American Spirit, Engle case, tobacco litigation

Class-action lawsuit planned against American Spirit cigarettes

January 26, 2016 Pepe Lepew

This story is actually a few weeks old, but I just now heard of it. I found out about it while arguing with someone who claims that American Spirit cigarettes are better for you than other brands (The FDA has warned American Spirit to stop with its “natural” and “additive-free” advertising.

Anyway, a class-action lawsuit being planned in Florida intends to take bolder action than the FDA. From the Santa Fe New Mexican:

A Florida law firm this week filed the first attempt at a class-action lawsuit against the Santa Fe-based company and its parent, Reynolds American Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C., claiming the cigarette maker’s packaging and advertising are intended to mislead smokers into thinking American Spirit cigarettes are healthier than other tobacco products.

The FDA last August warned American Spirit to drop its advertising of being “organic” and “additive-free.” Now, since then, I’ve seen American Spirit ads in Sports Illustrated that still say “organic” and “additive-free,” however, I see in this story an explanation. The FDA told American Spirit to come up with a plan for “corrective actions.” So, even though they’ve been given a stern warning by the Feds, American Spirit has continued with its dubious marketing.

From the Santa Fe New Mexican:

The lawsuit filed (in October 2015) in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida by Justin Sproule notes that American Spirit sales increased by 86 percent from 2009 to 2014, as compared to an overall 17 percent decline in cigarette sales in the United States during the same period. Just this week, Reynolds American announced that it had agreed to sell the international rights to the brand to Japanese buyers for $5 billion.

The complaint seeks damages on behalf of Sproule and others who “smoke American Spirits because they have been deceived by claims, labels and advertising into regarding them as safer than other cigarettes.”

Descriptions such as “additive-free,” “natural” and “organic,” the lawsuit says, “are patently deceptive, especially in today’s market, where these terms have a potent meaning for the health-and-environmentally-conscious consumer.”

The company also exploits its marketing message in other ways, the complaint says, by selling its cigarettes in health food stores. “And it accompanies its cigarettes with literature from ‘America’s leading natural foods teacher’ who claims that the cigarettes are medicinal and that Native Americans smoke such additive free cigarettes without developing cancer.”

I think it’s also interesting that the lawsuit is being filed in Florida. Florida has become a very unfriendly place for the tobacco industry. Many years ago, in what’s known as the Engle Case, the tobacco industry lost a massive $145 billion class-action lawsuit in Florida. The Florida Supreme Court threw that settlement out, saying the case couldn’t be decided on a class-action basis and that each victim (or victim’s family) that was sickened or killed by tobacco had to file their suits individually.

Since then, partly because of the way the Supreme Court ruling was written, which essentially said the plaintiffs were right, they just couldn’t sue on a class-action basis, there’s been a veritable cottage industry of lawsuits against the tobacco industry in Flordia. Several thousand lawsuits, in fact, and the majority of those cases that have been decided have been decided in favour of the plaintiffs. Hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements have been paid out and hundreds of millions more of settlements are still caught up in the appeals process.

I think because of this, a lot of attorneys who specialize in litigation against the tobacco industry have migrated to Florida. That’s where the action is, so to speak. So that doesn’t surprise me this class-action suit against American Spirit is coming out of Florida.

Kentucky, racism, Smoking bans

Crazy Kentucky politician against smoking ban because of blacks and Obama …wait, what?

January 21, 2016 Pepe Lepew

I just can’t even wrap my head around this.

A county commissioner in Grayson County, Ky., said he voted against a smoking ban for his county because he isn’t black and he isn’t Obama.

Uh …. what?

OK, here is his actual quote, from Raw Story:

“I asked (county commissioners) if it’s not the role of the government to protect people, then what is the role of the government?” said Tristan Deering, a senior at Grayson County High School.

Gary Logsdon, the county judge-executive, replied with a racist comment that suggested he believed President Barack Obama was a tyrant.

“I’m not black and I’m not Obama — and I’m not making you do anything,” Logsdon said.

Logsdon went on to add:

“And I love blacks and whites,” Logsdon said. “I respect blacks but, you know, I’m not Obama.”

I’m sure the guy loves blacks. I’m sure he really has a lot of black friends. Really. I have no doubt of this, because I’ve never, ever heard racists claim this before.

