What to Expect from COP6 – the All-Things-Anti-Tobacco Meeting

Source from:  Tobacco Asia  10/15/2014

Every two years, the inter-governmental, state-of-the-art,"all-things-anti-tobacco" conclave known as the FCTC's Conference of Parties meets to network and help guide global anti-tobacco efforts. This year – coming on the tenth anniversary of the founding of FCTC – the conference will be held in November in chilly Moscow. What frigid messages will they issue to the tobacco industry this year?

The World Health Organization's (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) hosts the Conference of Parties (COP), and this year is the sixth bi-annual installment, known as COP6. COP reviews the implementation of FCTC and takes decisions and actions to promote its implementation.

The conference will be held in November in the welcoming arms of host city Moscow, Russia, which has seen a rash of tough anti-tobacco legislation passed in preparation for this meeting, including: total point-of-sale visibility bans; total advertising blackouts; and almost total public indoor smoking bans. 

The many delegates at COP try to balance the calls for bans of literally everything from the rabid anti-tobacco brigades with other more level-headed delegates who keep in mind the realities of implementation by the scores of signatory countries across the globe.

Will COP6 overreach into areas impossible for members to comply with, and therefore risk becoming irrelevant, or will they instead come up with more modest, workable proposals? That is always the question the tobacco industry likes to have answered during COP season.

There are currently 168 signatory countries to FCTC with another 8 countries – Argentina, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, Morocco, Mozambique, Switzerland, and the US – signing, but not ratifying it.

Taxation and duty free allowances

At COP5, held in Seoul, South Korea in November 2012, delegates made policy recommendations to raise taxes on tobacco products and require that cigarettes be banned from duty free sales.Yet, even they now understand what the tobacco industry has been saying all along – that raising taxes may have unintended consequences in promoting illegal trade when cigarette prices are much higher than they can be obtained from smuggled sources.  FCTC therefore recommended, "gradual and predictable increases in excise that address public health concerns, boost tax revenues, and do not add to the illegal tobacco trade." At COP6, they should further define such tax increase policies.

COP5 also called for bans or reductions in duty free allowances, and before the meeting Australia already reduced its cigarette allowance from 200 cigarettes to 50.  Around the same time, Hong Kong reduced its duty free allowance to just 19 cigarettes. In theory, if one brings an unopened pack into Hong Kong, they would need to open it and throw away one cigarette to avoid paying import duties on that "extra" stick. 

In the two years since the "duty free" recommendation of COP5, other movers in restrictions were Macau in 2013, and India, which just this July halved duty free allowances to 100 sticks, 25 cigars or 125 gramsapparently effective immediately.  In November, as expected, New Zealand mimics neighboring Australia by reducing duty free allowances by 75% to 50 cigarettes.

AT COP 6, it is possible that there will be calls for total duty free bans.

Ingredient bans

At COP6, one of the big issues surely to be under consideration is whether to move forward with calls for global bans on ingredients, flavorings and/or additives in tobacco products. At COP5 the complex and far-reaching issue was discussed and it was decided to delay a full recommendation on "wording" until COP6.

"We support legislation prohibiting tobacco ingredients that are shown through sound scientific evidence to increase the toxicological effects of the product, enhance the pharmacological effects of nicotine, or to lead to increased underage smoking," said British American Tobacco (BAT) in a statement. "There is no evidence to suggest that the ingredients we use in our tobacco products have any of these effects."

Although Philip Morris (PM)  supports "laws that require manufacturers to report all of the ingredients used in their tobacco products to regulators and the public" they "strongly disagree that ingredients should be banned…[regulations] should not force manufacturers to market products that consumers do not want… [The] 'make it taste bad' approach to ingredients regulation is also flawed because it ignores the evidence that strongly suggests that an ingredients ban will not result in less smoking," says PM.

It is unlikely (but possible) that COP6 will venture into full ingredient ban policy edicts, but they will strengthen language of reporting of ingredients, which is already a requirement throughout the EU, Brazil, Mexico, Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, and Thailand. Several countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and France also regulate the ingredients that are permitted for use in tobacco products.

