Russia Accuses Tobacco Makers of Hooking Women
Von buycigarettes, 17.10.2012, 14:31
Philip Morris International Inc. (PM), British American Tobacco (BATS) and other cigarette makers hooked Russian women and children on smoking, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said, vowing to crack down on the habit.
A ban on public smoking and cigarette advertising that will take effect under a proposed law and higher taxes on tobacco products are “just the beginning” of a campaign to counter high mortality rates, Medvedev said in a video posted on his blog today. Four tobacco companies have controlled the Russian market since the early 1990s, he said.
“Unfortunately in the 1990s, the government didn’t evaluate the risks of foreign tobacco companies’ investments” that went into advertising and designing lighter cigarettes that harmed women’s and children’s health, Medvedev said. The anti- tobacco bill, to be submitted to Parliament this month, is aimed at “protecting all these and other people,” he said.
In Russia, the world’s second-largest market for cigarette makers after China, 39 percent of the population are regular smokers, according to the World Health Organization. About 400,000 Russians, or 0.3 percent of the population, die each year from smoking-related diseases, Medvedev said. That compares with 114,000, or 0.2 percent in the U.K. The government is due to submit a bill to lawmakers by Nov. 1, proposing to outlaw all cigarette advertising and sponsorship as well as kiosk sales immediately, with bans on cigarette trade in all smaller retail outlets and smoking in public places taking effect Jan. 1, 2015.
