ASH releases “Tobacconomics” report

A new report from Action on Smoking and Health has said that companies trying to block new health regulations are also misleading shareholders. The report “Tobacconomics - How Big Tobacco uses dodgy data to ‘throw sand in the gears’ of global health policy,” alleges that shareholders at the Imperial Tobacco Annual General Meeting were repeatedly told that Ireland’s tobacco tax revenue had fallen by half a billion pounds – almost half – after Ireland banned tobacco displays in 2009 when official Irish Government statistics show that revenue actually increased by almost 50 million euros (£44.5m).