The organizers of Tabinfo Asia, the effort to promote tobacco in the Third World attended by the Grim Reaper, was fined for displaying images of cigarette brands and logos. Story in The Nation: Organiser fined over cigarette ads at tobacco exhibition

or, The Thai Anti-Tobacco Movement ROCKS. BIG TIME!

Until today, the biggest anti-tobacco protest (and I mean 'protest', as opposed to convention/conference) I'd ever attended was in Washington DC about 3 years ago. Of the 5,000 attendees at the 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health, about 200 of us marched through the streets of DC (with a large police escort) to the White House, where we demanded (that's right, we demanded, dammit!) the US take serious action against tobacco, including long overdue ratification of the FCTC (which, as far as I know, still has not been done). In any case, that whole trip -- the conference, the protest, the networking, etc. -- was incredible, BUT...

I just got 'home' from the biggest, best and most powerful anti-tobacco protest ever! And when I say 'powerful': If we're talkin' earthquakes, all previous protests (great as they've ALL been), have been 'minor tremors', barely registering on the Richter scale...and hardly noticeable by anyone, especially the tobacco industry (TI).

But this one rocked those bastards... and has triggered a tsunami that just might, with any luck at all, wipe them out!

In typical 'Errol' fashion, I was late getting to the protest site this morning. With many curious onlookers (including hotel staff), I loaded the Grim Reaper costume, the SICKARET and 3 placards into a taxi for the 5-minute drive to the convention centre (BKKCC). With the temperature in the mid to high 80s (yes, fahrenheit) and very high humidity, I'm hoping an Arctic front will blow in. No such luck.

Having scouted out the BKKCC area a couple of days earlier, I knew exactly where to go. And besides, I'd been reminded that, with 150 - 500 people protesting, I couldn't possibly miss it. Well, I missed it!

Not seeing any sign at all of a protest, I got the cabbie (who spoke virtually no English) to pull over. A security guard approached and, seeing my gear (especially the SICKARET) in the back seat, asked an unspoken question by putting his hand to his mouth in a smoking gesture. I said yes. He pointed and, in Thai, told the cabbie where to go, as it were.

A couple of blocks further and I see about 100 people (mostly highschool-aged kids) on the sidewalk... some in costumes (including less-elaborate [if I may be so bold] Grim Reapers, cigarettes, etc.), most carrying placards (in English and Thai)...and ALL wearing very cool t-shirts that say, "TOBACCO KILLS!" in big bold letters on the front and "5,400,000" (plus some other text) on the back. And there are at least 2, maybe 3 dozen helmet-wearing police officers. And I'm thinkin', "This is cool!"

It wasn't easy, but we managed to end the association of the healthy sport of tennis with the unhealthy habit of tobacco in Canada nine years ago.

The use of professional tennis to promote tobacco use has not come to a complete end, however. There is a "Davidoff Swiss Indoors" tournament happening in Basel, Switzerland. Pictures of Roger Federer, who is currently ranked #1 in men's singles, are being used in the promotion of this event, and it features ballboys and ballgirls wearing t-shirts with Davidoff logos.

A web site and a Facebook page have been set up to oppose this event; http://davideathswissindoors.ch/ and Stop the Davideath Swiss Indoors!.

Article in swissinfo.ch: Federer fires up anti-smoking emotions. Includes a poll.

Article by Charlie Smith in the Georgia Straight: Langley tenants fight in-suite strata smokers

Excerpt: "The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has declined to dismiss a complaint by a Langley couple who object to their neighbours’ smoking. This is the second time in two years that the tribunal has refused to dismiss a complaint of this nature.

"Paul and Rose Kabatoff, who own their suite, alleged to the tribunal that Strata Corporation Plan NW 2767 discriminated against them on the basis of physical disability. According to an October 13 preliminary decision by tribunal member Marlene Tyshynski, they both suffer from respiratory illnesses and allergies that are exacerbated by secondhand smoke."

In 1992, British American Tobacco had its Canadian affiliate, Imperial Tobacco Canada, destroy internal research documents that could expose the company to liability or embarrassment.

