Who paid for the anti-tobacco law and why
maxfux
July 15th, 11:30
Long time ago beer giants lobbied for a ban of vodka commercials on TV. Different rationales were presented to justify this decision, but the main one was as follows: in the name of people’s health. They implied that people watch vodka commercials and start drinking. In fact, commercials did not influence the consumption process itself, it only influenced the choice of vodka brand only. But be that as it was not, the beer lobbyists succeeded.
Vodka lobby was not long in coming and with the efforts of journalists and the public introduced the term "beer alcoholism." In reality, no "beer alcoholism" exists. Nobody in the world has heard about it, it is specifically the Russian myth. Thus beer ads were gone, while the term remained. But did the consumption of alcohol decreased? No, the audience simply changes drinks, but does not give up the process itself. And they change drinks not really actively by the way. In fact, this struggle between beer and vodka lobby entailed the growth of consumption of "Jaguar" and other rubbish. And, apparently, it has nothing to do with the struggle for health.
Now the same thing is going on with tobacco. The myths about passive smoking, direct lies written on the packs of cigarettes claiming that smoking leads directly to certain diseases and even sexual impotency (!) are parts of the same battle. The battle for money, not health. You may wish to read a good article about it below.
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It’s been over a month already since the law No. 15FZ came into effect imposing yet another portion of harsh restrictions, which is called anti-tobacco by the people.
Smoking is certainly a bad habit and some reasonable restrictions are required. Many smokers agree with this too. But their opinion was not taken into consideration upon adopting this law. All humble attempts to somehow soften these restrictions, by allowing to smoke in special carriages and train vestibules or some bars and restaurants, failed.
Now a person who wants to smoke must carefully examine the area first to make sure that he or she is not in one of those restricted areas. And what would you suggest for a law-abiding smoker citizen, if he is in the hospital or has to spend a few days on the train? Die without medical care or stomp along the tracks on foot?
Even foreign experts recognize that the current Russian legislation on tobacco control is the world’s most severe and bears the signs of discrimination that turn smokers into second-class citizens. However, according to its developers, this is only the beginning. According to one of them, Alexei Shabashov, chairman of the Healthy Regions association based in Tver city, "the law is not strict enough, a list of public places where smoking is prohibited, should be extended... The law prescribes the procedure, but it does not answer the question where we are going and striving for."
Here is where Shabashov & Co. are striving for:
"We need to prepare the society for de-legalization of tobacco and set a time limit: in ten years, this product will be withdrawn from free circulation. Smokers will be subjected to replacement therapy. Those who do not want to give up tobacco... will be put on the account as drug addicts. They will have special plastic cards to receive in pharmacies... gray boxes containing sticks stuffed with grass. If someone shares a cigarette with another person, this will entail criminal liability."
This is our perspective: drug therapist – plastic card – jail.
After reading these suggestions of "doctor" Shabashov, who lately forced Moscow Sheremetyevo airport via the court procedure to close their smoking rooms, one could think that he is sincerely and selflessly concerned about the health problems of the nation. However, for some reason, he represents the association which is focused exclusively on the anti-smoking campaign, but not on drug addiction, alcoholism, tuberculosis, infant mortality or something else of no less importance.
The explanation for this one-sided approach was provided by Oleg Dubov, head of Oleninsky district of Tver, who is a countryman of our anti-tobacco hawk. After some digging on the internet, he made an interesting discovery. It turns out that Shabashov closely cooperates with some Open Health Institute (OHI). The word "open" in the title is no accident: the organization receives money for its activities from both government agencies (e.g. the Federal Agency for Health and Social Development) and from the external sources, including from the George Soros’s Open Society Institute.
Another sponsor of the OHI is the American fund of Bloomberg designed specifically to finance anti-tobacco projects in countries with transitional economies. Kirill Danishevsky, OHI manager of anti-tobacco unit, was awarded with an individual grant worth over one million dollars from this fund. He also greatly facilitated to the adoption of the anti-tobacco law.
The International Confederation of Consumer Societies (the “KonfOP”) also received considerable sums from the Bloomberg Foundation. The merits of its chairman Dmitry Yanin in ridding his compatriots from tobacco were so great that he has recently received a Judy Wilkenfeld Award. According to its terms and conditions, the winner is granted with a paid trip to the US for the ceremony and the award, in addition to the plaque, includes a considerable amount of money.
When granting Yanin with his award, Matt Myers, president of the American company Future Without Cigarettes, noted that the head of the KonfOP “played a great role in adoption of one of the world’s strongest anti-tobacco laws amidst the hardest political conditions.” Such recognition in itself is already very telling and costs a lot.
