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It has long been accepted that every decent health improvement plan, from the humblest local education campaign right up to a comprehensive national tobacco control act, should end with a section on the need for constant monitoring and evaluation, followed up by adjustments to the policy if necessary. Few governments that survive the countless rounds in the heavyweight ring of anti-tobacco legislation seem to remember the bit about review, but not surprisingly, Australia is once again a model. After just 10 …

Despite all newspaper, magazine, and billboard advertising of tobacco products having been banned in the UK since last February, several features on the British Grand Prix extolling the Jordan team, sponsored by Benson & Hedges (B&H) cigarettes, appeared in …

For once, it seems that one of the new democracies of the former Soviet Union may be able to avoid the worst of the enslavement to western tobacco companies that has happened to so many other countries in the same situation. Latvia, in fact, is actually quite an old democracy, having tasted independence and freedom in the early part of the 20th century, developing to have one of the highest standards of living anywhere in Europe in the 1930s. From 1940, it was occupied with extreme brutality first by the Soviet Union, then by Nazi Germany, and then again by the Soviets, whose pretence of allowing independence turned into forcible membership of the USSR. But eventually, in 1991, this small nation finally regained its independence. Nowadays it has around two and a half million people, including a …

Another in our occasional series about real health ministers, the sort who ignore the fact that the president’s cousin is on the local board of a big tobacco company, and tell the people how it really is. Our last example was from Fiji (see Fiji: finger for BAT, Tobacco Control 2003; 12 :7), and now a rival has been spotted in the same …

Last November, BAT launched a promotional campaign called “Experience It” in Nigeria, featuring five blockbuster Hollywood films. All five movies screened or advertised—Ocean’s Eleven, Matrix, ShowTime, Romeo Must Die, …

Despite persistent activity by energetic and dedicated groups and individuals in Sri Lanka, there is still little sign of the government really embracing tobacco control; and there are still frequent reminders of which side seems to be winning the tobacco war. One reason may be that in official circles, and among the business community, the tobacco industry is still not seen as the pariah it is, allowing it access to activities that only serve to prolong its ability to suppress the widespread dissemination of the health message. The Editors Guild of Sri Lanka …

BAT Germany recently released its social report for 2003. Where tobacco is concerned, Germany is the sick man of western Europe. Rampant tobacco promotion saturates youth oriented media, especially student publications, and the government is infamous among its European Union partners for taking a fiercely pro-tobacco line at intergovernmental negotiations (see Tobacco Control2002;11:90 [OpenUrl][1][FREE Full Text][2] Tobacco Control2002;11:291 [OpenUrl][3][FREE Full Text][4] ). So it takes more than average industry duplicity for a German tobacco company to portray itself as socially responsible. But even German health advocates, accustomed to industry excesses not seen … [1]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DTobacco%2BControl%26rft.stitle%253DTobacco%2BControl%26rft.issn%253D0964-4563%26rft.aulast%253DSimpson%26rft.auinit1%253DD.%26rft.volume%253D11%26rft.issue%253D2%26rft.spage%253D90%26rft.epage%253D90%26rft.atitle%253DGermany%253A%2Bbogus%2Bpolls%2Band%2Bthe%2BEuro-pain%2Bsyndrome%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1136%252Ftc.11.2.90%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F12034992%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [2]: /lookup/ijlink?linkType=FULL&journalCode=tobaccocontrol&resid=11/2/90&atom=%2Ftobaccocontrol%2F12%2F3%2F246.2.atom [3]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DTobacco%2BControl%26rft.stitle%253DTobacco%2BControl%26rft.issn%253D0964-4563%26rft.aulast%253DSimpson%26rft.auinit1%253DD.%26rft.volume%253D11%26rft.issue%253D4%26rft.spage%253D291%26rft.epage%253D293%26rft.atitle%253DGermany%253A%2Bhow%2Bdid%2Bit%2Bget%2Blike%2Bthis%253F%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1136%252Ftc.11.4.291%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F12432147%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [4]: /lookup/ijlink?linkType=FULL&journalCode=tobaccocontrol&resid=11/4/291&atom=%2Ftobaccocontrol%2F12%2F3%2F246.2.atom

According to Godfrey Philips, the Indian subsidiary of Philip Morris that makes Red & White cigarettes, the emphasis of the Red & White bravery awards is “selfless action”. The same phrase could hardly describe the company’s motives for using the name of its cigarette brand instead of its company name for the scheme, whose well funded advertising campaign associates its cigarettes with bravery (see Tobacco Control 2002; 11 :10–11, 91). With not only the brand’s name but also its …

