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Opinion: No place in baseball for smokeless tobacco

By: Dick Durbin | As published in the Chicago Tribune

My feelings about tobacco took shape at the bedside of my father in November 1959. I was a sophomore in high school when lung cancer took his life. He was 53 and had smoked two packs of Camels a day.

As a member of Congress I first went up against the powerful tobacco lobby in 1987 and shocked myself and my colleagues by passing a bill banning smoking on airplanes on domestic flights of less than two hours. That measure turned out to be a tipping point. A series of local, state and federal laws followed, leading to restricting tobacco use on all flights, on trains and in hospitals, offices, restaurants and malls.

Despite all these victories, my battle against tobacco consistently struck out in one key area. For over 20 years I have been trying to get spit tobacco out of Major League Baseball.

Just as youth players wear their socks and sweatbands like the pros, or mimic the swing or windup of their favorite star, they are watching as baseball players slip a wad of tobacco in their cheek or under their lip. That sends a visual message, leading teenage boys to imitate this dangerous habit.

The numbers tell the story. While use of cigarettes and cigars among high school athletes declined from 30 percent to 18 percent between 2001 and 2013, use of smokeless tobacco increased by 10 percent in that population over the same period.

Among 8th grade students, the use of smokeless tobacco increased 14 percent between 2013 and 2015. Each year, nearly half a million kids age 12-17 use smokeless tobacco for the first time.

Tony Gwynn, the legendary San Diego hitter, was the most well-known baseball victim of salivary gland cancer caused by spit tobacco. Before his death in 2014, Gwynn attributed his oral cancer to his chewing tobacco use, “Of course it caused it … I always dipped on my right side,” he remarked. He and his family were honest about the cause of his death and reminded us of the real danger of this deadly habit.

Baseball owners such as Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox are outspoken opponents of spit tobacco. They remind me that all forms of tobacco are banned in the minors. Bobby Brown, a former Yankee and a medical doctor, became president of the American League. He joined the late Joe Garagiola, the former St. Louis Cardinal player and announcer, in leading the fight against spit tobacco. Despite all this opposition, the owners ran into a brick wall negotiating the issue with the players’ organization. I remember calling the players’ lead negotiator, Donald Fehr, many years ago. When I raised the danger of spit tobacco to the health of his players, he said: “It’s a negotiable item” and hung up.

The 2016 baseball season marks a long-anticipated breakthrough.

With the leadership of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, five major league cities (New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco) have enacted ordinances banning spit tobacco at their ballparks, and Toronto and Washington, D.C., are considering similar bans. When I met Tony Clark, the head of the Players Association, at a Major League Baseball event in Havana a few weeks ago, I reminded him that his players have to live in this new world. I don’t want to see any player embarrassed or fined. I just want a sport I love to stop promoting a deadly tobacco habit.

Democrat Dick Durbin is the senior U.S. senator from Illinois.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-durbin-baseball-smokeless-tobacco-perspec-0331-md-20160415-story.html

USA Today Column: Past time for MLB to ban smokeless tobacco

Use among teen athletes is rising and won’t fall until their MLB role models give it up.

By: Frank Pallone

The first pitches of the new Major League Baseball season in Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco mark the moment players there must abide by local laws that ban chewing tobacco use in ballparks. Similar restrictions in Chicago and New York will go into effect later this season. This is a first in the major leagues, and a welcome change, but it’s long past time to get chewing tobacco out of America’s pastime.

Chewing tobacco has been pervasive in the game since the rules of modern baseball were first written in 1845.

What’s different today is that the dangers are well known. The use of chewing tobacco has devastating health effects, including oral, pancreatic, and esophageal cancer. It also leads to heart and gum disease, tooth decay, and the loss of jaws, chins, cheeks and noses.

After years of suffering through a difficult and painful battle with cancer, former San Diego Padres Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn died in June 2014 of salivary gland cancer. While there’s no definitive way to pin down cause and effect, Gwynn said the cancer was located exactly where he placed his chew.

Six years ago, at a congressional hearing in Washington, I demanded that chewing tobacco be banned from baseball. That hearing was followed by multiple letters to MLB and to individual teams asking them to take action to get chewing tobacco out of the game. MLB responded to that request by proposing a ban during the last contract negotiations with the players, but the final agreement fell short.  That’s why on Monday, in letters to MLB and the MLB Players Association, I’ll once again demand that they finally ban chewing tobacco completely from the game.

Some argue that professional players are adults and chewing tobacco is a personal choice. But these players are role models and their behavior and habits are often copied by young players and fans alike.

At the 2010 congressional hearing, Dr. Gregory Connolly of the Harvard School of Public Health testified that “there can be no doubt that public use by MLB players directly contributes to youth smokeless tobacco use in the United States.”

Today, millions of teenagers and young adults in the U.S. use smokeless tobacco.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the use of smokeless tobacco by youth athletes increased from 2001 to 2013. Young athletes are almost 80 percent more likely to use smokeless tobacco products than non-athletes.

These trends will not stop until MLB players stop using chewing tobacco. It’s encouraging to see city governments in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco banning the use of chewing tobacco at ballparks in those cities. Letters posted in every clubhouse during spring training from both MLB and the MLB Players Association explained that players are expected to comply with the new laws.  It’s also encouraging that a number of players have voluntarily stopped chewing.

But it’s not enough.  We need to change the culture of baseball at all levels, and that starts at the major league level.  As Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts recently said, “like it or not, players are role models, and we have a platform as coaches and players.”

It’s been more than 30 years since players were first banned from smoking cigarettes in uniform and in view of the public. MLB banned chewing tobacco in the minor leagues in the early 1990s, as did the NCAA. Baseball legend Joe Garagiola, who died last month, testified at our 2010 hearing as the longtime chair of the National Spit Tobacco Education Program. He told the committee, “I would like to see the Major League players agree to the terms of the Minor League Tobacco Policy, which bans Club personnel from using and possessing tobacco products in ballparks and during team travel.”

MLB and the MLB Players Association must finally ban the use of smokeless tobacco. It’s time to get chewing tobacco out of baseball for good. That would be a home run for the health of our nation.

