Counterfeit tobacco no more dangerous, says ASH

Defending plain packaging, Graham Jones MP hosts a piece from Action on Smoking and Health declaring that counterfeit tobacco is no more harmful:

The Transcrime report argues that ‘counterfeit tobacco products have been proved to cause even more serious damage to human health’ than legal cigarettes. This is simply not true, indeed research by the Canadian government has concluded that contraband tobacco poses the same risk of harmful health effects as legal cigarettes. All smoked tobacco contains thousands of toxic substances many of which are carcinogenic. All smoked tobacco products are deadly.  

Without getting into detail it is hard to see how anyone can talk about 'counterfeit tobacco' as if it were a single commodity. The author seems to use the terms counterfeit and contraband interchangeably, and while it is a fair bet that much tobacco ticks both boxes they are not necessarily the same thing.

Contraband is black market: illegally traded. It is a legal product on which tax has been evaded. It may also be counterfeit (illegally produced) but need not be.

Tobacco is a regulated product. This means that its ingredients are controlled. Counterfeit tobacco imitates a legal product but its contents are – who knows what?

The Canadian government source that this piece uses does not use the word 'counterfeit'. It discusses contraband tobacco and concludes rather pointlessly that its health effects are the same as those for legal tobacco, which is rather like comparing apples with apples. It stands to reason that legally traded tobacco and illegally traded tobacco will have comparable health effects, because they are essentially the same product.

There is no evidence that the tobacco under discussion is illegal – counterfeit. Even if there were evidence that the tobacco tested by the Canadian government in this particular report were 'only' as dangerous as legitimately traded tobacco, this result would not apply to all tobacco. The whole point of branding is that a particular combination of ingredients and preparation methods earns a trade mark, and can be identified. By definition this feature is absent from counterfeit tobacco. 


It is hard not to conclude that ASH has failed to grasp any of the safety concerns about plain packaging, and even that its bosses have failed to grasp the point of branding. Any of Mr Jones's constituents in Haslingden and Hyndburn feel like pointing this out?

Tory Health Minister criticised for dialogue with tobacco industry

Two Guardian reports feature Earl Howe's communications with Philip Morris concerning the tobacco display ban (report 1, report 2).

Communications between Howe and Gardant, a lobbying firm representing Philip Morris at Westminster, have been made public by a whistle blower at Philip Morris. They comprise a series of emails. Report 1 describes the situation like this:

It is only now that a Philip Morris whistleblower has leaked scores of the company's internal emails that the lengths to which lobbyists went to derail tobacco control measures have become apparent – nurturing a "grassroots" campaign that painted an apocalyptic picture of what would happen to newsagents if displays were banned. 

Howe, a Rugby-and-Oxford-educated peer who left a high-flying banking career to run his family farm and serve the Tories, shared these views. Along with many Conservatives, he agreed that the ban was "anti-business" and would damage the livelihoods of small shopkeepers. He also agreed with the tobacco industry's disputed claim that the ban would have no impact on reducing smoking among young people. Indeed, in one debate, he claimed that evidence from Canada and Iceland, where such bans already exist, was "at best speculative" – the key line advanced by the tobacco industry's army of lobbyists.

This is an ill-disguised attempt to divide the world in terms of evil tobacco companies with no regard for the rest of the world, and the rest of us who need protection from them.

1. Lobbyists were not 'derailing tobacco control measures', they were discussing the contents of a controversial bill. 2. I don't know quite what the Guardian refers to ('"grassroots"'), but I do know that a substantial number of people who are not lobbyists for the tobacco industry also fear for the impact on small shops once the ban is implemented in them – based on their experiences in pubs, where no economic damage was expected. 3. Howe's capitalist credentials (the report also points out that he is a hereditary peer) are only relevant insofar as they seek to persuade readers that only nastily rich people without a democratic mandate would consider opposing the tobacco display ban. 4. 'Along with many Conservatives': I'm not a Conservative, and I agree that the ban is very unhelpful to businesses. 5. The tobacco industry is not alone in disputing youth smoking figures in Iceland and Canada. More here. 6. Using a line advanced by tobacco industry lobbyists does not invalidate it, except in a world infected by the anti-democratic authoritarianism of the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (especially Article 5.3).

