TOBACCO COMPANIES' DIRTY TRICKS-1

OLD TOBACCO PLAYBOOK GETS NEW USE BY E-CIGS
By
Michael Felberbaum, Mon, 08/05/2013

RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- Companies vying for a stake in the fast-growing electronic cigarette business are reviving the decades-old marketing tactics the tobacco industry used to hook generations of Americans on regular smokes.
They're using cab-top and bus stop displays, sponsoring race cars and events, and encouraging smokers to "rise from the ashes" and take back their freedom in slick TV commercials featuring celebrities like TV personality Jenny McCarthy.
Tobacco marketing has been increasingly restricted in the United States, with TV commercials for traditional cigarettes banned in 1970. The Food and Drug Administration plans to set marketing and product regulations for electronic cigarettes in the near future.
But for now, almost anything goes.
"Right now it's the wild, wild west," Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices made of plastic or metal that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. Users get their nicotine without the thousands of chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes. And they get to hold something shaped like a cigarette, while puffing and exhaling something that looks like smoke.
So far, there's not much scientific evidence showing e-cigarettes help smokers quit or smoke less, and it's unclear how safe they are. But the marketing tactics are raising worries that the devices' makers could tempt young people to take up something that could prove addictive.
The industry started by selling e-cigarettes on the Internet and at shopping-mall kiosks. It has rocketed from thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide who have more than 200 brands to choose from. Some e-cigarettes are stocked in prime selling space at the front of convenience-store and gas-station counters — real estate forbidden to the devices' old-fashioned cousins.
Analysts estimate sales of e-cigarettes could reach $2 billion by the end of the year. Some say the use of e-cigarettes could pass that of traditional cigarettes in the next decade. Tobacco company executives have even noted that e-cigarettes are already eating into traditional cigarette sales.
The debate over marketing tactics is intensifying as the largest U.S. tobacco companies roll out their own e-cigarettes in a push to diversify beyond their traditional business. People are smoking fewer cigarettes in the face of tax hikes, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma, though higher prices have helped protect cigarette revenue.
Companies like NJOY and Blu Ecigs are advertising on TV, forbidden for cigarettes for more than 40 years. LOGIC has placed mobile billboards on taxis in New York City. Swisher International Inc., maker of Swisher Sweets cigars, is sponsoring race cars promoting its e-Swisher electronic cigarettes and cigars and has a two-year deal to become the official e-cigarette of the World Series of Poker.
Blu, which was acquired by No. 3 U.S. tobacco company Lorillard Inc. last year, also has sponsored an Indy car and the 2013 Bonnaroo music festival, and its website features a cartoon character nicknamed "Mr. Cool" boasting the benefits of its e-cigarette — evoking the days of Joe Camel.
Decades ago, celebrities like actor Spencer Tracy, baseball player Joe DiMaggio and even future President Ronald Reagan, a one-time actor, shilled for brands like Lucky Strike and Chesterfield.
Now, NJOY features rocker Courtney Love in an expletive-laced online ad and counts singer Bruno Mars among its investors. Actor Stephen Dorff is featured in Blu's TV commercials.
In Blu's latest campaign, McCarthy says she can use the e-cigarette "without scaring that special someone away" and can avoid kisses that "taste like an ashtray" when she's out at her favorite club. The commercials are set to start airing nationwide next week.
Traditional cigarette marketing can't use celebrities or cartoons. Legal settlements and new regulations have long since taken ads off billboards and banned event sponsorships. While they must include health warnings, companies can still advertise cigarettes and smokeless tobacco in magazines that don't have a large youth readership.
The electronic cigarette ads push the same themes as old cigarette ads: sophistication, freedom, equality and individualism, said Timothy de Waal Malefyt, a visiting associate professor at Fordham University's business school and former advertising executive.
That's the problem, tobacco opponents say.
"The ads, themes and messages are precisely the same (as those) used by the tobacco industry for decades that made those products so appealing to young people," said Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Reynolds American Inc., owner of the nation's No. 2 tobacco company, has said it plans to use TV ads to promote a revamped version of its Vuse brand electronic cigarette that it launched last month. Altria Group Inc., owner of the nation's biggest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, has declined to detail its marketing strategy for its first electronic cigarette under the MarkTen brand set to launch this month.
The makers of e-cigarettes defend their strategy.
"There's the potential here that e-cigs could do a tremendous amount of good, more good than anything anyone has done on the anti-smoking side since anti-smoking was invented," said Jason Healy, the founder and former president of Blu and now a brand spokesman.
There are a few limitations on marketing. Companies can't tout e-cigarettes as stop-smoking aids, unless they want to be regulated by the FDA under stricter rules for drug-delivery devices. But many are sold as "cigarette alternatives."
Many companies restrict sales to minors but only a couple of dozen states have laws banning it. And while some are limiting offerings to tobacco and menthol flavors, others are selling candy-like flavors like cherry and strawberry — barred for use in regular cigarettes because of the worry that the flavors are used to appeal to children.

