Alberta Govt Launches $10B Lawsuit Against Big Tobacco Companies

"Tobacco Use Has Had A Devastating Impact On Many Generations Of Albertans. The Costs Are Not Just To Our Health-care System, But In The Many Lives Cut Short By The Use Of Tobacco" -- Alberta Premier, Alison Redford



Premier Alison Redford
The Alberta government is set to launch one of the largest legal actions in the province's history, a $10-billion lawsuit against the tobacco industry to recover decades worth of smoking-related health care costs.
Premier Alison Redford said the province is finalizing the statement of claim, which is expected to be filed within the next two weeks.

"Tobacco use has had a devastating impact on many generations of Albertans. The costs are not just to our health-care system, but in the many lives cut short by the use of tobacco," Redford said in a statement. "This legal action is a significant part of renewing our tobacco reduction strategy."
Alberta will be the fifth province to file suit against Big Tobacco, joining British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The remaining five province have signalled their intention to also file lawsuits.

None of those cases has proceeded to trial or reached a settlement, and Alberta Justice Minister Jonathan Denis acknowledged Alberta's action could take many years to resolve.
Several of the provinces have united by hiring the same law firm to represent them. Alberta has hired its own legal representatives, known as Tobacco Recovery Lawyers LLP, but Health Minister Fred Horne said the decision to have separate counsel does not mean Alberta will avoid collaborating with the other provinces.



He said the lawsuit will attempt to recover health costs dating back to the 1950s.
"It's a big, big day," said Les Hagen, director of the antitobacco advocacy group Action on Smoking and Health.
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--Canada.com

Tobacco Industry Profits By $6,000 For Each Death Caused By Tobacco

During the last decade 4 almost 50 million people have died from tobacco usage, and annual revenues of the global tobacco industry have increased to US $ 35 billion. These and other startling revelations were unveiled in the fourth edition of the Tobacco Atlas which was launched today, (21st March, 2012), a little while ago, at the 15th World Congress on Tobacco OrHealth being held in Singapore.

Toying With Killer Fumes!


The Atlas makes some very pertinent points about the death and economic destruction caused by tobacco. Tobacco use killed some 6 million people in 2011, with 80% of these deaths occurring in low and middle income countries. Apart from being responsible for 15% of all male and 7% of all female deaths globally, tobacco is also a risk factor for the four leading non communicable diseases – Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases – which account for more than 63% of global deaths according to the World Health Organization.



Tobacco use is the number one killer in China, causing 1.2 million deaths annually. Uniquely among cancer-causing agents, however, tobacco is a man-made problem that is completely preventable through proven public policies. Effective measures include tobacco taxes, advertising bans, smoke free public places, mass media campaigns and effective health warnings. These cost-effective policies are included in the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), a global treaty endorsed by more than 174 countries, and recommended by the World Health Organization in its MPOWER policy package.


Causing Harm To An Innocent, Unborn Baby

Ironically, countries do not profit economically from tobacco production and consumption – in fact, they suffer financial harm. The direct costs arise from healthcare expenditures for treating smoking-related illnesses and indirect costs that include the value of lost productivity and cost of premature deaths caused by smoking-related illnesses can cripple economies. In the last 10 years, more than 43 trillion cigarettes have been smoked and cigarette production has increased by 16.5. Annual cigarette consumption has also increased significantly. In 2010, the combined profits of the six leading tobacco companies was U.S. $35.1 billion, which is equal to the combined profits of Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and McDonald’s in the same year. Keeping in mind the number of tobacco related deaths caused in 2010, one infers that the tobacco industry realizes almost $6,000 in profit for each death caused by its products.



The tobacco industry has increased its efforts to combat demand reduction efforts, launching legal challenges in every region of the world. Since 2008, they have worked to delay or stop plain packaging, smoke free legislation, advertising bans and graphic pack warnings. In addition, the industry has sought to subvert existing tobacco control legislation by introducing new smokeless products, often bearing the same branding as existing cigarette brands, and the use of the Internet and new media, where over 70% of analysed content has been identified as pro-tobacco.



It would be worthwhile to mention that in 2009, six of the top ten tobacco producing countries had malnourishment rates between 5% and 27%. In low resource countries, only US$0.0001 is spent on tobacco control per capita. 39% of countries – predominantly low and middle income countries – do not provide cessation support services in the offices of health professionals.

