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Uruguay wins wrangle with tobacco giant over warning labels

poledriver

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Jul 21, 2005
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Uruguay wins wrangle with tobacco giant over warning labels

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The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes has sided with Uruguay against Philip Morris, says President Tabare Vazquez.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris has lost an international dispute surrounding the sale of cigarettes in Uruguay, President Tabare Vazquez says.

As a result, the company must continue to cover its packages sold in the South American country with graphic warning labels and restrict its branding practices.

In a televised address Vazquez said the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes has rejected a challenge by Philip Morris to his government's strict anti-smoking policies, calling it a victory for efforts to protect public health and his country's sovereignty.

"The health measures that we have imposed to control tobacco and protect the health of our people have been recognised as legitimate and adopted as a sovereign function of our republic," said Vazquez, an oncologist who had spearheaded the anti-smoking campaign.

Philip Morris International had challenged Uruguay's requirement that graphic warning labels cover 80 per cent of the front and back of cigarette packages and that each brand have only a single product presentation.

Philip Morris contended that Uruguay's tobacco law violated a bilateral treaty and also hurt its intellectual property rights and sales.

The US-based tribunal also ordered Philip Morris to pay Uruguay $US7 million ($A9.36 million) and reimburse other costs associated with the case.

Marc Firestone, Philip Morris International Senior Vice-President and General Counsel, said the tobacco giant would respect the arbitral tribunal's decision.

"For the last seven years we have already been complying with the regulations at issue in the case, so today's outcome doesn't change the status quo. We've never questioned Uruguay's authority to protect public health, and this case wasn't about broad issues of tobacco policy. The arbitration concerned an important, but unusual, set of facts that called for clarification under international law, which the parties have now received."

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/07/09/uruguay-wins-wrangle-tobacco-giant-over-warning-labels
 
This is amazing. I have tried to quit smoking so many times. My slow death is enriching people.
 
The pic of the 34 year old guy who died.... Why do they think that's ok ;do they need to show a guys dead body? How thoughtless.
Straight publicizing and printing who knows how many pictures of this persons corpse, and his name attached, on packs of smokes? I find it to be a little fucked up.

It's still done for a good reason , smoking is horrible long term( which people like to ignore because it takes a while to cause severe issues), and it kills millions of people each year. But truthfully ,in the interest of public health, I think education done properly, and being extremely clear on the harms and risks, combines with extremely tight control and eventually banning most or all tobacco from being used in public or while driving or inside a house with other people. Preventing cigs from being sold everywhere, with the exception of maybe a rare specialty pipe tobacco or cigar shops and the like. And so then people's overall access would go way down. Scare tactics like this are just gross but still people will say " won't happen to me"... Till it does.

I think having packs at every gas station, grocery store, Walmart , etc is partly to blame for why people still smoke and do so regularly . If there was only one or two places per town to get tobacco and it was taught in school how truly harmful they are; I think it would be far more effective than tactless fear mongering done with disturbing and awful photos of dead people or festering foot wounds. Ew.
 
The pic of the 34 year old guy who died.... Why do they think that's ok ;do they need to show a guys dead body? How thoughtless.
Straight publicizing and printing who knows how many pictures of this persons corpse, and his name attached, on packs of smokes? I find it to be a little fucked up.

It's still done for a good reason , smoking is horrible long term( which people like to ignore because it takes a while to cause severe issues), and it kills millions of people each year. But truthfully ,in the interest of public health, I think education done properly, and being extremely clear on the harms and risks, combines with extremely tight control and eventually banning most or all tobacco from being used in public or while driving or inside a house with other people. Preventing cigs from being sold everywhere, with the exception of maybe a rare specialty pipe tobacco or cigar shops and the like. And so then people's overall access would go way down. Scare tactics like this are just gross but still people will say " won't happen to me"... Till it does.

I think having packs at every gas station, grocery store, Walmart , etc is partly to blame for why people still smoke and do so regularly . If there was only one or two places per town to get tobacco and it was taught in school how truly harmful they are; I think it would be far more effective than tactless fear mongering done with disturbing and awful photos of dead people or festering foot wounds. Ew.

I bet the guy had a stipulation in his will that allowed his expressed written consent to do so.

I am all for your ideas on cigarettes. Accessibility makes it very hard to quit. I remember when cigs were less than 3 dollars a pack and you could smoke everywhere. In pittsburgh they recently made it so you cant smoke indoors and whatnot.

This is the one drug I wished I had never tried. That and PCP...didn't really like it. I guess I can't say that I wish I never tried PCP as it was an experience. I just didn't like it as much as other things.
 
Manboy, i know you had a raging smack habit at one point - is there something about cigs that makes them harder to quit?
 
I guess it is just the accessibility. They are pretty much ubiquitous in american culture, whereas dope is something you really have to seek out. Also, there are some pretty bad legal problems with keeping up a dope habit.
 
I can relate to that.
Sorry if that was too a personal a question, by the way - i've just only had the smallest experience with regular tobacco use - small amounts in joints a couple of times a day - which made quitting weed more difficult, obviously.
I've always felt sorry for alcoholics in the sense that they are addicted to something so socially accepted and hard to avoid in our (australian, and most other western) culture.
 
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true that about the alcoholics. Alcohol is just as ubiquitous. It is crazy that alcohol is legal but pot is not.
 
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