Uruguay launches tobacco crackdown

[Judi Lynn]

Uruguay launches tobacco crackdown
July 30, 2014 - 1:35:17 am


MONTEVIDEO: During the two decades Daniel Gomez spent in the cigarette business at Philip Morris in Uruguay, he never imagined he would one day be promoting and enforcing anti-tobacco laws.

But when the tobacco giant pulled out of Uruguay amid a dispute over a strict smoking crackdown, Gomez and seven coworkers reinvented themselves as anti-tobacco police, joining a government program that sends them around the country to monitor compliance with the new measures.

“It’s unusual, but we were left without work from one day to the next, on the street, and it was hard to reinsert ourselves into the labor market,” said Gomez, who spent most of his career in cigarette quality control.

“It completely changed our lives,” he told AFP.

Their group is called the “October 21 Cooperative,” named for the day in 2011 that Philip Morris International shut its Uruguayan factory, complaining that anti-tobacco rules and black-market cigarettes were putting it out of business.

More:
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/news/international/293593/uruguay-launches-tobacco-crackdown

[randys1]

1. In a weird way reminds me of the new HBO show "The Leftovers"

for some unexplained reason this group within the story line all chain smoke as a statement...

very weird...

smoking, dont get me started, by the way if you smoke menthols you must quit, you are asking for it

[Judi Lynn]

2. What ex-smoker would ever want to relive those days in his/her life

when discovering at the end of a long night, he/she'd smoked far more than anyone would feel safe smoking?

Seeing a coated tongue in the mirror? OMG.

What great smoking memories does anyone have? Coughing until you nearly pass out?

Menthols! What a mean trick! Everyone should just stop smoking immediately!

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