It's A Terrifying Place

Tobacco Company Profits Topped Only By Smoking Deaths

2012-03-22T13:00:34Z

From The Guardian

Global profits for tobacco trade total $35bn as smoking deaths top 6 million

New figures reveal worldwide profits but big companies insist they are not switching to emerging markets to avoid regulation

By Simon Bowers

Revenues from global tobacco sales are estimated to be close to $500bn (£316bn), generating combined profits for the six largest firms of $35.1bn – more than $1,100 a second.

Much of this profit is ultimately channelled to pension and insurance investors in the UK – British American Tobacco and Imperial are two of the largest companies listed on the London stock market.

London's role as a hub of the multinational tobacco trade is in part a legacy of the British empire. While BAT sells very few cigarettes in the UK, for example, it is a big player in many emerging economies. In Turkey it sells Viceroy and Pall Mall brands; its Kent cigarettes are big sellers in Russia, while Gold Flake and John Player Gold Leaf are popular in Pakistan. Rothmans in Nigeria and Kent and Montana in Iran are also important for BAT. India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Iraq, Egypt and Yemen are also promising markets for the company.

The big four tobacco firms – Philip Morris, BAT, Imperial and Japan Tobacco – insist they do not recruit new smokers in developing countries; rather, they grow sales by converting existing smokers of local tobacco products to their stable of aspirational Western brands – often "safer" products, they say.

A British American Tobacco spokesperson said: "There is constant speculation that we're breaking into emerging markets to avoid regulation. But this is not true. We didn't invent smoking, nor 'export' it anywhere, and we have been in many of these developing markets for hundreds of years – in the case of Africa, India and Brazil, since the early 1900s.

"As disposable income grows around the world, particularly in developing countries, more smokers are upgrading to premium brands rather than low quality local alternatives – and this doesn't just apply to cigarettes."

And yet almost 80% of the 6 million people killed last year by tobacco-related illnesses were from low- and middle-income countries, according to new research from health lobby campaigners.

The study identified tobacco as the No 1 killer in China, where smoking is said to cause 1.2 million deaths annually. It is also blamed for more than a third of male deaths in Kazakhstan and in Turkey – other major smoking nations.

Here's the whole article.

“We struggle,” said a 22-year-old paralegal. “So we smoke.”

2012-03-04T22:51:13Z

New York City has seen dramatic decreases in its numbers of active smokers in the last ten years. But Asians seem to persist, according to The New York Times.

The city’s Asian population has been stubbornly resistant to the otherwise successful efforts by the Bloomberg administration to curb smoking among New Yorkers. Smoking rates among the city’s Asian communities have not budged since 2002 — most notably among Asian men, despite decreases in the habit among almost every other demographic, according to data from the city’s health department.

On Thursday, the department stepped up its appeals to Asian smokers, introducing graphic ads in Chinese for its annual campaign to distribute nicotine patches and gum, and offering Chinese speakers for those who call 311 to enroll in the program. The department will also seed the ethnic news media with translated versions of its antismoking campaign called “Pain,” which depicts excruciating smoking-related cancers.

“We looked at our data very carefully to understand who is still smoking in New York City,” said Jenna Mandel-Ricci, a deputy director at the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control. She added that the city’s Russian community, about a quarter of whom smoke, would be given the same kind of attention.

Part of the problem is rooted in homeland: Nearly 70 percent of men in both China and South Korea smoke, for example, according to the World Health Organization (for women in both countries the number is below 10 percent). In New York City, the numbers are far lower: about 17 percent of Asian men smoke, and under 5 percent of women, according to the health department.

But unlike most other demographic groups in the city, Asian men smoke at a rate that did not show a statistically significant drop from 2002 to 2010. Among blacks, for example, the rate fell to 12.5 percent from 20.8 percent. And among whites, it dropped to 15.6 percent from 23.8 percent.

For theories as to why Asians smoke more than other populations, here's the full Times story.