I hold no candle for Earl Howe and actually know very little about him beyond the banking and farming experience referred to in this article. But it seems to me that all he was doing was ensuring that the tobacco industry was able to contribute to the discussion of a bill that aimed to remove all its retail display space. Allowing an industry to participate in such a drastic bill seems eminently reasonable. From Report 2:

A spokesman for Howe said any suggestion that the government's health policies had been influenced by the tobacco industry was completely incorrect. "As an opposition spokesman, it was incumbent on Earl Howe to speak to all sides in the runup to debates on government plans to ban the display of tobacco products in shops," the spokesman said. "He met with anti-smoking groups as well as representatives of the tobacco industry. The job of any opposition spokesman is to challenge and scrutinise all proposals to ensure laws are as well drafted as possible."

Labour Shadow Health Minister Jamie Reed's response consists of more hyperbole:

"It is alarming that a health minister ever thought it appropriate to seek the help of the tobacco industry in sabotaging plans to reduce smoking-related diseases," Reed said. "Howe is the minister now tasked with forcing the government's reckless dismantling of our NHS through parliament in early 2012.

The link between a tobacco display ban and a certain decline in smoking-related diseases is tenuous indeed. The comment about dismantling the National Health Service has little relevance and is yet another attempt to link opposition to the tobacco display ban with reckless capitalism.  Reed goes on:

"Labour will be asking serious questions about his links to Philip Morris International and this further example of the close ties between Tory ministers and tobacco and junk food manufacturers."

Being shadow health minister I guess that puts attacking tobacco and junk food well within Lee's comfort zone these days, but let him not forget others, such as pharmaceutical companies and private healthcare interests, also keen to buy influence within government. Seeking influence within government is not an activity unique to tobacco interests.

If Earl Howe loses his job, this will be a shameful concession to FCTC, Article 5.3: as a nation state, our leaders should be entitled to hear submissions from all interested parties to legislation in its progress through Parliament. If as Deborah Arnott alleges his links with the tobacco industry were not properly declared this can be corrected. This is not a sacking offence, indeed it should not be an offence at all.

Happy New Year!

Regular reviews on Tobacco Harm Reduction

Tobacco harm reduction is a controversial area. I can't comment on the science but I can give an outline. The premise of tobacco harm reduction is that smoke, rather than nicotine, is what makes smoking dangerous. Consequently smokers who want to give up can use smokeless tobacco or e-cigarettes more safely than smoking tobacco.

The emerging tobacco harm reduction market has benefited from scares about the dangers of smoking to by-standers. Urging people to give up smoking has always been easier if you can persuade them that smoke is killing their loved ones. In fact ASH Scotland uses the term 'harm reduction' here (a section from Sheila Duffy's epic 'Beyond Smoke Free' document), to mean that using nicotine replacement therapy beats smoking in front of your children. She seems to feel that smokers should be content with a 'sticking plaster', rather than a satisfying experience.

Users of e-cigarettes and other smokeless tobacco have found themselves faced with the threat of prohibition far more quickly than smokers. The market for e-cigarettes has clearly competed for the same customers that might otherwise have bought nicotine patches and gum from global pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies want to develop drugs based on natural substances like tobacco, and the entire anti-smoking establishment has sought to make e-cigarettes unavailable to consumers, in the hope that it will create a captive market for pharmaceutical cessation products (see forum discussion here).

Users of e-cigarettes know that banning their product is not to do with health (even though spurious claims are made about uncertain health risks). They can see cigarettes still on the market, while the product they resorted to in order to stop smoking has been banned – leaving them with the options of stopping smoking without any help or buying the products of pharmaceutical interests.

Smokers have lived with their chosen product being taxed to the heavens: e-cig users live with the threat of their product of choice being made unavailable (for much the same reasons as the rest of us will no longer be able to buy calendula lotion or other common herbal products after 1 May). For most people an e-cigarette ban remains a threat rather than actuality (New York State being closest to an outright ban in the US, and full bans operating in Brazil, Singapore and in Canada except where the e-cigarette is free of nicotine – see here for details).

This guide to essential reading on tobacco harm reduction offers further links and insights. Stories include a possible workplace ban on e-cigarettes in Georgia (together with suggestions for local action) and the opposition of students at the University of Massachusetts to a smoking ban that included e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco in its reach. There's much more where this came from, and the list will be regularly updated.