The globalization strategies of five Asian tobacco companies: : An analytical framework

With 30% of the world\u27s smokers, two million deaths annually from tobacco use, and rising levels of tobacco consumption, the Asian region is recognised as central to the future of global tobacco control. There is less understanding, however, of how Asian tobacco companies with regional and global aspirations are contributing to the global burden of tobacco-related disease and death. This introductory article sets out the background and rationale for this special issue on \u27The Emergence of Asian Tobacco Companies: Implications for Global Health Governance\u27. The article discusses the core questions to be addressed and presents an analytical framework for assessing the globalisation strategies of Asian tobacco firms. The article also discusses the selection of the five case studies, namely as independent companies in Asia which have demonstrated concerted ambitions to be a major player in the world market

Limited indications of tax stamp discordance and counterfeiting on cigarette packs purchased in tobacco retailers, 97 counties, USA, 2012

Increasing the per-unit cost of tobacco products is one of the strongest interventions for tobacco control. In jurisdictions with higher taxes in the U.S., however, cigarette pack litter studies show a substantial proportion of littered packs lack the appropriate tax stamp. More limited but still present counterfeiting also exists. We sought to examine the role of tobacco retailers as a source for untaxed and counterfeit products. Data collectors pur- chased Newport Green (menthol) or Marlboro Red cigarette packs in a national probability-based sample of tobacco retailers (in 97 counties) from June–October 2012. They made no effort to buy counterfeit or untaxed cigarettes. In this cross-sectional study, we assessed the presence, tax authority, and type (low-tech thermal vs. encrypted) of cigarette pack tax stamps; concordance of tax stamps with where the pack was purchased; and, for Marlboro cigarettes, publicly available visible indicators of counterfeiting. We purchased 2147 packs of which 2033 had tax stamps. Packs missing stamps were in states that do not require them. We found very limited discordance between store location and tax stamp(s) (< 1%). However, a substantial minority of cigarette packs had damaged tax stamps (13%). This occurred entirely with low-tech tax stamps and was not identified with encrypted tax stamps. We found no clear evidence of counterfeit products. Almost all tax stamps matched the location of purchase. Litter studies may be picking up legal tax avoidance instead of illegal tax evasion or, alternatively, purchase of illicit products requires special request by the purchaser

The Triumph and Tragedy of Tobacco Control: A Tale of Nine Nations

The use of law and policy to limit tobacco consumption illustrates one of the greatest triumphs of public health in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as well as one of its most fundamental failures. Overall decreases in tobacco consumption throughout the developed world represent millions of saved lives and unquantifiable suffering averted. Yet those benefits have not been equally distributed. The poor and the undereducated have enjoyed fewer of the gains. In this review, we build on existing tobacco control scholarship and expand it both conceptually and comparatively. Our focus is the social gradient of smoking both within and across borders and how policy makers have been most effective in limiting smoking prevalence among the more privileged segments of society. To illustrate that point, we reference a range of literature on tobacco taxation, advertising, and public smoking in five economically advanced democracies—France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—and four less developed nations—India, China, Brazil, and South Africa—that together comprise 40% of the world’s population

Special Report: State Tobacco Settlement

Our reports assess and rank the states based on whether they are funding tobacco prevention programs at the minimum levels recommended by the CDC, which usually amount to 20 to 25 percent of a state’s annual settlement proceeds and an even smaller percentage of a state’s total tobacco revenues from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes. The findings for this year:· Only four states – Maine, Delaware, Mississippi and Arkansas – currently fund tobacco prevention programs at minimum levels recommended by the CDC.· Only eight other states are funding tobacco prevention programs at even half the minimum levels recommended by the CDC.· Thirty-three states are spending less than half the CDC’s minimum amount. Another five states – Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Tennessee – and the District of Columbia allocate no significant state funds for tobacco prevention.· In the current budget year, Fiscal Year 2004, the states cumulatively plan to spend $541.1 million on tobacco prevention programs. This amounts to just 33.8 percent of the CDC’s minimum recommendations for all the states, which total$1.6 billion.· Over the past two years, the states have cut total annual funding for tobacco prevention by 28 percent, or $209 million (from a high of$749.7 million in Fiscal Year 2002 to $674.4 million in Fiscal 2003 and$541.1 million in Fiscal 2004). These cuts have decimated three o f the nation’s longest standing and most successful tobacco prevention programs, in Florida, Massachusetts and Oregon, and they have seriously hampered some of the nation’s most promising new programs, including those in Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska and New Jersey.· While many states have cut funding for tobacco prevention, the tobacco industry increased its marketing expenditures by 66 percent in the three years after the settlement to a record $11.45 billion a year, or$31.4 million a day, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s most recent annual report on tobacco marketing. While the FTC report was for calendar year 2001, there is strong evidence that tobacco industry marketing expenditures have continued to increase. Based on the latest FTC figures, the tobacco companies are spending more than twenty dollars marketing their deadly products for every dollar the states spend to prevent tobacco use. Put another way, the tobacco companies spend more in three weeks marketing their products than all 50 states spend over a full year trying to prevent tobacco use.· The states this year will collect $19.5 billion in tobacco-generated revenue from tobacco taxes and the tobacco settlements. It would take just 8.2 percent of this total for every state to fund tobacco prevention programs at the minimum levels recommended by the CDC ($1.6 billion for all the states). The states are spending only about one-third of what the CDC recommends for tobacco prevention, amounting to only 2.8 percent of their total tobacco revenue. (Looking only at settlement money, the National Conference of State Legislatures recently reported that in Fiscal 2004 states are spending just three percent of their tobacco settlement money on tobacco prevention.)· At least 20 states and the District of Columbia have also sold to investors, or securitized, their rights to all or part of their future tobacco settlement payments for a much smaller, up -front payment, or have passed laws authorizing such action. Several states used the revenue generated to balance budgets for just one year. Securitization eliminates or reduces the amount of settlement money available to fund tobacco prevention and meet other needs in the future.Five years after the 1998 state tobacco settlement, we are at a critical juncture in determining the settlement’s long-term impact. Our nation has made important progress in recent years in reducing youth tobacco use with a comprehensive approach that includes well-funded tobacco prevention and cessation programs in some states, cigarette price increases, smoke-free air laws, and the American Legacy Foundation’s campaigns. But continued progress in reducing youth smoking, and acceleration of the slow decline in adult smoking rates, will not occur unless more states use more of the billions of dollars they are receiving from the tobacco settlement, and from tobacco taxes, to fund comprehensive tobacco prevention and cessation programs based on the recommendations of the CDC. If they do, the 1998 state tobacco settlement could yet mark a historic turning point in the battle to reduce tobacco’s terrible toll. If they do not, it will be a tragic missed opportunity for the nation’s health

