Author: Staff Writer

Higher Revenues, Lower Volumes for PMI

Photo: PMI
Philip Morris International (PMI) reported net revenues of $7.59 billion in the first quarter of 2021, up from $7.15 billion in the comparable 2020 quarter. Operating income was $3.44 billion compared with $2.79 billion in the prior year period. Adjusted operating income amounted to $3.49 billion, up 25.2 percent from the 2020 quarter. PMI reported an adjusted operating income margin of 46 percent in the first quarter of 2021.
The company shipped 167.25 billion cigarettes and heated-tobacco units in the first quarter of 2021, down 3.7 percent from the volume shipped in the first quarter of 2021. Heated-tobacco unit shipments increased 29.9 percent to 21.73 billion from quarter to quarter, while cigarette shipments declined 7.3 percent to 145.51 billion between the reporting periods.

We are pleased to have delivered a very strong start to the year, with top- and bottom-line results coming in well ahead of our expectations.
Andre Calantzopoulos, CEO, PMI
“We are pleased to have delivered a very strong start to the year, with top- and bottom-line results coming in well ahead of our expectations for the first quarter despite the ongoing challenges of the pandemic,” said PMI CEO Andre Calantzopoulos in a statement.
“This performance was driven by the continued strength of IQOS, in particular, reflecting excellent user, volume and market share momentum as well as further progress with manufacturing and operating cost efficiencies. Our results also benefited from the timing of specific factors, notably associated with shipments in certain markets and the phasing of commercial investments, which are expected to partially reverse in the second quarter.”
“While the speed and shape of the global recovery from the pandemic remains uncertain, we are raising our full-year outlook, on an underlying basis, to reflect the strong results and positive momentum of the first quarter. Our guidance now represents organic adjusted diluted EPS growth of 11 percent to 13 percent, reflecting net revenue growth of 5 percent to 7 percent on the same basis.”
April 20, 2021
‘Asia Blocking Solutions to Tobacco Crisis’

Photo: Paop | Dreamstime.com
Knowledge-Action-Change (KAC), a company dedicated to the promotion of tobacco harm reduction (THR) to improve health, has published Tobacco Harm Reduction: A Burning Issue for Asia.
THR allows people to quit smoking or using oral smokeless tobacco by switching to safer nicotine products. Compared to smoking or smokeless tobacco, vaping devices, heated-tobacco products (HTP) and pasteurized oral products enable people to continue using nicotine at a fraction of the risk, according to KAC. The new briefing shows that Asia has been at the forefront of several key THR successes. The first vaping device was developed by a Chinese scientist. In Japan, cigarette sales have slumped by 32 percent since the introduction of HTP.
Yet many governments in Asia have limited or prohibited people’s access to safer nicotine products while deadly cigarettes and oral smokeless tobacco remain freely on sale. Tobacco Harm Reduction: A Burning Issue for Asia explores the obstacles to THR in the region, including the role of significant state involvement or ownership of tobacco companies, the misinformation campaign against safer nicotine products from apparently credible international agencies and the influence of U.S.-led philanthropic funding on domestic policymaking around tobacco and nicotine.

The report reveals the huge disparity between the number of smokers in Asia at 743 million and the number who have switched to vaping. Research carried out for the report estimates there are 19 million people using vaping products in Asia in 2021—meaning there are 39 smokers for every vaper in the region. They authors argue tobacco harm reduction must be scaled up—and fast.