“The tobacco industry thrives on ignorance of the true harms of tobacco and using misinformation to subvert health policies that could save millions.” said Peter Baldini, chief executive officer, World Lung Foundation. “The Tobacco Atlas graphically illustrates the human toll and massive scale of the tobacco epidemic, breaking the best and most recent evidence out of the research world for an audience that can affect change. We urge advocates, media, governments and health professionals to use the available data to expose the deadly harms of tobacco and the industry that benefits from those harms.”
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--CNS

Wole Soyinka: Goodluck Jonathan’s Gift Horse

By Wole Soyinka

This is one gift horse which, contrary to traditional saying, must be inspected thoroughly in the mouth.

 Primary from all of us must be a plea to the MKO Abiola family not to misconstrue the protests against the naming of the University of Lagos after their heroic patriarch. Issues must be separated and understood in their appropriate contexts. The family will acknowledge that, among the loudest opposing voices to Jonathan’s gift horse, are those who have clamoured tirelessly that MKO Abiola, the Nigerian nation’s president-elect, be honoured nationally, and in a befitting manner.

President Goodluck Jonathan and Professor Wole Soyinka

Next is my confession to considerable shock that President Goodluck Jonathan did not even think it fit to consult or inform the administrators of the university, including Council and Senate, of his intention to re-name their university for any reason, however laudable. This arbitrariness, this act of disrespect, was a barely tolerated aberration of military governance. It is totally deplorable in what is supposed to be a civilian order.
After that comes the bad-mouthing of MKO Abiola and the Nigerian electorate by President Jonathan who referred to MKO as the “presumed winner” of a historic election. While applauding the president for finally taking the bull by the horn and rendering honour unto whom honour is due, the particularities of this gesture have made it dubious, suspect, and tainted. You do not honour someone while detracting from his or her record of achievement. MKO Abiola was not a presumed winner, but the President-elect of a nation, and thus universally acknowledged.


Chief MKO Abiola

It is sad, very sad, that after his predecessor who, for eight full years of presidency, could not even bear to utter the name of a man who made his own incumbency possible, along comes someone who takes back with the left hand what the right has offered. However, there is hope. Legalists have claimed that there is a legal flaw to the entire process. The university, solidly backed by other tertiary institutions nation-wide, should immediately proceed to the courts of law and demand a ‘stay of execution’. That should give President Jonathan time to re-consider and perhaps shift his focus to the nation’s capital for institutions begging for rituals of re-naming.
After all, it is on record that the House of Assembly did once resolve that the Abuja stadium be named after the man already bestowed the unique title of “Pillar of African Sports”. He deserved that, and a lot more. What he did not deserve is to be, albeit posthumously, the centre of a fully avoidable acrimony, one that has now resulted in the shutting down one of the institutions of learning to whose cause, the cause of learning, President-elect MKO Abiola also made unparalleled private contributions.


Students Of University Of Lagos Protesting...


Let me end by stressing that my position remains the same as it was when the University of Ife was re-named Obafemi Awolowo University. I deplored it at the time, deplore it till today, have never come to terms with it, and still hope that some day in the not too distant future, that crime against the culture of institutional autonomy will be rectified. Let us not compound the aberrations of the past with provocations in an era that should propel us towards a belated new Age of Enlightenment.
 

Charles Taylor Sentenced To 50 Years In Jail

Judges at an international war crimes court have sentenced Liberia's former president Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison for war crimes during the long-running civil war in Sierra Leone. Taylor was found guilty last month of 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity by supporting rebels between 1996 and 2002 in return for conflict diamonds. He was convicted of offences including murder, rape, sexual slavery, recruiting child soldiers, enforced amputations and pillage.

Former Liberian President, Charles Taylor

Delivering the sentence on Wednesday, Judge Richard Lussick said Taylor's crimes were of the "utmost gravity in terms of scale and brutality".
"The lives of many more innocent civilians in Sierra Leone were lost or destroyed as a direct result of his actions," Lussick said.
Taylor showed no emotion as Lussick handed down what will effectively be a life sentence.
Prosecutors had asked the special court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) to impose an 80-year prison term.