It is also interesting that one of the major sponsors of Yanin’s award is the largest pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Aside from the famous Viagra, they produce and actively promote Champix drugs aimed at counteracting nicotine addiction.
The cost of "treatment" is about six thousand rubles. According to the Ministry of Health estimates, after the entry into force of the anti-smoking law, 15% of smokers (more than six million people) will decide to give of the habit, in which case the potential profit of Pfizer from drug sales in Russia could exceed one billion dollars. To receive such income, the company is ready to give any award to a person who actually opened the Russian market for it.
In the past, Yanin struggled with smoking in very peculiar ways. According to the lobbying.ru website, in mid-2000s, under the pretext of "providing consumers with high-quality tobacco," he was actively lobbying for an increase in excise taxes on domestic products, and eventually succeeded. Through the efforts of the head of KonfOP, the tobacco factories in Omsk, Perm, Biysk, Chelyabinsk and Kansk were closed. Thousands of people lost their jobs and the vacant niche in the market was occupied by such foreign companies as BAT and Philip Morris, whose interests Yanin was lobbying apparently. However, later something went wrong in the relationship between the chairman of KonfOP and the tobacco monsters and he switched to the fight against smoking in general. Perhaps they simply pay more for this.
In addition to the Soros and Bloomberg foundations, other overseas structures also contributed to financing the efforts of Shabashov, Yanin, Danishevsky and their colleagues in lobbying the anti-tobacco law. These contributors include the Fulbright Foundation, known for its ties with the Russian non-systemic opposition and support of the current Kiev authorities.
I cannot judge whether Russian lawmakers were aware of all of the above. But they voted almost unanimously (with 441 votes) for the law No. 15FZ thus making a wide step towards the American foundations and also making the skeptics, who have already buried the “reload” of our relationship with the US, feel embarrassed.
And we also should keep in mind Pfizer company which is already preparing containers with Champix for shipment to Russia. No one has yet bothered to study the consequences of receiving this drug: what if the harm from this "medicine" will exceed all possible harm of smoking?
I fully admit the possibility that many deputies, including smokers, being duped by the convincing rhetoric of Shabashov, Danishevsky and Yanin, clicked their buttons consoling themselves that the severity of Russian laws will be compensated by the optionality of their performance. But in this case, I'm afraid, they trapped themselves: the lobbyists of the law No.15FZ received grants from the US big enough exactly to prevent this. This is not a Foreign Agents law, where you may register or not.
Yes, at the moment everything seems calm, no reports of tobacco riots from the regions, no fines actually imposed, and dissatisfaction with the law is manifested mainly in the sarcastic comments in social networks and blogs. But this is for the time being. Most likely, right now the developers of anti-tobacco law scrupulously record cases of non-compliance and will soon acquaint the public with the results of their research. And then they will appeal to international organizations and initiate legal actions due to Russia’s failure to meet its own legislation.
How will the authorities react then? If they pretend that nothing is happening, they will provide the West with another reason for accusing Russia of non-compliance with its obligations. If they make the police to fine all the offenders, they will provoke widespread discontent. And what if this happens before the elections to the State Duma? It is a mistake to think that all this is not serious. As you know, the unrest in Petrograd in February 1917 began after only a three-day disruption in the delivery of rye bread to the capital, while slightly more expensive wheat bread was available in excess. What happened after that is well known, we still have to suffer the effects of those events.
Considering all this, our deputies were very hasty with the anti-tobacco law, too hasty.
There is one more detail. Very few people paid attention to the publication date of the law No. 15FZ: February 23rd. Despite its current ridiculous name, the Day of Fatherland Defenders (well, not goalkeepers at least), it is still strongly associated in our society with the military men. But almost all of them, who returned from the battle fields, are smokers. There are not many ways to reduce stress in a combat situation, and a few good puffs is one such way, and certainly not the worst.
That’s how our deputies rewarded those who risk their lives for them. At least they haven’t yet prohibited smoking in the trenches, because it’s "in the open air", right? But smoking in a dugout would already be a violation, because these structures fall under the category of "premises for temporary accommodation."
I just wonder, if one is allowed to smoke in a tank?..
The publication date coincided with the army holiday accidentally most likely. I don’t think that there is any connection. But those guys who were pouring ink and money to lobby this law were probably happy with such coincidence.
It’s a pity that we cannot turn back time. I can imagine what a substantive and mutually beneficial discussion about the harm of tobacco we might have with Shabashov, Danishevsky and Yanin, if they came to visit us with their “plastic cards” and “grey boxes stuffed with grass” in Khankala, Chechnya, in 1996.
). So I had to do it the "legal way", although it is very expensive ... Australian Customs opens every parcel they think is not legit, no matter what postal method used.
