Monday 7 may 2012
1
07
/05
/May
/2012
10:32
The cities of Yarra and Melbourne regularly employ a 15 or 16-year-old to try to buy cigarettes from a range of businesses in the respective municipalities. Yarra Council last month tested 29
businesses and found two illegally sold cigarettes to the 15-year-old. Yarra Mayor Geoff Barbour said the two Richmond businesses had been slapped with $489 fines because it was a first offence.
Cr Barbour said the illegal sale rate of 7 per cent was the same as it was during the previous round of testing in January.
Meanwhile, Melbourne Council’s most recent operation - conducted in October - busted six out of 30 businesses selling to a minor. Council spokesman Sam Bishop said four premises received a
warning for their first offence and the council was still considering what action to take against two businesses that had offended previously. Mr Bishop said the council carried out four full
days of testing a year in line with an agreement with the Municipal Association of Victoria.
The council will also make a decision in the coming months whether to ban smoking around childcare facilities, playgrounds and community centres after public consultation on the proposal wrapped
up last week. Mr Bishop said some discussions had been held with traders regarding a proposed smoking ban in Bourke St mall, but no final decision had been made.
More information: http://www.tobacco-news.net/
By Hot cigarettes
0
Monday 7 may 2012
1
07
/05
/May
/2012
10:28
Bulgarian Customs officers at the Kulata cross-border checkpoint with Greece have seized 72 000 pieces of contraband cigarettes early Sunday morning. The automobile "Volkswagen Passat" with a
registration from the central city of Gabrovo had arrived from Athens, the press center of the Customs Agency reports. The agents checked the car through the risk method analysis, despite the
fact that the driver did not declare any excise goods, and found a special hidden compartment inside, containing a record amount of cigarettes for an automobile.
The driver is a Bulgarian man, 55, from the central mountain town of Troyan. Pre-trail proceedings have been launched, and the prosecutor's office in the city of Blagoevgrad has been notified.
The news is the latest in a series of successful busts of contraband items, coming in the aftermath of a special police operation codenamed "Customs," which was carried out by the police and the
prosecutor's office. On Wednesday evening, the day shift of 32 customs officers at the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint at the Bulgarian-Turkish border was detained within the special operation.
A senior Customs officer and a Customs expert were found to have a total of BGN 14 000 in different currencies. The two officials said that the money had been found in the restrooms at the border
crossing point. Apart from this sum, ten customs officers were found to have smaller sums of EUR 150-180 and 21 stacks of cigarettes without excise labels.
Read more tobacco news: http://www.cigarettesflavours.com/
By Hot cigarettes
0
Tuesday 24 april 2012
2
24
/04
/Apr
/2012
15:15
Philip Morris International Inc. (PM), the world’s largest publicly traded tobacco company, said the cigarette market in the Czech Republic fell 2.9 percent in the first quarter. The market share
of Philip Morris brands declined 1.4 percentage points to 43.6 percent and it shipped 6 percent fewer cigarettes in the period as demand for labels like Petra or Sparta fell, the company said in
a regulatory filing today.
By Hot cigarettes
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Tuesday 24 april 2012
2
24
/04
/Apr
/2012
15:12
Many organizations devote themselves to cleaning up after others on Earth Day but some do it every day. And one item in particular is a re-occurring sight for street workers like Jim Yorkey.
"Litter would be, of course cigarette butts," said Jim Yorkey, a street worker for the city of Elkins. 287 billion cigarettes were sold in the United States last year. And many of those don't
make it in the trash, making it the most littered item in America. "Everyone knows somebody that just throws their cigarette butt just right out the window," Yorkey said. Even with cigarette butt
containers easily accessible, some butts just never make it to the can.
"There's places for cigarette butts and a lot of people use them. But there's a lot of people that don't," Yorkey said. Yorkey said the numbers are getting higher and he believes he knows why.
"The smoking ordinance," Yorkey said. "Restaurants and establishments downtown usually have containers where people can put stuff inside, but know they can't smoke inside buildings everyone goes
outside to smoke." In addition to being unsightly, untrashed butts are problematic. "One thing I see is when it's fire season dry grass," Yorkey said.
"It could cause a fire." Not to mention the carcinogens and heavy metals that can end up in waterways. "I don't know what happens at the treatment plants," Yorkey said. Or the expensive clean up
costs. Marlboro Cigarettes aren't biodegradable. The streets in Elkins are cleaned just about every day, so you may not have noticed just how many butts
make it on the ground and not in the trash. "On an average day, I would say that number is probably between 500 and 700," Yorkey said.
By Hot cigarettes
0
Tuesday 24 april 2012
2
24
/04
/Apr
/2012
15:09
The claim by New Zealand's main tobacco companies that plain packaging will not reduce the prevalence of smoking has been dismissed by a researcher who tested the concept. The Government has
agreed in principle to impose plain packaging - with large health warnings - on the tobacco industry, subject to a public consultation process. It is part of the plan to make New Zealand
virtually smokefree by 2025 and would follow the introduction of plain packaging law in Australia, the first country to adopt this tobacco rule.
British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco have all said plain packaging won't work. "We do not expect plain packaging to reduce smoking rates,'' said BAT New Zealand's head of
corporate and regulatory affairs, Susan Jones. "Plain packaging is about the fact there's no proof this will work.'' Imperial Tobacco has said there is no evidence plain packaging will help stamp
out smoking. Its international parent company said this month, in response to the British Government's intention to consult on tobacco packaging, "Tobacco packaging has never been identified as a
reason why people start to smoke or continue to smoke.'' But Otago University marketing expert Professor Janet Hoek yesterday questioned what evidence the tobacco industry was relying on. She
pointed to a number of papers that she and New Zealand colleagues had had published in peer-reviewed scientific journals - as well as overseas research - which showed the industry's claims and
opinions were wrong.
"We've got very strong research evidence that plain packaging makes smoking very unattractive to young people and young adults.'' One study Professor Hoek cited involved group discussions and
in-depth interviews with 86 young adults, both smokers and non-smokers, about tobacco packaging including their views about sample plain white packets with expanded health warnings which they
were shown. "That just doesn't look trendy at all ... it's just budget ... it's like, lame,'' one participant said of the plain packaging, according to a paper published in the journal
Qualitative Health Research last December. Other comments included: "There's just nothing attractive with it. There isn't a cool colour, there isn't any kind of marking that would grab you.''
"For someone who's starting smoking ... it'd be a lot harder to identify with a brand if it's just colourless.'' "It looks so boring and ... you sort of see the cigarette for what it is ... They
just look kind of very plain and filthy sorts of things.'' The paper concludes that, given tobacco companies' huge efforts to develop brands that appealed to young adults, "it is logical to
assume that decreasing these appeals would, over time, reduce the behaviours they stimulate and support''. FOR AND AGAINST British American Tobacco New Zealand - "We do not expect plain packaging
to reduce smoking rates''. University researchers - plain packaging undermines the social power of cigarette brands and their imagery, "exposing tobacco products as toxic''. It is likely to
gradually reduce initiation of smoking and increase quitting.
By Hot cigarettes
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