Rep. Frank Pallone represents New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District and is the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the Opinion front page.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/04/03/past-time-mlb-ban-smokeless-tobacco-column/82477512/

Center for Public Integrity: How Big Tobacco lobbies to safeguard e-cigarettes

By Nicholas Kusnetz
SACRAMENTO, Calif. ­— In the Golden State, home to healthy living, progressive politics and one of the lowest smoking rates in the nation, cigarettes can seem like a relic of the past, barred long ago from restaurants, bars and even some city parks.
And yet within the walls of California’s high-domed capitol, tobacco companies continue to wield surprising power. After a recent loss on a slate of tobacco control bills headed to the governor’s desk, they are gearing up for a bigger test looming at the ballot this fall. With money to spend, they have threatened to sabotage a planned ballot measure to raise the cigarette tax.
The battles aren’t just here. Despite the tobacco industry’s tarnished public image, it is operating a powerful and massive influence machine in statehouses from Salt Lake City to Topeka. With a playbook crafted nearly 20 years ago, the tobacco firms use direct lobbying, third-party allies and “grassroots” advocacy campaigns to spread model legislation and mobilize smokers against proposed regulations and tax hikes across the country. And they are taking up the mantle to defend a burgeoning electronic cigarette market as well.
Today, tobacco companies maintain some of the mostextensive state lobbying networks in the country, totaling hundreds of lobbyists. Altria Group Inc. and Reynolds American Inc., which control the vast majority of the American tobacco market, are among just 21 entities that had registered lobbyists in every state at one point from 2010 through 2014, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of lobbyist registrations collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
They’ve also given at least $63 million to state candidates, committees and ballot initiatives nationwide over the past five years.
Their chief opponents, the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association, also have similarly broad lobbying networks, but the health associations have given hardly any money to state politicians.
With such extensive reach, tobacco companies have continued to fight off the simplest means of cutting smoking rates: higher taxes. Out of 24 states to propose higher cigarette taxes last year just eight passed increases, according to a tobacco industry group. And only Nevada, with a $1-per-pack hike, raised them by more than 50 cents. Health groups say incremental tax hikes of less than $1 are much less effective at cutting smoking rates because tobacco companies can easily counteract them with rebates and discounts.
E-cigarettes are the newest front in this multi-faceted war. While the Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to regulate e-cigarettes, for now it remains up to states to impose any regulations or taxes on the emerging products. So far, e-cigarette taxes have passed in only four states, while proposals have been defeated in at least 21 others. The tobacco industry, which is increasing its share of the new market, has also won language in at least 19 states in recent years making it harder to regulate and tax e-cigarettes under existing anti-smoking laws.
David Sutton, a spokesman for Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, said his firm is generally opposed to taxes on its products and becomes politically active where necessary. Reynolds declined to answer specific questions for this article, pointing instead to its website, which says the company engages in lobbying and makes lawful political contributions to protect the interests of its business.
“The tobacco companies never give up,” said Stanton Glantz, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. “They’re like the Borg,” the indomitable alien horde of “Star Trek” lore.
‘Where tobacco bills go to die’
Nowhere has the tobacco fight been bigger, or more expensive, than in California, which has attracted at least two-thirds of tobacco companies’ state-level political donations since 2011. Public health advocates here say tobacco companies have used a potent combination of campaign contributions and behind-the-scenes lobbying to win enough friends in key places.
The strategy is most apparent on the Assembly’s Governmental Organization Committee, which oversees an odd combination of issues, including public records, state holidays, gambling, alcohol and tobacco.
Its chairman, Assembly member Adam C. Gray, a Democrat from Merced who has served on the committee since 2013, has accepted $88,100 in political contributions from Altria and Reynolds since he began campaigning for office in 2011, far more than any other member of the Legislature.
The two companies have directed some $390,000 in total to members who sat on that Assembly committee, a quarter of the money they’ve given to all legislative candidates and their committees in California over that period.
The large amount of money given to its members has prompted some to call it the “Juice Committee.” Health advocates call it “the committee where tobacco bills go to die.”
The committee has watered down or killed nearly every major tobacco bill that’s come through it in recent years, anti-smoking advocates say, including a recent attempt in July to regulate e-cigarettes.
In an unusual move, an identical e-cigarette bill and five other tobacco measures were reintroduced in a special session the following month to allow the legislation to sidestep Gray’s committee. They passed the Legislature this month, the first significant tobacco control bills to pass since the 1990s, a marked blow to the usually successful tobacco industry.
“Money has no influence on what goes on with policy. It just doesn’t,” Gray said. “Raising money to get into elected office is a component of what we have to do… And frankly, I’m a pretty aggressive fundraiser.”
Lawmakers and other Sacramento insiders point out that the direct contributions, which are subject to strict limits, are minimal compared to the money spent by independent political groups, which can raise and spend unlimited sums to support or oppose candidates as long as they do not coordinate with the candidates. Tobacco companies have given some $4.8 million to such independent political committees and parties in California since 2011, nearly three times as much as they gave directly to candidates.
“We provide contributions to candidates and elected officials who, in their work legislatively are at work on issues that have an impact on our business,” said Sutton, the Altria spokesman.
Altria and Reynolds have also spent some $5.4 million on lobbying in California since 2011. By comparison, the health groups that supported stronger tobacco regulation have spent some $2.7 million over the same period, though they lobby on many other issues as well.
“There’s a reason people spend money on that,” said Gary Winuk, who served for six years as the state’s lobbying and campaign finance enforcement officer before leaving for private practice last year. Winuk began his career working for a lawmaker on the Governmental Organization Committee decades ago, and said it was the behind-the-scenes maneuvering and power plays he saw there that made him want to work for the state ethics agency.
Preserving tobacco’s role
In 1999, R.J. Reynolds, now a division of Reynolds American, produced a memo describing a strategy to “preserve the company’s role and participation in U.S. commerce.” The document, archived at the University of California, San Francisco, included the company’s state lobbying objectives, chief among which was a plan to hire lobbyists in “as many states as possible,” as the company’s first “line of defense.”
Next was a commitment to make “appropriate political contributions and support key trade groups and allies,” adding, “there is an old saying in politics. ‘Money talks and bullshit walks’… It is especially true when dealing with tobacco issues.”
The third component of the lobbying strategy was to “execute grassroots mobilization of trade groups, smokers and other allies.”
Nearly two decades later, the company is still using the same roadmap. And smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable deaths, killing nearly half a million Americans every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Reynolds and Altria employed a team of more than 450 state lobbyists in 2014, together retaining representatives everywhere but Nevada, according to an analysis of state records and data collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. They’ve also continued to work through trade organizations and advocacy groups.
When Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback proposed an increase of $1.50 per pack for traditional cigarettes last year to help fill a budget gap, Reynolds hired David Kensinger, who had served as the Republican governor’s chief of staff until leaving to work as a lobbyist in 2012. Weeks earlier, Kensinger was among a select group of insiders who received advance copies of Brownback’s proposed budget, which included the tax hike, before lawmakers did, according to The Wichita Eagle. Both Kensinger and Reynolds declined to comment on what happened.
Reynolds reported buying more than 350 meals for public officials and giving e-cigarettes to four House members in Kansas last year, according to state lobbying records, while Altria spent $283,000 on advertising and other outreach.
Meanwhile, a group called Citizens for Tobacco Rights, an advocacy campaign run by Altria, blasted emails to its members, in one instance urging them to fight the tax by posting messages on the Facebook pages of their lawmakers. It’s a standard tactic of the group, which claimed to have generated more than 33,000 phone calls and 52,000 emails and letters to legislators in 2014.
Lawmakers eventually approved a tax increase of only 50 cents, a third of the original proposal. Kansas continues to struggle with a $46 million budget deficit this fiscal year.
Protecting a smokeless future
Reynolds, too, has its own “grassroots” advocacy campaign, called Transform Tobacco.  And as the name suggests, a new product is increasingly drawing the company’s focus.
The e-cigarette was invented in 2003 in China and started appearing in this country not long after. It’s gained an enthusiastic community of users, and by 2013 some 20 million adult Americans reported trying e-cigarettes, which vaporize a liquid such as propylene glycol mixed with flavorings and usually nicotine, the key addictive chemical in cigarettes that is generally derived from tobacco.
E-cigarettes come in a huge range of varieties. One major brand charges about $10 for a disposable sleek black pen-like device that lasts about as long as two packs of cigarettes. But many “vapers” use so-called mods or tanks, bulkier refillable devices that can cost anywhere from $30 to well over $100. Users then buy separate vials of “e-juice,” with names like Cinnamon Crumble and Unicorn Milk, which typically sell for about $20 per 30-milliliter vial.
Sales of e-cigarettes reached $3.3 billion last year, according to Wells Fargo Securities, and may surpass those of traditional cigarettes within a decade. While tobacco companies still control less than half of this market, they’ve begun buying up or starting their own e-cigarette brands in recent years, rapidly increasing their share.
Reynolds, a leader in the e-cigarette market, has promoted model legislation that says explicitly that e-cigarettes are not tobacco products. The Center for Public Integrity obtained a template copy of the model language that was circulated at one of dozens of youth tobacco prevention “dialogues” that Reynolds has held around the country in recent years for local health officials and advocates. The company offered to pay as much as $1,000, plus lodging, to those who attended, according to invitations the Center obtained.
So far, such model language has passed in at least 19 states, written into laws banning sales to minors. At least 11 of those passed laws that pull nearly verbatim from the Reynolds template, while at least eight others have enacted similar language that health groups say was promoted by Lorillard Tobacco, which Reynolds bought last year.