Judge Richard Lussick Delivering The Judgment

Lussick said an 80-year sentence would have been excessive as Taylor was convicted of aiding and abetting crimes and not direct involvement.
But the judge added that Taylor was "in a class of his own" compared to others convicted by the United Nations-backed court.


Charles Taylor At The ICC In The Hague


"The special status of Mr. Taylor as a head of state puts him in a different category of offenders for the purpose of sentencing," Lussick said.
The 64-year-old warlord-turned-president is the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since the second world war.
Taylor's sentence is likely to be served in the UK, which has offered to take him once his trial and appeal are completed. The civil war left more than 50,000 dead in the west African state.
Taylor's defence lawyers have told the court that exiling him to Britain's jails – where a Serbian war crimes convict was attacked in his cell two years ago – would leave him "culturally isolated" and constitute a "punishment within a punishment".



Child Abuse! A Child Soldier During The War In
 Sierra Leone 

In an interim sentencing hearing, the court's chief prosecutor, Brenda Hollis, a former US military prosecutor, said: "[His] positions both as president of Liberia and within the west African regional bodies distinguish him from any other individual that has appeared before this court.
"Taylor's abuse of his authority and influence is especially egregious given that west African leaders repeatedly entrusted him with a role to facilitate peace."
In his final address to the UN-backed tribunal the 64-year-old denied encouraging human rights abuses during the prolonged civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone, insisting he had in fact been trying to stabilise the region.



Charles Taylor During The Liberian Civil War

The court should deliver its sentence in a spirit of "reconciliation, not retribution", said Taylor, who offered no admission of wrongdoing or words of remorse. "I express my sadness and sympathy for crimes suffered by individuals and families in Sierra Leone," he told the panel of judges at the SCSL.


Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

"What I did to bring peace to Sierra Leone was done with honour. I was convinced that unless there was peace in Sierra Leone, Liberia would not be able to move forward. I pushed the peace process hard, contrary to how I have been portrayed in this court."
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--The Guardian

60% Of EU Citizens Support Stronger Tobacco Control Measures - New Survey

European Commission - Press Release

World No Tobacco Day 2012:
EU-wide Survey Shows That A Majority Of EU Citizens Supports Stronger Tobacco Control Measures

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Brussels, 30 May 2012 - On the eve of World No Tobacco Day, the European Commission publishes an EU study on attitudes towards tobacco. On average, 60% of citizens support measures to make tobacco less visible and attractive, such as keeping tobacco products out of sight in shops or curbing the use of attractive flavours and colours. At the same time, other figures give cause for concern: 28% of EU citizens aged 15 and over smoke, and 70% of the smokers and ex-smokers took up the habit before the age of 18.

Burning Away Their Lives!
Tobacco Is The Single Largest Cause Of Avoidable
Death In The EU. It Accounts For Around 700.000
Premature Deaths Each Year In The EU.



European Commissioner in charge of Health & Consumer Policy, John Dalli, said: "I am deeply concerned about the fact that most Europeans start smoking in their early youth, before their 18th birthday.This is why, as I stressed at a meeting today with Dr. Nikogosian, Head of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control's Secretariat, I am committed to ensuring that Europe lives up to its international commitments on regulating tobacco products, including reducing cigarettes' appeal to young people. It is in this spirit that the European Commission is currently shaping a proposal to revise the Tobacco Products Directive".

Commenting on some positive results of the survey, Commissioner Dalli added "I am encouraged by citizens' broad support for stronger tobacco control measures. It is also reassuring to see a substantial fall in the proportion of people exposed to tobacco smoke. This shows that strict regulations on smoking in public places and awareness raising action about the advantages of not smoking – such as the EU's "Ex-Smokers are unstoppable" campaign – are delivering results".

Findings from the EU survey on attitudes of Europeans towards tobacco include :

• The number of cigarettes smoked on a daily basis is 14.2, which represents a slight decrease from the previous (2009) survey (14.4 cigarettes/day)
• Half of the EU population has never smoked : the prevalence has not evolved in the past three years
• 61% of current smokers have already tried to quit smoking, including 1 in 5 in the year prior to the survey
• Although there has been a 17% fall in the proportion of people exposed to tobacco smoke in restaurants and bars, 14% of EU citizens still reported that they were exposed to smoking in restaurants and 28% inside cafés and bars in the last 6 months.
• 73% of EU citizens are in favour of introducing security features to curb illicit trade of cigarettes, even if it makes them more expensive. 
• 33% of smokers and ex-smokers in the EU say health warnings on tobacco packs have/have had an impact on their attitudes and behaviour towards smoking.