Malevolent Big Tobacco

2011-01-10T21:36:07Z

The tobacco industry has known for decades how to remove a dangerous isotope from cigarettes but has done nothing about it. The government now has the power to force a change

By Brianna Rego, for Scientific American

In November 2006 former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital in what had all the hallmarks of a cold war–style assassination. Despite the intrigue surrounding Litvinenko’s death, the poison that killed him, a rare radioactive isotope called polonium 210, is far more widespread than many of us realize: people worldwide smoke almost six trillion cigarettes a year, and each one delivers a small amount of polonium 210 to the lungs. Puff by puff, the poison builds up to the equivalent radiation dosage of 300 chest x-rays a year for a person who smokes one and a half packs a day.

Although polonium may not be the primary carcinogen in cigarette smoke, it may nonetheless cause thousands of deaths a year in the U.S. alone. And what sets polonium apart is that these deaths could be avoided with simple measures. The tobacco industry has known about polonium in cigarettes for nearly 50 years. By searching through internal tobacco industry documents, I have discovered that manufacturers even devised processes that would dramatically cut down the isotope’s concentrations in cigarette smoke. But Big Tobacco consciously decided to do nothing and to keep its research secret. In consequence, cigarettes still contain as much polonium today as they did half a century ago.

Tobacco plants accumulate small concentrations of polonium 210, a radioactive isotope that mostly originates from natural radioactivity in fertilizers.
Smokers inhale the polonium, which settles in “hot spots” in the lungs and can cause cancer. Its effects may lead to thousands of deaths a year in the U.S. alone.
The tobacco industry has known for decades how to virtually eliminate the polonium from cigarette smoke but kept its knowledge secret and failed to act.
The Food and Drug Administration now has the authority to regulate tobacco and could begin to use it by forcing manufacturers to reduce polonium content.

Mass. Jury Awards $71M in Free-Cigarettes Lawsuit

2010-12-14T22:41:09Z

From The New York Times

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts jury has ruled a tobacco company tried to entice black children to become smokers by handing out free cigarettes and has awarded $71 million in compensatory damages to the estate and son of a woman who died of lung cancer.

The Suffolk Superior Court jury announced its verdict Tuesday.

Willie Evans alleged the Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard Tobacco Co. introduced his mother to smoking as a child in the 1950s by giving her free Newport cigarettes in her Boston housing project. Evans says his mother smoked for more than 40 years before dying of lung cancer at age 54.

Lawyers for Lorillard say like many other cigarette companies it gave away free samples decades ago — but not to children. The company says it will appeal.

A hearing on punitive damages is set for Thursday.

From The Office Of The Surgeon General: Don't Smoke

2010-12-10T17:16:08Z

In a 700-page report released on Thursday, Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin filed the 30th chapter in The Dangerous Book On Smoking. (Chapter One came out in 1964.) In it, there is no pussy-footing around.

“The chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale causing damage immediately,” Benjamin said in releasing the report. “Inhaling even the smallest amount of tobacco smoke can also damage your DNA, which can lead to cancer.”

Tobacco smoke contains a deadly mixture of more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds, of which hundreds are toxic and at least 70 cause cancer. Every exposure to these cancer-causing chemicals could damage DNA in a way that leads to cancer. Exposure to smoke also decreases the benefits of chemotherapy and other cancer treatments. Smoking causes more than 85% of lung cancers and can cause cancer almost anywhere in the body. One in three cancer deaths in the U.S. is tobacco-related.

Get the full report.

E-Cigarettes May Soon Be Regulated Like The Old School Kind

2010-12-08T21:42:44Z

The New York Times reports today that electronic cigarettes moved a step closer to being regulated like mainstream tobacco products after a federal appellate court unanimously upheld an injunction against the FDA's attempt to ban them or more strictly regulate them. Meanwhile, what in blazes are Snus? Oh, "spit-free tobacco pouches". Blecccch.