Pennsylvania and Michigan, the only states that do not prohibit sales to minors, have two bills pending with similar language.
Although Reynolds’ model language asserts that e-cigarettes are not tobacco products, the company’s own website describes its VUSE e-cigarette as exactly that.
The most immediate effect of the bills is to protect e-cigarettes from existing tobacco control programs and taxes. E-cigarette proponents say the alternate definitions are warranted because the products do not burn tobacco. But health groups warn that the definitions pushed by the industry will harm the public.
“You build this infrastructure for regulating e-cigarettes on a faulty promise that they’re somehow a healthy product,” said Timothy Gibbs, a lobbyist for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network in California and a chief shepherd of the tobacco control bills there. “While the scientific consensus is that they may be safer than traditional cigarettes, that doesn’t mean they’re safe.”
It seems likely that “vaping” is less harmful than smoking. The question is by how much. The Centers for Disease Control says e-cigarettes “generally emit lower levels of dangerous toxins” than cigarettes, but can also release carcinogenic compounds and heavy metals. The agency says that e-cigarettes could provide a public health benefit if they lead smokers to quit. But it suggests that isn’t happening — about three-quarters of e-cigarette users also smoke cigarettes — and the products may be harmful if they prolong smokers’ addiction.

State Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat who sponsored the recently approved California bill that defines e-cigarettes as tobacco products, said their popularity among youth — some 2.4 million middle and high school students were using e-cigarettes nationally in 2014 — means the devices present a new health crisis. He likens today’s fight to what happened with smoking in the mid-20th century, when tobacco companies began a decades-long campaign to discredit the emerging science showing the lethal and addictive qualities of cigarettes.
“They knew 50 years ago what they were doing,” Leno said. “And they’re doing it again today.”
Reynolds declined to answer questions about the model legislation or the dialogues, pointing instead to a company webpage that explains its “transforming tobacco” initiative, which promotes youth prevention programs and argues that smoke-free products, including e-cigarettes, can reduce “the death and disease caused by cigarettes.” Health advocates say the company has insidiously used this campaign in its efforts to win legislation protecting e-cigarettes from harsher regulation.
Altria declined to answer whether it has lobbied in favor of the language.
Vapers fight back
In California, the full weight of state government has gotten behind a campaign to rein in e-cigarette use. Last year, the state public health department warned of the dangers of the product and recommended strict regulations, launching a website and ad campaign called Still Blowing Smoke. This month, with passage of Leno’s bill, the Legislature took a big step in that direction.
Yet the state has met formidable resistance not just from the tobacco industry but also from a fledgling industry of smaller e-cigarette manufacturers and retailers backed by a passionate movement of vapers. Mobilized around the country, these e-cig aficionados have protested in Salt Lake, circulated petitions in Washington state and flown to the nation’s capital to push their position with congressional leaders.
Within hours of the launch of the state’s Still Blowing Smoke campaign last March, for example, another website called NOT Blowing Smoke popped up, using a similar font and logo but blasting the department for peddling misinformation.
Stefan Didak, a 44-year-old software engineer and co-president of the Northern California chapter of the Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association, a vaping industry group, had learned that the health department was planning the campaign and spent 36 hours holed up in his home office, a dark room with an array of 12 monitors, 14 computers and a plastic rack holding dozens of e-cigarettes. In a savvy guerrilla tactic, he beat the department to registering social media accounts, so the Still Blowing Smoke Facebook page and Twitter handle lead to content by NOT Blowing Smoke.
“Yeah, that was fun,” Didak said from his split-level home in Oakley, a city on the eastern edge of the Bay Area. Didak, dressed all in black, wore a NOT Blowing Smoke T-shirt and held a black mod e-cigarette, the type preferred by hard-core vapers. The blinds were drawn and the air held the faint sweet odor emitted by his mod, which he sucked on periodically, blowing out thick clouds of “ripe strawberry shortcake” flavored vapor.
SFATA Executive Director Cynthia Cabrera says her group was not affiliated with the counter-campaign. The association hired lobbyists in Sacramento to oppose Leno’s bill and has urged Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, to issue a veto.
Didak said that bill would drive small vape shops and liquids manufacturers out of the state — or out of business — by applying the various licensure and regulatory requirements that apply to tobacco. As someone who quit cigarettes thanks to vaping, he said that restricting the industry would harm public health.
Didak and other vapers stress that they are not “big tobacco” and that SFATA does not receive money from tobacco companies. “We don’t regard them as part of us,” Didak said.
In coming months, however, they’ll be on the same side.
A bold threat
Whether Brown signs Leno’s e-cigarette bill, part of the package of six tobacco measures the Legislature passed this month, an expensive fight looms in California’s freewheeling ballot initiative process.
A coalition of health and labor groups, with support from liberal billionaire Tom Steyer, is currently gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would hike the state’s cigarette tax by $2 and levy an equivalent tax on e-cigarettes. At 87 cents, California’s current tax is well below the national average.
Yet that effort may be in jeopardy.
