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ASH Daily news for 27 April 2011

HEADLINES

  • Treasury to cut duty free tobacco as part of £2 billion tax clawback

    The number of cigarettes holidaymakers may bring back from Europe without attracting questions from Customs officials is to be cut by more than two-thirds as part of a Treasury attempt to claw back some of the £2.2bn in tax lost to tobacco smuggling every year.

    The proposed change sets a guideline limit of 800 cigarettes and 1kg of rolling tobacco. Current limits of up to 3,200 cigarettes and 3kg of rolling tobacco were set in 2002 after an attempt to clamp down further met with opposition.
     
    Treasury minister Justine Greening is to set out plans to slash existing guideline limits, bringing them in line with Ireland and many other parts of Europe.  Greening said she believes this will "start to deter those people who are actually just using minimum indicative levels as a way of bringing in wholesale amounts of cigarettes."

    The Tobacco Manufacturers Association said it would not oppose the reduced guideline limits .

    More than one in 10 cigarettes smoked in the UK is smuggled or bought legitimately by overseas travellers. The figure for rolling tobacco is almost half. Tobacco sales nevertheless generate £8.8bn in tax each year for Treasury coffers.

    Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health said: "ASH welcomes much of HMRC's new strategy particularly increased investment in tackling smuggling. However, there is too much weight placed on collaboration with the tobacco industry which has historically been a major driver of smuggling, and no reference to the UK's obligations to protect tobacco control from the vested interests of the tobacco industry. And there is no clear ambition for the size of reduction in the illicit market which they expect to achieve from this increased investment."
    Source: The Guardian, 27 April 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/dK9E9S

  • Australia: Tobacco funded ad campaign

    Public health experts say a campaign that links plain cigarette packaging with children buying unbranded  loose tobacco from criminal gangs is grossly misleading and indicative of a desperate industry.

    The Association of Australian Retailers, which is bankrolled by big tobacco, has been running advertisements claiming children as young as 14 are smoking illegal tobacco smuggled by ''highly organised criminal networks''.

     Kypros Kypri, an associate professor in the school of medicine and public health at the University of Newcastle, said there was no indication in the survey of how the 0.1 per cent of 14- to 19-year-olds who reported smoking unbranded loose tobacco had obtained it. ''I don't know of any study that shows 14-year-olds get illegal tobacco from criminal gangs,''  he said.

    Leaked internal documents prepared by the public relations strategists The Civic Group reveal the ads were designed to be ''aggressive'' and to ''identify and leverage existing emotional drivers and prejudices''.

    Mike Daube, a professor of health policy at Curtin University, said other alliance ads had similarly dubious claims, and that the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare survey of more than 23,000 people had found fewer than one in 10 people had actually smoked unbranded tobacco.
    Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 27 April 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/eCeHI3

  • USA: New York: Smoker leaves judge fuming

    A judge who freed a criminal for a life-saving transplant has reacted with fury after finding out the 48-year-old woman hasn't been allowed a new heart because she won't stop smoking.

    Judge Francis Ricigliano berated Diane McCloud in the Long Island court, giving her until June 10 to ditch the smoking habit.

    In January, McCloud's lawyer Leonard Isaacs had argued that his client  would be dead within six months if she was denied the transplant. At the original trial, McCloud was brought to court by ambulance and wheeled in on a hospital bed with an IV attached.

    Judge Ricigliano cut short McCloud's 15-month sentence at the Nassau County Correctional Centre.  However,McCloud's doctor had recently got in touch with the judge's office to say that McCloud had refused to stop smoking and missed several appointments and drug tests. At the hearing, Judge Ricigliano told the woman: 'I will re-sentence you to the maximum amount of jail, without any problem.' 

    Source: Daily Mail, 26 April 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/fYsuUS

  • USA: FDA will regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products

     The Food and Drug Association (FDA) will regulate electronic cigarettes the same way it regulates other tobacco products, the agency has announced.

    The government has decided not to appeal a federal appeals court decision holding that e-cigarettes
    can be regulated as "tobacco products" under federal law ".
     
    Under the federal Tobacco Control Act, tobacco products are subject to restrictions even though they are not considered drugs or devices. The law subjects new tobacco products and modified risk tobacco products  to premarket review.
     
    The FDA now intends to propose a regulation that would extend the agency's regulation of tobacco products to include "other categories of tobacco products, a group that is expected to include e-cigarettes. The additional tobacco product categories would be subject to general controls, such as registration, product listing, ingredient listing, good manufacturing practice requirements, user fees for certain products, and the adulteration and misbranding provisions.
     
    Source: MedPage Today, 26 April 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/eDvVQp

  • USA: Boston: New law bans welfare recipients from spending money on tobacco

    Boston lawmakers voted unanimously last night to ban welfare recipients from spending their cash
    benefits on alcohol, tobacco, and lottery tickets.The House of Representatives approved the ban, as part of a larger amendment to the state budget, on a 155-0 vote. No one spoke in opposition to the ban.

    The measure not only targets welfare recipients, it also bans store owners from accepting welfare debit cards for purchases of alcohol, tobacco, and lottery tickets. Store owners who violate the ban could be fined $500 for the first offence.

    Controversy surrounding the use of welfare benefits erupted during the governor’s race last year, when the Republican nominee, Charles D. Baker, printed mock welfare cards with the governor’s name that were to be used for “booze, cash, cigarettes and/or lottery tickets.’’
     
    About 450,000 households in Massachusetts use welfare debit cards, which are programmed to allow only the purchase of groceries.
    Source: Boston Globe, 27 April 2011
    Link: http://bo.st/exPTSt

  • BAT launches new product which they claim reduces toxicants in tobacco

    Researchers for British American Tobacco have developed a novel process that they claim reduces the levels of some of the dangerous chemicals found in cigarette smoke.

    The scientists, hoped to remove toxicants generated when proteins and polyphenols burn in tobacco.
     
    Tests with smoking machines have shown that the new treated tobacco produced substantially reduced levels of hydrogen cyanide, most aromatic amines and some nitrosamines specific to tobacco.

    However, Chris Proctor, chief scientific officer at British American Tobacco, cautioned that: “Even if you can reduce the levels of a significant number of toxicants in tobacco smoke, there is no guarantee that this will result in reduced exposure in people or result in a reduction in health risks.”

    The 43 toxicants that were measured for this study represent a small fraction of around 5,000 chemical constituents that have been identified in mainstream smoke.

     
    Source: TCE Today, 27 April 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/h66oFh

  • USA: Florida: Smokers sparks fire by lighting cigarette while attached to an oxygen tank

    An elderly man nearly died in a blaze that ripped through his Florida home after he lit a cigarette while hooked up to an oxygen tank.

    The unidentified man was able to escape the flames and dial 911, according to Orlando's WFTV television.
    He suffered burns to his face and chest but survived, officials said.
     
    The man told authorities that he knew he was playing with fire by lighting up while connected to the tank - he even keeps a "no smoking sign" in his home to remind visitors.
     
    "Anytime you're dealing with oxygen, it's really dangerous because it's extremely flammable," Osceola County fire chief Kevin Meyers said.

     
    Source: New York Daily News, 26 April 2011
    Link: http://nydn.us/gtCMAO