One of the more bizarre accounts of the tobacco industry’s influence on the Bush administration in the USA emerged recently from Michael Moore, film maker, journalist, and best selling author of the satirical and less than flattering book about his country, Stupid white men . Moore revealed that during a nationwide book promotion tour, he had asked his audiences if they knew the answer to a question that was increasingly bothering him. As he flew from city to city, he repeatedly passed through airport security checks. At each one, he dutifully emptied his pockets of anything that might be considered a potential security threat, in the climate of greatly increased security awareness following …

Earlier this year, one of the leading cigarette manufacturers seemed to be making special efforts to exploit the advantages afforded by hesitant public policies and the absence of serious controls on the publicity and sale of tobacco in Uruguay. In the capital, Montevideo, a new advertising campaign appeared for Montana cigarettes, using large posters in almost all the city’s bus stops. They showed a young couple who appeared to be no more than 15 or 16 years old, looking carefree and contented, the epitome of wellbeing in full Montevidean style. …

To western observers interested in tobacco control policy, Japan is a fascinating anomaly. Despite its extraordinary achievements in manufacturing and technology, coupled with its high levels of education and research, and an economy that until a recent blip, probably only temporary, has been a world leader, its smoking rates have been sky high, with subsequent disease levels to match. In many ways, to a westerner it is rather like a Germany of the East. Two decades ago, Japan had the highest male smoking prevalence of any industrialised country, at around 80%, but an almost negligible prevalence among women. Then came the invasion of American tobacco companies led by the US Trade Representative in 1985. Along with Thailand, Taiwan, and South Korea, Japan rolled over and modern tobacco promotion began. Until then, the Japanese tobacco monopoly (ironically, in view of Japan’s high incidence of hypertension and stroke, it was called the Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation) had been supplying a large and eager male market but had desisted from what must have so attracted the foreign invaders—the almost totally non-smoking female half of the population. A wind of change was in any case blowing through Japanese society, with increasing numbers of young women not only having significant disposable incomes—it is still quite common for young working women to live with their parents until marriage, usually later than their western counterparts—but traditionally strict attitudes to women’s behaviour were softening. What better way for tobacco companies to recruit them than by somehow exploiting this new mood of liberation? Just as in many emerging, fast growing developing countries, the potential to nearly double the market by recruiting women to smoking must have been the western tobacco companies’ dream come true. Within a decade, smoking rates among young Japanese women had shot up, well …

November 8 is a date of special significance in Thailand, as it is both the date of official funding of ThaiHealth in 2001 and the effective date in 2002 of new restrictions banning smoking in public places, including air conditioned restaurants. A previous article has highlighted that the adoption of the health promotion fund is a crucial milestone for tobacco control ( Tobacco Control 2001; 10 :48–54). While a quick survey shows tremendous strides …

Traditional forms of tobacco advertising are banned in Canada, and likely to stay that way after a landmark ruling last December from the Quebec Superior Court dismissing a constitutional challenge from the cigarette companies. However, extensive rows of cigarette packages, in quantities far greater than are necessary to supply consumers, are still a big part of the tobacco industry’s marketing plan. Commonly called “power walls”, these rows of tobacco products are found in stores across Canada and in many other countries. These displays are in …

[Graphic][1] Sri Lankan cricket captain Sanath Jayasuriya telling young people “Let’s walk towards a healthy lifestyle without smoking” in a health ministry campaign. In the face of the tobacco industry’s incessant, high pressure promotion of smoking as a fashionable, desirable part of life for young … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

Turkmenistan recently became the first country in the former Soviet Union to ban smoking in all public places. Having been advised to stop smoking following heart surgery in 2000, President Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s increasingly idiosyncratic and autocratic leader, introduced a fine—the equivalent of the minimum monthly wage—for anyone caught smoking in public. Governments elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, however, seem to take a more lenient approach to smoking, taking their tobacco control cues from the industry rather than their health …

Just like CASIN (see “The Circumlocution Hall of Fame” below), the Belgian Rodin Foundation, whose strapline is “Analysing and taking action”, has been contacting health agencies active in tobacco control as if it had no connections with the tobacco industry. Its unctuous approaches even included a disarming if coy plea for us to make allowances for the institutional equivalent of the innocence of youth. In a letter sent to several organisations in Europe, …

Whenever a government announces tobacco control measures which tobacco companies suspect will be effective, the companies' first reaction, at least in private, is to work out ways of getting round them. Under self regulation, they implement whatever schemes they think will most completely negate the measures they have just agreed to, and continue for as long as they can get away with it. It costs nothing to make a grovelling apology, after all; and in extreme cases, it can be delivered …