This month, a lobbyist for Altria sent a bold threat in an email first published by The Sacramento Bee: the company plans to try to repeal some of the tobacco bills it had opposed by putting them before voters in a referendum on this fall’s ballot. In a calculating political move, it also threatened to corner the all-important ballot measure market of professional signature gatherers by paying top dollar. That could price out the health groups from their cigarette tax campaign and imperil all other measures trying to make the ballot, including an extension of a key tax increase known as Proposition 30.
“When we hit the street with referendum paying $10 per signature, Prop 30 is dead as well as $2 a pack tax,” warned Altria lobbyist George Miller IV, son of the former Democratic California congressman. “We will have every signature gatherer on an exclusive. Just letting you know so you can’t say you were not warned.”
The health groups say they could be forced to either up their own prices, which are now about $4 per signature, or rally volunteers instead.
“We’re appalled but not surprised,” said Gibbs, the Cancer Society lobbyist, adding that tobacco companies have a history of particularly ruthless tactics. “They seem to be throwing a fit.”
Miller did not respond to requests for comment. Sutton, Altria’s spokesman, called Miller’s message “simply a friendly heads-up email between long-time colleagues.”
No matter whether Altria follows through on its threat, the coming months are sure to see many millions of dollars spent on all sides. Health groups have already raised $4 million for their campaign. During two previous attempts to raise cigarette taxes at the ballot, in 2006 and 2012, Reynolds and Altria spent more than $113 million and defeated both measures.
This story was co-published with Vice.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/03/25/19468/how-big-tobacco-lobbies-safeguard-e-cigarettes

LA Times – Capitol Times: Lawmakers show surprising courage against Big Tobacco

The Legislature showed some guts last week in standing up to the tobacco lobby and its political money.

It could have shown more, however, by mustering the courage to raise taxes on cigarettes, cigars and chewing crud.

California’s tobacco tax is among the lowest in the nation and hasn’t been hiked since 1998 — and then only by the voters, not the weak-kneed legislators.

The national average state cigarette tax is $1.61 per pack. California’s is about half that, 87 cents. We rank 35th. New York is first at $4.35.

But give our lawmakers credit: They did the next best thing, even if it was a punt to local government. They passed a bill allowing counties to seek voter approval of a local tobacco tax.

The tax revenue could be used to help smokers kick the habit and treat their tobacco-related ailments.

The main purpose, however, is to discourage people from buying smokes, a strategy that works — and worries cigarette makers. Researchers have found that for every 10% increase in the cigarette price, there’s a 4% reduction in use.

Let’s put the rap on legislative fortitude in perspective: To pass any tax increase, a two-thirds vote is needed. Passing a bill that allows someone else to raise a tax requires only a simple majority, which Democrats can handle without buying off Republicans.

The local tax bill, by Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), passed the Assembly on a 46-27 vote, far short of the 54 needed for two-thirds.

“Tobacco is a poison,” Bloom told me. “We shouldn’t even be debating this anymore. We should be doing everything to keep it out of the hands of young people.”

It was a bad day for tobacco interests. The Assembly passed two other bills that could have even greater immediate impact.

One, by Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), would raise the smoking age from 18 to 21.

Opponents argued it wouldn’t be fair that someone under 21 could die for their country but couldn’t smoke. So active military personnel were exempted.

The bill passed 49 to 25.

Hernandez says research shows that 90% of smokers begin puffing before age 21, and 80% before 18.

San Francisco last week raised its smoking age to 21. So have Hawaii and New York City.

But I’m skeptical. Come on! We can’t even enforce the age 18 limit. Kids get smokes at 14 or whenever they want.

Yes, argue the proposal’s advocates, but the 14-year-olds get their cigarettes from 18-year-olds. They wouldn’t be close enough to the 21-year-olds.

Perhaps. But what’s to stop the 18-year-olds from being supplied by those who are 21, and then passing them down to little sister?

The second big bill that passed makes total sense and is overdue. The measure, by Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), would regulate electronic cigarettes like tobacco. Their use would be prohibited everywhere cigarettes are banned: in restaurants, theaters and other public places.

These cute vapor devices are particularly appealing to minors, sold with yummy flavors such as chocolate, cotton candy and cherry — and usually laced with addictive nicotine.

The bill passed 52 to 21.

One Los Angeles study, Leno says, found that 9th-graders who use e-cigarettes are four times as likely to get hooked on tobacco.

“Clearly, Big Tobacco’s next move is to addict a new generation to nicotine,” Leno says.

Three other anti-smoking bills also passed the Assembly the same day. One would close loopholes in the state’s smoke-free workplace laws. Another would require all schools to be tobacco free. The third would impose a state licensing fee on tobacco retailers.

Passage of the six-bill package earned kudos for Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) on her last day as Assembly leader. Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) takes over this week.

Last year, the tobacco lobby and its legislative minions stalled the bills in the Assembly after two key measures — raising the smoking age and regulating e-cigarettes — passed the Senate.

One reason is obvious: So far in this election cycle, the major tobacco companies have plied legislators with nearly $364,000 in campaign contributions, according to MapLight, which tracks political money. Of that, 83% has gone to Republicans — who make up only 35% of the Legislature — and 17% to Democrats.

Add the last election cycle to this one, and Big Tobacco has donated $894,000, 71% to Republicans and 29% to Democrats.

Most Democrats voted for the anti-tobacco legislation. Most Republicans voted against.

