Consumers choose price over branding in tobacco

Andrew Lansley may want to rethink his support of putting cigarettes in plain packs after The Grocer's annual Top Products survey revealed that price - far more than bright shiny packaging - determines purchasing decisions.

The overall tobacco category grew by 3.8% in value for the year to 2 October, helped by increases in both duty and VAT, but within that there was staggering growth for some of the lower-priced brands, while the most ­recognisable such as Marlboro, Benson & Hedges and Regal all suffered ­significant losses.

Imperial Tobacco's budget John Player Special Blue variant experienced by far the strongest growth of any grocery product sold this year up a massive 173.1% to £209.4m.

Rival JTI also enjoyed massive success for its low price brand, Sterling, with King Size up 67.1% and Superkings up 37.9%.

In stark contrast, premium cigarette brands all lost sales Marlboro Gold was down 2.4%, Benson & Hedges Gold was down 4.3% and Regal was down 11.3%. Overall, 632 million fewer cigarettes were sold but this was more than made up for by a 19.5% increase in the sale of roll-your-own tobacco, which smashed through the £1bn barrier with total sales of £1.14bn.

The figures suggest that price is the key factor for smokers in the current economic climate and will cast further doubt over the need for government to ­introduce plain packaging.

"Making all tobacco products available in the same, easy-to-copy generic plain packaging would potentially lead to a significant increase in counterfeit product," said Imperial Tobacco head of marketing Steve Brock. "Governments need to ask themselves whether they want tobacco products to be sold by a responsible, legitimate business or by organised crime gangs who have no regard for any regulation."

Milford's SADD gets grant to study tobacco

A high school organization just received a $2,500 grant to raise awareness about the dangers of tobacco.

Health Resources in Action, a Boston-based non-profit company, awarded Students Against Destructive Decisions with the grant - one of 15 school chapters selected from across the state.

Milford School District Publicist Jocelyne Fauerbach said club co-president and senior Dylan Shea wrote the grant, and that money will go toward raising awareness about cigars, cigarillos and other tobacco products. Cigarillos, according to the student group, are packaged and marketed to look like candy cigarettes, but are just as dangerous.

Fauerbach said SADD students have surveyed more then 100 people on the issue during “on the street” interviews, and will attend an anti-smoking rally at the State House in March. They will also present the data they collected to the Milford School Committee and the Milford Board of Health.

Store ads attract children to tobacco

As people were encouraged to quit smoking during the 2010 Great American Smoke out on November 18, attention was also paid to tobacco ads targeting kids.

A survey, which was released by Queens Smoke-Free Partnership, Asian Americans for Equality and the American Cancer Society (ACS) Asian Initiative, was conducted at 34 retailers located within 1,000 feet of schools that were licensed to sell tobacco in Queens. Retailers were selected at random and were visited by representatives of one of the three organizations in October and early November.

The survey found that tobacco product displays were behind cash registers in 97 percent of the stores, while there were exterior ads at 56 percent of them. Displays of cigarette packs, cartons and other tobacco products were found in the checkout lanes of 74 percent of the stores.

“It’s disgraceful. We’ve been able to limit tobacco company advertising in mass media, but they’ve adapted and are taking full advantage of one of their final venues to lure kids into smoking,” said ACS Vice President of Asian Initiatives, Ming-der Chang. “By plastering stores with highly-lit displays and bright ads placed at kid level, they continue to focus on our kids as their next generation of customers.”

According to ACS, “research shows that exposure to tobacco marketing in stores is a primary cause of youth smoking.” Of regular smokers, about 90 percent start before they are 18 years old.

“The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars to get tobacco marketing in front of children in stores,” said Queens Smoke-Free Partnership Director Dan Carrigan. “If we reduce youth exposure to in-store tobacco marketing, we can help the next generation avoid a lifetime of addiction to tobacco.”

Tobacco Smoking Should be Banned in Apartments: Researchers

Smokers who have been forced out of bars and restaurants may soon be crowded into little groups outside one more place: their homes.

A new study finds that even when kids live with non-smoking parents, if they live in apartment buildings they are exposed to tobacco smoke from their neighbors. Now, researchers are recommending that owners and landlords make their buildings smoke-free zones.

The deadly smoke seeps through walls or common air ducts from smokers' apartments, according to the study published today in Pediatrics.

"Parents try so hard to protect their children from dangers, such as tobacco smoke." said Dr. Karen Wilson, an author of the study and assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center's Golisano Children's Hospital, said in a written statement.

"It's surprising to see these results and realize that too many parents have no control over whether their children are exposed to secondhand smoke in their own homes," she said.

Children are in danger of a number of health problems if they are exposed to cigarette smoke. The U.S. Surgeon General says there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. In children, tobacco smoke causes and increases the severity of asthma, influenza and bronchiolitis, a lung infection primarily found in kids.

It can also cause sudden death syndrome and cognitive deficits in infants. And even unborn children are at risk: if pregnant women inhale tobacco smoke, their child may be born with low birth weight or prematurely.

The solution? The true fix to protect residents is to make apartment housing smoke-free, says Dr. Jonathan Winickoff, senior study author who practices at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children.

"A child with asthma has no choice, people who smoke can go outside," he said. "I think that landlords and building owners will now be deciding how soon to go smoke free and not whether to go smoke free. I don't think anyone wants to be the slumlord of the last building to allow smoking inside."

