In the coming legislature the EU will have to aim further this basic regulation acquired, reason why MEP Busoi initiated a consultation with the main tobacco control associations to be able to formulate new proposals after the upcoming EP elections.  

Following the call for the consultation, conducted earlier by his cabinet,  MEP Busoi  is proposing a seminar discussion on the fight against the parallel trade in tobacco. While everyone agrees to denounce the importance of this phenomenon, there is still a debate regarding the solutions to implement due to a divergence of analysis on the origins of the parallel trade in tobacco. 

To participate in the event and for any further inquiries please contact andreea-snejana.naidan@europarl.europa.eu | elisabeta-ana.covaci@europarl.europa.eu before 10 January 2019.

In 2018 ENSP conducted 3 EPACTT training across project partners' countries. Each workshop engaged over 50 health care professionals with various speacialisations from Kosovo, Russia and Slovenia.

The latest training was co-organised with the Slovenian Coalition for Public Health, Environment and Tobacco Control and kindly hosted by the Slovenian Ministry of Health in Ljubljana. Secretariat cordially thanks tobacco dependence treatment experts Charis Girvalaki, Aggelos Mechili and Antigona Trofor for their contribution to the workshop. 

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TackSHS project consortium and invited experts gathered in Barcelona in October 2018 for a meeting co-organised by ICO and ENSP. On 8 October project partners exchanged updates from their WPs and on the following 2 days interim workshop dedicated to the evaluation of the progress and planning for the final year of the project. 

Along with the project consortium, the members of the Project Advisory Board,  External Ethics Advisor, invited experts in tobacco control and representative of the EC participated in the workshop.

The main objective of the meeting was to present intermediate project results to experts in order to receive their feedback before the final stage of the project, especially with numerous scientific publications being in the pipeline.

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The final EUREST-PLUS workshop entitled 'H2020 Funding for Tobacco Control: Scaling up for the prevention of lung diseases in the EU' took place at the European Parliament in Brussels on 18 October, 2018.

The event, sponsored by the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP)  was hosted by MEP Gilles Pargneaux and was attended by more than 60 delegates. Its primary objective was to gather key stakeholders in the field of tobacco control in the EU to enhance innovative joint research collaborations.

The programme encompassed presentations from Vytenis Andriukaitis, the European Commissioner for Health, and representatives of DG SANTÉ and DG RTD, ERS and the ENSP. The second part of the meeting provided the audience with important updates on successful H2020 projects funded by the European Commission under the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) call on the prevention of lung diseases, including:

• EUREST-PLUS: European Regulatory Science on Tobacco: Policy implementation to reduce lung diseases
• TackSHS: Tackling second-hand tobacco smoke and e-cigarette emissions
• Smoke Free Brain: Multidisciplinary tools for improving the efficacy of public prevention measures against smoking
• Tobacco cessation within TB programmes: A ‘real world’ solution for countries with dual burden of disease
• FRESH AIR: Free respiratory evaluation and smoke-exposure reduction by primary health care integrated groups

EUREST-PLUS Coordinator Prof. Constantine Vardavas and Moderator Tamsin Rose facilitated stakeholder discussion that truly embodied the title of the event - the importance of funding for tobacco control research for scaling up the prevention of lung diseases in the EU. 

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SILNE-R was a three-year European project (Horizon 2020) involving 7 European countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Finland) aimed to understand how we can effectively prevent smoking of adolescents by policies at (inter)national, local and school levels. 

The general aims of the project have been:

1. to assess how recent strategies and programs to prevent youth smoking have been implemented at national, municipal and school levels, and how they have influenced smoking behaviour of 16 year old adolescents in seven European countries,
2. to develop and to disseminate the fine-grained evidence that is needed to support decision makers in implementing strategies to prevent youth smoking in local settings, with due attention for program costs and for inequalities in smoking.

The final conference of SILNE-R project, was hosted by MEP Cristian-Silviu Bușoi at the European Parliament in Brussels, on Wednesday afternoon, 17 October 2018.  

During this closing meeting of the project policymakers, tobacco control experts and relevant stakeholders from different European countries presented and discussed the final outcomes of SILNE-R.  

The discussion focused around such topics as current trends and inequalities in youth smoking, priorities areas for the prevention of youth smoking, how to develop and support national and local policies as well as how to effectively implement policies at local levels.

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The New York Times recently reported that Juul is working to develop a pod with lower nicotine content that will deliver the same “hit” by increasing the voltage in the device.  Running at a higher temperature increases nicotine delivery, as well as generation of the other toxic chemicals in e-cigarettes.

This effort to sidestep EU rules on nicotine in e-cigarettes is one more illustration of how Juul is acting like any other tobacco company in working to get around the rules.  The fact that they are modifying the product in a way that increases the risks is especially cynical given that they claim to be interested in harm reduction.

 
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BAT is debuting the new product, dubbed Vype iSwitch, in the face of competition from Philip Morris International Inc.’s IQOS as well as Juul, the industry upstart that started selling e-cigarettes in the U.K. five months ago. As the name suggests, the company hopes the iSwitch will lure more traditional tobacco smokers to start vaping.