As we know, international tobacco companies are hard at work to reinvent their images, particularly in the west where people increasingly disapprove of their activities. At the same time, as we also know, their behaviour in the new markets of the developing world has not changed one iota, except perhaps to intensify with each passing month. Pakistan has already been suffering a sustained onslaught of tobacco promotion clearly aimed at youth for many years (see Tobacco Control 2001; 10 :93–4 and Tobacco Control 2000; 9 :361, for examples). Have the international tobacco companies toned down their marketing recently, in line with the new sense of corporate responsibility they claim? Did they, as perhaps only a hopeless idealist might wonder, think it better corporate ethics to reduce their barrage of positive images for cigarettes in …

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is an international organisation of more than 55 000 members with chapters throughout the world. ASHRAE develops standards that “set uniform methods of testing and rating equipment and establish accepted practices for the HVAC&R (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration) industry worldwide, such as the design of energy efficient buildings” (www.ashrae.org). ASHRAE then submits its standards to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for endorsement as an American standard. Furthermore, ASHRAE standards are also adopted by several other international standards setting organisations as their own national standards, giving ASHRAE a reach well beyond the USA. The tobacco industry, for the past 20 years, has been heavily involved with ASHRAE in an attempt to influence …

As noted in our last edition, an outrageous cigarette promotion by Philip Morris in India links its Red & White cigarette brand with bravery and other forms of selfless service to humanity through an annual bravery award. Operating at state level, the scheme maximises regional press coverage, with flurries of positive associations when the winners' details are announced. In all the pomp and glitter of the judging and awards processes, it seems that no-one sits back to consider whether some awards might not just have a touch of irony that could come back to haunt the sponsors. In January, for example, …

More news from Germany, tobacco rent-a-nation of the European Union (EU), where the fight by industry interests against relatively small health forces continues to produce some extraordinary anomalies in a country so long at the forefront of technological progress. In December, the German tobacco trade journal Tabakzeitung gleefully announced the results of a poll carried out last year, apparently showing that only 6% of adult Germans backed a tobacco advertising ban, whereas three times that number had backed one just a year earlier. It said almost half of Germans did not want to see any changes …

Caught red-handed in January last year developing its anonymous City Gorilla website promoting the most “happening, cool nightclubs in town” (as the youthful target audience might put it), which just happen to be stuffed with British American Tobacco (BAT) cigarette brands ( Tobacco Control 2001; 10 :92), the British based transnational tobacco company has been found out again. Once more the promotional tool it was secretly developing is a website that looks like an independent guide to bars and nightclubs in European cities. A previously confidential internal memorandum revealed that www.citygobo.com was set up by BAT to encourage people to attend venues where it sells and promotes cigarettes. The …

Cover of a recent edition of Real Edge , a “lad's” magazine mail shot financed by BAT's US subsidiary Brown & Williamson. A clearer image is emerging about the likely trends in tobacco promotion over the next few years in countries where tobacco control measures or social pressure make life increasingly difficult for tobacco companies. “Permission marketing”, in which tobacco manufacturers gather the names, addresses, and lifestyle details and preferences of consumers who claim to be smokers, is growing fast as the companies try to build up massive databases to ensure that even if they lose the right to use …

It's particularly disappointing when your traditional friends and admirers drop you in it, In fairness, however, a Wall Street analyst cannot have intended her memo about BAT's business prospects last year to be made public, but only to reassure stockholders. The analyst wrote that the new international marketing standards announced with much fanfare by BAT, Philip Morris, and Japan Tobacco were unlikely …

Urumqi, in the extreme north-west Xinjiang Province of China, could be regarded as one of the remotest cities on earth, yet at the same time—nestling between Mongolia, Russia, and northern Pakistan—the centre of Asia. Marlboro advertising, this time on hats, manages to appear in the most remote parts of the world. Yet even here, in the “Wild West” of China, the Marlboro cowboy already rides the range. During one day at China's 10th National Conference …

In a number of areas of law and policy in Japan today, the cutting edge has been shifting from the national government to local governments. Historically, local governments have been disabled by the constitutionally stronger central government, but in recent years, power seems to be shifting as the central government's inertia during the 1990s decade long recession has weakened its footing. This trend is evident in tobacco policy where local tobacco control efforts are actively underway. While the 2000 failure of a national tobacco consumption reduction plan (“Healthy Japan 21” or HJ21) illustrated the central government's limited engagement in tobacco control policy, since the early 1990s, local governments have stepped forward to establish increased non-smoking areas in public spaces and controls on cigarette butt littering. Now, two new contentious issues are emerging: …

Over 20 years ago, Ernest Pepples, a Brown & Williamson lawyer, dared put the unmentionable to paper—the possibility that the industry might be held criminally liable for its conduct. He wrote: “If we admit that smoking is harmful to heavy smokers, do we not admit that BAT has killed a lot of people each year for a very long time? Moreover, if the evidence we have today is not significantly different from the evidence we had five years ago, might it not be argued that we have been ‘wilfully’ killing our customers for this long period? Aside from the catastrophic civil damage and governmental regulation which would flow from such an admission, I foresee serious criminal liability problems.” Pepples' anxiety is easily understood. The proposition that the criminal law ought to apply to, and punish, those who …