Tobacco harm reduction is truly a burning issue for Asia. Many of Asia’s millions of smoking-related deaths are preventable—if only consumers had access to safer nicotine products.
Harry Shapiro, author, Tobacco Harm Reduction: A Burning Issue for Asia
“Tobacco harm reduction is truly a burning issue for Asia. Many of Asia’s millions of smoking-related deaths are preventable—if only consumers had access to safer nicotine products. Unfortunately, the failing WHO FCTC and a barrage of misinformation and anti-THR propaganda is getting in the way of public health progress in the region,” said report author Harry Shapiro ahead of the launch.
Tobacco Harm Reduction: A Burning Issue for Asia is part of KAC’s Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction, a project established to map the development of tobacco harm reduction and the use, availability and regulatory responses to safer nicotine products around the world. The project was produced with the help of a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.
April 19, 2021
Vape Group to Protest German Tax Plans

Photo: Nikolaus Bader from Pixabay
Germany’s planned e-cigarette tax is a health policy disaster that will destroy jobs and boost black market sales without generating significant additional revenues, according to the country’s e-cigarette trade association VdeH.
Under the plans, e-liquids will attract a tax of €4 per 10 mL bottle from July 1, 2022. On Jan. 1, 2024, the tax will increase to €8 plus VAT, i.e., €9.52 per 10 mL bottle. Based on an average sales price of about €5 per bottle, this amounts to a tripling of the retail price, says VdeH.
On April 21, the VdeH plans to protest the plans by projecting statements from scientists and consumers supporting its position on a 20 x 35 meter “hydro shield” at the Reichstag waterfront in Berlin.
“The planned excessive taxation means that the 95 percent less harmful e-cigarette will soon be more expensive than conventional cigarettes,” says Michal Dobrajc, managing chairman of the VdeH, in a press note. “With 11 million smokers still in Germany, the e-cigarette is the greatest health policy opportunity we have—we must use it. The planned tax would have exactly the opposite effect.”
The tax plans, which fail to consider the expected market slump of 50 percent when calculating tax revenue, would take the level of vapor product taxation in Germany to five times the EU average, according to the VdeH.
The law would not only shift consumption back to more harmful tobacco cigarettes but also sacrifice the entire industry to the black market, the trade group cautions.
April 19, 2021
New Tobacco-Based Vaccine Candidate

Photo: torstensimon from Pixabay
Akdeniz University in Turkey has developed an anti-Covid-19 drug and vaccine candidate using a protein produced by the tobacco plant Nicotiana Benthamiana, reports Hurriyet Daily News.
The product is based on an angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), an enzyme attached to the human body’s cell membranes in the lungs, arteries, heart, kidney and intestines. The Covid-19 virus blocks ACE2, which leads to significant health problems.
“With the transient plant expression system, we have achieved a high rate of production of this enzyme,” said Tarlan Mammedov, a member of the university’s faculty of agriculture and a member of the vaccine science board of the Biotechnology Institute of the Presidency of the Turkish Institutes of Health.
The treatment can be applied as an injection and as a spray, according to Mammedov.
Akdeniz University tested its vaccine candidates on mice with live viruses and found a high level of inhibition of the live virus from entering the cell.
It is now seeking funding to conduct clinical trials with humans. Mammedov said the drug could be released within four months.
Akdeniz University is not the first institution to use tobacco for vaccine development. Other tobacco-based Covid-19 vaccine candidates are being developed by British American Tobacco, Medicago and Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
April 19, 2021
KT&G to Convert to Eco-Friendly Vehicles

