Imperial Tobacco Offers an Unsafe Alternaive to Cigarettes As An Exercise in Corporate Social Responsibility

Imperial Tobacco has chosen lucky Edmonton for the launch of test marketing of a new nicotine product “SNUS.” This is a chewing tobacco alternative that that replaces smoking and does not involve “chewing or spitting.” How charming.

Reader of this blog will know I have written on tobacco control often. I have worked in the area professionally helping get a smoking ban in Alberta legislated…something that is still in process.

The CEO of Imperial Tobacco was dong the run of the Edmonton Editorial Boards yesterday and is quoted as admitting the product is not completely safe but his justification for knowingly incurring risk by using it is – wait for it: “SNUS is the first real product we’re able to bring onto the market where there seems to be pretty compelling evidence that this product is significantly less risky.” (EMPAHSIS ADDED)

And the rational the CEO uses for Imperial Tobacco doing this is – wait for it: it is part of the company’s strategy to become a better corporate citizen by offering a product that research SUGGESTS poses lower risk than smoking.” (EMPHASIS ADDED).

He is also quoted as saying “harm reduction is what responsible companies do.” This is a company offering an unproven product positioning it as a safer alternative to another deadly product it legally sells under the guise of a public health campaign and call this corporate social responsibility.

The company refers to studies showing SNUS users experience significant smoking declines and anecdotal evidence (TRANSLATED AS MEANING GOSSIP) that SNUS is effective in keeping smokers from returning to cigarettes. They admit that the researcher have noted they did not placebo-based controlled confirmation studies that prove this. Spare us the hype and hypocrisy.

Sweden is offered as the shining example of the positive impacts noting only 13% of men smoke and 22% use SNUS. So the rational conclusion from this is that 35% of the male population of Sweden are nicotine users – and this is progress? There is the added bonus of SNUS studies showing a 100% increase in pancreatic cancer in non-smoking construction workers and it raises blood pressure and it is admittedly addictive.

The launch initiative in Edmonton is a test marketing effort to see how people respond to the purchase of the product – NOT the health implications of the product. If it is a product that is a “gateway product out of smoking” you would expect the company to be researching the positive health impacts on lung cancer and other diseases and health issues associate with the product. That would be some serious examples of a meaningful corporate social responsibility effort.

This entire idea is like Kafka meets Alice in Wonderland.

Dealing With Delusions About a Fall Election in Alberta

The speculation in some circles around a fall election in Alberta is living proof of how delusional the human species can be sometimes. Premier Stelmach has given existing MLA notice they have until the end of November to get nominations over with and new candidates have to get nominated before the end of October.

Secondly the PCs have a Policy Conference scheduled for late October as part of a party revitalization – a real one this time. Not the fiasco that happened after the 2004 election. The Policy Conference is intended for the rank and file to consider and discuss what they want the future of the PC Party and the province to be all about.

Finally we have municipal elections that would be messed up if there was a fall election and it would not be smart to tick off local politicians any more than we have already.

The last time the PC called an early election was in the Getty days and we were appropriately punished for the tactic. There is no need for Alberta to pay for an election now and if it were motivated – or perceived to be motivated – the recent poll results – the PCs would deserve to be punished at the polls again.

A fall election is not going to happen. Notwithstanding the logic, Brian Mason’s NDP have “launched” their campaign in preparation for a fall election at the U of A is past week. This is a smart tactic for the NDP because they need all the lead time they can get. By starting their election campaign now they might be able to get to the starting line for when the real election will actually be called in the coming spring.

More "Veiled Threats" From the Far Right.

As an update on a couple of past posts I want to refer you to some MSM columnists who have writing pieces that I think are worthy of attention and praise.

Further to my post of September 11 on the Prime Minister and Cons veiled threats (yes bullying) of the Elections Canada CEO over him doing his job you will want to read the Edmonton Journal’s Paula Simons today. She does a terrific job of putting some more perspective on this shabby bit of politics.

Next, an update of my post of September 10 we have a very revealing column by the Edmonton Journal's Graham Thomson on the efforts of the far right candidate Craig Candler’s and his tactics to win the PROGRESSIVE Conservative nomination in Calgary Egmont.

This gentleman needs to visit the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta website and read the Party's Statement of Principles. Then he needs to think about if his values and beliefs align sufficiently with those principles for him to be an appropriate PC candidate.

Scary stuff and it is important that we citizens become more aware of and involved in. Cynicism and indifference to politics is a luxury we citizens can not longer afford.

Harper Cons Are Feeling the Heat on Quebec Ad Scheme

So the Cons are feeling the pressure of the national party funnelling funds through local constituencies into Quebec based advertising and allegedly exceeding legislated spending limits.

They have done some homework on Dion’s 2004 campaign and Steve Janke of Blogging Tories has done an interesting post on the findings. He seems to be alleging a Dion scandal with this post that parallels the Conservatives scheme. I will deal with the merits of the Janke claim in another post. In the mean time lets catch up on the recent developments om Cons version of Adscam.

The opening paragraph of the Janke posting reads like a Statement of Defence for the Cons in their pending Federal Court action. The Blog post provides what might be suggested as the redeeming fact they want us to focus on as the justification for the scheme.

The ad-scheme money was aggregated through an in-and out payment using the campaign bank accounts of 67 Con candidates across the country. The funds once back in the national party accounts were used to buy ads in certain regions of Quebec that were deemed winnable by the Cons. The justification for this scheme seems to be that while the ads were the same ones that were used by the Con in their national campaign they apparently had “the local candidates name added to the end.”

Since the funds were funnelled through the bank accounts of some 67 “local candidates” it would be expected the names added to the advertising would state that a certain candidate “authorized the ads.” Logically the names that should be added to the commericals would be those of local candidate’s whose bank accounts were used to funnel the funds – right? After all the way the schmes is set up it is supposed to look like those 67 candidates used their own campaign money to pay for the ads.

Media reports have indicated that some of the 67 candidates and their official agents did not even know the national campaign office of the Conservative Party was doing this funnelling through their campaign bank accounts. Classy don’t you think? If they can’t be open and transparent with their own candidates, on what basis do they think the rest of us should trust them?

I have not seen the Quebec ads that the Cons bought with the money they funnelled through 67 other candidate’s bank accounts. But my suspicion is any efforts to make the national campaign ad buy in Quebec look “local” was focused on the local Quebec candidates in the regions where the ads were purchased. The candidate "authorization" tag at the end of the commercials I'll bet at best was only the names of the Quebec regional candidates where the ads were televised.

The meltdown gets worse. The timing of the Harper Cons re-launch of their version of the famous “Sponsorship” program in the front page of the Globe and Mail could not have been worse. This is the program that has been working it way through the system for a while. There were media report that the former Minister (Bev Oda) was sending memos to her caucus asking for the Cons MPs to submit ideas for how this $30m could be spent in their local constituencies. Was that co-incidental to when Harper was trying to get traction for an election a few weeks ago?

Dion Announces Policy to Protect Canada's Water

Tip of the Hat to “While the Earth Burns” on his posting on Dion Liberals proposal for a Task Force of the Protection of Canada’s Water Resources.”

Here is a taste of the posting and the policy proposal:

"Today, the climate change crisis makes it more important than ever to preserve fresh water supply in Canada,” added Mr. Dion. “Our fresh water resources aren’t as abundant as we think. While Canada houses almost a quarter of the world’s fresh water, the renewable amount that can actually be replenished by rain fall, and that is safe for sustainable use, is about 7 per cent.”