Five leading tobacco companies met in secret on 2 June 1977 to plan a joint project to foster the idea that the harmfulness of tobacco smoke was not proven, but only a matter of “controversy”. The conspiracy was called Operation Berkshire (seehttp://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7257/371), and a central aim stated at the initial meeting was to “counter the increasing social unacceptability of smoking”. This was entirely in line with industry thinking at the time: in 1979, a tobacco industry delegation attended the Fourth World Conference on Tobacco and Health in Stockholm, Sweden. A subsequent memo by one of the delegates, later leaked to the press, repeated an apparently well established industry fear that: “The social acceptability issue will be the central battleground on which our case in the long run will be lost or won.” …

The French Tobacco Act (the “loi Evin”) has led to the price of manufactured cigarettes doubling since 1992, and to sales decreasing 14.5% from 1991 to 1997. But during the same period, sales of roll-your-own tobacco (RYO) have doubled, because of their lower level of taxation. This phenomenon mainly concerns young people: almost 24% of 12 to 24 year olds say they smoke roll ups, against 17.7% for the overall population aged 12 to 75. These facts may explain why RYO papers have recently developed strong efforts to gain new customers. Since the total ad ban came into force …

Following a lengthy regulatory process, Canada's new cigarette package warnings are the first with photographs, and the first covering 50% of the package front and back. A mock up package with one of the new exterior warning (left) and one of the package inserts (right). The content of the new warnings was finalised on 26 June 2000 when the cabinet of the Canadian government adopted the Tobacco Products Information Regulations under the Tobacco Act. Before adoption, the regulations had received unanimous approval by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health, following public hearings, and by the House of Commons as a whole. Considerable research and other work by the Canadian Department of Health and by health organisations contributed significantly to the development of the regulations. The regulations require that one of 16 rotated …

“Asia cannot afford to repeat the North American cycle of tragedy from tobacco company aggression. In truth, hundreds of millions of Asians alive today depend on what you do today . . . against tobacco.” These were the words of Dr Prakit Vateesatokit of Thailand, as he received one of the first Luther Terry Awards for outstanding achievements in tobacco control, at the world conference in Chicago in August. One response to the challenge is being provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, which has …

President Clinton is known to be strongly against tobacco, but it remains unclear whether his government will actively support the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). At the first meeting of the working group on the FCTC in Geneva in October 1999, the well prepared US delegation was only in favour of addressing non-compliance with FCTC requirements by consultations and diplomatic means, not by binding mechanisms. It seemed that the American delegation could only accept what was already in place in the USA, or what did not need to be ratified by the Senate. A total ban on advertising was certainly not acceptable for “constitutional” reasons. The …

Tobacco control advocates concerned with youth access issues should dread the negative utopia where underage smokers purchase cigarettes almost anytime and anywhere. Sadly, such a utopia exists in Japan where over 500 000 cigarette vending machines generate over 40% of the total sales of cigarettes (1997 figures). Cigarette vending machines on the streets of cities in Japan, like these ones seen in Kobe last November, make access easy for children. Although most shopkeepers in Japan will willingly sell tobacco products directly to minors, they do not need to. Just outside the ubiquitous convenience stores and supermarkets, on virtually every urban street corner, and even at unattended locations on rural highways, tobacco vending machines give young people …

Philip Morris (PM) chief Geoffrey Bible, an Australian resident in the USA, wrote to the incoming chief executive officer of PM Australia, David Davies, in March 1993 “there is a lot of nervousness on the food side at our including them [Kraft] publicly as part of the corporate body when we are dealing with contentious issues. Kraft is the manufacturer of one of the household darlings of Australia, namely Vegemite [a black, yeast based spread]. Every Australian is born with a jar of Vegemite in …

When Philip Morris (PM) signed up former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher as a part time consultant on a three year contract reportedly worth US$2 million, one of her first tasks was to travel to Kazakhstan, to help persuade its leaders to sell PM a major stake in the state tobacco company. The minister for agriculture proposed selling off only 40% of the company, but President Nazarbayev overruled him and PM got total control over the former state tobacco factory. Since then, PM's influence has, if anything, become even more powerful, and some journalists, having …

What does one do with a newly introduced food product that is industrially manufactured and commercially marketed on a large scale, but has been shown conclusively to cause serious life threatening disease? The solution seems obvious—ban such a product. The process however, can be far more difficult than one would envisage. Gutka in India is one example. It is a generic name for a product that contains tobacco, areca nut, and several other substances in powdered or granulated form and is sold in small aluminum foil sachets. The only known use of this product is that it is put in the mouth and then …