Minister of Environment Han Jeong-ae (left) and KT&G Vice President Bang Gyeong-man during the Korean Pollution-Free Conversion 100 ceremony at The Plaza Hotel in Seoul (Photo: KT&G)
KT&G plans to convert a total of 1,200 business vehicles into eco-friendly vehicles by 2030.
KT&G participated in the 2nd Declaration Ceremony for Korean-style Electric Vehicle Conversion 100 (K-EV100), held at The Plaza Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul on April 14.
The K-EV100 project is led by the Ministry of Environment, which has publicly declared that vehicles owned or leased by private companies will be converted to 100 percent pollution-free vehicles by 2030.
Converting all of the company’s current business vehicles into eco-friendly vehicles by 2030 is predicted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 20,000 tons.
“This K-EV100 declaration is a part of KT&G’s sustainability agenda, and we will endeavor to become a global leading company in ESG through systematic and advanced ESG management,” a KT&G official said in a statement.
April 19, 2021
Call For Probe Into Security Contract
Image: Kurious from Pixabay
Jeorge Wilson Kingson, chairman of the Media Alliance in Tobacco Control and Health, has called for a probe into circumstances that led to the suspension of a contract between the government of Ghana and the U.K. security printing firm De La Rue, reports Modern Ghana.
In September 2020, the Ghana Revenue Authority signed a five-year contract with De La Rue to create a track-and-trace excise tax stamp system to combat the growing illicit trade in cigarettes
However, the deal was suspended after it became clear that De La Rue outsourced the contract to Atos, an IT company with links to the tobacco industry.
The World Health Organization requires providers of anti-illicit trade systems to be independent of the tobacco industry, suggesting the sector is complicit in smuggling its own products.
Despite the outcry at the time about the tobacco links, the government and other agencies have gone silent on the issue. Kingson says this makes it look as if the issue has been swept under the carpet.
April 19, 2021
Bidi Vapor Expands Internationally
Bidi Vapor successfully completed the regulatory process to enter seven additional international markets, bringing the total of new international countries open for distribution to 11.
These new international markets include Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and the Czech Republic. Previously, on March 31, 2021, Kaival Brands announced that Bidi Vapor obtained market authorization for four countries: Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the United Kingdom.
“We are very excited about pursuing our international opportunities,” said Niraj Patel, CEO of Kaival Brands, in a statement, noting how the countries posed both challenges and opportunities that the company is ready to take on.
Kaival Brands is the exclusive distributor for Bidi Vapor’s primary offering, the Bidi Stick, which is the subject of a premarket tobacco product application now under review with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
April 19, 2021
Half-Day Tobacco Harm Reduction Conference
The GTNF Trust will present a special half-day virtual conference on April 27, titled In Focus: Tobacco Harm Reduction, to help participants evaluate the science on tobacco harm reduction products and address the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
The conference comes at a critical time. This year, the World Health Organization will host its Conference of the Parties for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Meanwhile, the EU is pressing ahead with its newly launched Beating Cancer Plan and drafting the next Tobacco Products Directive.
Panelist in the In Focus: Tobacco Harm Reduction conference include:
David Abrams, professor in the department of social and behavioral sciences at New York University;
Mark Kehaya, chairman of AMV Holdings;
Maria Gogova, vice president and chief scientific officer at Altria Client Services;
Karl Fagerstrom, president of Fagerstrom Consulting;
Delon Human, president of Health Diplomats;
Jasjit S. Ahluwalia, professor of behavioral and social sciences and professor of medicine at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, Brown University School of Public Health and Alpert School of Medicine;
Riccardo Polosa, full professor of internal medicine at the University of Catania and founder of the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction;
James Murphy, executive vice president of R&D and scientific and regulatory affairs at Reynolds American; and
Roxana Weil, senior director of product integrity and toxicology at Juul Labs.
For more information and registration, please visit infocusthr.org.
April 19, 2021
Estonia Suspends E-Liquid Taxation

Photo: Makalu from Pixabay
Estonia’s parliament recently voted to suspend the nation’s excise tax on e-liquid between April 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2022, to reduce cross-border and illicit trade. The Estonian excise duty on e-liquid has been €0.2 ($0.24) per mL since 2018.
“Suspending the collection of excise duty will make it possible to lower the price of e-liquids and thus offer consumers controlled and safe products at a lower price,” said Tarmo Kruusimae, parliament member and chairman of the parliament’s Smoke Free Estonia Support Group.
“It has the potential to become a success story if we manage to reduce both the illicit trade and cross-border trade and at the same time offer less harmful alternatives to cigarettes at a more competitive price.”
The group estimates that about 62 percent to 80 percent of the Estonian e-liquid market comprises self-mixed, cross-border and smuggled e-liquids primarily from Latvia and Russia. The e-liquid black market strengthened in 2019 when Estonia implemented a tobacco and vapor product flavor ban.
Tobacco harm reduction advocates welcomed Estonia’s decision. “Estonia’s example with over-taxation of e-liquids should definitely be an educational experience for other countries,” said Ingmar Kurg, CEO of NNA Smoke Free Estonia and a member of the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations, in a statement.
“If laboratory-tested and legal products are made too expensive for consumers, they will look for solutions in the black market, self-mixing and cross-border trade. Some people give up e-cigarettes and return to smoking, which happened in Estonia.”
April 16, 2021
Radical Plan to Achieve Smoke-Free Society