LINK :  
          1.  www.manufacturing.net/news/2013/08/old-tobacco-playbook-gets-new-use-by-e-cigs

AMERICAN CITY SHARON TO DISCOURAGE TOBACCO USE

Monday, August 5, 2013 

 

 

Signs at Baxter Memorial Library tell visitors not to smoke on the library's grounds in Sharon, Vt. on August 4, 2013. The library installed the signs following the passage of Sharon's new anti-smoking law. Valley News - Elijah Nouvelage Purchase photo reprints »

 

 

Sharon (USA)— A new policy that recently went into effect is meant to discourage the use of tobacco around town, Sharon officials said.

The policy, which extends to all tobacco products and began on Aug. 1, prohibits its use on all town-owned properties and inside vehicles. It was passed unanimously at a Selectboard meeting in mid-July, said Paul Haskell, the board’s chairman.

According to Haskell, the town-wide policy was a way of combining several disparate and ad hoc policies formed over the years.

“We decided it would be prudent to elevate our thoughts about helping folks quit smoking if they are, and keep folks from smoking, if they aren’t,” Haskell said.

Besides prohibiting smoking on town-owned properties, the policy also states that the town will refer employees and officials who smoke to tobacco cessation programs. In addition, it will reach out to businesses to join the anti-tobacco cause, and promote the cause at events such as Town Meeting.

The issue with the passing the policy is how to enforce it, Haskell said.

“That’s always the $9 million question,” he said. “To be perfectly candid, the town is not going to hire smoking police.”

However, he said, if a town employee were to violate the policy, the Selectboard would look to the town’s personnel plan to sanction him.

That doesn’t mean the town is expecting to hand out several penalties to town employees, Haskell said, considering not all that many town employees smoke or use other forms of tobacco.

To put the plan in place, the Selectboard worked with Cathy Hazlett, the executive director of Health Connections of the Upper Valley, which is based in North Pomfret. Hazlett has pitched anti-tobacco plans to several towns, utilizing grant money from the Vermont Department of Health.

“I think part of our success in Sharon is that the Selectboard in Sharon was right on board with understanding the public health concerns,” Hazlett said. “It’s really important to send the message out, particularly to young people: There is no safe, or safer, type of tobacco product.”

Other towns have been reluctant to adopt such a policy.

Members of the Royalton Selectboard expressed worries about enforcement and the potential for it to infringe on individual rights, according to minutes from last December. Messages left for board members in Royalton were not returned yesterday.

In Sharon, several small signs, all bearing the phrase “Thanks for Keeping This a Smoke-Free Zone,” have sprung up at town landmarks, such as Baxter Memorial Library on Route 14. In fact, the library has two — one stuck to the side of the building, and another in the entryway of the gazebo behind it.