The poor teen went on to say he was “baffled,” by Logsdon’s comment. Hey, you aren’t alone, kiddo. I really think a lot of right-wingers just so hopelessly have Obama Derangement Syndrome, they can’t stop thinking or talking about him … or blaming him for everything under the sun. That’s all I can really figure here.

Maybe this guy is “Confederate1978” or whatever. This is a guy from Kentucky who trolls stories about smoking bans posting insane comments about government and Obama and blacks (though you can guess what he usually calls blacks, hint … it rhymes with “chiggers.”) The coincidence is actually kind of amazing here. I’ve seen ol’ Confederate’s name pop up in the comments section of many smoking ban stories for years now. I haven’t seen hide nor hair out of the guy for almost a couple of years.

Anyway, the smoking ban vote failed in Grayson County. Grayson County is a fairly rural county in central Kentucky. Despite being a centre of tobacco-growing and having one of the highest smoking rates, there’s actually a number of city and country full-blown smoking bans in Kentucky in places such as Louisville, Lexington and Bowling Green.

E-cig advertising, e-cigarette advertising, e-cigarettes, e-cigs

Research: Candy-flavoured e-cig advertisements attract teen users

January 20, 2016 Pepe Lepew

This is an article from Medical Daily about research that strongly suggests that candy-flavoured e-cigarette products really are encouraging more teenagers to take up vaping.

Teen vaping has become a big deal. The rate of teens who use e-cigarettes triplied between 2013 and 2014, from about 4.5 percent to about 13 percent. I assume that figure is likely far higher than 13 percent now. In fact, the rate of teens who vape is higher than the rate of teens who smoke. And further research shows that a higher percentage of kids using e-cigs eventually move on to real cigarettes than those who never take up e-cigs.

Anyway, researchers from the Behavior and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge said their work showed that kids shown ads for candy-flavoured e-cigs were more likely to want to try e-cigs than kids showed generic ads for e-cigs or kids showed no ads at all.

From the article:

“We’re cautiously optimistic from our results that e-cigarette ads don’t make tobacco smoking more attractive, but we’re concerned that ads for e-cigarettes, with flavors that might appeal to school children, could encourage them to try the products,” said Dr. Milica Vasiljevic, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, in a press release.

The Food and Drug Administration has been for some time now mulling new regulations for e-cigarettes. The FDA has already proposed banning e-cig sales to minors (already banned in the vast majority of states, though there is virtually no control over online sales of e-cigarette products). However, in its draft regulations, the FDA proposed ZERO regulations over e-cigarette advertising, even though the federal government has very strict control over cigarette advertising (no cigarette ads on TV or radio and no cartoon images or characters allowed in print ads as per the 1998 Master Settilement Agreement).

If you don’t believe these e-cig ads are pretty damn blatant about marketing their products to teens as being cool and hip, check out this infamous Blu E-Cigs Cherry Crush ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv7kxg5c3to

Me and a hell of a lot of other people ripped on FDA during the comment period about the lack of controls over e-cigarette marketing and advertising. The FDA was handed regulatory authority over nicotine products and e-cigs absolutely contain nicotine just like cigarettes, so from where I sit, it certainly appears the FDA has authority to control e-cig advertising, which has been very, very blatant as far as trying to market e-cigs to kids.

A lot of people and tobacco advocacy groups are also not happy about all the candy flavourings in general for e-cigs. Candy-flavoured cigarettes were banned by the FDA a few years ago (but Swisher Sweet cigars are still OK for some reason). I’m personally not as dogmatic about this issue (since I have talked to a lot of adult e-cig users who like the candy flavours), but I am adamant that the FDA needs to crack down — hard — on e-cig marketing to kids.

Anyway, will the FDA ultimately crack down on e-cig advertising? We’ll see. The agency has been working on its final regs for almost a couple of years now, so maybe that’s encouraging that it took the reams of comments about e-cigs and e-cig advertising seriously.

smoking in movies

Update: Data shows smoking is decreasing in Hollywood movies

January 16, 2016 Pepe Lepew

First of all, I have to post a “sort of” correction, even though I’m not convinced yet I was completely wrong.

