[Intl-tobacco] European News bulletin - EU0025 - 26 June 2000 (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

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!#  GLOBALink Tobacco - Weekly European News Bulletin
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EUROPEAN BULLETIN     EU0025 =96 26 June 2000

Headlines
FINLAND: Camel boots ad breaches Tobacco Act
FINLAND: Amer Tobacco's position to be studied
FRANCE: Anti-smoking campaign for 12-14 year olds
HUNGARY: Philip Morris launches schools anti-smoking campaign
ISRAEL: Radioactive cigarettes cited in Israeli lawsuit
ITALY: Bootleg cigarettes found inside mattress
RUSSIA: Aeroflot accuses US of breaking international law

INTERNATIONAL

MALAYSIA: 1,366 teenagers fined for smoking
SINGAPORE: Grisly images planned for city-state's cigarette packs



Full Text


FINLAND: Camel boots ad breaches Tobacco Act

A Finnish Court has ruled that an advertisement for Camel boots was a form
of indirect advertising for tobacco and it thus breached the Finnish
Tobacco Act which bans tobacco advertising.  According to the ruling, the
logo and text used in the Camel boots ad were too similar to the logo of
Camel tobacco.  The importer of Camel boots will have to pay the court
costs to the state.

Source: Hufvudstadsbladet via the Gale Group, 10 Jun 2000



FINLAND: Amer Tobacco's position to be studied

It has been reported that the Finnish Office of Free Competition is to
examine whether Amer Tobacco has abused its leading market position on the
Finnish markets.  Amer Tobacco will be required to present the Office with
a report on sales agreements it has signed with restaurants and retailers.
The investigation follows concerns from competitors about the
concentration of tobacco trade in Finland.

Source: Helsingin Sanomat via the Gale Group, 10 Jun 2000





FRANCE: Anti-smoking campaign for 12-14 year olds

The National Federation of Centres to Combat Cancer (FNCLCC) and Aventis
Pharma have launched a no-smoking campaign targeting 12-14 year olds. The
campaign will include the presentation of shocking images (cancer in
smokers, effects of tobacco on smell, tobacco companies' strategy, etc).
The exhibition will be visited by students aged 12 to 14 years old in 18
French cities until the end of June 2000.  =93The Truth if I Smoke=94 campa=
ign
has the backing of the Ministry of Education, and the Secretaries of State
of Education and Health.

Source: Le Quotidien du Medecin via the Gale Group, 13 Jun 2000


HUNGARY: Philip Morris launches schools anti-smoking campaign

Philip Morris Hungary is launching an anti-smoking campaign in schools
with the [alleged] aim of discouraging 12-16 year-olds from smoking.  The
company will also set up an interactive internet site for the youngsters.
According to a poll by the Gallup Institute, about 33% of Hungarian boys
and 20% of girls in the age of 11-15 are regular smokers.  About 33% of
all Hungarians smoke. Smoking among women aged 18-24 has risen from 24% to
42% in the past five years. According to the Health Ministry, about 36,000
deaths per year in Hungary are linked with smoking.

Source: Budapest Business Journal (ANB) via the Gale Group. 5-11 June 2000



ISRAEL: Radioactive cigarettes cited in Israeli lawsuit

An Israeli lawsuit against US cigarette companies is citing an alleged
internal Philip Morris memo as evidence that the biggest US cigarette
manufacturer made cigarettes containing naturally radioactive tobacco.

Attorney Amos Hausner is fighting the biggest suit in Israel's history to
make one Israeli and six US tobacco companies pay up to $8 billion for
allegedly poisoning and possibly irradiating Israelis with cigarettes.

 =93Whether the amount of radioactivity is harmful or not, we don't know bu=
t
it is quite possible it is harmful because of the simple reason that
nobody is checking,=94 Hausner said.

The case was brought on behalf of the Clalit national health fund which
represents 60 percent of Israelis.  It will be the first major suit to use
what is alleged to be an internal Philip Morris memo found in the
Minnesota archive that cigarette companies were forced to establish by US
court order, Hausner said.

Marked Confidential, the purported memo dated April 2, 1980, says that
phosphate fertilisers and especially superphosphate fertilisers used in
tobacco fields can contain natural uranium.  =93Soils to which these
products (the fertilisers) are applied show an increase in radioactivity,=
=94
the document says, adding that the by-products of decaying uranium, lead
and polonium, were present in tobacco and smoke. Polonium is radioactive.

The document concludes that while it is unlikely that a person would get
lung cancer by inhaling the polonium present in the tobacco, =93evidence to
date, however, does not allow one to state that this is an impossibility=94=
=2E

The alleged memo notes that suggestions that Philip Morris use a different
fertiliser would be =93a valid but expensive point=94.

Hausner said cigarette makers usually defended themselves in court by
claiming that smokers knew the risks and chose to smoke anyway. But he
pointed out that smokers never knew or in any way agreed to smoke
radioactive cigarettes.