They join several signs that have long been posted at Sharon Elementary School by Health Connections of the Upper Valley.

Judy Tyson wondered if the signs had been put up recently when she ventured onto the gazebo to read yesterday.

“I’m entirely supportive of it,” said Tyson, who lives in Sharon.

She said she was a fan of the inoffensive qualities of the signs, which use a playful-looking, colorful font and background and don’t threaten fines or prosecution.

“That’s a very nice way of doing it,” Tyson said. “It doesn’t offend anybody.”

The policy, said Hazlett, is meant to be a proactive one, to discourage something that isn’t terribly prevalent in Sharon but might one day be.

At the playground of the nearby Sharon Elementary yesterday, resident Kali Livingston agreed.

“That’s good,” Livingston said of the new policy. She watched her 21/2 -year-old daughter, Zowie, play on the nearby blacktop. “I think that anywhere that children are around, there shouldn’t be smoking.”

 LINK: 

          1. http://www.vnews.com/home/7934496-95/sharon-selectboard-passes-policy-to-discourage-tobacco-use

TOBACCO MEASURES SAVE 7.4 MILLION LIVES

A global study shows raising taxes on cigarettes to 75 per cent of their price had the biggest impact, compared with legal smoking bans.

Tax rises on cigarettes save more lives than smoking bans, according to a global study which shows tobacco control measures averting seven million deaths by 2050.
Scientists looked at the effects of six anti-smoking policies introduced in 41 countries, between 2007 and 2010.
Projections of the number of premature deaths the measures were likely to prevent by 2050 produced a figure of 7.4 million.
Increasing taxes on cigarettes to 75 per cent of their price in 14 regions had the biggest impact, which was greater than legal smoking bans.
Tax rises prevented 3.5 million smoking-related deaths while "smoke-free air laws" in 20 of the countries studied averted 2.5 million.
Lead researcher Professor David Levy, from Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington DC, US, said: "It's a spectacular finding that by implementing these simple tobacco control policies governments can save so many lives."
The evidence-based measures, known by the acronym MPOWER, were identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2008.
They consist of monitoring tobacco use, protecting people from tobacco smoke, warning about the dangers of tobacco, enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and raising tobacco taxes.
The study targeted 41 countries known to have implemented at least one of the policies at the highest impact level. In 2007, almost 290 million people living in the countries smoked.
The UK, US, France and Germany were not in the list which included countries in Africa, Asia, South America and eastern Europe.
Of the total, 33 countries had put in place one of the measures and eight had adopted more than one.
Computer modelling was used to predict the life-saving potential of the policies.
Turkey was one of the countries most affected by anti-smoking policies. There, tax rises alone were predicted to save more than 1.5 million lives and smoking bans around 880,000.
The findings, published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, also forecast a total of 700,000 deaths averted by health warnings, 380,000 by cessation treatments, and 306,000 by restrictions on tobacco marketing.
Prof Levy added: "In addition to some 7.4 million lives saved, the tobacco control policies we examined can lead to other health benefits such as fewer adverse birth outcomes related to maternal smoking, including low birth weight, and reduced healthcare costs and less loss of productivity due to less smoking-related disease."
Millions more lives could be saved if the control measures were adopted even more widely, according to Dr Douglas Bettcher, director of the department of non-communicable diseases at the WHO.
"Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death in the world, with six million smoking-attributable deaths per year today, and these deaths are projected to rise to eight million a year by 2030, if current trends continue," he said. "By taking the right measures, this tobacco epidemic can be entirely prevented."