Photo: Muhammadsainudin Sa-i | Dreamstime.com
The government of New Zealand wants to ban cigarette filters, reduce product nicotine levels, minimize the number of tobacco outlets and outlaw tobacco sales to new smokers, reports Stuff.
Released to the public in a discussion document on April 16, the proposals are intended to help New Zealand achieve its ambition of being smoke-free by 2025.
“About 4,500 New Zealanders die every year from tobacco, and we need to make accelerated progress to be able to reach that goal,” said Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall. “Business as usual without [a] tobacco control program won’t get us there,” she said.
One of the proposed measures entails a ban on the sale of tobacco to people younger than 18 from 2022, meaning anyone born after 2004 would be unable to buy tobacco.
Another proposal calls for limiting tobacco sales to pharmacies and designated stores. Currently, there are no restrictions on where tobacco can be sold in New Zealand. At least 80 percent of it is sold through convenience stores, service stations, on-licensed premises and supermarkets.
I’m sick and tired of this government trying to socially engineer us into changing our behavior.
Karen Chhour, ACT Party
Other proposed measures include setting a minimum price for tobacco, licensing all tobacco and vaping retailers and reducing nicotine in tobacco products to “low levels.”
The prospect of limiting the amount of nicotine in tobacco would require input from tobacco companies and “whether that’s a sort of product that they think could be offered commercially.”
“Some tobacco companies have said that they support a smoke-free goal and are putting their efforts on vapes, and I hope that they will see this as a positive development,” said Verrall.
Health advocates applauded the proposals. Boyd Swinburn, chairman of advocacy group Health Coalition Aotearoa, said the recommendations were likely “game-ending” for tobacco.
“There is clear evidence that restricting retail availability is a central strategy for reducing the damage from all harmful products,” he said.
“Several options to achieve this are outlined in the government’s proposals, and we need to ensure that there is a just transition for small business owners, like dairies, to exit tobacco retail.”
Others were less enthusiastic, saying the measure would boost illicit trade. ACT Party social development spokeswoman Karen Chhour said the proposed measures would mean smokers who are less able to afford their habits would end up spending more.
“As a former smoker, I have to say I’m sick and tired of this government trying to socially engineer us into changing our behavior,” she said.
“There’s a strong argument, too, that this will drive up the trade of black market tobacco with high nicotine, driving those addicted to cigarettes to turn to crime to feed their habit.”
22nd Century Group, a U.S. company specializing in very low nicotine content tobacco, welcomed New Zealand’s proposals, saying it is fully prepared to support the country in its efforts to become a smoke-free nation by 2025.
“New Zealand has made great progress since announcing their goal of becoming smoke-free by 2025, but in order for the country to finally achieve success, it is imperative that the amount of nicotine in cigarettes is reduced 95 percent to ‘minimal levels,’” said James A. Mish, chief executive officer of 22nd Century Group, in a statement.
22nd Century said it initially engaged with public health researchers in New Zealand in 2016 when the country announced its goal of becoming smoke-free, leading the New Zealand Medical Journal to publish a letter recommending 22nd Century’s reduced nicotine content cigarettes as an “important smoking reduction tool.”
New Zealand has played a key role in past smoking reduction initiatives that have eventually been adopted globally. Other countries, including Australia and Canada, as well as the World Health Organization are expected to call for lower nicotine levels too.
April 16, 2021