Classification of e-cigarettes

Leading up to COP6, it is apparent that WHO officials are eager to classify electronic cigarettes as tobacco products under the FCTC. A group of 129 physicians, epidemiologists, and others, organized by anti-tobacco blogging activist  Dr. Stanton Glantz and of the University of California San Francisco, in June sent an open letter to WHO urging it to hold firm in imposing strict regulations (recommendations) on electronic cigarettes. They claim such bans/regulations would "prevent initiation of use among youth and other non-tobacco users, protect bystanders in public areas from involuntary exposure, regulate marketing, and prohibit unsubstantiated claims."

This was in response to an independent group of 53 leading scientists from around the world who in May warned against classifying e-cigarettes as tobacco products, arguing that low or lowered risk products were "part of the solution" in the fight against smoking, and that bans and over-regulation would jeopardize a major opportunity to slash disease and deaths caused by smoking.

For several countries, lumping e-cigarettes in with regular cigarettes was made without the much consideration, such as United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Mexico, Brazil, Jordan, Turkey Taiwan, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Plain packaging

COP may be increasingly reluctant to call for full "plain packaging", knowing that it will not pass the entire group. Many countries may become more reluctant to adopt plain packaging requirements, such as in Australia, as there is not a known monetary cost in doing so. 

Philip Morris International said that it is ready to "protect its rights in the courts and to seek fair compensation" over damage to its business by the rule requiring plain packaging. The company claims independent estimates have put the value of the industry's branding in Britain alone as high as £11bn (US$18 bn).

Five countries – Ukraine, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Cuba, and Honduras – have brought  a trade dispute against Australia to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over its legislation requiring tobacco products to be sold in drab green boxes with the same typeface and graphic images of diseased smokers. Among these countries, only Honduras is a full member of FCTC.These countries allege that plain packages brand destruction goes against Australia's obligation under WTO membership.

Alternative Crops to Tobacco

Another major issue to be put forward are working groups on economically sustainable alternatives to tobacco growing where they will – again – tackle an issue as complex as this without any consultation allowed by any experts in the business – tobacco farmers, tobacco trade groups, or the tobacco manufacturers themselves.

"By suggesting governments phase out tobacco growing, these ideological recommendations put the jobs of more than 30 million farmers at risk without providing them with any economically viable alternative crops," said Antonio Abrunhosa, the chief executive officer of the International Tobacco Growers' Association (ITGA).  "WHO has consistently refused to listen to tobacco growers in drafting the proposals that directly impact this industry.  By doing so, they've become like a blind man driving a steamroller."

"We believe farmers should have the right to choose whether they grow tobacco or not and that governments should not try to drive farmers out of tobacco growing as this can result in social, economic, and other impacts for those farmers and their wider communities," said BAT in a statement.

Combat illegal trade / Track and Trace systems

FCTC sets rules for combating illegal trade through the control of the supply chain. Under the protocol, a global tracking and tracing system for tobacco products would be established, and measures in areas such as licensing, information-sharing, and mutual legal assistance would be put into effect.

And again, anything proposed by the tobacco industry on this is immediately dismissed. The big international tobacco firms – PM, BAT, Japan Tobacco, and Imperial Tobacco – already use a track and trace system called Codentify, developed by PM, which they say works perfectly well. However anti-tobacco regulators want a costly non-tobacco industry initiated solutions.

Tobacco Industry Liability

And last but not least are the calls for tobacco industry liability. In FCTC literature it is pointed out that relatively few member countries have taken concrete action to hold the tobacco industry accountable for its purported "illegal" actions. For example, only 17% of parties filing official reports in 2012 reported launching any criminal or civil liability action with respect to tobacco, and only 5% reported efforts to recover health-care and other costs from the industry.

In particular, the report suggests mandating this expert group to look at, amongst other things, draft principles for dealing with liability issues, up to and including the possible development of a model law (or basic elements thereof).

Above all is the expectation for the tobacco industry to manufacture products whose taxes consumers willingly pay, providing a substantial or Top 5 support to global government finances and operations throughout the world.  It is unclear where the anything-but-tobacco folks expect to find replacements to this income and the enormous amount of jobs created by the industry. Or will more level heads prevail, even suggesting working with the tobacco industry to find long-term solutions? Enditem