Philip Morris attorney Chuck Nunley told Reuters the issue of polonium in
tobacco has been studied by scientists and even the US surgeon-general
who, the lawyer said, concluded in 1971 that it was significant only if
found in relatively high concentrations.

 =93As I understand it, polonium is a naturally occurring element that ther=
e
is a background level of in the environment. It's present in trace amounts
in lots of things that we eat,=94' Nunley said.

Hausner is seeking $2 billion in damages allegedly caused by the tobacco
products and by the companies' actions and around $6 billion as damages
for smokers who he says will die or become ill in the future.

The case, filed in 1998, is still at a preliminary stage. Once it goes to
trial, Hausner said he will demand that Philip Morris provide details
about how widely the fertilisers were used and whether they are still
used.  He said that it was possible the radioactive fertiliser was used by
other cigarette companies besides Philip Morris.

Hausner has campaigned against smoking for years, first forcing Israel's
army to ban cigarette advertising from a magazine given to soldiers and
then helping make El Al Israel Airlines implement a non-smoking policy on
its flights.

Source: Reuters, 22 June 2000



ITALY: Bootleg cigarettes found inside mattress

Customs officials in the Italian city of Venice have seized two tons of
cigarettes bound for the UK - stuffed inside a mattress.  The discovery
was made as officials made a routine check of a lorry heading from Greece
to the UK.

The officers say they found one of the mattresses to be unusually firm.
When they asked the driver about it he told them they were specially
designed for people with bad backs.  But when the matress was opened, it
was stuffed full with packets of cigarettes.

Customs officials in Venice have seized more than 40 tonnes of smuggled
cigarettes since the beginning of the year. Last year they confiscated
more than 140 tonnes, all from Greece.


Source: PA News, Monday, 19 June 2000




RUSSIA: Aeroflot accuses US of breaking international law

Russia's largest air carrier, Aeroflot, has accused the United States of
breaking international law by banning smoking on all scheduled airline
flights between the United States and other countries.

Aeroflot has appealed to the International Air Transport Association
asking it to decide whether the ban, which went into effect June 4, was
legal.
 =93By introducing the new regulation, the United States has extended its
law to foreign legal entities beyond its (American) territory, which
blatantly contradicts the norms of international law,=94 Aeroflot said in a
statement. =93The United States is interfering in domestic economic policie=
s
of foreign nations, and violating the principle of national sovereignty
and the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs of nations, as
established by Article 2 of the charter of the United Nations
Organization,=94 the statement said.

Many Russian smokers used to choose Aeroflot for long-distance flights
over other airlines because it allowed smoking.

Source:  Associated Press, 23 June 2000



INTERNATIONAL


 MALAYSIA: 1,366 teenagers fined for smoking

At the launch of the =93Week Without Tobacco=94 in Masjid Tanah of Malacca
State, Malaysia, it was revealed that a total of 1,366 teenagers were
fined for smoking in 1999. The figure is up 64% from 832 cases in 1998. Dr
S Arumugam Lingam, deputy director-general for Contagious Diseases Control
Division of the Health Ministry, said that active anti-smoking programs
across schools were not successful in stamping out smoking among
youngsters.  However, the number of smokers caught in non-smoking areas
had declined to 11,211 in 1999, as opposed to 11,850 in 1998.

Source: New Straits Times via the Gale Group, 14 Jun 2000


SINGAPORE: Grisly images planned for city-state's cigarette packs

Images of diseased brains, fat-clogged arteries and lung cancers could
soon adorn cigarette packaging as the Government adopts shock tactics in
the war against smoking.  The Committee on Smoking Control wants Singapore
to become the first Asian country to force cigarette makers to print such
images on packs to provide a more striking message than traditional health
warnings.

"I think there is a good chance of this going through," said committee
chairman Alex Chan. "In general, the Health and Environment ministries are
in full support."

Singapore, which already boasts stiff anti-smoking curbs, first
experimented with shock advertising therapy last year, with a series of
gruesome television adverts. Viewers saw brain tumours, cancerous lungs
and fat-choked arteries with the insides squeezed out.

The television adverts, adapted from Australia's National Tobacco
Campaign, proved exceptionally effective during their first year.
Previously, the committee's telephone hotline received on average 1,000
calls a year from people wanting advice on how to quit.

After the campaign was launched, 11,000 calls were received in just the
first four months. Smoking is banned in all public places and all
air-conditioned places that serve food, and heavy taxes are levied on
tobacco. The Government's last national survey, in 1998, found that 15 per
cent of Singaporeans smoked, down two per cent on its previous survey.
However, smoking among young women was rising.


South China Morning Post, 17 June 2000


Amanda Sandford Research Manager ASH 102 Clifton Street LONDON EC2A 4HW
tel: 020 7739 5902 fax: 020 7613 0531