According to this group called “Smokefree Movies,” which is based out of San Francisco State University, which means my hero and longtime anti-tobacco advocate Stanton Glantz is involved, there IS smoking in the film version of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” Between 10-and 29 instances, in fact. Darned if I remember any smoking scenes, but again, I’d have to watch the movie again to confirm that. Perhaps the old Soviet and CIA guys smoke. I think the old CIA guy might have been chomping a cigar. I tweaked my earlier post to reflect this new information I stumbled on.

(EDITOR’s NOTE: According to a friend who watched the movie again in response to my post … she confirmed that there doesn’t appear to be any smoking in The Man from U.N.C.L.E, so I have no idea what Smokefree Movies is talking about.)

Anyway, it was pretty interesting timing coming upon this article just as I posted a story about The Man From U.N.C.L.E. This story from the Smokefree Movies project confirms that the 7-year-old MPAA policy to discourage smoking in PG-13 movies, while not perfect and definitely not ideal, is in fact, having an effect.

54bc20e4d07d91d73b756929fc0619a4 — Augustus, a cancer patient, in “The Fault In Our Stars” has a cigarette continually dangling from his mouth throughout the film but he never actually lights it.

According to Smokefree Movies, the number of films that contained “tobacco imagery” (Not necessarily smoking, but “tobacco imagery”), was about 105 in 2007, the year before new MPAA policy that went into effect threatening (threatening, but not requiring) an R-rating for smoking scenes in PG-13 movies. That number included more than 50 PG-13 and younger-rated movies.

In 2008, that number quickly dropped to less than 90, though the number of PG-13 movies that had smoking went up slightly. In 2009, the effect of the MPAA policy really started being seen. There were about 75 movies that had tobacco imagery, and about 41 one of them were rated for PG-13 or younger.

In 2010, it even got better, with about 61 movies total with tobacco imagery and only 26-28 in PG-13 movies. Frustratingly, that number crept up a bit over the next couple of years, but according to SF State, in 2015, the number of movies with tobacco imagery was about 70 total, with about 30 of those in PG-13 movies. That’s a decrease overall of 33 percent and over 40 percent for PG-13 movies.

Again, I don’t know what the term “tobacco imagery” means exactly. but the policy means there’s been a serious decrease in tobacco imagery in films (both overall and in PG-13 films) since 2007. Man, that’s a big step forward.

Keep in mind, even though supposedly the tobacco industry was no longer paying Hollywood studios a dime after 1998 for including tobacco products in movies, the rate of tobacco imagery in movies actually went UP between 2002 and 2007. So, Hollywood was giving the tobacco industry all sorts of free advertising without collecting a dime in return. What a bunch of shmoes!

Here’s where I might take exception with the term “tobacco imagery,” and maybe why i didn’t notice smoking in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Here is a list of films that contain tobacco imagery. One of those films is “The Fault In Our Stars.”

I have to disagree with SF State on this one. “The Fault In Our Stars” has more than 50 instances of tobacco imagery listed. In this film, a teenager battling cancer keeps a cigarette dangling in his mouth as a specific message — the message being, and I’m quoting from the movie:

“They don’t kill you unless you light them. And I’ve never lit one. It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing.”

So, the character in the film never once lights a cigarette and uses them to remind himself that cancer is death, cigarettes are death, and that cancer has no power over him if he chooses not to let it have power over him by not lighting the cigarette. I think that’s touching, a bit unfair by SF State to include that. There is such a thing as context. Trust me, when I first saw images of a teenager apparently smoking from this film, I was plenty outraged .. until I read up on the context.

Anyway, a really interesting update to my post the other day and I’m sure I will see “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” again to confirm how right or how close I was in my earlier post. Smoking scenes in films ares down roughly 33 percent from eight years ago, and, more importantly, down over 40 percent in PG-13 films. (More importantly to me, because yeah, I still believe in artistic freedom for the most part and if people want to have smoking characters in movies, that’s their prerogative and I sincerely have no problem with it … I just think they should be prepared for an R-rating.)

smoking in movies

Smoking in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” movie — there isn’t any … in 1963 setting

January 14, 2016 Pepe Lepew

D3S_1223.DNG — Look, it’s the 1960s and NO ONE is smoking!

Got a pleasant surprise when I got my DVD of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” this week.

