Author: Staff Writer

Only five per cent of Irish smokers wrongly believes that a light color on a pack of cigarettes signals that the contents are less hazardous than are those in darker-colored packs.

The same proportion of Irish smokers believes that slim cigarettes are less hazardous than are traditional-sized cigarettes.

These figures, reported by the Irish Independent, were produced as part of an EU-wide survey.

The Eurobarometer on the Attitudes of Europeans towards Tobacco interviewed about 1,000 smokers inIreland.

Irish smokers light up an average of 15.7 cigarettes every day, 0.3 per cent down on the average recorded during a survey carried out in 2009.

Malawi’s Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) has said that about 80 per cent of tobacco growers will be moving to contract farming for the 2012-13 production season.

TCC’s CEO, Bruce Munthali, apparently told The Daily Times that the move was aimed at controlling tobacco production and trying to minimize the overproduction that had a negative effect on prices.

Eighty percent of farmers were going to be producing according to the IPS [Integrated Tobacco System], which acted as a production control measure in respect of quantity and quality.

Under the IPS, growers sign contracts with tobacco buyers who supply them with farm inputs and improved technologies for their tobacco production, in addition to linking them up with financial institutions.

“With IPS, growers would know the quantities needed by contracting companies plus the price they will be paid per kilogramme before venturing into production,” said Munthali.

Los Angeles-based Safecig and the Seminole Tribe of Florida Inc. yesterday launched Seminole Unconquered, which is said to be the first private label brand of electronic cigarette and cigar products.

The products will be sold in Seminole Smoke Shops, at Seminole & Hard Rock Casinos, and online.

The launch of the Seminole electronic vaping products has been timed to coincide with the midyear conference of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), which is being staged now, September 18 and 19, at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino,Hollywood.

Seminole electronic cigarettes in five flavors are being made available in brightly-colored packs that feature a stylized image of a Seminole Indian poling a dugout canoe across still water. The five flavors are Classic, Menthol, Traditional, Columbian andTrinidad. Each pack will contain three disposable electronic cigarettes, which are said to be equivalent to nearly three packs of traditional cigarettes.

Seminole Unconquered Cigars are being made available in three cigar flavors and are packaged in either a cigar tube or in a collector’s box including a cigar tube, and come with interchangeable mouthpieces and ash tips. The three flavors are Chairman™, President™ and Representative™.  Each cigar is said to be the equivalent of 10 tobacco cigars.

In conjunction with this new private label partnership, Safecig will be showing its new Aurora™ line of disposable electronic cigarettes and cigars in partnership with Seminole. These are said to be ‘incredibly lightweight’ and to offer about 120 puffs; or almost a full pack of tobacco cigarettes. The disposable cigars offer nearly 1,000 puffs each.

Aurora electronic cigarettes come in singles and three-packs, and the cigars come in singles or a box set.

Filtrona Filter Products has appointed Patrick Meredith (pictured) as its innovations director, based inSingapore.

Prior to his new role, Meredith was Filtrona Filters’ director of program management, having originally joined the company in 2003 as engineering project manager at the Filtrona Technology Centre atJarrow,UK.

Before joining Filtrona Filters, Meredith worked in construction as a design engineer, and in the automotive industry where he spent five years as a project engineer on capital investment projects around the world.

Meredith holds a BEng (Hons) in materials science and engineering from theUniversityofBathand a master’s degree in business administration, and is a chartered engineer.

“Innovation is absolutely key to providing a sustainable future, so I will be dedicated to maintaining a continuous flow of products that are both consumer relevant and provide value to both our customers and to Filtrona Filters,” Meredith said.

“The business challenges facing the industry also provide Filtrona Filters with some great opportunities, so I see exciting times ahead!”

Imperial Tobacco has won recognition for its management of social, environmental and economic issues, and gained top marks for its efforts to combat illicit trade.

Sustainability Asset Management (SAM), an independent organisation providing guidance for investors on behalf of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, rated Imperial highly for its approach to a number of key areas and risks.

‘We achieved a score of 76 per cent from SAM – higher than the 67 per cent average for the tobacco sector and five points higher than our rating last year,’ said Imperial in a note posted on its website.

‘We were commended for our performance in tackling illicit trade, environmental management, as well as our participation in our responsible sourcing programme.’

“I am absolutely delighted,” said Kirsty Mann, senior CR engagement manager.

“This is our best ever score and I want to thank our employees for this shared achievement.

“Our rating reflects the collective effort of people across the Group, who contribute to our responsible performance – whether it is through improvement projects, one-off activities or diligently reporting information to assist performance management.”

The New Zealand Health Ministry has been criticized over its recent move to ban sales of the electronic cigarette brand Hydro on the grounds that such sales are in violation of the Medicines Act, according to a Scoop story relayed by the TMA.

End Smoking New Zealand chairman, Dr. Murray Laugesen, described the prohibition of non-medicinal nicotine as a “step too far”.