Relief likely for tobacco farmers

The Tobacco Board, in its special meet at New Delhi on Tuesday, decided to reimburse the penalty collected from farmers who cultivated excess tobacco.
The board also announced Rs 6,000 compensation per hectare and Rs 4,000 compensation per hectare for partially damaged crop due to the recent incessant rains.
The Ongole MP and Tobacco Board member, Mr Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy, speaking to this newspaper said that the meet headed by board chairman, Mr G. Kamalvardhan Rao, had decided to waive interest on tobacco crop loans acquired from national banks, rescheduling of loans for the next four years, an additional loan of Rs 50,000 to each tobacco farmer who totally lost his crops and Rs 30,000 loan to farmers whose crop was damaged partially.
Mr Srinivasulu Reddy said that after the meet, Union minister, Mr Jaipal Reddy, MP, Mr Undavalli Arunkumar, Rajya Sabha member, Mr K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, and board members met the Union commerce minister, Mr Anand Sharma, and briefed him about the board’s decisions.
He said that Mr Sharma assured them of discussing interest waiver and penalty repayment issues with Union finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee.
Mr Srinivasulu Reddy said that the Union minister, Ms Panabaka Lakshmi, MPs, Mr Mekapati Rajmohan Reddy, Mr Lagadapati Rajgopal, Mr Kavuri Sambasiva Rao, Rajya Sabha member, Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu, state minister, Mr Kasu Krishna Reddy, and others participated in the meet.

Tobacco group scores Sicpa for false claims

The Philippine Tobacco Institute (PTI) said that it debunked claims of a Swiss-based company that the government stands to gain P100 billion in revenues should its controversial tax stamp technology be adopted.

Rodolfo Salanga, PTI president issued the statement amidst what he calls a renewed sales pitch by Sicpa Security Solutions SA (Sicpa).

Salanga said the sales talk is a desperate attempt of Sicpa to convince lawmakers that its technology is superior to other systems being offered to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) when in reality, the SICPATRACE system only passed 35 out of the 83 listed criteria for technical requirements and has met only 11 percent of the listed functional/business requirements listed by the BIR.

Sicpa recently submitted its position paper to the oversight subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means tasked to monitor the implementation of the BIR of a tax monitoring system for cigarettes.

In its position paper, Sicpa reiterated that the country stands to gain more than P100 billion in just seven years and plug multi-billion tax leakages if its system is implemented which claims Salanga finds incredulous.

Salanga also challenged Sicpa to appear before the oversight subcommittee to substantiate its claims which said company has failed to do during the extensive public hearings conducted by the Committee on Ways and Means (Committee) in the 14th Congress.

Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor boosted by cooking wine

The Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation is upping its customer benefits with new discounts and gifts on holidays after a successful return on reducing the cost of its cooking wine.
Since September, the company's 0.6-liter Red Label Cooking Wine (Michiu) was reduced from NT$50 per bottle to just NT$25, making the Chinese cooking supplement vastly affordable yet not diminishing in value.

As of November 30, the company sold 2,780,000 dozen bottles, a 100 percent growth rate from the number prior to the discount (1,390,000 dozen), raking in NT$48 million in profits.

The corporation has partnered with many shops, creating consumer promotions involving that will bring all the benefits back to shoppers. On holidays such as Mother's Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Ghost Festival, consumers received small samples of wine complete with wine glasses.

The Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation's annual revenue as of Nov. 30 is roughly NT$ 3.1 billion, a 2.53 percent growth from the year before. The percentages of revenue come from three sources: export, the company's duty free store and other duty free shops, which were 29 percent, 54 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

DEA Moves to Control Synthetic Marijuana

Since 2009 the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has received an increasing number of reports from poison centers, hospitals and law enforcement regarding fake marijuana products, which resemble herbs or potpourri but mimic the effects of the drug when smoked.

On Wednesday of this week, the DEA announced that it would ban several chemicals used to make these so-called synthetic marijuana products, which include brands such as Spice, K2, Blaze and Red Dawn.

According to the DEA’s website, smokable herbal blends marketed as being “legal” and provide a marijuana-like high have become increasingly popular, particularly among teens and young adults. These products consist of plant material that has been coated with research chemicals that mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and are sold at a variety of retail outlets, in head shops and over the Internet. These chemicals, however, have not been approved by the FDA for human consumption and there is no oversight of the manufacturing process.

Fifteen states have already taken action to control one or more of these chemicals.

The DEA used its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily control five chemicals (JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497 and cannabicyclohexanol) in “fake pot” products. Except as authorized by law, this action will make possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the U.S. for at least one year while the DEA and the Department of Health and Human Services further study whether these chemicals and products should be permanently controlled.

A Notice of Intent to Temporarily Control was published in the Federal Register on Wednesday to alert the public to this action. After no fewer than 30 days, DEA will publish in the Federal Register a Final Rule to Temporarily Control these chemicals for at least 12 months with the possibility of a six-month extension. They will be designated as Schedule I substances, the most restrictive category, which is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no medical usage.

“The American public looks to the DEA to protect its children and communities from those who would exploit them for their own gain,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “Makers of these harmful products mislead their customers into thinking that ‘fake pot’ is a harmless alternative to illegal drugs, but that is not the case. Today’s action will call further attention to the risks of ingesting unknown compounds and will hopefully take away any incentive to try these products.”

Dutch cities to start crackdown on marijuana cafes

The Netherlands' justice minister and five southern Dutch cities say they will implement new restrictions on marijuana cafes after a wave of drug-related gangland violence.
They said Friday the measures include shutting down many cafes, using tax and accounting laws to seize criminal assets, and introducing a "members only" pass system for remaining cafes.
The government has previously floated the idea of a nationwide pass system that would make it difficult for tourists to buy marijuana, despite the country's famed tolerance policy, which allows sale and possession of small amounts of weed.
Last week, a home in Eindhoven was hit with machine gun fire and the mayor of Helmond went into hiding because of death threats. Police say both matters are drug-related.