The movie is based on the old TV show and is set in 1963 … and yet, I can’t recall seeing any smoking scenes in the whole movie. 1963 was the absolute height of the smoking era — the highest smoking rates in history — and yet there’s almost no smoking, if any, in this film. I didn’t even really think about it until after I was done watching it … and I was pleasantly surprised. I’d have to see it again to confirm the total lack of smoking, but let’s say, there was definitely a paucity of cigarettes in this 1963-period film. (My friend Nancy confirmed to me there is NO smoking in this film.)

For far too long, Hollywood has gone out of its way to glamorize smoking , without the tobacco industry paying the movie industry a dime for all that free advertising. The only time the tobacco industry actually paid the movie industry for product placement was from about 1980 to 1998. Before that, it was all free and after 1998, it was all free — as far as anyone can prove.

This is particularly true of spy movies or a lot of other movies from the 1960s that absolutely glamorized smoking. A lot of people don’t realize this, but James Bond smoked a LOT in the early 60s movies. Cigarettes were a symbol of his virility, suaveness and sophistication.

Smoking is also featured a LOT on “Mad Men,” a show about an advertising agency in the early and mid 1960s. In fact, the agency handles advertising for cigarettes and one of the main characters of the show ends up dying from lung cancer. Mad Men makes the statement that yes, smoking is glamorous, but that it’s an empty glamour with a heavy, heavy price.

Man from U.N.C.L.E. cigarette case toy, actually sold to kids.

I tried to see if the original Man from U.N.C.L.E. TV show featured smoking. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest if it had considering the era and considering that smoking was common on TV back then. Heck, everyone knows the Flintstones even advertised cigarettes. However, I couldn’t find a single image online of any smoking on the Man from U.N.C.L.E. I did find an image of a Man from U.N.C.L.E. cigarette case communicator. They even sold it as a toy for kids.

James-Bond-1962 — James Bond smoking in “Dr. No.”

Anyway, when some of us tobacco control advocates started clamouring for removing smoking from PG and PG-13 movies, there was a big hue and cry from some Hollywood directors, who claimed banning smoking from teen-marketed movies somehow crimps their artistic freedom. (You’ve never been able to say “fuck” more than twice in a PG-13 movie — and even then it has to be as an exclamation, not as a description of the sex act — which is silly to me, but I’ve never heard directors piss and moan about that.)

Well, lo and behold, here is a movie based in 1963, (a movie with plenty of drinking and casual sex, BTW) when smoking was still seen as glamorous and suave, when over 50 percent of men smoked, and there is virtually no smoking in the movie … and even I barely noticed. In fact, I doubt virtually no one other than me did notice. It didn’t ruin the movie, whiny Hollywood directors! It simply doesn’t add anything to stories or characters or plots to have smoking included in movies. It’s completely gratuitous. And it always was. Napoleon Solo’s character is quite suave, sophisticated, drinks his fair share of alcohol, sleeps around … and manages to remain cool without the aid of a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

It also heartened me because I believe this movie is a good sign that the new rules put in place in 2008 by the MPAA regarding smoking in movies is in fact, having an effect. The rules have created a chilling effect over smoking in movies because studios just don’t even want to butt heads with the MPAA over it.

The MPAA didn’t actually ban smoking in PG and PG-13 movies, which made a lot of tobacco control advocates angry at the time. But, it did strongly discourage it, allowing loopholes for historical period accuracy (So, the Man from U.N.C.L.E. probably could have included more smoking and gotten away with it.), and the rules also included some weasel words like “pervasive smoking.” However, the rules were good enough to send the message to studios, “don’t even bother. It’s not worth it, it’s not worth fighting over it.” The simple threat of movies being rated R for smoking was enough to convince studios and directors to just not bother.

c-cigarettes, centers for disease control, E-cig advertising, e-cigarette advertising, e-cigs

Study: E-cigarette ads reach 7 kids out of 10

January 6, 2016 Pepe Lepew

Very upsetting study by the Centers for Disease Control which speaks to the absolute biggest problem I have with e-cigarettes — how they are marketed.

The e-cigarette industry has been just downright brazen and blatant about marketing their products to teenagers. E-cig ads today employ all of the exact same techniques used by the cigarette industry for decades to entice teen smokers — sexy, suave, sophisticated people using their products, cartoon characters (even Santa Clause) and ads featuring women’s panties. Women’s panties? … I mean, seriously, you just don’t get more blatant than that.

