Tobacco News and Interesting Information

Bulgaria's new government will raise excise duties on cigarettes 43 percent next year in a bid to curb smoking and relieve the health care system, the finance ministry said on Thursday.

The Balkan country, which is home to 7.6 million people, has the second highest percentage of smokers in Europe and has decided to ban smoking in all public spaces from June next year.

Bulgaria ranks second after Greece in the EU in terms of number of regular smokers as a percentage of the population, according to a Eurobarometer survey. More than half of men and more than a third of women smoke.

Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said the excise duties on cigarettes will jump to 76 euros ($110.7) per 1,000 pieces as of January 1 from 53 euros at present, which will increase budget revenues by about 226 million levs ($168.4 million).

The move will be part of the 2010 budget which the new government of the center-right GERB party, that won July general elections, will discuss next week.

The EU's poorest nation, hit by a deep recHow does the color blue make you feel?

When the color is light in hue and its name appears on a package of cigarettes, researchers say manufacturers are trying to trick consumers into thinking the product is safer.

That's why tobacco control experts are right to be suspicious when Pall Mall Lights became Pall Mall Blues and Salem Lights became Salem Gold Box.

With cigarettes now under the regulation of the Federal Drug Administration, researchers from Harvard University see in the new cigarette packages with lighter palettes evidence of a subtle sales strategy meant to subvert proposed FDA rules that banish words that promote certain cigarettes as safer.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of the Pall Mall and Salem brands, says it has no such intention, arguing that it just wants to guide consumers to their favorite brands.

Au contraire, according to a French study finding that simple design elements such as the colors, words and images used on cigarette packaging can mislead smokers into thinking that certain tobacco products are less harmful to their health. Results ot the study were published on Aug. 4 by Agence France-Presse.

In the study of 600 smokers and non-smokers, about 80 percent of participants believed the cigarettes in a light-blue package contained less tar, would taste better and would be less dangerous than the ones in packages that were dark blue.

FDA spokeswoman Kathleen Quinn said her agency is aware of changes being made to cigarette packaging and intends – before a new labeling ban goes into effect – to thoroughly "review the use of descriptors, including the use of color."

We hope they do. Although the nation's smoking rate has been in decline, one in five Americans still smokes and more than 400,000 of them die each year from smoking-related diseases.

A coalition of five health advocacy groups recently wrote to the FDA urging it to be vigilant for signs that the tobacco industry may be trying to circumvent new rules with color-driven names. The colors "white" and "silver" also raised a red flag for tobacco control specialists.

We hope cigarette makers don't get away with it.

We're counting on the FDA to keep up the pressure on the tobacco industry. ession, has cut spending by 15 percent this year and taken steps to curb smuggling and tax evasion to avoid a budget deficit this year.

But Djankov said the cigarette tax hike was not aimed at boosting revenues.

"This is mainly a health measure. Bulgaria needs to abruptly cut smoking," he told reporters in a conference call from Sweden where he is attending an EU meeting.

He said Bulgaria ranked first in the EU last year in the number of deaths from cardiac diseases, linked to smoking.

Opponents to the move have said the planned increase will boost cigarette smuggling and may lead to the bankruptcy of the dominant state cigarette maker Bulgartabak.

But Djankov said reforms at the revenue agency and the customs would help to crack down on smuggling and that his key concern was public health rather than corporate interests.