LINK:

              1.  http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1784242/Tobacco-measures--save-7.4-million-lives-

TOBACCO TAX HIKE TO RAISE $5.3b'

A price hike on cigarettes is expected to raise $5.3 billion for the federal government over four years

Smokers are expected to be slugged by a 12.5 per cent tax hike on cigarettes each year for four years.
AAP understands Treasurer Chris Bowen will make the announcement in Sydney on Thursday and that the tax increase will raise $5.3 billion over the forward estimates.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hinted a tax increase was on the cards on Wednesday.
"Cancer is Australia's number two killer and therefore it is a number one priority for the Australian government," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters.
"I'm the son of a woman who never smoked in her life and she died of lung cancer, we assume through passive smoking."
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek would not confirm a tobacco tax increase but said it could have benefits.
"There's a strong public health case for increasing the price of tobacco," she told Sky News.
Australia spends $31 billion on health care for ill smokers.
"If we see a decline in smoking rates and that causes a drop in excise collection that would be a fantastic outcome," she said.
In April 2010 Labor lifted the cigarette excise by 25 per cent, adding $2.16 to the price of a pack of 30 smokes.
In this year's federal budget, smokers copped a seven cent rise in the cost of a packet of 25.
Anti-smoking groups agree taxing tobacco is an effective preventative measure.
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said Labor was hitting people with higher taxes and dressing it up to look like a health initiative.

LINK :  
              1.  http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1794795/Tobacco-tax-hike-%27to-raise-$5.3b%27

 

PAKISTAN MEDICOS COMMEMURATE 'QUIT TOBACCO DAY' ON RAMZAN 1

PIMA to commemorate Quit Tobacco Day on Ramazan 1

 

ISLAMABAD, 7 jULY - The Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) on Friday announced that it would observe Quit Tobacco Day on Ramazan 1, urging all Muslims to abandon tobacco use during the holy month.

PIMA Central President Dr Misbahul Aziz said that about 5.4 million people died every year due to tobacco use globally, including 100,000 Pakistanis according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Further, he informed that second hand smoke killed 600,000 people in the world annually.

He pointed out that about half of tobacco users’ deaths were caused by tobacco-related diseases, explaining that this menace was responsible for cancer, heart and lung diseases, strokes and gangrene. He regretted that despite preventative possibilities, people continued to consume tobacco despite these detrimental effects.

The PIMA president said that tobacco use caused losses worth billions of rupees by way of health expenditure each year, which exceeded the revenue gained.

He declared that Herculean efforts were required to fight this menace, because of which the PIMA had decided to be part of the anti-tobacco campaign.

PIMA's central executive council decided that in addition to May 31, it would observe Ramazan 1 as National Quit Tobacco Day.

The PIMA president maintained that Ramazan presented a blessed atmosphere in which accepting a good habit and quitting a bad one became relatively easier. Many fasting smokers cut down on their tobacco usage substantially in Ramazan, which is why this period can be used to urge smokers to take another step and quit altogether.

“Smokers should be explained its dangers as well as its status in Islam, which is at least that of 'makrooh' (disliked)”, he added.

He said that quitting tobacco was difficult because of its addictive potential; and many smokers needed extensive help and encouragement.

It is expected that because of the special atmosphere in Ramzan, and the sense of discipline it engenders in practicing Muslims, many regular smokers may quit tobacco use, thereby saving many lives and families.

Dr Misbah said that programs and lectures would be arranged in PIMA units, anti-tobacco literature will be distributed and other doctors would be urged to join this activity for maximum success. 

LINK: 

                 1.       http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/07/05/city/islamabad/pima-to-commemorate-quit-tobacco-day-on-ramazan-1/

              2.   http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-188111-Quit-Tobacco-Day-on-first-day-of-Ramazan

 

SMOKERS ABUSE AND INTIMIDATE ANTI-SMOKING HOSTPITALS POLICE

People power! Anti-smoking police hired by Scottish hospitals ignored by smokers

Lindsey Archibald

Tue, 02 Jul 2013

All three wardens walked away from the job at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow in just one week after being intimidated and verbally abused by smokers outside the building
Three wardens hired to stop people smoking outside hospitals have quit in disgust over the levels of verbal abuse.
All three walked away just days after starting the £12,000-a-year job, blaming intimidation from smokers.
The wardens were hired as part of an NHS drive to stop people flouting no smoking rules outside hospitals.
It was hoped they would encourage people to stop lighting up as doctors have warned the fog of smoke at hospital
doors could harm the health of visitors and patients.
The three wardens began work last week at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow, which is also home to the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre.
But they quit within days, citing unbearable intimidation and verbal abuse from people they caught smoking in the grounds. NHS Glasgow and Clyde rolled out the scheme at 11 hospitals, employing 17 full-time wardens. 

