Tobacco Industry News

Reports

Corporate power and social policy: The political economy of the transnational tobacco companies
Researchers have found that transnational tobacco companies have used political action to pursue their interests and reestablish their structural position due to the growth of tobacco control strategies in the past fifty years. The investigators used public tobacco documents to assess the companies’ structural power, the impact tobacco control policies had on their structural position, and their use of power. They found that changes in the economies of the former Eastern bloc and East Asian nations provided new opportunities for the tobacco companies, but this development could be limited by the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Read the full article, available at PubMed Central.

White Owl introduces the ultimate sweet deal
Swedish Match’s White Owl brand has launched a new ”Sweets” cigarillo packaged in a foil material intended to keep the cigars fresher. The product, White Owl FoilFresh Sweets, hit stores on April 5 with colorful displays and three specially-priced offers. Sweet cigarillos compose 58% of small cigar sales and are the largest and fastest-growing segment. Low tax rates and individual sales of small cigars often lead to lower pricing than for cigarettes, which can be attractive to young people. Click here to read more about the product and White Owl. Click here to read a Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’ fact sheet about the growing popularity and health harms of cigars.

Greenbutts cigarette filters create garden of flowers from discarded butts
A new cigarette company called greenbutts has developed an “all natural” cigarette with a biodegradable filter containing flower seeds as an eco-friendly alternative to regular cigarettes. Cigarette butts compose a large proportion of litter, with International Coastal Cleanup reportedly collecting over 3 million cigarette filters on beaches worldwide in 2009, making up 28% of all collected debris by weight. Once the patent-pending cigarette design is approved, the company will be able to bring the product to market. Click here to read more about the filters, or go to greenbutts’ website.

Convenience store sales show gains amid a battered economy
According to a report released by the National Association of Convenience Stories (NACS), cigarettes continue to be a profitable product for convenience stores. Convenience store sales grew 4.9% in 2009, while overall U.S. retail sales dropped 7.0%. Cigarettes continued to make up the largest portion of in-store sales dollars, 35.8%. The April 2009 federal excise tax increase was part of the reason for the large amount of sales dollars attributed to cigarettes. Click here for more details.

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International

British American Tobacco on Facebook: undermining article 13 of the global World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
A new study published in Tobacco Control indicates that employees of British American Tobacco (BAT) are violating article 13 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) by promoting the company’s products through online social networking site Facebook.  The researchers searched for terms related to the company, such as “British American Tobacco,” and two of their brands, “Dunhill” and “Lucky Strike,” and cross-referenced the sources of the results with identified Facebook members employed by BAT.  They found that BAT employees were promoting the company by joining and administrating groups and posting photographs of BAT events, products, and promotional items. These employees were from countries that have ratified the WHO FCTC, which requires ratifying nations to ban all forms of tobacco advertising, including online. Click here to read the study abstract.

Swedish Match signs deal to move cigars to new joint venture
Tobacco company Swedish Match has entered a joint venture with Scandinavian Tobacco Group, forming a new global cigar company that is expected to sell 2.5 billion cigars a year.  Swedish Match will contribute most of its cigar, pipe-tobacco, and accessories business, allowing the company to focus on snus production. Swedish Match has another joint venture with Philip Morris International to expand the distribution of snus outside Scandinavia and the U.S. Smokeless tobacco products like snus have become increasingly popular as smokefree policies have become more widespread. Click here to read more.

Gates Foundation stops grant to Canadian research center
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has terminated their tobacco control grant to the Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC) after learning that the IRDC’s board is chaired by a woman who also serves on the board for a subsidiary of British American Tobacco. The Gates Foundation believed that the chairwoman’s relationship with the tobacco industry is a conflict of interest that hinders the Foundation’s ability to support tobacco control programs in Africa. The dual appointments also violated the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a global tobacco treaty that Canada has endorsed. The IDRC’s role in co-hosting a tobacco control meeting in Africa was shadowed by controversy when the conflict of interest was revealed, and the future of the tobacco control meeting is currently in question. Read more here, or view the statement from the Gates Foundation announcing the end of the grant.

Philip Morris cancels cigarette price hikes (Japan)
Philip Morris Japan will not go forward with a planned increase in cigarette prices, fearing drops in sales. The company was scheduled to raise the price per pack by 20 yen (about $0.22) on June 1, after gaining approval from Japan’s Finance Ministry in February. They decided to cancel the increase after market research suggested that a larger than expected drop in sales would occur if it was implemented. The price per pack will increase October 1, when the government raises the tax by 3.5 yen (about $0.04) per cigarette. Japan Tobacco, which has the largest share of the Japanese cigarette market, estimates that the October cigarette tax increase will result in a 20% decrease in demand. Click here for more information.

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