[VIDEO]

Slow Painful Death Of Bryan Curtis,  

A Smoker

Background

Tobacco is the single largest cause of avoidable death in the EU. It accounts for around 700.000 premature deaths each year in the EU.

In order to reduce tobacco consumption throughout the European Union, the Commission continues to pursue a comprehensive tobacco control policy.

A wide range of mechanisms, activities, and initiatives including tobacco control legislation, prevention and cessation activities serve to maintain and strengthen the tobacco control policy.

The review of the 2001 Directive on Tobacco Products is on-going and the Commission intends to table its proposal in the second half of 2012. The EU and all Member States have ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which entered into force in February 2005.

Teenagers Burning Their Lungs With Cigarettes

A Council Recommendation on Smoke-Free Environments, adopted in 2009, calls on Member States to adopt and implement laws to protect citizens from exposure to tobacco smoke in enclosed public places, workplaces, and public transport. It also calls for the enhancement of smoke-free laws with supporting measures to protect children, encourage efforts to quit smoking and display pictorial warnings on cigarette packages.

As part of its awareness-raising campaign, the Commission launched its "Ex-smokers are unstoppable" campaign in 2011. The campaign is now entering a new phase, building on the success of its first year. A renewed programme adheres to the original strategy that “Ex-Smokers are Unstoppable” should effect change by shifting the emphasis from the negative health consequences associated with smoking towards the positive benefits of becoming an ‘ex-smoker’, thus motivating men and women across Europe to quit smoking.

For More Information:

Eurobarometer:

http://ec.europa.eu/health/eurobarometers/index_en.htm

Tobacco policy website:

http://ec.europa.eu/health/tobacco/policy/index_en.htm

Ex-smokers are unstoppable campaign:

http://www.exsmokers.eu/

Armed Robbers In National Assembly, Says Obasanjo

Nigeria's former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, on Tuesday descended on the nation’s legislature, judiciary and the police, describing them as corrupt, and that they held no hope for the country.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo

Obasanjo described the majority of lawmakers at the national and state assemblies as “rogues and armed robbers,” and the judiciary as corrupt.

Obasanjo, however, rated the lawmakers as better than the police in crime and corruption.

He said, “Integrity is necessary for systems and institutions to be strong. Today, rogues, armed robbers are in the state Houses of Assembly and the National Assembly. What sort of laws will they make?

President Of Nigeria's Senate, David Mark And

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo

 

“The judiciary is also corrupt. During my tenure, many of the corrupt judges were removed, some are still there.

“If the Judiciary becomes corrupt, where is the hope for the nation? Justice, no doubt, will go to the highest bidder. The judiciary did not see anything wrong with a former governor but the same set of evidence was used to sentence him in the United Kingdom.

“The police are even worse. Well, I will not lament; I will only say, ‘let us understand our problems and emphasise the good ones.’”

The former President, who spoke at the fourth Academy for Entrepreneurial Studies, Nigeria, annual national conference in Lagos, also did not spare the citizenry, accusing them of lacking in diligence and integrity.

Acting Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed

 Abubakar

The conference had the theme, “Strong Systems: Necessity for Building a Virile Nation.”

“The problem is that the diligence that was being undertaken before people are appointed or elected is no more today,” Obasanjo said.

He said the country needed strong, stable, enduring and sustainable institutions for the country to remain virile, dynamic and successful.

“I believe we will get there, but all Nigerians must play their roles,” Obasanjo said.

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--PUNCH

The Ruthless Killer Next Door

World No Tobacco Day 2012 - May 31

The theme for this year's  World No Tobacco Day is:

Tobacco Industry Interference
This year, attention will be focused on the very urgent need to expose and counter the  brazen and increasingly aggressive attempts by tobacco companies to use their blood-stained billions to undermine campaigns and efforts world-wide to reduce and eventually completely halt the consumption of tobacco.

Join The Effort To Cage This Mercilless Killer

You Can Help Save The Tender Victims Of This Kind Of

Heartlessness

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Warning

Tobacco Smokers Are Liable To Die

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