LINK :   
            http://www.dailypaul.com/291215/people-power-anti-smoking-police-hired-by-scottish-hospitals-ignored-by-smokers

ANTI-SMOKING HELMET TO FIGHT TOBACCO ADDICTION

Man Devises Anti-Smoking Helmet To Fight Tobacco Addiction

ISTANBUL : A Kütahya local  who has tried and failed time and again to quit his 26-year smoking habit has made a special helmet with wires in front to restrain himself.

 

Kütahya resident İbrahim Yücel (42) has been a smoker for more than two decades. He says he has never been able to quit successfully, although he has tried a number of times. Yücel said: “Every birthday I wished I could stop smoking, but I have, unfortunately, never been able to bring my willpower under control. I regret smoking terribly, but I can't quit.”
Yücel's father died of lung cancer. Yücel said: “He died this year due to lung cancer, and even so I haven't been able to quit. I was thinking of how to control myself, and it occurred to me that I could make myself cage-like headgear. God willing, I think I will succeed this time.”
The anti-smoking helmet Yücel has contrived is similar to a motorcycle helmet. It is made of copper wires and has two padlocks. “I will lock these as I leave the house and give one key to my wife and the other to my daughter. I will leave the house in this cage,” he said.
Yücel, who just started trying out his cage, said, “I am just so happy to be wearing this helmet, so I won't be able to smoke anymore. I promise in the name of God that I will absolutely quit.”
His spouse, Kevser Yücel (36), says: “We have been married for 16 years, and he has tried to quit many times. He would try every New Year, on our anniversary, birthdays and the children's birthdays. He usually quits for a couple of days, and then takes it up again. His father's passing because of lung cancer became a milestone. He said he would never smoke again on the 40th day of his father's death, but unfortunately he started again after 10 days.” Kevser Yücel said she found the helmet a bit embarrassing, but came to find it more logical after giving it some thought. “I got used to the idea, and now it seems logical,” she said.

LINK:

          http://www.todayszaman.com/news-319728-man-devises-anti-smoking-helmet-to-fight-tobacco-addiction.html

 

NEWYORK CITY MARKS THE 10th ANNIVERSARY OF ANTI-SMOKING INITIATIVE

NYC Marks 10th Anniversary Of Anti-Smoking Initiative

New York City is marking the 10th anniversary of its ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and other indoor public spaces.

 
Mayor Bloomberg discusses local, national and global impact of 2003 Smoke-Free Air Act on 10th Anniversary.(Credit: Spencer T Tucker/Flickr)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday there are about 500,000 fewer smokers in the city than there were a decade ago and about 10,000 fewer deaths linked to smoking during that period.
The mayor debunked initial claims that the smoking ban would hurt businesses by pointing out that there are now 6,000 more bars and restaurants in the city than there were before it took effect.