The Senate intends to approve Assembly amendments and send the entire package to noncommittal Gov. Jerry Brown this week. Unless.

Behind the scenes, Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) quietly is offering to negotiate with tobacco. If the industry were to allow the Legislature to pass a state tobacco tax, perhaps some of the package could be snuffed.

Then sponsors of a November ballot initiative that would raise the state cigarette tax by $2 per pack might be persuaded to withdraw their measure. That would save the tobacco industry upward of $100 million fighting the initiative.

And unions that are pushing it could plow their money into Democratic legislative races instead. Plus, there wouldn’t be a tobacco tax on the ballot to complicate life for a union-sponsored extension of Brown’s soak-the-rich income tax hike.

It’s all very complex. And unlikely. The Legislature has exhibited about all the courage it can against terrifying tobacco.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-pol-sac-cap-tobacco-20160307-column.html

Grand Forks Herald: Report: North Dakota only state spending enough on tobacco prevention

By John Hageman, Grand Forks Herald
A report released this week argues almost every state in the country is not spending enough money on tobacco prevention and cessation programs—every state, that is, except for North Dakota.
The report, released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, focuses in part on the billions of dollars states have received since they settled lawsuits against major tobacco companies in 1998. With $10 million set aside for fiscal year 2016, North Dakota is the only state to spend at levels recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was one of five states to spend at least 50 percent of what the CDC recommends.
 
“It’s so frustrating because it’s such a critical investment, and we’re talking about such a small amount of money,” said John Schachter, director of state communications for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “When there’s a pot from which to draw from logically—tobacco taxes and the settlement—as we say, it’s a no-brainer.”
States spent as much as $717.2 million on tobacco prevention programs in fiscal year 2008, but that dropped during the recession and bottomed out at $459.5 million in 2013, according to the campaign’s report. Spending will reach $468 million in fiscal year 2016, a fraction of the estimated $25.8 billion they will collect in settlement funds and tobacco taxes, though the budgets for two states were not yet available.
Tobacco companies spend about $9.6 billion a year on marketing, according to the campaign’s report.
“We believe states should use (settlement) payments to fund tobacco cessation and underage tobacco prevention programs at levels recommended by the Centers for Disease Control,” Brian May, a spokesman for tobacco giant Philip Morris, wrote in an email to the Herald.
While tobacco companies cannot advertise on television or the radio, Schacter said “it’s pretty clear the industry is out there in force.” He said the industry spends most of its marketing dollars at “point of sale,” such as displays at convenience stores and gas stations.
“The states still know it’s an issue, but for whatever reason, they’re deciding to spend the money elsewhere,” Schachter said.

N.D. in the lead

The campaign’s report highlights North Dakota as an example for the rest of the states to follow, citing a drop in high school student smoking rates in recent years.
But North Dakota hasn’t always been a leader in tobacco prevention spending. In fiscal year 2009, it spent just $3.1 million on those programs, or one-third of CDC-recommended funding. That changed with the passing of a measure in 2008 requiring a portion of the settlement dollars be used to reduce tobacco use.
“The settlement did not dictate how the money from the settlement was spent, but it did point out that the settlement was entered into because of the unacceptable behavior of the tobacco industry,” said Jeanne Prom, executive director of the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy.
North Dakota’s tobacco tax revenue is not used for prevention efforts, she said.
Minnesota will receive $791.7 million in total tobacco revenue in fiscal year 2016 but will spend only $21.5 million on prevention programs, less than half of what the CDC recommends, according to the campaign’s report.
Laura Oliven, the tobacco control manager at the Minnesota Department of Health, called the CDC recommendations “aspirational.” She also pointed out the campaign’s figures don’t capture Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Center for Prevention in Minnesota.
Minnesota’s adult smoking rate has dropped to 14.4 percent, the lowest it has ever recorded, the health department announced in January.
“We do a lot to maximize the funds we have,” Oliven said. “I guess the theme here really is that while we’ve made a lot of great strides, there’s still considerable work to be done.”

Local outcomes

Haley Thorson, a tobacco prevention coordinator at the Grand Forks Public Health Department, said tobacco settlement dollars helped fund a study asking residents about second-hand smoke. She called that a “pivotal piece of information” in Grand Forks passing a law in 2010 that outlawed smoking in bars, casinos and truck stops.
“That policy was passed by the City Council because we really did have the pulse of how the community supported that policy,” she said.
North Dakota passed a similar statewide law in 2012.
The health department receives about $300,000 annually from the Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy, or BreatheND. Thorson said it focuses much of its efforts on tobacco-related policies.
“We used to go into schools and educate kids on the harms of tobacco use, but the better bang for our buck is to establish a comprehensive tobacco-free school policy that allows them to be educated in an environment where they’re not exposed to tobacco use,” she said.
Those efforts appear to be working.
The percentage of North Dakota high school students who smoked at least once in the past month plunged to 11.7 percent this year after hovering around 20 percent for the eight previous years, according to survey results provided by Thorson.
“For the states that aren’t spending anything or next to nothing, they need to see results like these,” Thorson said.
http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/region/3900310-report-north-dakota-only-state-spending-enough-tobacco-prevention

Opinion: Chamber's tobacco tax stance flawed

By John LaChance from Fargo

I used to believe smoking was just a part of life. My parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, doctors, nurses, teachers, etc. all smoked around me as I was growing up.
For years, I worked in bars and restaurants where people smoked. The more they smoked, the more they drank. The more they drank, the more they spent. The more they spent, the more I made. Simple.
I even participated in a public service announcement urging people to vote against banning smoking in bars in restaurants many years ago. I would be a hypocrite if I did not disclose that information.
I was dead wrong.
State Chamber executive Andy Peterson’s opinion piece in The Forum (Sunday, July 12) offering a rationale that it’s “free enterprise” for the Greater ND Chamber of Commerce’s stance on lobbying against a cigarette tax increase prompted me to research what this stance may be costing his members.
North Dakota has the sixth-lowest cigarette tax per pack in the United States, $0.44 per pack. Montana, $1.70 per pack. South Dakota, $1.53 per pack. Minnesota, $2.90 per pack. Canada, $2.80 per pack.
Statistically, there are more than 440,000 workers in North Dakota (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor).
I couldn’t find exact numbers but let’s say, conservatively, half of those workers, 220,000, work for the 1,037 member businesses listed on the Chamber’s website. Four of the top five largest employers in the state are also members of the Greater ND Chamber of Commerce. The fifth employer was not disclosed.
The average cost to a business per employee who smokes is $5,816 a year, per a 2013 Ohio State University study. A Gallup poll from 2013, “estimates that 19 percent of workers still smoke and that workers who smoke cost the U.S. economy $278 billion annually in lost productivity due to absenteeism and extra health care costs. This figure is based on an analysis of the cost of extra missed workdays due to poor health, partial absenteeism due to smoke breaks, and additional health care costs compared with workers who do not smoke.”
So let’s say, conservatively, 41,800 workers (220,000 x 19 percent) employed by the Greater ND Chamber businesses still smoke. That is potentially costing these member businesses $243,108,800 ($5,816 x 41,800).
The most recent revenue numbers I could find from cigarette sales in North Dakota was $68,951,521 for 2009.
Hmm?
Now I’m just beginning my graduate studies in business, but it appears it would be in the Greater ND Chamber’s best interest to encourage a cigarette tax increase.
Not only would an increase in the cigarette tax raise revenue for some of Peterson’s members, it would decrease the amount of money most if not all of his member businesses are losing out on paying for smoking- related costs.
Simple.
http://www.inforum.com/letters/3799718-letter-chambers-tobacco-tax-stance-flawed