Here's the abstract of a paper published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by David Hammond, Michael Chaiton, Alex Lee, and Neil Collishaw: Destroyed documents: uncovering the science that Imperial Tobacco Canada sought to conceal. The abstract contains a link to the full article.

This is about research that was funded by the tobacco industry. Two of their conclusions:

• Second-hand smoke is, in fact, more toxic than mainstream smoke, especially for low-delivery cigarettes.
• People smoking filtered cigarettes inhaled more smoke to get about the same amount of nicotine they'd get from unfiltered.

From Crooks and Liars: Rolling Stone Finds A Smoking Gun: Betsy McCaughey Lied About Healthcare Reform For Tobacco Lobby

Original Rolling Stone article: The Lie Machine

No British Columbia or Canadian content. It shouldn't come as any surprise that the biggest enemy of health on the planet would oppose universal access to health care in the United States.

An Airspace response to a story by Jessica Hinds in the Vancouver Sun: Too many butting out on coasts:

I have a comment, a little-known -- and rather disturbing -- fact and a couple of questions:

• The headline implies that "butting out" is bad when, in fact, it's a good thing. Perhaps a more accurate headline would have been, "Too many smokers litter coasts." Yes, there are a couple of ways to interpret that too but...;
• A major sponsor of the Ocean Conservancy is Philip Morris, one of the biggest tobacco companies in the world. When I called OC to express my outrage, I was told that PM recognizes that their products wind up being the leading form of litter, by far...and that PM simply wants to do its part to help with the clean up. If PM was sincere, at the very least, it would print anti-litter messages on its packages. At best, it would get out of the tobacco business entirely; and
• - Why do bylaw enforcement officers and police turn a blind eye to smokers who litter (most often still-smoldering butts), especially during hot and dry summers? Why are our highways littered with signs warning of a $2000 fine for littering, when nobody is ever charged?

Errol E. Povah
President, Airspace Action on Smoking & Health

Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Betty Grable
Gracie Allen, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio
Buster Keaton, Burl Ives, Bert Parks, Vincent Price
Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz
Nat King Cole, Yul Brynner, Chuck Connors, Lana Turner
Ian Fleming, Henry Corden, Jean Vander Pyl
Eisenhower, FDR,  Oppenheimer, Groucho Marx
Peter Sellers, Peter Gzowski, Peter Jennings goodbye

We didn't start the pyre
Cigarettes are burning; now the world's been learning:
We didn't start the pyre
Corporations light it but they tried to hide it

Errol Flynn, Ernie Kovacs, Eric Carr, Eddie Kendricks
Eddie Rabbit, Edward Murrow, Ed Sullivan
Rod Serling, Rowland Evans, R.J. Reynolds, Rory Calhoun
Roger Miller, Roger Maris, George Harrison
Robert Shaw, Robert Mitchum, Robert Palmer, Richard Burton
Richard Boone, Dashiell Hammett, Walt Disney, Dean Martin
Dick Powell, Dick York, Dick Haymes, Don Knotts
David Janssen, David Hodo, David Millar, Redd Foxx

We didn't start the pyre
Guys in suits ignite it; now they've been indicted
We didn't start the pyre
Let's speed their demising with a big uprising

Audrey Meadows, Agnes Moorehead, Colleen Dewhurst, Susan Hayward
Linda Darnell, Anne Ramsey, Lee Remick, Gene Tierney
Nancy Walker, Nancy Gore, Barb Tarbox, Mary Wells
Princess Margaret, Dana Reeve, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy
Chet Huntley, Forrest Tucker, Tyrone Power, Victor Crawford
Kiel Martin, Harry Nilsson, Bill Tuttle, Carl Wilson
Andy Kaufman, Alan Landers, Mark Twain, Michael Landon
Lon Chaney, Louis Armstrong, Larry Linville, Leonard Bernstein

We didn't start the pyre
Now we're agonizing watching loved ones dying
We didn't start the pyre
While the doctors chide it, make the courts decide it

William Buckley, Tex Williams, William Talman, Warren Zevon
Warren Harding, Wayne McLaren, Morton Downey Jr.
Walter Matthau, Mo Howard, Curly Howard, Shemp Howard
Scott Fitzgerald, Spencer Tracy, Sammy Davis Jr.
Sigmund Freud, Sarah Vaughan, Steve McQueen, Spike Jones
John Wayne blown away, what else do I have to say?

