
Giovanni Carucci
An interesting piece of news, sent out by press agencies and promptly reported by newspapers, is travelling around the peninsula and the islands: British American Tobacco is going to buy twenty million euro's worth of Italian tobacco a year for the next two years.
The announcement was made by the vice president of BAT Italia, Giovanni Carucci, during the Confagricoltura Forum of Taormina, where, if we can believe the newspapers, this man of Big Tobacco seems to have been the absolute protagonist of the event.
Why all the excitement about the purchase of a modest quantity of tobacco, paid at market prices? Twenty million euro corresponds to about 3% of BAT’s turnover in Italy and less than 4% of the Italian tobacco cultivation; in the tobacco market it is only a bit of change. Why is everyone licking the ass of the multinational, and why is no one doing anything for the workers of the production plants that BAT closed, like those in Lecce and in Bologna, whose workers are still in the middle of the street because the company is not keeping its promises? Read more »
English
Français
Italiano
Русский
Español 
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE FROM OCCUPIED YESMOKE!
“An increase in fiscal pressure would push consumers towards the illegal market, because only a policy of gradual increases of the list prices and the capillary distribution system have enabled us to keep smuggling under control”. These are the words of the undersecretary of the Economy Alberto Giorgetti, speaking at the round table «Verso una regolamentazione bilanciata del settore tabacco» (Towards a Balanced Regulation of the Tobacco Sector) held on last October 13th. The meeting was promoted by the Industry, Commerce and Tourist Commission of the Senate, and funded, it is worth noting, by the “friends” of British American Tobacco.

Winston Churchill used to say: “If two people are smoking under a NO SMOKING sign, you fine them; if twenty people are smoking under a NO SMOKING sign, you ask them to move on; if two hundred people are smoking under a NO SMOKING sign, you remove the sign”.