“Ten years ago when New York City prohibited smoking in restaurants and bars, many predicted the end of the hospitality, restaurant and tourism industries,” said Bloomberg. “Yet ten years later, fewer New Yorkers are smoking, we are living longer, our industries are thriving and nobody longs for a return to smoke-filled bars and restaurants. New York City’s public health innovations have been, and will continue to be, a model for the rest of the world.”
After the Smoke-Free Air Act went into effect in March 2003, the city prohibited smoking within 15 feet of entrances, exits and grounds of hospitals in July 2009 and city parks and beaches in May 2011.
“The Smoke-Free Air Act has not only saved thousands of lives, it has fundamentally changed the way New Yorkers view smoking,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley. “This single law has protected workers, but more important, it has made smoking socially unacceptable.”
Farley stressed that smoking is still the top cause of preventable deaths in New York City.
Last week, a proposal to keep cigarettes out of sight in stores was introduced in the City Council. Bloomberg also introduced another bill that would decrease access to cheap and illegal cigarettes.
(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

LINK: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/03/27/nyc-marks-10th-anniversary-of-anti-smoking-initiative/

MAKE CIGARETTE PACK 60 CENT COSTLIER: ANTI-SMOKING CAMPAIGNERS

 Irish anti-smoking campaigners call for another 60c Tax on packet of cigarettes

DUBLIN :
ANTI-smoking campaigners in Ireland have called on Finance Minister Michael Noonan to put an extra 60c on the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes in the next Budget.
ASH Ireland also said it wants to bring the taxation on “roll-your-own-tobacco” into line with other tobacco products when Mr Noonan delivers his Budget package for 2013.
ASH Chairman Dr Ross Morgan said: “Significant price increase is established and accepted as the most potent weapon against smoking.
“It encourages smokers to quit and discourages young people from commencing the habit. Regrettably we have over 900,000 smokers in this country who consume roughly six billion cigarettes annually.
“This of course leads to addiction, significant tobacco related illness and the death of 5,700 of our citizens every year. One in two people who smoke will die because of this and it is incumbent on the government to take a leadership role and increase price and in doing so reduce prevalence.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

1. http://devilsmoke.blogspot.in/search/label/taxation
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Noonan
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland 
4. http://www.independent.ie 
5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10268368

