Old tricks from tobacco industry

PUBLIC health campaigners long ago discovered that you can’t trust any “research” produced by the tobacco industry. Your report (“Illegal cigarette sales increased by almost half in last year”, News, 18 November) indicates that they are up to their old tricks.

The tobacco industry opposes every attempt to tax or regulate its product, usually by scaremongering about the counterfeit market. Proper researchers would admit their claims are contradicted by figures from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which showed a decline in illegal tobacco last year. Proper researchers would seek to understand and explain why HMRC officials have reported counterfeit tobacco to be in decline for the last decade.

Japan Tobacco International (maker of Benson and Hedges) sells a product that contains at least 250 toxic chemicals and kills half of its long-term customers, so Scotland on Sunday readers should be wary when a JTI spokesman adopts a concerned tone to warn us over counterfeit tobacco because it “can carry harmful toxins” and “be very dangerous”.

Sheila Duffy, Chief Executive, 
ASH Scotland