Anyway, the CDC survey found that 7 out of 10 middle school and high school students had seen these e-cig ads, which are all over the place, magazines, mini-marts, billboards, etc. Tom Friedman, head of the CDC, makes this exact point:

ecig_custom-f5195ef495c578ad8c8850130b0d053934b80041-s6-c30 — Yeah, sure, e-cigarette companies aren’t trying to market to kids at all.

“The same advertising tactics the tobacco industry used years ago to get kids addicted to nicotine are now being used to entice a new generation of young people to use e-cigarettes. I hope all can agree that kids should not use e-cigarettes.”

It’s no secret that teen use of vaping products has absolutely exploded in the past three or four years. More than triple the number of kids vaped in 2014 than in 2013 and studies show that more teenagers vape today than smoke cigarettes.

This simply isn’t a good thing on so many levels. Kids are still turning into nicotine addicts, which is bad no matter what the delivery system of that nicotine is. And studies show that a higher percentage of kids who start out vaping eventually turn to cigarettes to get their nicotine fix than kids who never vape.

f1f74_screen-shot-2013-12-28-at-1 — Blu E-cigs, fast, sophisticated, cool … they make you feel like a race car driver.

So, what’s to be done. The Food and Drug Administration is mulling proposals for regulating e-cigarettes. One of the common-sense proposals by the FDA is to ban the sale of e-cig products to teens (most states already ban this, but it is not banned on a federal level … AND e-cig products can be easily purchased by kids online).

The CDC recommends that e-cigs can only be bought in “face to face” transactions, and that online transactions be banned. The FDA did not propose banning online e-cig sales in its draft regulations, but it’s been working on finalizing those regulations for nearly a couple of years now. The FDA also didn’t consider any curbs on e-cigarette advertising in its draft regulations, something that caused a major hue and cry from anti-tobacco advocates.

Bioshock, cigarette advertising, Uncategorized, video games

Demented ad for cigarettes in “Bioshock: Burial At Sea”

January 6, 2016 Pepe Lepew 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, I posted something about smoking in video games. One of the games mentioned in an article about smoking in video games was “Bioshock: Burial at Sea.”

Well, I’ve been playing it, and noticed an ad in the game for cigarettes … an ad featuring a pregnant woman.

Now, if any of you have ever played any of the Bioshock games, you know there’s a lot of twisted advertisements in these games … really, openly racist ads, etc. If you understand the Bioshock world, you realize there is a lot of irony and dark views of the worst instincts to be found in current U.S. politics (Libertarianism, Objectivism, white supremacy and anti-immigration bigotry … if anything, the anti-Libertarian and anti-racism messages in Bioshock are more compelling today than they’ve ever been).

bioshockinfinite-11-1024x576 — Poster from Bioshock Infinite. You get to kill white supremacists in this game.

So, the ad with the pregnant woman falls right into the twisted, ironic world of Bioshock. “Bioshock: Burial at Sea” takes place in 1958. Is this ad that much different from real ads from the 1950s? It’s only slightly more extreme than this:

There is a lot of smoking in Bioshock Burial at Sea. In fact, in all of the Bioshock games, you can smoke a pack of cigarettes to gain more powers (called “Eve” or “Vigors” depending on the game), but it takes away a bit of your health. I don’t know if there’s enough cigarettes in Bioshock to actually kill yourself, but it would be an interesting experiment to try.

smoking-pregnancy-drs — REAL Camel ad from the 1950s featuring an apparently pregnant woman.

So, while I singled out Bioshock in my previous post about smoking in video games, the game does take a very twisted look back at real cigarette advertising and just how insane it actually was.

Cancer, Kentucky, Lung cancer, Uncategorized

Tobacco-growing, tobacco-smoking Kentucky leads the nation in cancer rate

December 26, 2015 Pepe Lepew

691add6432bea01946eb234ae350fdf2 — Kentucky tobacco farm

Not the least bit surprising, but something to think about when it comes to tobacco control.

This is why people in tobacco control care about the issue; ultimately it comes down to people dying from tobacco.

