appeals court found that Philip Morris, Lorillard, Reynolds and the other defendants had formed such an enterprise, by informally associating, coordinating research and conducting marketing activities with one another.

Source: Reuters, 19 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bYi9HQ