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EUROPE'S ANTI-TOBACCO LEGISLATION HIT BY SCANDAL

EUROPE'S ANTI-TOBACCO LEGISLATION HIT BY SCANDAL

Health Commissioner Resigns In Disgrace

LONDON, UK — Corruption allegations, unexplained break-ins, dark conspiracy theories and Swedish snuff: Those aren’t the elements of a Hollywood film, but developments in a plot surrounding Europe’s efforts to get tough on nicotine.
At stake are billions of dollars of potential tobacco trade and the career of one of the European Union’s senior figures. Also on the line is a long-awaited piece of legislation health campaigners hope will score a major victory in a long battle to cut cigarette consumption.
Given the cloud of disapproval that has enveloped big tobacco at least since the days US manufacturers denied their products were addictive, the scandal has predictably generated allegations the industry is resorting to underhanded tactics to protect its steadily shrinking market.
The controversy erupted earlier this year when Swedish Match, which produces a snuff-based chewing tobacco popular in parts of Scandinavia, claimed it had been propositioned by a lobbyist with connections to John Dalli, a veteran Maltese politician serving as the EU’s health commissioner.
The manufacturer said businessman Silvio Zammit, also from Malta, had suggested he could persuade Dalli to alter forthcoming legislation on tobacco products by lifting an EU export and marketing ban on its snus chewing tobacco — for a consideration of $78 million.
Swedish Match said it refused the offer and called in OLAF, the EU’s fraud investigators. OLAF found “unambiguous circumstantial pieces of evidence” indicating Dalli was aware of — but not involved in — Zammit’s activities and referred the matter to the Maltese authorities.
Dalli denies the accusation. “There is no evidence that I was in any way involved in this issue,” he told the Times of Malta. “I have consistently stated that I was unaware of communication passing between Silvio Zammit and the snus people.”
Nevertheless, Dalli left office last week insisting OLAF and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso forced him out against EU protocols.
“This is a very serious decision that Mr. Barroso took, very serious,” he told a news conference on Wednesday. “It will damage my whole future and it will damage the future of my family.”
Barroso denies the charge and says Dalli resigned voluntarily. Earlier in the day, he wrote to him saying that "you have yourself unambiguously declared your immediate resignation, before the director general of the legal service and the head of my private office,” the BBC reported. He called Dalli’s accusation “incomprehensible.”
The scandal has put the tobacco legislation’s future in doubt. Under Dalli, it had been beefed up with proposals to strip cigarette packages of almost all branding and tighten regulations on smokeless products such as electronic cigarettes and snuff.
Those measures — similar to a groundbreaking new Australian law that from December will require cigarettes to be sold in plain packs — have drawn condemnation from the tobacco industry. Retail lobbyists say they could cause a $26 billion loss in European tax revenues.
Dalli has hinted at dark forces at play.
Since his departure, he’s expressed concerns his legislation will be “diluted” or swept away, saying he’d been subjected to “an attempt to dissuade me from going ahead with certain measures” even before allegations had been lodged against him.
Others share his worries. "This was going to be the mainstay of tobacco policy for the European Union over the coming years and the danger now is that it is dead in the water," said Anna Gilmore, professor of public health at the UK’s University of Bath.
Dalli has written to EU lawmakers claiming that Swedish Match had tried to set up meetings with him through middlemen in July, according to the EUObserver.com website. He said “it had passed my mind” that the tobacco industry had conspired in his demise.
Swedish Match has denied all claims of impropriety and highlighted its own prompt involvement with OLAF. The tobacco firm, which stands to gain a $2.3 billion market if snus restrictions are lifted, says it wants the new laws introduced via a “transparent and legally fair process.”
But Dalli, a reformed smoker, isn’t alone in his pessimistic outlook or his view that sinister hands may be at work, particularly given an unusual series of events that took place in the days following the scandal’s development.
First there were the burglaries. Last week, two days after Dalli left his job, the premises of three anti-smoking groups — the European Public Health Alliance, the European Respiratory Society and the Smoke Free Partnership — in a building in Brussels were broken into.
Laptops and information relating to their campaign work are understood to have been taken. But although the organizations viewed the raids as the work of determined professionals, none of them blamed tobacco companies.
“We do not subscribe to conspiracy theories,” said a spokesman for the European Public Health Alliance. “However, in light of the evidence we feel we have legitimate reason to suspect the intrusion was well-planned, researched and targeted.”
As the plot continues to thicken, there have been claims tobacco lobbyists are trying to steer journalists covering the story. Meanwhile, the electronic cigarette industry has wasted no time posting a scurrilous blog about alleged skeletons in Dalli’s closet.
It coincided with an equally timely publication of an essay by Steve Stotesbury, a scientist working for Imperial Tobacco, outlining positive health effects of snus use. He claims countries exempt from the current EU ban show lower rates of smoking-related disease.
Other conspiracy theories point elsewhere, including to OLAF chief Giovanni Kessler, who some believe lacks the impartiality required for investigating Dalli because he’s previously testified plain cigarette packaging could aid counterfeiting.
Whether or not the smoke surrounding what happened before and after Dalli’s exit clears, it’s certain the EU tobacco legislation, if it ever emerges, could reshape the continent’s nicotine habits.

Smoking across EU countries is already in retreat: Adult consumers fell from 28.15 percent of the population to 25.57 percent between 2002 and 2009, according to the World Health Organization. But experts say new impetus is needed because the rate of decline is slowing.

"Evidence suggests that the anticipated legislation would have an impact,” said Gilmore, the public health professor. Without it, she said, the tobacco industry will adapt to existing restrictions such as taxes, marketing and workplace smoking bans, and recruit new customers.
“Right now it is increasingly relying on the cigarette pack to promote its products and, in particular, to recruit young new smokers,” she added. “Policies that reduce the marketing potential of the pack through plain packaging or large warning labels are therefore very important."

LINKS:
1. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/121025/eu-dalli-barroso-tobacco-europe-smoking
2  http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1851/eu_health_commissioner_john_dalli_resigns_in_disgrace