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ASH Daily News

22 October 2003

HEADLINES

French tobacconist protest against tax rise
Grandmothers’ smoking and birth weight
BAT plant to close
122-year-old smoker dies


FULL TEXT

French tobacconist protest against tax rise

There was widespread coverage in the press about French tobacconists’ one day strike in protest against the 20% rise in tobacco duty that came into effect on Monday.

Notices on shuttered tobacco shops throughout the country asked smokers for their understanding: “Your tobacconist is fighting for survival.”

The 20 percent price rise Monday pushed the average price of a packet of cigarette to €4.60. It was the second increase in the year with another looming in early 2004 that would raise price to €5.40 on average.

French Health Minister Jean-Françoise Mattei defended the tax increases as the most effective way to cut the country’s dependency on nicotine. Cigarette sales fell 8.2 percent in the first eight months of the year.

Mattei indicated on Monday that the next round of tax increases may be delayed, but he showed little sign of backing down – as tobacco vendors are demanding.

The Yorkshire Post, covering the French tobacconists strike heard Deborah Arnott, director of ASH, warning that although the tax increase in France was welcome, large scale smuggling would not be stamped out.

This view was echoed by others, including the Tobacco Manufacturers Association (TMA); whilst FOREST said that British smokers were now likely to plan trips to Belgium or Spain instead.

A spokeswoman for Retailer Against Smokers, Audrdey Wales, said: “Any increase in another country has to be welcomed, but I don’t think it will do much damage to bulk smuggling which comes from outside France.”

Tim Lord for the TMA said: “While it is a positive move in terms of reducing the gap in the cost of cigarettes between the UK and France, the source of the UK smuggled products is largely in Spain and Belgium.”

The editorial accompanying the Yorkshire Post article ended with the sentence: “If the only two certainties in life are death and taxes, it seems that smokers must resign themselves to facing both sooner or later.”

[ASH has welcomed the increase in French taxes, saying that it will have an affect on cross-border bootlegging of tobacco – but added that increase was unlikely to have any significant impact on large scale container fraud which was still costing the UK treasury and public health initiatives.]

Financial Times coverage:
http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=031021000709
ASH press release:
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/press/031020.html
Source: International Herald Tribune (AP, AFP, Reuters) 21October 2003, Financial Times, The Independent, Daily Telegraph, The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post, 21 October 2003



BAT plant to close

All cigarette production is to be phased out at British American Tobacco factory in Darlington by the end of June. The closure of the factory will cost nearly 500 jobs.

Source: Southern Daily Echo, 16 October 2003



Grandmothers’ smoking and birth weight

A study in the British Medical Journal takes a look at the effects of grandmothers’ smoking in pregnancy on birth weight. The link between smoking during pregnancy and birth weight is established, but this study examines whether smoking during pregnancy has intergenerational manifestations.

Conclusion: Deficits in mothers’ birth weight attributable to their mother smoking was not evident in the grandchildren.

Full BMJ study:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7420/898
Source: British Medical Journal, 18 October 2003



122-year-old smoker dies

A man who claimed smoking was to a long life has died at 122.

Tiger hunter Sek Yi believed tobacco and praying kept him going. His wife, who is now 103 agreed [though it is not clear whether she is a smoker too].

His identity papers were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge but researchers believe Mr Yi was born in 1881. That was the year when Lillie Langtry, the Prince of Wales mistress made her debut as an actress at the Haymarket theatre in London, while in New York Thomas Edison turned on the first electric lights.

When he was 21, the British forces were winning the Boer War, while a London to Folkestone trial was organised to show that cars could one day be a reliable means of transport.

As WWII broke out, Mr Yi was fast heading to retirement age, 58. In later years, he was revered throughout Cambodia for his age.

The oldest fully authenticated age for any human is the 122 years and 164 days of Frenchwoman Jeanne-Loiuse Calment, who died in 1997.

Source: The Mirror, Daily Mail, 21 October 2003

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