We didn't start the pyre
Health care underwrites it; now let's dynamite it
We didn't start the pyre
Don't be pacifiers for the crucifiers

Gary Cooper, Glenn Hughes, Graham Chapman, Jack Soo
George C. Scott, George Knudson, George Peppard, Julie London
Jean-Paul Sartre, Jimmy Dorsey, Joan Woodbury, Gypsy Rose Lee
Jesse Owens, Jim Boyd, James Franciscus, James Brown
John Huston, John Candy, John Thaw, John Gotti
John Testrake, Lyndon Johnson, Johnny Paycheck, Johnny Carson
Jack Wild, Jim Varney, Wolfman Jack, Jack Benny
Jackie Gleason, Jacquie O., I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the pyre
Lists are growing dire; now I'm getting tired
We didn't start the pyre
'til tobacco's gone will it still burn on
and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and

We didn't start the pyre
It's been piling higher making bucks for liars
We didn't start the pyre
If we stand united, we can quickly fight it
We didn't start the pyre
Big Tobacco's trying to escape by bribing
We didn't start the pyre
Though they're great deniers, it's time they're retired
We didn't start the pyre
We can turn the tide on all their homicides
We didn't start the pyre
There's no justifying of their terrorizing
We didn't start the pyre. . .

The National Post published this piece by Benjamin Kemball, President and CEO of Imperial Tobacco Canada (actually British American Tobacco): What's stopping cigarette crackdown?. It's an unpaid ad from the tobacco industry, and contains the following: "We have asked for a national task force to co-ordinate government strategies and law enforcement agencies to effectively attack this multifaceted crime that profoundly affects so many different Canadian communities. In particular, we urge the government to involve the First Nations' leadership to find sustainable solutions for all.

"We believe this trade must be stopped and we have offered our full resources to government to help in this fight."

Thanks, but no thanks for the offer of your "full resources", Mr. Kemball. Here's a response from Stan Shatenstein, which the National Post did not get around to publishing:

Benjamin Kemball, president and CEO of Imperial Tobacco Canada (ITC) would have us believe that concern over smuggling has his company "on the same side of an issue" as the tobacco control community. Hardly! Both sides want the smuggling to end, yes, but the tobacco control community cares about public health while ITC's interest is its own bottom line.

The tobacco industry may not be the driving force behind the current wave of illicit sales, but let's not forget that barely a decade ago, Kemball's predecessor as Imperial CEO, Don Brown, stated on record that, since smuggling was occurring anyway, ITC would profit from it. He said in a memo, "until the smuggling issue is resolved, an increasing volume of our domestic sales in Canada will be exported, then smuggled back for sale here." And executives from rival firm JTI-Macdonald were found guilty of active participation in smuggling.

Kemball repeats the weary industry canard that tobacco products are "heavily regulated." If toasters killed some 40,000 Canadians every year, we wouldn't just stick warning labels on them. They'd be off the market. There are other ways to get golden brown bagels. But we can't ban products to which five million Canadians are sadly addicted. The current level of regulation is entirely inadequate given the monumental task at hand. We need heavily-taxed cigarettes in plain packages and a robust denormalization programme from the federal and provincial governments.

The tobacco industry can be part of the solution when it comes to the smuggling issue but, when thinking of the health of Canadians in totality, ITC, JTI and Rothmans Benson & Hedges are far more the source of the problem than anything else. How and where products are sold is important, but the critical issue is the deadliness of the product itself. Whither Mr. Kemball's concern about that? Why does he battle the tobacco control community on this more central concern? What does he really care about?

Stan Shatenstein
Contributing Editor, Tobacco Control

A story by Carole MacNeil on CBC News: Sunday documenting the cave-in by the Federal government on the prosecution of the tobacco industry for corporate involvement in criminal activity. Features interviews with Neil Collishaw of Physicians for a Smoke-free Canada and former tobacco executive Paul Finlayson.

Part 1 (Quicktime video, 14 minutes)

Part 2 (Quicktime video, 8 1/2 minutes)