Opinion: Does the ND State Chamber side with the U.S. Chamber on Opposing Tobacco Prevention?

By: Dr. Eric Johnson, Grand Forks
President, Tobacco Free North Dakota
If you have not read the June 30, 2015 New York Times article titled, “U.S. Chamber of Commerce Works Globally to Fight Antismoking Measures”, please do so. While we acknowledge there is, at times, a disconnect between national, state and local organizations such as the Chambers of Commerce organizations, I couldn’t help but recognize some similarities between Chamber international efforts as detailed in the article referenced above and the actions of the Greater North Dakota Chamber here in our state.
Even as an active member of the Healthy North Dakota Summit, a public health initiative established by then-Governor John Hoeven and whose statewide plan identifies strategies to “support North Dakotans who make healthy choices – in schools, workplaces, senior centers, homes and anywhere people live, learn, work and play,” the GNDC has not only been absent in supporting tobacco prevention efforts in our state, it has actively opposed them.
With the goal to “reduce tobacco use in North Dakota” on paper in their statewide plan and in mind, we are troubled to see efforts of the Chambers of Commerce – whether internationally or here at the state level – combat proven prevention strategies that save both lives and money.
We call on North Dakotans to demand better and challenge the GNDC to accept what the numbers have long confirmed – that comprehensive tobacco prevention practices are fiscally responsible to taxpayers, health care systems, and ultimately, our workforce and employers in the business community.
——-
Click here to read Mr. Andy Peterson’s letter to the editor in response.
And click here to read Dr. Eric Johnson’s corrections to the inaccuracies of Mr. Peterson’s letter.

TFND calls on GNDC to support tobacco prevention

Upon reading the New York Times article entitled, “US Chamber works globally to fight antismoking measurers”, TFND communicated its disappointment with the Greater North Dakota Chamber’s work in our state alongside Big Tobacco.
In doing so, we sent this letter: TFND Letter to GNDC – 7.1.15.

GNDC responded: GNDC – TFND Letter – 7.2.15

And our final communication back to GNDC: TFND response to GNDC – 7.2.15

New York Times: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Works Globally to Fight Antismoking Measures

By DANNY HAKIM

KIEV, Ukraine — A parliamentary hearing was convened here in March to consider an odd remnant of Ukraine’s corrupt, pre-revolutionary government.

Three years ago, Ukraine filed an international legal challenge against Australia, over Australia’s right to enact antismoking laws on its own soil. To a number of lawmakers, the case seemed absurd, and they wanted to investigate why it was even being pursued.

When it came time to defend the tobacco industry, a man named Taras Kachka spoke up. He argued that several “fantastic tobacco companies” had bought up Soviet-era factories and modernized them, and now they were exporting tobacco to many other countries. It was in Ukraine’s national interest, he said, to support investors in the country, even though they do not sell tobacco to Australia.

Mr. Kachka was not a tobacco lobbyist or farmer or factory owner. He was the head of a Ukrainian affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, America’s largest trade group.

From Ukraine to Uruguay, Moldova to the Philippines, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its foreign affiliates have become the hammer for the tobacco industry, engaging in a worldwide effort to fight antismoking laws of all kinds, according to interviews with government ministers, lobbyists, lawmakers and public health groups in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States.

The U.S. Chamber’s work in support of the tobacco industry in recent years has emerged as a priority at the same time the industry has faced one of the most serious threats in its history. A global treaty, negotiated through the World Health Organization, mandates anti-smoking measures and also seeks to curb the influence of the tobacco industry in policy making. The treaty, which took effect in 2005, has been ratified by 179 countries; holdouts include Cuba, Haiti and the United States.

Facing a wave of new legislation around the world, the tobacco lobby has turned for help to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with the weight of American business behind it. While the chamber’s global tobacco lobbying has been largely hidden from public view, its influence has been widely felt.

Letters, emails and other documents from foreign governments, the chamber’s affiliates and antismoking groups, which were reviewed by The New York Times, show how the chamber has embraced the challenge, undertaking a three-pronged strategy in its global campaign to advance the interests of the tobacco industry.

In the capitals of far-flung nations, the chamber lobbies alongside its foreign affiliates to beat back antismoking laws.

In trade forums, the chamber pits countries against one another. The Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, recently revealed that his country’s case against Australia was prompted by a complaint from the U.S. Chamber.

And in Washington, Thomas J. Donohue, the chief executive of the chamber, has personally taken part in lobbying to defend the ability of the tobacco industry to sue under future international treaties, notably the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement being negotiated between the United States and several Pacific Rim nations.

“They represent the interests of the tobacco industry,” said Dr. Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, the head of the Secretariat that oversees the W.H.O treaty, called the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. “They are putting their feet everywhere where there are stronger regulations coming up.”

The increasing global advocacy highlights the chamber’s enduring ties to the tobacco industry, which in years past centered on American regulation of cigarettes. A top executive at the tobacco giant Altria Group serves on the chamber’s board. Philip Morris International plays a leading role in the global campaign; one executive drafted a position paper used by a chamber affiliate in Brussels, while another accompanied a chamber executive to a meeting with the Philippine ambassador in Washington to lobby against a cigarette-tax increase. The cigarette makers’ payments to the chamber are not disclosed.

It is not clear how the chamber’s campaign reflects the interests of its broader membership, which includes technology companies like Google, pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and health insurers like Anthem. And the chamber’s record in its tobacco fight is mixed, often leaving American business as the face of a losing cause, pushing a well-known toxin on poor populations whose leaders are determined to curb smoking.