Laugesen said that the ban was against public interests as it would force hundreds of former smokers back to smoking regular cigarettes.

This would undermine the country’s goal of becoming smoke-free by 2025, he added, which required nearly 600,000 smokers to quit.

When the price of regular cigarettes rose again on January 1, 2013, to more than NZ$15 per pack, some would quit smoking, but many others would be willing to switch to a safer, less expensive product such as electronic cigarettes, which were effective because they replicated the smoking experience while providing the nicotine, Laugesen said.

Smokers faced a lifetime 50 per cent risk of premature mortality and were entitled to have access to whatever nicotine product would be most likely to help them quit.

“Nicotine products do not cause cancer or heart disease, unlike smoked tobacco products,” Laugesen said. “E-cigarettes, as they improve further, could become the deal breaker for a smoke-free nation.”

The Luoping County Tobacco Sub-company (LCTS) has been carrying out trials of a leaf tobacco curing barn that uses the burning of natural gas as its heat source, according to a Qujing Tobacco Monopoly Administration story relayed by Tobacco China Online.

LCTS, which is inQujing City,Yunnanprovince, imported the Spapperi barn fromItaly.

In trying to reduce manpower, cut costs, improve quality and raise efficiency in leaf tobacco production, LCTS has sought to automate production processes and has imported a number of machines from Italy that have included automatic harvesters and topping machines, and that now include the natural gas barn.

Malawi’s Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) has said that the number of tobacco-grower registrations indicated that production would be higher in the coming season than it was in the past season, according to a story in The Maravi Post.

Speaking yesterday, Dr. Bruce Munthali, head of the TCC, said the registration exercise had started on a good note.

He said that some local companies had already placed orders and that competition from international buyers was expected to be keener in the coming season.

The 2011-12 season ended on August 14 with 79 million kg of tobacco having been sold, well short of an earlier TCC estimate of 152 million kg.

Imperial Tobacco is due to issue a trading update on September 20.

The group’s financial year ends on September 30.

A little-known bone protein has shed some light on the development of cardiovascular disease in smokers, according to research by British American Tobacco in conjunction with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

BAT said in a press note that osteopontin might be useful in studies of the effects of modified cigarettes with reduced toxicant levels, though more research would be needed to validate this.

‘Exposure to cigarette smoke has been found to induce the expression of osteopontin in endothelial cells for the first time,’ the press note said. ‘Osteopontin is a component of bone and is involved in bone formation and calcification. Endothelial cells line the entire cardiovascular system and have a distinct function that is thought important to vascular health. The results of this study therefore could have important implications for our understanding of the role of smoking in cardiovascular disease.

‘Presently, there is poor understanding of the mechanisms underlying smokers’ increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. There is also uncertainty as to which of the many toxicants in tobacco smoke, either individually or in combination with others, are most important to the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases.

‘The results of this study indicate for the first time that the endothelium is a potential source of smoke-induced inflammatory osteopontin protein and this may play a role in cardiovascular diseases. The results are published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders.

‘The study, which was conducted in collaboration with scientists at R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, revealed that exposure of endothelial cells to cigarette smoke particulate matter induced the expression of osteopontin at both the gene and protein levels. The mechanism involved in this response seems to involve oxidative stress since it was diminished by pre-treating the cells with the antioxidant ascorbate.

‘The functional effects of osteopontin are determined not just by its expression but also by its cleavage by various enzymes into functionally diverse fragments. The matrix metalloproteinase family of enzymes, in particular MMP-3, is known to cleave osteopontin. Given this, the induction of expression of MMP-3 in endothelial cells exposed to cigarette smoke extract was examined and found to be enhanced in a dose-dependent manner following smoke exposure. The effect is not mediated by oxidative stress since it was ascorbate insensitive. This highlights the fact that oxidative stress may be differentially involved in the production of different osteopontin fragments which may have different functions.

‘To support these laboratory findings, the group conducted a study to evaluate the effects of short-term smoking cessation on osteopontin levels. Serum samples from smokers and people who quit smoking for 5 days were evaluated and osteopontin levels measured. The blood osteopontin levels in the people who temporarily quit smoking were significantly reduced compared to their levels prior to quitting, which is in accordance with the commonly-observed reduced degree of vascular inflammation seen in those who quit smoking. This strengthens support for the proposed role of osteopontin as a factor in smoking-related cardiovascular disease.

‘Osteopontin may therefore be useful as a new biomarker of biological effect that is responsive to smoking cessation even in the short-term and may find utility in studies of the effects of modified cigarettes with reduced toxicant levels, though more research would be needed to validate this.

‘Dr. Ian Fearon, study lead at British American Tobacco, said: ‘This study provides an important advance in our knowledge of how cigarette smoking affects smoker’s blood vessels and can cause heart disease. The results suggest that osteopontin may be a useful biomarker of biological event and a potentially useful tool in the biological assessment of tobacco smoke and the development and assessment of less harmful tobacco products.’