Big Tobacco cries foul after hard-line UN treaty

Yahoo - AFP, Nina LARSON, 11 October 2018

Tobacco companies argue that so-called "harm reduction" products like
e-cigarettes should not face the same restrictions as cigarettes

Big tobacco companies moved Thursday to counter the hard line taken by a global tobacco control treaty, including its decision that new "vaping" products should face the same restrictions as cigarettes.

A meeting of state parties to the UN health agency's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) concluded last week with a number of anti-industry rulings, including increased efforts to curb industry influence and a call to crack down on new products.

Philip Morris International (PMI) and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) responded by releasing surveys suggesting the public would prefer a more industry-friendly approach.

On Thursday, PMI published a poll it commissioned from Ipsos about attitudes to new so-called "harm-reduction" products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco sticks.

The survey of 31,000 people across 31 countries, conducted in September, showed that "77 percent of adults agree that governments should do all they can to encourage men and women who would otherwise keep smoking cigarettes to completely switch to better alternatives," PMI said in a statement.

Safer alternatives?

PMI and other companies say such products are far less dangerous than traditional cigarettes, and insist they can help smokers unable to quit completely switch to "safer" alternatives.

These alternatives are key to halting a smoking epidemic that causes some seven million deaths annually, the industry says.

But the World Health Organisation's FCTC dismissed that argument, calling Saturday for the same bans on advertising, promotion and sponsorship deals that apply to cigarettes.

FCTC chief Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva argued that the tobacco industry was disingenuously trying to suggest that promoting heated tobacco could be part "of a harm reduction strategy."

PMI lamented Thursday that the decision by treaty members "will mean that millions of smokers will not know about better alternatives to cigarettes."

Moira Gilchrist, PMI's vice president of scientific and public communications, insisted that "the science is clear. The evidence shows that switching to a smoke-free product is a better choice than continuing to smoke."

Anti-tobacco activists are meanwhile quick to point out that the companies' claims that their new products are safer are based only on industry-backed scientific studies.

"On multiple occasions, they have duped governments about the relative safety of their new products," Matthew Myers, head of Tobacco Free Kids, told AFP last week, pointing to past industry claims when filtered cigarettes and low-tar cigarettes first emerged.

JTI also published a survey this week, commissioned from Populus also using Ipsos fieldwork, which it said showed the public wants regulators to work with the industry rather than keep them in the cold.

The treaty parties decided to strengthen measures to keep tobacco company representatives and anyone with tobacco ties out of its meetings.

But JTI said its survey of nearly 8,500 people in eight European countries, conducted between September 28 and October 4, showed that "72 percent believed that it is either very important or somewhat important that the policy-making process is open to dialogue between governmental authorities and all parties who are potentially impacted by it, including businesses."

Slamming the FCTC meeting as an "echo chamber", JTI said its poll showed that "the public wants politicians and officials to consider all the facts and viewpoints, including from businesses."

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. ...”