20 juin 2008
Councillors call for cigarette licensing
Cigarette sales will be licensed in the same
way as alcohol is, if an influential group of Cumbria
A new council report puts the case for stricter controls on tobacco sales and tougher sanctions on shopkeepers that flout the rules.
It is likely to form the basis of a county council response to a Government consultation on smoking, which could in turn lead to a change in the law.
Cleator Moor South and Egremont county councillor Simon Leyton chaired a group of councillors that drew up the report, The Last Gasp.
He said: “Licensing tobacco products would act as a powerful deterrent against the sale of cigarettes to children.
“Alcohol is licensed and there is no reason why the sale of tobacco should not be subject to similar regulation.”
The Last Gasp argues that, if retailers were licensed, those who sold cigarettes to children or traded in bootleg tobacco products could have their licences revoked.
It also calls for shops to be allowed to sell nicotine replacement products more widely alongside cigarettes.
Both measures would require changes in the law.
The report was approved by the council’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee this week and goes before the full council next Thursday.
Councillors took evidence from a range of experts.
They also commissioned the Cumbria Youth Alliance to survey attitudes to smoking among 2,000 young people.
12 mai 2008
Parallels seen between tobacco farmers, coffee growers
Mexico, -- Planted in practically every available spot under the canopies of larger banana trees, coffee plants cover the hills surrounding the Ursulo Galvan Colony here.
For years, coffee growers in this small mountain town have focused their attention on producing a good crop and securing the best possible price at market for their hand-harvested coffee beans.
But in an effort to save their small farms and defend the way of life they've known, growers here have formed a cooperative and focused on processing and marketing their own coffee. But the growers' efforts are hindered by a lack of money and basic technology. The growers are also hampered by the fact young people migrate to the United States and walk away from the coffee farms their families have worked for generations.
State Rep. Joe Tolson of Pinetops, who was part of a group from Wilson that traveled to Mexico, said he sees similarities between the struggles of North Carolina farmers and the farmers in Mexico. Tolson said the growers are trying to improve their product and improve their marketing and are looking for any help they can get because they desire to make their community better.
The farmers have to get a fair market value for their crops, Tolson said. The result is farmers form cooperatives. Tolson compared the coffee cooperative to cotton cooperatives here.
Since forming the Consejo Regional del Cafe de Coatepec, the growers have received government funding for the construction of a coffee processing plant and for the purchase of processing equipment -- a hopper and a dryer. The plant was a small, crude cinderblock structure.
But the growers need money to hire a lawyer to research and record the deeds for the land they bought in order to build the processing plant. They also need help figuring out a way to pump water from the stream running through the village to the processing plant. Water is used to strip the shell from the coffee bean.
Since returning from Mexico, Tolson said he's asked representatives from the N.C. Department of Agriculture's Goodness Grows in North Carolina program to contact the coffee growers. Tolson said he hopes there has been some contact between the two groups, but he wasn't sure.
Coffee growers whom the travel team from North Carolina met were all older men. The younger men have migrated to more urban areas within Mexico and to the United States in search of better jobs and higher wages.
"It's that there's no work," one grower said of their town. "There's no economy to work. There are no jobs."
The growers said the younger people get accustomed to a different way of life and don't want to return to coffee.
"The youth go to other cities," one coffee grower said. "Because here, the fields aren't profitable for them."
Some of the coffee growers are diversifying and trying to earn money beyond coffee. One farmer described how he makes and sells bread to supplement his income. He also rents out wooden forms for cement work for construction.
Willie Lucas, chairman of the Wilson Chamber of Commerce's Multicultural Business Council, said the coffee growers are hard-working families trying to make a better living for themselves with limited resources. They reminded Lucas of tobacco farmers when he was growing up. He likened the village to parts of eastern North Carolina 30-plus years ago. Lucas said the farmers were all united in their efforts and pulled together.
Wilson Police Capt. Craig Smith had the opportunity while in Mexico to meet the owners of a coffee factory in the town of Xalapa. Smith said the factory owners were selling assorted flavors of coffee to customers in Mexico and Central America .