Illegal Pathways to Illegal Profits: The Big Cigarette Companies and International Smuggling

Cigarette smuggling takes place on a colossal scale.Each year approximately 400 billion cigarettes, or one-third of all legally exported cigarettes, end up illegally smuggled across international borders. Cigarettes are the world’s most widely smuggled legal consumer product.Based on company documents that use these terms, this report looks at the smuggling of cigarettes manufactured by British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in four representative countries —Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia and Spain—to illustrate, in considerable detail, the major cigarette companies’ various roles in international smuggling operations. As these examples show, the major companies have gone well beyond knowingly selling cigarettes that they know will end up in the hands of smugglers but have also carefully monitored and overseen the smuggling of their brands into various countries, often treating the illegal importation and contraband sales of their cigarettes as just one more regularly monitored distribution channel, along with ongoing legal cigarette meetings with the middleman companies directly in charge of the smuggling efforts to discuss details of the smuggling operations, including destinations, brands, routes, quantities and prices.This report details the inner workings of the major cigarette companies’ actions to encourage and support cigarette imports and sales. It is also clear that knowledge of the companies’ efforts to promote and facilitate the smuggling of its brands often reaches to the highest-ranking company executives

Golden Leaf, Barren Harvest: The Costs of Tobacco Farming

While a few large-scale tobacco growers have prospered, the vast majority of tobacco growers in the Global South barely eke out a living toiling for the companies. Many tobacco farmers are now stuck producing a crop that is labor and input intensive and brings with it a host of health and environmental dangers. Meanwhile, the cigarette companies continue to downplay or ignore the many serious economic and environmental costs associated with tobacco. Recent research conducted by the World Bank has shown that, contrary to tobacco industry claims, global tobacco control efforts are not a threat to developing countries or tobacco farmers. As this report shows, even with global demand for tobacco leaf rising, the inescapable problems with tobacco farming make it a losing investment for most countries and farmers

Campaign Contributions by Tobacco Interests Quarterly Report: January 2003

These quarterly reports provide regular, detailed updates of the tobacco industry's campaigncontributions to sitting members of Congress, candidates for federal office, political parties, leadershipPACs and other political action committees. Each issue also provides additional information on thetobacco companies' political influence, including new analyses of the correlation between thesepayments and the tobacco-related legislation that members of the U.S. Congress support.Data reported so far in the 2001-2002 election cycle (from January 1, 2001 to January 3, 2003)1indicate the tobacco industry has given $8,477,974 in soft and PAC money to federal candidates,political parties and other political action committees

Campaign Contributions By Tobacco Interests

The tobacco industry gave $9,424,612 in soft and PAC money to federal candidates, political parties and other political action committees in the 2001-2002 election cycle (from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2002)1. So far in the 2003-2004 election cycle, the tobacco industry has given$665,751 in PAC contributions to federal candidates, political parties and other political action committees. As enacted, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 prohibits national political parties and federal candidates and officeholders from raising soft money. Therefore, this report refers to soft money donations prior to November 6, 2002. On May 2, 2003, a three-judge panel for the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia issued a mixed ruling on key provisions of the campaign finance law. A final decision on the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, including the ban on soft money fundraising by the national parties, will be decided byTobacco companies, along with tobacco company executives and employees, donated $6,033,226 in soft money to the Democratic and Republican parties in the 2001-2002 election cycle. Eighty (80) percent of these soft money donations ($4,813,166) went to Republican party committees and 20 percent of the soft money contributions ($1,220,060) went to Democratic party committees. Nearly half (45 percent) of these soft money donations from tobacco companies • In the 2001-2002 election cycle, tobacco company PACs donated$2,408,404 directly to federal candidates, with 77 percent ($1,857,094) of the total donations going to Republican candidates. So far in the 2003-2004 election cycle, these PACs have donated$329,500 directly to federal candidates. Sixty-four (64) percent of these contributions went to Republican candidates