When most people think of Kentucky, they think of horse country, the Kentucky Derby, and idyllic bluegrass hills. But, there’s a terrible dark side to that bucolic landscape. According to this USA Today story, Kentucky has the dubious distinction of being No. 1 in the nation for having the worst cancer rate. The biggest reason why? Lung cancer. Lung cancer is the third-most common form of cancer in the U.S. (behind breast cancer for women and prostate cancer for men). However, while lung cancer represents about 13 percent of all cancers, it also represents 27 percent of all cancer deaths. That’s the most … by a LOT. Lung cancer kills more people than colon, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer combined. It continues to be one of the most, if not the most, difficult form of cancer to treat.

According to USA Today, the rate for lung cancer deaths in Kentucky is 50 percent higher than the national average. From the article:

Lung cancer incidence per 100,000 people: 92.4, compared with 60.4 nationally. Mortality per 100,000: 68.8 — around 120 in the hardest-hit Appalachian counties — compared with 45 nationally.

Kentucky smoking rates, by county

Kentucky has a notoriously high smoking rate. It was the highest in the nation until recently, but now it is second highest in the U.S. at 26.5 percent, (only West Virginia is higher) considerably higher than the national average. Kentucky’s smoking rate was over 30 percent as recently as 10 years ago. The national average, according to this article, has dropped all the down to 15.2 percent (I haven’t seen that figure widely reported; I saw 16.8 percent a few weeks ago.). Kentucky also has a higher than normal death rate from breast, colon and cervical cancers. That might be partly attributable to smoking. Kentucky also has a ridiculously low cigarette tax at 60 cents a pack, one of the lowest in the nation. The national average is over $1.50 a pack. There is also no statewide indoor smoking ban, though several large cities in Kentucky do ban smoking indoors. These factors help to encourage smoking. They really do. Every state that imposes a smoking ban and/or raises its cigarette tax sees its smoking rate go down. Of course, Kentucky just elected a conservative Republican as its governor, so don’t expect a cigarette tax increase any time soon.

From the article

For many years, Kentucky has had a quarter of adults smoking,” said oncologist Dr. Goetz Kloecker, a lung cancer specialist with University of Louisville Physicians. “I have patients who started puffing at 8, 9 and 10 years old…It’s part of the culture.”

Because of that culture, “cigarettes are still cheaper than in other places,” Kloecker added. “If you go to Chicago or New York, there are fewer teenagers starting to smoke. The higher the costs, the lower the smoking rate.”

One of the reasons smoking is so ingrained in the culture is Kentucky is one of the leading tobacco-growing states. Kentucky has a lot fewer tobacco farmers than it once did (wow, there were 56,000 tobacco farms in Kentucky in 1992), but it is still second in the U.S. behind North Carolina in the level of tobacco produced. And in fact, North Carolina and Kentucky absolutely dominate the market with over 70 percent of the tobacco grown in the U.S. coming from those two states. (Interestingly, North Carolina actually has a statewide smoking ban and a relatively low smoking rate for a Southern state at 20.2 percent in 2013 — likely lower than that today.)

Other environmental factors are playing a role. Kentucky has a high level of radon in homes and especially in the Appalachian region, residents have high levels of chromium and arsenic in their systems. (Probably from mining operations and groundwater contamination.).

Other factors are mentioned by USA Today, such as poor health screenings in the state and obesity, but the high smoking rate is the biggest factor, no doubt.

Australia, Philip Morris Interntional, Plain packaging

Crikey! Australia kicks international Big Tobacco’s butt … again

December 20, 2015 Pepe Lepew

Yet another major legal victory for Australia in its long-running battle against Big Tobacco.

Specifically, Australia defeated Philip Morris International, which has been one of the corporations fighting Australia for the past five to 10 years over that nation’s plain-packaging laws.

Initially, the government of Australia won in the Australian Supreme Court for the right to impose a plain-packaging law. In Australia, packages of cigarettes not only cannot have logos of tobacco brands, but they are required to have graphic images of the damage that tobacco does to people’s mouths, teeth, etc.

Plain_Packaging_Australia — Australian plain packaging. Pleasant, huh?

Anyway, after losing before the Australian Supreme Court, Philip Morris Int’l persuaded several countries to get involved in litigation against Australia to claim that that country’s plain packaging laws were violating trade agreements and international trade law. Ukraine was one of the countries involved, but dropped out many months ago.

However, Hong Kong was still involved in this legal action, invoking something called the “1993 Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement”. An entity known as an “arbitral tribunal” (seriously, that’s what it is called), declined to hear Hong Kong and Philip Morris Int’l’s case, ending the litigation … for now.