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On November 15, on the International No Smoking Day, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the WHO Country Office in Ukraine, and NGO Advocacy Center "Life" presented the results of the latest Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) in Ukraine.

The smoking prevalence among young people aged 13-15 years decreased by 23% in comparison with 2011 and by 43% compared with 2005. However, 14.9% of adolescents (17.8% of boys and 12.1% of girls) use tobacco products. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey was conducted in Ukraine three times — in 2005, 2011, and 2017.

Iryna Rudenko, Acting Head of the Public Health Department of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, said, «The prevalence of tobacco use decreased from 26% in 2005 to 14.9% in 2017 and  also the number of those who suffered from passive smoking in public places significantly decreased, the awareness of young people about the harmfulness of smoking has increased.»

 

However, today there are a number of unresolved issues. Іn particular, 18.4% of 13-15-year-old children are current consumers of electronic cigarettes. The reason is that the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors is still not prohibited at the legislative level. In addition, 62.5% of children notice cigarettes’ ads in stores and kiosks. Joshua Abrams, Program Director of the Eurasian region of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said that tobacco displays at the point of sale are a manipulative tactic of the tobacco industry, which targets kids.

Lilia Olefir, Executive Director of the NGO Advocacy Center “Life”, commented, «There are cost-effective legislative measures to prevent youth from smoking initiation.  Therefore, to continue reduction of the smoking prevalence among kids and youth, the Parliament should promote the adoption of anti-tobacco draft laws No. 2820 and No. 4030a that are supported by the general public.»

The draft law No. 2820 prohibits the sale of flavored cigarettes, increases pictorial health warnings up to 65% of the surface of a pack of cigarettes on both sides. It also bans the promotion and sale of e-cigarettes to children and defines clear requirements for content and labeling. The draft law No. 4030a aims to ban tobacco marketing at the points of sale and improve smoke-free policies.

Smoking is currently allowed in designated smoking areas in most workplaces and public places. According to the new law, the goal is to make the Scandinavian country smoke-free by 2025.

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The ban was defended by counsels for the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament, Norway and the UK. Among the arguments presented were that tobacco consumption of all kinds needs to be reduced, and that snus could be regarded as a gateway to conventional cigarettes. Not only is there no scientific evidence for the ‘gateway drug’ claim — it is also bizarre that EU outlaws the gateway, while allowing the sale of cigarettes, a drug it considers more dangerous. Snus advocates suffered a major blow when Danish Advocate-General Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe concluded that snus remains a health hazard, which legitimizes the ban.  

In a ruling published on 22 November, the ECJ ruled against the re-authorization of snus in the European Union.

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In a written ruling that upheld an earlier decision by prosecutors not to open an investigation, The Hague Appeals Court said that cigarettes aren’t illegal because they adhere to European Union regulations, “so there is no criminal behavior” by tobacco companies.

“The fact that cigarettes can have an addictive character and can create health risks changes nothing,” the court said.

Dutch lawyer Benedicte Ficq in 2016 sought a criminal prosecution on behalf of ex-smokers and a youth smoking prevention organization. Hospitals, doctors and other groups later joined the call. Ficq called for the prosecution of Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco Benelux.

 

Ficq’s complaint alleged that the tobacco companies were liable because of “the large-scale, decades-long and ongoing production and sale of addictive tobacco products in the Netherlands.” It also alleged that tobacco companies deliberately misled laboratory tests to gauge levels of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide.

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A new law on plain packaging for tobacco products formally came into force on 4 December, six years after the country launched an all-out war against smoking. Starting in 2019, cigarettes and other tobacco products must be sold in uniform packages with a prominent display of health warnings and only a smaller space for the name of the brand.

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In addition, calls to the tobacco quit line increased, both in the first level (information: + 7%) and in the second level (tobacco specialists: + 11%).

These favorable public health developments, however, need to be confirmed by prevalence data indicating that the decline in smoking observed in 2017 in the Barometer Health Survey is continuing well into 2018.

Take a look at the Dashboard where you can find the Balance Sheet and the Press Release of the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction (l'Observatoire francais des drogues et des toxicomanie - OFDT) of 2017.

To disseminate this important work carried out by WHO Europe,  the Network features key arguments from the Playbook of relevance to ENSP members and stakeholders in the tobacco control community.

• The tobacco industry has continually and deliberately misled the public as to the harmful and addictive nature of its products, as well as its own marketing practices in relation to those products.
• The evidence provided by the tobacco industry when challenging tobacco control measures in courts is frequently of low quality and/or misleading.
• The interests that the tobacco industry seeks to protect in litigation are essentially interests to continue to promote and sell its products in ways that harm public health.
• The uniquely harmful nature of tobacco products means that the tobacco industry cannot be expected to be treated the same as makers of other consumer products.
• The tobacco industry has on many occasions attempted to frustrate legal processes to prevent people who have suffered tobacco-related harm from being able to bring claims against the industry.

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The First Session of the Meeting of the Parties (MOP1) to the Protocol on Illicit Trade on Tobacco Products also took place in Geneva from 8 to 10 October and it was the first opportunity for the Parties to the Protocol to discuss its implementation.your service. Replace this text with yours.