Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Marlboro Guide

Indonesia is to start selling clove flavoured
marlboro cigarettes. The largest local cigarette producer, Sampoerna is connected to marlboro and the new cigarettes will go on sale starting July 9th.

Cloves are one of the spices that first drew Europeans to the ‘Spice Islands’ (the Mulukus in eastern Indonesia) back in the 14th Century. Other spices include mace and nutmeg, for which the only source were Arab traders, eager to protect the identity of their source. Kreteks (clove cigarettes) smell a bit like incense, rather than the toxic waste that normal cigarette emit. They are however still bad for you.

Industry analysts say Indonesians want a local taste with an international brand. Still cigarettes are cheap over here at 9,000rp per pack of 20 for Marlboro Lights. I know expats who smoke continually all day, loving the cheap prices.

marlboro clove cigarettes are something you might pick up for a smoker friend as an oleh oleh (gift) from Bali.

Marlboro Fun

Not too long ago, I highlighted in a Health Politics program the fact that China was the No. 1 producer of cigarettes in the world, in part because they had an interest in profiting (at least short term) from meeting the demands of the largest cigarette market in the world -- China itself.

Well, now, China is buying the rights to one of the most famous U.S. brands, Marlboro. Marlboro’s parent company, Philip Morris, a subsidiary of Altria, is happy to sell to the state-owned monopoly, the China National Tobacco Corp., to produce and distribute Marlboro cigarettes in China.

Marlboro is the largest cigarette brand on Earth, controlling about 8% of the total cigarette market share. Now Marlboro has a solid entre'e to some 320 million additional smokers who drew down some 1.8 trillion cigarettes just last year.

But if you think the Marlboro man will cross the border and stay put, listen to this. Currently one-third of all cigarettes smoked in the world are made in China, and as part of this new deal, a 50-50 joint venture between Altria and China National Tobacco has been established in Switzerland to expand marketing and distribution of Chinese cigarettes abroad.

Just when you thought bad policy couldn't get worse, traditional global foes unite around strategies to advance death and disability.

Marlboro

Lovell's abilities became clear to Clinton in the seven years she worked with her. "Through the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, of which I was the Honorary Chair and she the Executive Director, and through her direction of the national programs of the White House Millennium Council, I know well Ellen's many qualities as a leader," Clinton wrote in a recent statement. "I have no doubt that Ellen's leadership, intellect, and ability to engage a wide range of people—from youth to those at the highest levels of government—will make a significant contribution to marlboro College and its future."

With the end of the Clinton administration came the end of McCulloch-Lovell's White House appointments, and she moved on to become the first director of the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress and the president of the Center for Arts and Culture, both subjects dear to her heart. The Veterans History Project records the first-hand accounts of veterans and civilians of American wars from World War I through the Persian Gulf wars. The Center for Arts and Culture, McCulloch-Lovell explains, "is a think tank where public policies that have an impact on cultural life can be examined. In addition, it brings a greater variety of cultural voices into the policy debate."

Lovell sees the Center's mission of bringing the cultural community into public policy overlapping with that of marlboro cigarettes College. "I think Marlboro is an important institution nationally, because of its emphasis on experiential learning and creativity and citizenship. Those are values that attracted me so deeply to marlboro, and they should really be held up as examples nationally.

"There's an exact parallel here with my work at the Center for Arts and Culture, because a lot of what I've been about has been helping people understand their power as citizens. And so the degree to which we have an educated citizenry—going back to Thomas Jefferson's famous quote—and the degree to which young people understand the policies that affect them, is the degree to which we are going to have a better democracy."