Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/550310
24 tobaccoasia TOBACCO PRODUCTS 产品新闻 legislations. The court's decision will mean that 85% of the surface of every cigarette pack sold in the country will be taken up by a graphic health warning. After the measure had been an- nounced, Philip Morris and more than 1,400 Thai retailers sued the government on the grounds that the new law was unconstitutional, which caused a temporarily suspension of the order. Currently, anti-smoking graphic warnings must cover 55% of each pack of cigarettes sold in Thailand, but the new regulation to increase the level of coverage to 85% was issued by the Public Health Ministry last year. Under the new legislation, tobacco manufacturers are required to remove all the old cigarette packages from the market, since they have graphical warnings that "only" cover 55% of their surface and replace them with the new packages. The ministry set a deadline for the new rules to go into effect on September 23. The ruling makes the warning color graphics displayed on cigarette packs the largest in the world. Opponents of the legislation have argued that such warning labels are ineffective. According to Action on Smoking and Health Foundation (ASH), by the year of 2011, there were some 13 million Thai smokers, an increase of 500,000 people since 2009, in spite of the large graphic warnings already covering more than half of each pack. Sri Lanka Bleak future for beedis Despite being the lowest-priced tobacco product in Sri Lanka, the beedi enjoys only a 3% share of the country's tobacco smokers with the other 97% preferring to smoke cigarettes. At LKR 2.00-3.50 (US$0.02-0.03), the beedi is much more affordable than cigarettes, which are priced at LKR 10-34, making the beedi more appealing among low-income groups, even more so among those who are aged 40 years or older (74%). Most beedi smokers have little to no education and mainly work daily wage labor jobs. On the other hand, cigarette smokers in Sri Lanka vary in demographics, spread across different age groups (15-24 years - 27.4%; 25-39 years - 34.2%; and 40 years or older - 43.3%) as well as economic and education conditions. As the number of beedi smokers dwindle, so do the production and sale of beedis, which are seen as a small- scale, home-based business that involves no promotion or advertising costs. Cigarette production and sale in Sri Lanka, however, are executed solely by Ceylon Tobacco Company (CTC), which is owned by British American Tobacco (BAT). BAT owns more than 92% of the shares of CTC.