EU Proposes An End To Branded Cigarettes

2010-12-02T14:17:57Z

The European Union is proposing a full-scale ban on branded cigarettes, which would force tobacco companies across the continent to sell their products in generic, plain packaging. Under the new rules, packs would carry nothing more than a health warning and the name of the brand, both in a standardized format with a specified typeface. Cigarette advertising was outlawed across Europe in 2003. If enacted, the ban would kick another leg out from under tobacco companies' already wobbly brand visibility. Public health initiative or police state tactic?Hmm, that's a tough one. Free marketers would argue that as long as a product is legal, promotion is at the discretion of the corporation. Recovering smokers (and perhaps young people who have not yet fallen victim to the addictive powers of smoking) might counter: Out of sight, out of mind, thank you.

Walk A Mile For A Camel?

2010-11-15T19:08:01Z

Or just be a scene-maker in Williamsburg, the presumed center of cool in Brooklyn? Well, in a deeply cynical move on the part of RJ Reynolds, the cigarette brand that sports a four-legged mammal with a hump on his back will come in a special, er, hipster package this December (slyly getting in under the wire of the new packaging regulations soon to be enforced by the federal government). Camel Blue will be customized with scenes of Williamsburg behind Joe himself and a curiously counter-intuitive "Be Free" online campaign. It's hard to say which stylish iconoclast is going to fall for this transparent marketing ploy, but who imagined that a mediocre cup of coffee, with a big green logo and a $4.00 price tag, would catch on either?

Study: CT scans reduce lung cancer deaths by 20% compared with X-rays

2010-11-04T15:16:15Z

Screening former or current smokers with high-tech scans can significantly cut deaths from lung cancer, according to a long-awaited federal study released Thursday.

The study of more than 53,000 middle-aged and elderly people who either once smoked or currently smoke heavily found there were 20 percent fewer deaths among those who underwent annual screening with a scanning procedure known as a low-dose helical computed tomography (CT) compared with those who got standard chest X-rays.

The findings were so striking that the National Cancer Institute, which helped sponsor the study, halted the National Lung Screening Trial early after a panel of experts notified officials about the clear results of an interim analysis.

"Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality in the U.S. and throughout the world, so a validated approach that can reduce lung cancer mortality by even 20 percent has the potential to spare very significant numbers of people from the ravages of this disease," said NCI Director Harold Varmus.

Lung cancer strikes more than 196,000 Americans each year and kills more than 159,000, accounting for nearly one-third of all cancer deaths. Although significant advances have been made in reducing deaths from other leading cancers, such as breast and colon cancer, lung cancer has remain stubbornly resistent. The new finding marks the first good news about the disease in decades. There are an estimated 91.5 million current and former smokers in the United States, all of whom are at increased risk for lung cancer.

"This is the first time that we have seen clear evidence of a significant reduction in lung cancer mortality with a screening test in a randomized controlled trial," said Christine Berg, who led the study for the National Cancer Institute.

Read the full story in The Washington Post.

No, I Can't

2010-10-28T16:48:56Z

What's harder to quit than heroin? Yes, the mantle of political power and, in some cases, cowboy love. But what else? Smoking. In February, President Obama had his annual physical and was given a clean bill of health, but for two blots on the chart. Obama, 48, continues to struggle to stop his 30-year smoking habit and needs to modify his diet to control his cholesterol, said Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, a Navy captain who led the medical team that performed Obama’s physical. Nobody knows how much Obama is smoking. But last June, at a White House news conference, he shed a little light on the subject. “Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes,” Obama said to reporters. “Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No.” Of course, that was before the tumbling approval ratings, the tea parties, and the pressures of November 2nd bearing down on him. Stress is a trigger for relapse, after all. His campaign slogan, Yes, We Can, implied strength in numbers, but as any recovering smoker knows, the struggle to refrain from lighting up is a lonely one.