The U.S. Chamber issued brief statements in response to inquiries. “The Chamber regularly reaches out to governments around the world to urge them to avoid measures that discriminate against particular companies or industries, undermine their trademarks or brands, or destroy their intellectual property,” the statement said, adding, “we’ve worked with a broad array of business organizations at home and abroad to defend these principles.”

The chamber declined to say if it supported any measures to curb smoking.

The chamber, a private nonprofit that has more than three million members and annual revenue of $165 million, spends more on lobbying than any other interest group in America. For decades, it has taken positions aimed at bolstering its members’ fortunes.

While the chamber has local outposts across the United States, it also has more than 100 affiliates around the world. Foreign branches pay dues and typically hew to the U.S. Chamber’s strategy, often advancing it on the ground. Members include both American and foreign businesses, a symbiotic relationship that magnifies the chamber’s clout.

For foreign companies, membership comes with “access to the U.S. Embassy” according to the Cambodian branch, and entree to “the U.S. government,” according to the Azerbaijan branch. Members in Hanoi get an invitation to an annual trip to “lobby Congress and the administration” in Washington.

Since Mr. Donohue took over in 1997, he has steered the chamber into positions that have alienated some members. In 2009, the chamber threatened to sue if the Environmental Protection Agency regulated greenhouse gas emissions, disputing its authority to act on climate change. That led Nike to step down from the chamber’s board, and to Apple’s departure from the group. In 2013, the American arm of the Swedish construction giant Skanska resigned, protesting the chamber’s support for what Skanska called a “chemical industry-led initiative” to lobby against green building codes.

The chamber’s tobacco lobbying has led to confusion for many countries, Dr. da Costa e Silva said, adding “there is a misconception that the American chamber of commerce represents the government of the U.S.” In some places like Estonia, the lines are blurred. The United States ambassador there, Jeffrey Levine, serves as honorary president of the chamber’s local affiliate; the affiliate quoted Philip Morris in a publication outlining its priorities.

The tobacco industry has increasingly turned to international courts to challenge antismoking laws that countries have enacted after the passage of the W.H.O. treaty. Early this year, Michael R. Bloomberg and Bill Gates set up an international fund to fight such suits. Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an advocacy group that administers the fund, called the chamber “the tobacco industry’s most formidable front group,” adding, “it pops up everywhere.”

In Ukraine, the chamber’s involvement was no surprise to Hanna Hopko, the lawmaker who led the hearing in Parliament. She said the chamber there had fought against antismoking laws for years.

“They were against the tobacco tax increase, they were against placing warning labels on cigarettes,” she said. “This is just business as usual for them.”

Country-by-Country Strategy

More than 3,000 miles away, in Nepal, the health ministry proposed a law last year to increase the size of graphic warning labels from covering three-fourths of a cigarette pack to 90 percent. Countries like Nepal that have ratified the W.H.O. treaty are supposed to take steps to make cigarette packs less appealing.

Not long afterward, one of Nepal’s top officials, Lilamani Poudel, said he received an email from a representative of the chamber’s local affiliate in the country, warning that the proposal “would negate foreign investment” and “invite instability.”

In January, the U.S. Chamber itself weighed in. In a letter to Nepal’s deputy prime minister, a senior vice president at the chamber, Tami Overby, wrote that she was “not aware of any science-based evidence” that larger warning labels “will have any discernible impact on reducing or discouraging tobacco use.”

A 2013 Harvard study found that graphic warning labels “play a lifesaving role in highlighting the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit.”

While Nepal eventually mandated the change in warning labels, cigarette companies filed for an extension and compliance has stalled.

“Since we have to focus on responding to the devastating earthquake, we have not been able to monitor the state of law enforcement effectively,” said Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, a senior health ministry official.

The episode reflects the chamber’s country-by-country lobbying strategy. A pattern emerged in letters to seven nations: Written by either the chamber’s top international executive, Myron Brilliant, or his deputies, they introduced the chamber as “the world’s largest business federation.”

Then the letters mention a matter “of concern.” In Jamaica and Nepal, it was graphic health warnings on packages. In Uruguay, it was a plan to bar cigarettes from being displayed by retailers. The Moldovan president was warned against “extreme measures” in his country, though they included common steps like restricting smoking in public places and banning advertising where cigarettes are sold.

A proposal to raise cigarette taxes in the Philippines would open the floodgates to smugglers, the government there was told. Tax revenue has increased since the proposal became law.

“We are not cowed by them,” said Jeremias Paul, the country’s under secretary of finance. “We meet with these guys when we’re trying to encourage investment in the Philippines, so clearly they are very influential, but that doesn’t mean they will dictate their ways.”

Protecting tobacco companies is portrayed by the chamber as vital for a nation’s economic health. Uruguay’s president is warned that antismoking laws will “have a disruptive effect on the formal economy.” El Salvador’s vice president is told that “arbitrary actions” like requiring graphic health warnings in advertisements undermine “investment and economic growth.”

On the ground, the chamber’s local affiliates use hands-on tactics.

After Moldova’s health ministry proposed measures in 2013, Serghei Toncu, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Moldova, laid out his objections in a series of meetings held by a regulatory review panel.

“The consumption of alcohol and cigarettes is at the discretion of each person,” Mr. Toncu said at one meeting, adding that the discussion should not be about “whether smoking is harmful.”

“You do not respect us,” he told the health ministry at another.

At a third, he called the ministry’s research “flawed from the start.”

His objections were not merely plaintive cries. The American chamber has a seat on Moldova’s regulatory review panel giving it direct influence over policy making in the small country.

“The American Chamber of Commerce is a very powerful and active organization,” said Oleg Chelaru, a team leader on the staff that assists the review panel. “They played a very crucial role in analyzing and giving an opinion on this initiative.”

Mr. Toncu, who has since left the chamber, declined to comment. Mila Malairau, the chamber’s executive director, said its main objective was to make sure the industry “was consulted” in “a transparent and predictable manner.”

After recently passing in Parliament, the long-stalled measures were subject to fresh objections from the chamber and others, and have not yet been enacted.

Fighting a Trade Exception

In Washington, the U.S. Chamber’s tobacco lobbying has been visible in the negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a priority of the Obama administration that recently received critical backing in Congress.

One of the more controversial proposals would expand the power of companies to sue countries if they violate trade rules. The U.S. Chamber has openly opposed plans to withhold such powers from tobacco companies, curbing their ability to challenge national antismoking laws. The chamber says on its website that “singling out tobacco” will “open a Pandora’s box as other governments go after their particular bêtes noires.”

