TI JanFeb2016 • TPI Q1

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30 TOBACCO INTERNATIONAL JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016 releasing the relevant statistics. With that transparency, it seems Iran is suddenly making life easier, not only for foreign companies and imports, but for itself. Health Issues Puzzling for Westerners and welcome news for cigarette man- ufacturers is the fact that Iran is a country where the warnings of the harmful health effects of smoking tobacco are all water off a duck's back. The health issues with smoking are report- edly widely known in Iran where the people smoke like chim- neys regardless of health concerns (the same is true in other Muslim parts of the Middle East where a widespread belief in inshallah (God's will) and also in kismet (fate) usually gets the better of an abstract argument about health. Though the customary health concerns that increasing- ly put people off smoking in the West appear less off-put- ting in Iran, there is the exception of the government itself, which passed a law (2010) banning smokers from working for any government department, simply on account of their smoking habit. Smoking is also banned in all the usual public places–hotels, restaurants, tea houses, coffee bars and government buildings. Anyone applying for a government job in Iran should not expect to be appoint- ed if it is discovered that they are a closet smoker–and it would seem to follow that employees will lose their jobs if it is discovered that they smoke. In any case, efforts by the Iranian government are, by all accounts, not successfully deterring most Iranian smok- ers. According to Euromonitor International (EI), the usual health risks associated with smoking do not seem to provide the effective deterrent to smoking that they do elsewhere and the prospect of such risks is seemingly one more thing that Iranian smokers couldn't care less about. The attitude of Iranian smokers seems to be "bring it on, giz a cigarette." In fact, EI reports that smoking is on the increase in Iran, especially among young people and women, even though the health risks are well publicized by the media and government. Old Market, No New Concessions Iran's tobacco history goes back–way back. Take Iran's Tobacco Protest of 1890, where local merchants led by Iranian clerics organized a sweeping domestic tobacco boy- cott to protest Nasir al-Din Shah's sale of a major tobacco concession to a British national earlier that year. Although Iran's Tobacco Protest of 1890 is considered the first time in history when Iranians widely and successfully defied their shah, there were precedents. Leading up to that historic pro- test, many concessions to foreign interests had been granted by the financially desperate Qajar dynasty in the early 19 th Century after losses to both the British (1857) and Russian Empires (1813, 1828). In 1872, a large concession involving resources, communications, the rails and other critical in- frastructure created such tremendous opposition amongst Iranians that it compelled the shah to reverse it. This pre- dated the Tobacco Protest by almost 20 years and, in 1890, when the Iranian bazaaris couldn't compete with foreign in- terests under the conditions of the tobacco concession, their grassroots resistance prompted key Iranian clergy to issue both an edict and a fatwa to effect a stunningly successful tobacco boycott that nudged the shah to cancel the tobacco concession, which had since been sold to Imperial Tobacco. The Iranian Tobacco Protest was seen as having protected the sanctity of Iranian resources and markets, but it also ex- tended the legitimacy and broadened the role of the Iranian clergy's leadership, particularly in pushing back against for- eign influences. All of these elements were seen again 89 years later (albeit in entirely new circumstances) with the Iranian Please contact us! Curt Georgi GmbH & Co. KG Otto-Lilienthal-Str. 35-37, 71034 Böblingen / Germany Tel +49 7031 640101 | Fax +49 7031 640120 | Also Special Flavors: •e-cigarettes and the Vapor Industry •Hookah / Shisha The full range of tobacco flavourings since 1875 CURT GEORGI-Tobacco_BG15 11/25/14 11:21 AM Page 1 IRAN'S TOBACCO MARKET In Iran, where people smoke like chimneys, the attitude of the typical Iranian smoker today seems to be, "Bring it on, giz a cigarette..."

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