Tobacco Documents Online

riuur ivlUttt;l~ tUhUt't Corparate d)taas pepartment le~e- ~ ~W~& O,,A ?i 29 & Al ? ~ OXPORD ROAD AY~RURY RWCRR NP'LI ILiSZ- TEI.AYLkY'.RVRY(t)tti6)89111 TEI.EX 9]'!O6') TELEORAPri1C ADDRFS.R CRA V ENERA4 AYI1~}fURY R 1 2' QI UT 1980 ~ l SKB/SWH #,': t0 : ; : M A. H. To Members of the Middle East Working Group. 8th August 1980 Middle East Working Group From the above date, you will see that I have kept part of my promise as set out in Minute 1c. of our meeting,of 23rd July. I enclose my suggestion for the Voluntary Agreement, but the raison d'etre will not be posted to you until Monday 11th August and it may possibly be sent without a covering letter. I apologise for this delay and hope it will not delay your response on both documents, promised on or by 22nd August. Please address your response to me to THE WARREN, POTTER ROW, GREAT MISSENDEN, BUCKS HP16 9LT ('phone (02406) 2419). I will be away from home from Wednesday 13th August to Tuesday 19th August, both days inclusive. I have the following points to make about the enclosed paper:- 1. It is based, largely, on the agreement between members of T.A.C. and the Medical Officers of Health for the States of Jersey and Guernsey. 2. I have combined with the Channell Islands' agreement, extracts fromlthe agreement on sponsorship of sport between the tobacco indtzstry and the ULK. Government; and'I have included "cultural events" as wel!l as sport, in the hope that it will catch thee interest of Middle East governments who mig2lt just want to see the promotion of culture: 3. This paper is my own personal proposal for discussion between us. No one at Carreras Rothmans has seen it, and I will be sending a copy of it, and of this letter, to Peter Gilpin today as well. 4. Title Sheet. Here, and in other parts of the paper, I have left out the name of the country,. How many cigarette company names can we enlist? Will they recognise us at alll as we do not exist in many of the countries, but are represented through distributors and/or agents etc.? . .,.~

- 2 - 5. Preface. 11. Let's hope they will all!ow the phrase "........... at the request of ........." 6. "....... will begin to be implemented immediatelyo....." is included, to indicate that we will show our willingness to co-operate at once. "....... implemented fully by 31st December 19811" is to tie up with the last paragraph on page 111. "....... an&will apply until 30th June 1986" is to give us five years from 30th June 1981 as mentioned in paragraph 1ion page 2'. 6. Code of Practice Para Al page 2 31!st March 1981 is just a date plucked out of'the air; and you will notice the intention to involve any 1!ocal manufacturers (e.g. Egypt)'. Para A2 page 2 We must insist upon"GOUIItNMENT WARNING", no matter what warning follows. I cannot think of any other one which would be suitable to cover all the countries under discussione Also we should "go-in" on the basis of the present general Arab warning. Para B_page 2' I had no precedent to help me with this one, so I went straight in with the 20 milligrams. The bit about tar content on the pack is from the Channel Island's" agreement, so I have assumed! that one of the comoanies must have wanted it. Personally I think it should NOT' be included. Para; C(i)nage 4 H'ere, and in a few other places, I mention printing to be iniCAPITAIS. I believe there are no capitals as such in Arabic, so translation will need to be accurate. Para C(ii)page 4 I have no idea if size of type in Arab: countries can be said to be 24.pt, 18 pt, etc: Pages 10 and 1'1 The content of these will have to be tailored to the needs of each country. I expect there is not much ice-hockey in Kuwait: It is the principle I am after. Para F page 12 You may wish to expand! (or exclude) the Cultural Events section. Minute e. of our 23rd: July meeting requires me to put a postscript to the Voluntary Agreement covering three extra points. I've decided to do that in this letter instead, so here goes, and I have added a fourth point as well. (i) Tar and nicotine content. At our meeting, we all agreed that a restriction to not more than~20 mg of tar would not cause us too many problems and could be lived with, but that we could not easily agree to 1'g mg of nicotine. I, or whoever else is nominated to lead for the industry, must have a clear brief as to how far companies are prepared to go on this point. For example, if the Kuwait Goverrrnent stick on 1 mg of nicotine and will not budge, what is to be said and

-3- The raison d'etre paper will put the case for the exclusion of nicotine from the agreement, but it should be d'ecided beforehand 'what stance must be adopted if we come up against a brick wall. Can we supply? Will we supply? And will we believe each other if we say we will not supply? Also what method'will be agreed for testing? The one which gives the lowest readings? My limited experience of the Middle East convinces me that they are, largely, more aware of the U.K. than of the U'.S.A. and so I would propose the system used in the U.K. Recent newspaper reports from the Middle East have been talking about the need to test cigarettes for carbon monoxide. Please have a view on this too from your company. (ii) Contribution towards testing for tar and nicotine in the market If things were politically normal in the Middle East we would most probably be satisfied', and'so would'the Arabs, with a Middle East testing centre iniEgypt. However, things being as they are, we may find'ourselves having to have one in Kuwait for the Gulf and other AraS countries, and one in Egypt solely for Egypt. We can look at a joint one in one or other of these two countries; but that will be difficult to establish but worth a study. I have no doubt that the Kuwaiti one would be acceptable throughout the whole Gulf area at least. What are we prepared to offer? Technical advice on how to set up a testing centre with some help in training staff? Or signifiicant financial help as well as the foregoing?' Would we TaZ for the complete set-up in exchange for five years' peace? We estimate that the cost of publishing two "tables" a year, each with 50 brands, including the equipment etc., will be about f,100;000 p.a. or t1,000 per brand per table. Has anybody any better figures than these? How much would we each~pay? Has anybody got a better/different suggestion? (iii) Contributions towards research We know so little about the smoking and health issue im the Middle East, and neither does anybody else. So we are going "blind" into restrictions being imposed upon us? Maybe we feel we don't want to know any more? Who smokes? How do they smoke? How much do they smoke? What is the incidence of the alleged smoking-related diseases? At our meeting it was suggested that we ought to know more thani we do; and also that co-operation with the medical or university authorities in, setting up proper research methods and models would reflect well upon us. What are the views of your company?' And how much would:it be prepared to pay?' And what do we want to know? There are many more questions here:

- 4' - (iv) The "CANCER" warning. One view expresse& to me recently on the 'phone by a member of our Working Group was that, even if the "cancer" warning was insisted! upon, we could live with it and continue selling cigarettes, particularly as 90°p of the Arabs could not read it anyhow; but that we could'not live with the 1 mg of nicotine as his company could not manufacture such products, large-scale, ini the short term. Frankly, I d'o not think we could live with either restriction, but having dealt with the 1 mg of nicotine above, let me now please comment on the warning, reference to which is made in Minute 6 of 23rd July meeting. Will you accept it? If not,, what will you do? Will you stop supplies? Will the other companies d'o the same? Would you trust them to stop if they sai&so? If not, how can you "secure" their official agreement? Please be sure of your company's official and legal stance on this most important matter, as there can be NO CONFUSION about what each company wants an& is prepared to permit someone else to say on its behalf, or on behalf of the total industry. My sincere apologies for the length of this epistle - I just hope it will all be worth while. I look forward to hearing,from you on or by the 22nd August, and to seeing you on the 27th, when Galla_her will be hosting us at a venue to be announced by themo. , .