The issue is still unresolved. A spokesman for the United States trade representative said negotiators would ensure that governments “can implement regulations to protect public health” while also “ensuring that our farmers are not discriminated against.”

Email traffic shows that Mr. Donohue, the chamber’s head, sought to raise the issue in 2012 directly with Ron Kirk, who was then the United States trade representative. In email exchanges between staff members of the two, Mr. Donohue specifically sought to discuss the role of tobacco in the trade agreement.

“Tom had a couple of things to raise, including urging that the tobacco text not be submitted at this round,” one of Mr. Donohue’s staff members wrote to Mr. Kirk’s staff. The emails were produced in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which provided them to The Times.

Mr. Kirk is now a senior lawyer at Gibson, Dunn, a firm that counts the tobacco industry as a client. He said in an interview that during his tenure as trade representative, he met periodically with Mr. Donohue but could not recall a specific conversation on tobacco.

He said trade groups were generally concerned about “treating one industry different than you would treat anyone else, more so than doing tobacco’s bidding.”

The chamber declined to make Mr. Donohue available for an interview.

A Face-Saving Measure

In Ukraine, it was Valeriy Pyatnytskiy who signed off on the complaint against Australia in 2012, which was filed with the World Trade Organization. At the time, he was Ukraine’s chief negotiator to the W.T.O. His political career has survived the revolution and he is now an adviser to the Ukrainian prime minister, Mr. Yatsenyuk.

In a recent interview, he said that for Ukraine, the case was a matter of principle. It was about respecting the rules.

He offered a hypothetical: If Ukraine allowed Australia to use plain packaging on cigarettes, what would stop Ukraine from introducing plain packaging for wine? Then Ukrainian winemakers could better compete with French wines, because they would all be in plain bags marked red or white.

“We had this in the Soviet times,” he said. “It was absolutely plain packaging everywhere.”

Some Ukrainian officials have long been troubled by the case.

“It has nothing to do with trade laws,” said Pavlo Sheremeta, who briefly served as Ukraine’s economic minister after the revolution. “We have zero exports of tobacco to Australia, so what do we have to do with this?”

Last year, he urged the American Chamber in Kiev to reconsider.

“I wrote a formal letter, asking them, ‘Do you still keep the same position?’ ” Mr. Sheremeta said. “Basically I was suggesting a face-saving way out of this.” But when he met with chamber officials, the plain packaging case was outlined as a top priority.

They refused to back down. After Mr. Pyatnytskiy, a tobacco ally, was installed as his deputy, Mr. Sheremeta resigned.

“The world was laughing at us,” he said of the case.

Shortly after The Times discussed the case with Ukrainian government officials, there were new protests from activists. Mr. Yatsenyuk called for a review of the matter. Ukraine has since suspended its involvement, but other countries including Cuba and Honduras are continuing to pursue the case against Australia.

Andy Hunder, who took over as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kiev in April, said the organization was moving on, adding, “We are looking forward now.”

Sofiia Kochmar contributed reporting from Kiev, Bhadra Sharma from Kathmandu and Palko Karasz from London.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/business/international/us-chamber-works-globally-to-fight-antismoking-measures.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

Upon reading this article, TFND communicated its disappointment with the Greater North Dakota Chamber’s work in our state alongside Big Tobacco. In doing so, we sent this letter: TFND Letter to GNDC – 7.1.15.

GNDC responded: GNDC – TFND Letter – 7.2.15

And our final communication back to GNDC: TFND response to GNDC – 7.2.15

AP: House bill aims for less e-cigarette regulation

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are pushing to ease proposed government regulations for companies that sell e-cigarettes and other new tobacco products, a move that Democrats charge could lead to unsafe products on the market.

A spending bill approved by a House subcommittee Thursday would prevent the Food and Drug Administration from requiring pre-market reviews of e-cigarettes that already are on the market.

As part of a broader rule regulating e-cigarettes for the first time, the agency has proposed that e-cigarette brands marketed since February 2007 undergo those pre-market reviews retroactively once the final rule is approved. Companies would have to submit the applications within two years of the final rule, and then the FDA would ensure that the product is “appropriate for the protection of the public health.” If not, the agency could take it off the market.

In addition to e-cigarettes, the FDA rules and the House legislation would apply to other unregulated tobacco products such as cigars, hookahs, nicotine gels, waterpipe tobacco and dissolvable tobacco products. The FDA already regulates cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco products.

Republicans said the pre-market review would be a lengthy and expensive process that could drive companies out of business. Alabama Republican Rep. Robert Aderholt, who sponsored the bill, said the provision is just a technical change that would keep the newer products under FDA oversight but allow them to be regulated in the same way as older tobacco products. The legislation would not affect the FDA’s proposal to ban the sales of the products to minors and would still allow certain product standards.

Public health groups said the legislation would hamper the FDA’s ability to prevent tobacco companies from marketing the new products to kids, and Democrats said before the panel’s vote that the change would reduce regulation on the industry at the same time that e-cigarette use is skyrocketing.

The bill “is nothing short of a giveaway to the tobacco industry,” said New York Rep. Nita Lowey, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.

FDA’s proposed rules, expected to be finalized in the coming months, are aimed at eventually taming the fast-growing e-cigarette industry.

E-cigarettes are plastic or metal tubes, usually the size of a cigarette, that heat a liquid nicotine solution instead of burning tobacco. That creates vapor the user inhales.

The nicotine-infused vapor of e-cigarettes looks like smoke but doesn’t contain all of the chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes. Some smokers use e-cigarettes as a way to quit smoking tobacco, or to cut down. However, there’s not much scientific evidence showing e-cigarettes help smokers quit or smoke less, and it’s unclear how safe they are.

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the House language could keep products on the market that appear to be targeted to children, like cigars and e-cigarettes in a variety of candy and fruit flavors.

Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, said the FDA regulations could hurt small businesses.

“This proposal does not remove the FDA’s ability to regulate vapor products,” Conley said. “The FDA will still have the full authority to make science-based regulatory decisions on the manufacturing, marketing and sale of these products.”

The FDA would not comment on the legislation, but FDA spokesman Michael Felberbaum said the rules are important consumer protections.

“When finalized, the rule will represent a significant first step in the agency’s ability to effectively regulate tobacco products and, as we learn more about these products, the agency will have additional opportunities over the long term to make a positive difference in the public health burden of tobacco use in this country,” Felberbaum said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-bill-aims-for-less-e-cigarette-regulation/