From the Guardian article:

The minister responsible for Australia’s tobacco policy, Fiona Nash, said: “We welcome the unanimous decision by the tribunal agreeing with Australia’s position that it has no jurisdiction to hear Philip Morris’s claim.”

The Public Health Association of Australia welcomed the decision as “the best Christmas present for public health nationally and internationally”.

“Smoking in Australia is falling in adults, in children and by tobacco volume sales,” said the association’s chief executive, Michael Moore.

“Now the tobacco companies have lost another crucial legal bid to stop this life-saving measure. The message is loud and clear – plain packaging works, and it is here to stay.”

Not surprisingly, Philip Morris was not happy with the decision. From the article:

“There is nothing in today’s outcome that addresses, let alone validates, plain packaging in Australia or anywhere else,” said Marc Firestone, Philip Morris International senior vice president and general counsel.

“It is regrettable that the outcome hinged entirely on a procedural issue that Australia chose to advocate instead of confronting head on the merits of whether plain packaging is legal or even works.”

Oh, wah! Cry me a river, Philip Morris. Shouldn’t you be busy picking on Uruguay?

FranceFlag_svg — Yay, go France. Cracking down on cigarette marketing.

This decision could help other countries that are proposing plain packaging laws. Ireland already does it, and France is moving ahead with plain packaging for tobacco in 2016, following Australia’s lead. Efforts to force plain packaging for cigarettes in the U.S. are stymied by a very strong First Amendment.

Philip Morris International and other tobacco companies have fought these plain packaging laws around the world; they’ve even enlisted the help of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to aid them in their fights against Uruguay, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Togo and other countries. Notice most of these countries are fairly small with limited finances and resources to fight Big Tobacco. Not a coincidence.

Uncategorized, video games

Report: 42 percent of major video games have depictions of smoking

December 16, 2015 Pepe Lepew 1 Comment

burial-at-sea-BioShock-INfinite-2 — Elizabeth in Bioshock: Burial at Sea

Wow, here is something I’ve honestly never even given the slightest thought to — the prevalence of smoking in video games.

Here’s a good story, one that actually made me think because honestly this is something I’ve never even considered before, about smoking in video games. According to the study from UC San Francisco (No surprise there, that is the home of Stanton Glantz and the Center for Tobacco Control), smoking shows up in 42 percent of video games participants reported playing.

No surprise there is smoking in Grand Theft Auto games. These are about the most adult games you can find out there (I’m not a fan, too much sexism). I remember smoking first showed up in Duke Nukem 3D about 20 years ago. In particular, I remember one cut scene in which Duke cuts off a monster’s head, then takes a poop down his neck while lighting a cigar (I am NOT making this up … it’s Duke Nukem, man).

Smoking also shows up in Bioshock: Burial at Sea (Elizabeth smokes cigarettes in a very sultry way in this 1930s-themed game) and in Halo games with Sargent Johnson always chomping on a cigar.

I have mixed emotions about this initially. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a gamer, but I will admit I play video games and find them fun, especially really violent first-person shooters. I know full well these games depict almost non-stop mayhem and gunplay (and in the case of Duke Nukem … extreme sexism) and I find myself saying, “am I supposed to be concerned about characters smoking? Jesus, Duke takes a crap down an alien’s neck.”), but to be fair, as someone who worked long and hard to try and get smoking out of PG-13 movies, I know darn well these “M” rated games are being played by 12- and 13-year-old kids. Heck, I let my 10-year-old grandnephew play Bioshock Infinite at Thanksgiving and that’s an M -rated game.

sargeant johnson — Sgt. Johnson from Halo

Here’s some sobering statistics from this Truth Initiative story.

Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Bioshock are all wildly popular games. Counting all the games that have been sold or downloaded, that’s more than 100 million copies of games out there depicting smoking by its characters, with characters either appearing gritty (Sgt. Johnson and Duke Nukem) or suave (Elizabeth from Bioshock) due to their smoking.

So, the message here is, yeah, I get it, these games are M-rated, supposedly intended for adults, but we all know pre-teens are playing these games, and that maybe game developers might try to give this some thought to not encourage 12- and 13-year-old kids into thinking that smoking makes characters cool …. just like movies did for over half a century.

Here is Truth’s video about this important topic: