Author: Staff Writer

Feet to the Fire
Photo: Alexey Novikov |Dreamstime
Five questions for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as the treaty marks its 15th anniversary
By George Gay
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the entering into force of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), but I won’t be sending a card. I’m sure the parties to the FCTC will understand. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that it’s unwise, especially for somebody of my age, to make unnecessary trips to the shops and post office just now because, while the WHO had its eyes focused firmly on tobacco smoke, a colossal, deadly pandemic arrived on the doorstep, seemingly without very many people in the global health community noticing. Or, if they did notice it, perhaps they didn’t like to make a big deal of it straight away, presumably because they didn’t want to make a fuss and alarm people unnecessarily.
Nevertheless, I guess that the pandemic has put a bit of a damper on the FCTC’s anniversary celebrations, which kicked off on Feb. 27, two days after the WHO’s coronavirus timeline described the director-general of the organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as having “repeatedly called for ‘solidarity, not stigma’ to address Covid-19.” So at least one good can come out of this mess. We can assume, I suppose, that the WHO, which has spent 15 years using the FCTC to urge national governments to stigmatize smokers, has now realized that stigmatizing certain groups of people is discrimination at its most ugly and grossly unfair.
The elephant in the WHO’s smoke-filled rooms wasn’t even called a pandemic—such a nasty word—until March 11, but, about 10 months on, Covid-19 has been responsible for the premature deaths of more than a million people, huge social upheavals, domestic and international political rows, and catastrophic economic damage that is causing untold hardship, especially among the financially worse off. I believe the virus that causes Covid-19 is thought to have become endemic in some areas. Still, let’s not get into a blame game. After all, anybody can make a mistake.

Advertisement
Ruling out harm reduction
I have long found it difficult to understand why a global health organization would become obsessed with tobacco smoking, which is legal and a lifestyle choice for some perfectly respectable people, but seemingly be less bothered about devastating health threats that can sweep across national borders and that the person in the street has almost no defense against. Let’s not pretend that the current pandemic could not have been predicted and that it caught everybody by surprise.
I can be sure of two things, however. Nobody will be held to account for this mess, and the parties to the FCTC will continue to pat themselves on the back for “saving lives.” Of course, in reality, not one life has been saved in the physical sense. Some lives might have been extended but without the FCTC asking the people concerned whether they wanted to have their lives extended. The view of this point from Geneva will, after all, be different to that from, say, some of the world’s many war zones.
I have from time to time also wondered why the WHO feels compelled to stick it to smokers alone, and my curiosity was roused once again by a number of recent comments from respected members of the health community who have suggested the WHO has lost its way with tobacco. These comments suggest the WHO is ignoring what is currently the most promising tobacco harm reduction tools by, de facto, ruling out the use of innovative nicotine-delivery products produced by the tobacco and nicotine industries to transition cigarette smokers to far less risky habits.

Advertisement
Picking on smokers
So I decided it was time to take a fresh look at the FCTC treaty text, and I didn’t have to read far to find what probably is the answer to part of my query. The very first item in the preamble to the treaty says the parties to the convention are determined “to give priority to their right to protect public health.” It jumps out at you, doesn’t it? The words “their right.” What exactly do they mean by “their right”? Do they believe this right has been divinely bestowed and that their mission is to save lives at a spiritual level? It seems unlikely in this day and age, but you have to wonder when you observe some of their inquisitional-style tactics, such as putting smokers on the tax rack, geared up with the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which came into force in September 2018, despite the fact that, even now, it has only attracted the support of 58 parties out of the FCTC’s 181.
And how is it that the parties to the FCTC assume that their rights override the right of smokers to smoke? I would willingly concede that the parties to the FCTC, in so far that they represent governments, have an “obligation” to protect the public, which is part of the democratic contract between voters and governments, but I get nervous when rights are invoked. Obligations tend to make people set to work; rights tend to cause people to forget their obligations, mount their high horses and launch moral crusades. And let’s face it, you cannot mount a moral crusade against an invisible virus—you just look silly. If you want to mount a moral crusade, you need to do it with panache, and that needs an identifiable enemy. A windmill, perhaps, or better still, a smoker.
But even if the WHO needs an enemy it can point at, why did it pick on smokers and smokers alone? It was a conscious choice and one of which it is proud. One of the first sentences of the anniversary website proclaims that the FCTC is the only international treaty negotiated under the auspices of the WHO. There is, in other words, no treaty aimed at stigmatizing drinkers, polluters and the other groups of people involved in harmful activities that affect other people as well as themselves. This is odd to my way of thinking because it is becoming clear that pollution is causing far greater damage to people’s health than smoking, especially in the case of young people.

Advertisement
The questions
So what is the FCTC about? It’s difficult to say because it’s a shadowy organization that shuns publicity, save that contained in the controlled announcements it puts out. Attendance at its meetings is strictly controlled so that, I guess, everybody present is in agreement about stigmatizing smokers before these events get under way. And in such circumstances, the only way to find out about this organization is to conduct an “interview,” using a modified version of what I understand is the five-point questionnaire devised by the late Tony Benn for interrogating the powerful:
What rights do you, the FCTC, believe you have in respect of involving yourself in the lives of smokers?
From where did you get these rights?
In whose interests do you use these rights?
To whom are you accountable?
How do we get rid of you?
What worries me, in respect of the first question, is that the FCTC might be laboring under the misapprehension that ethics and rights are linked: that taking what it sees as an ethical, nose-in-the-air stance on tobacco smoking in itself confers on it the right to encourage regulations opposed to such smoking. This is nonsense. It is quite possible to be opposed to something ethically but be willing to uphold other people’s rights to avail themselves of that thing. I would imagine that just about every government in the world claims to be ethically opposed to tobacco smoking but nevertheless does not introduce legislation aimed at ending it anytime soon.
I cannot answer the second question because, as far as I am aware, there has been no divine intervention. And if that right was bestowed by some nondivine being, and given the fact that smoking is legal, you get into a circular argument about who gave that being the right to bestow such a right …
I know the answer to the third question, however. It is present and future generations. The anniversary website tells us, “The aim of the convention is to protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke.” This is all very noble, if one is willing to concede that the parties to the FCTC have the right to act in this way, but it still raises numerous questions. One is why is there no protection from alcohol consumption, which almost certainly is playing an indirect part in increasing the spread of Covid-19, and no protection from pollution? After all, there is no point acting to protect future generations from tobacco consumption and smoke if, because of pollution, climate change and environmental breakdown, there aren’t going to be many future generations as currently seems likely. Another is why is there no stigmatization of those who consume alcohol? Down at my local supermarket, I can choose from row upon row of alcoholic drinks, some of them flavored, but none of the bottles or cans that contain these drinks show graphic warnings stigmatizing drunks with pictures depicting them beating their partners to death, urinating in their pants or choking on their own vomit.
To whom is the FCTC accountable—or more pointedly, beholden? I guess it’s those who hold the purse strings, though it is clearly the case that they are not holding the organization to account. A better health outcome could be achieved by doing away with the FCTC’s meetings and giving the considerable amounts of money saved to the world’s poorest to spend as they see fit. This would have the added benefit of saving the environment from the considerable damage inflicted by flying representatives of the 181 parties to and from the meeting venues.
Finally, question five. How do we get rid of you? Simply by having governments, which best understand how their societies operate, take full control of their own tobacco policies. There is no need for a supranational body to oversee the demise of the tobacco industry. The industry is supplying the tools to do the job, and all that national governments have to do is aid that process by allowing sensible, truthful advertising of the new products and by keeping an eye on those products. If the WHO wants a role, it should concern itself with ensuring that tobacco growers, especially those in Africa, are given the tools to transition away from tobacco and into other, more lucrative operations.
And if the FCTC wants to maintain a role, it should change its ways by treating smokers as ends in themselves not as a means to an end.
George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.
November 1, 2020
The Irreconcilable Conflict Principle

Photo: Nataliia Shcherbyna – Dreamstime.com
The governing idea of tobacco control
By Clive Bates
Sometimes defining an iron rule or governing idea and reorganizing our understanding of the world around it can be immensely revealing. Einstein developed the special theory of relativity from an assumption that the speed of light in a vacuum is unwaveringly constant. The most surprising results follow from that. Darwin showed that a simple mechanism, variation and natural selection, could explain much of the astonishing complexity of the natural world. Governing ideas are found everywhere: supply, demand and prices in economics; innocent-until-proven-guilty in criminal justice; and mutually assured destruction in arms control are further examples.
So, is there a governing idea in tobacco policy? Something that shapes everything and means that the world is understood through rigorous application of that rule? I think there is, but it is playing an ever larger, more polarizing and counterproductive role. The starting point is Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Though often overstated, Article 5.3 is fairly innocuous:
In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.
When read as originally intended by the FCTC drafters in 2003, this aims, quite reasonably, to guard against the improper commercial influence of Big Tobacco on public health policy. There is nothing wrong with that. Many governments would quite happily apply the same principle to Big Oil in climate change policy or Big Pharma in healthcare policy. It is essentially an expression of good practice in policymaking.

Advertisement
But Article 5.3 didn’t stop there. In 2008, the concept was developed into Guidelines for the implementation of Article 5.3. Note the title—it does not suggest new treaty provisions are introduced but that the guidelines will implement the treaty as it is. However, the guidelines do more than this. Much more. They set out four guiding principles for Article 5.3, and the first of these is the most troubling:
Principle 1: There is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests.
Wow—that’s quite a statement. Let us refer to this as the “irreconcilable conflict principle.” First, it is qualitatively different from Article 5.3: It is a finding of fact rather than a principle that governs the process of policymaking. The finding is also permanent and inescapable—under this principle, no matter what the tobacco industry does or becomes, its actions will always be in conflict with public health. This is not merely expressed as a cautionary note from history, a lesson for which there is at least some supporting evidence. It is binding on the future and expressed as a permanent truth.
I think the irreconcilable conflict principle is the governing idea, the iron rule of tobacco control. I do not wish to imply that this emerged in 2008 or because of these guidelines. The direction of causation is the other way. This was coded into the guidelines because it is the governing idea of tobacco control. In agreeing to this at the urging of tobacco control activists, complacent or complicit bureaucrats greatly extended the reach of the FCTC, apparently without appreciating the potential negative consequences.

Advertisement
This means that anything that is in the interests of tobacco companies must, by definition, be bad for public health. It means nothing can be both in interests of public health and the tobacco industry. In the same way that Einstein assumed the speed of light was a constant and his understanding of the world was reshaped around that, so we see tobacco control reshaping its worldview around the irreconcilable conflict principle. The important difference is that Einstein was basically right, and his radical insight advanced human understanding. For tobacco control, this governing idea is wrong—at least some of the time and in several ways. Consider the following implications.
First, the irreconcilable conflict principle drives implausible explanatory theories. The experience of snus in Sweden clearly challenges the guiding principle: Widespread use of a tobacco product made by tobacco companies is responsible for Sweden’s unusually low smoking prevalence and with that, an unusually low level of cancer and heart disease in the male population. This alone should be enough to justify abandoning the principle. Yet Sweden’s public health establishment has been driven to find ever more desperately implausible reasons to explain the observed reality. These include absurd ideas about the role of Sweden’s generous paternity leave system and Sweden’s involvement in the Second World War. Tobacco control advocates have consistently opposed any lifting of the European Union ban on snus because to do so would be to violate their guiding idea, the irreconcilable conflict principle.
Second, the irreconcilable conflict principle is shifting the goals of tobacco control. With the rise of vaping, tobacco control objectives have steadily shifted from tackling the health consequences of smoking, something that can be eliminated with technology. Now they increasingly stress opposition to nicotine use itself, something that is intrinsic to the industry. In this way, the industry can always be at fault and the inviolability of the principle maintained.
Third, the irreconcilable conflict principle distorts science. If your iron rule is that nothing good ever comes from tobacco companies, then you are motivated to develop science demonstrating conflicts with public health. So, we see more scientists claiming that there is no difference in risk between smoking and vaping or that the data are so uncertain that nothing is or can be known about relative risk. Both are plainly wrong. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) show vaping is more effective for smoking cessation than nicotine-replacement therapy. After years of lamenting the paucity of vaping RCTs, tobacco control activists have pivoted to express doubts about their validity or redefined quitting smoking to mean quitting nicotine.

Advertisement
Fourth, the irreconcilable conflict principle has made mainstream tobacco controllers into enemies of innovation. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted the right to a tobacco company to claim that its heated-tobacco product was a reduced-risk product after concluding that it was appropriate for the protection of public health. A calamity: that would violate the irreconcilable conflict principle. Predictably, this triggered a backlash of denial and desperate arguments to show that the FDA was somehow mistaken and that there was no benefit to public health even though FDA was merely allowing a statement of the obvious to be made.
Fifth, the irreconcilable conflict principle has created a self-amplifying echo chamber in tobacco control. Suppose there are people in public health who do think that some of the things done by tobacco companies are positive. Under the guiding principle, how can that be unless such people have a conflict of interest or are in some way working to further the interests of Big Tobacco? We can see this in some of the extraordinary efforts that tobacco control fora have made to exclude these dissonant voices. That includes the hurdles to achieving observer status at the FCTC itself and attending major events like the World Conference on Tobacco or Health. This conference has eligibility criteria explicitly based on the irreconcilable conflict principle and contains a catch-all exclusion for anyone who “works to promote tobacco products, their sale or to limit their regulation.” What if you think (like me, for example) that it would be good for public health if smokers switched to snus or heated-tobacco products and that regulation should be proportionate to risk rather than “unlimited”? The aim is to define this norm-challenging perspective as pro-industry and therefore anti-health and thereby to keep it out of earshot. An Australian anti-tobacco activist has even proposed an “Article 5.3 for civil society,” in which “reinforcing Big Tobacco’s pariah status” would be the purpose.
Sixth, the irreconcilable conflict principle distorts rather than protects policymaking. Those who adhere to the principle cannot recommend policies that would encourage low-risk nicotine products at the expense of cigarettes as that would be to accept that they have a role in public health. So we see that tobacco control activists and many academics have adopted hostile regulatory paradigms for reduced-risk products: prohibition, pharmaceutical or equivalence to cigarettes. All are designed to reject the notion of any benefit from reduced-risk tobacco products. When Bloomberg Philanthropies recently advertised a new round of tobacco control grants, it stressed the “passage and implementation of Article 5.3” and linked this to Michael Bloomberg’s preferred MPOWER policy framework for tobacco control. Mr. Bloomberg is on record favoring vaping prohibition, and he sees no role for reduced-risk products. Perhaps public health policies now need to be protected from these vested interests?
There should be one guiding principle for tobacco control: to reduce harm to the greatest extent and as quickly as possible. The irreconcilable conflict principle is a relic of the past and fails a modern reality check. It is the reason why tobacco control activists may now be doing more harm than good.
Clive Bates is the director of Counterfactual Consulting and the former director of Action on Smoking and Health (U.K.).

November 1, 2020
Joining the Race

Suthira Taychakhoonavudh (left) and Waranyoo Phoolcharoen
Thailand is developing its own tobacco plant-based coronavirus vaccine.
By Stefanie Rossel
It’s been almost a year now since Covid-19 broke out, and the pandemic still rages around the world. The spread of the virus has set off a global race for a vaccine—consensus among experts is that only an effective inoculation will end the contagion. As of Sept. 28, 40 candidate vaccines were in clinical evaluation and 151 were in the preclinical trial phase, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
However, speed isn’t everything. Russia, which on Aug. 11 became the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, soon faced criticism by researchers who highlighted questionable data in the vaccine trial results. AstraZeneca and Oxford University temporarily put on hold clinical trials for their Covid-19 serum after a participant showed an adverse reaction. In the U.S., President Donald Trump has politicized coronavirus vaccine approvals, insisting a serum was likely to be approved by election day (Nov. 3), despite reservations expressed by regulatory bodies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
While the trials are still ongoing, the WHO, physicians and vaccine manufacturers have already begun to develop different scenarios for the distribution of a serum once it has been approved. A vaccine shortage is likely in the early stages, and the issue of fair sharing has yet to be resolved. Several high-income countries have already secured contracts with leading pharmaceutical and life science companies, putting lower income countries at risk of missing out on a coronavirus vaccine.
To avoid this scenario, Thailand is developing its own vaccine. The kingdom is keen to avoid a repeat of its 2009 experience when the swine flu hit Asia. Although a vaccine against the swine flu was ready within two months after the outbreak, and Thailand had worked out deals with overseas developers to buy 2 million doses, the goods arrived only after the pandemic had subsided. By the time it was over, the virus had infected more than 47,000 Thais and killed 347.

First of its kind
Although Thailand has been doing comparatively well in the Covid-19 crisis, with roughly 3,600 infections out of its 68 million population by the end of September, the country nevertheless wants to avoid depending on imports. In August, the Thai government gave thb1 billion ($31.6 million) to the National Vaccine Institute (NVI) to support development and production of vaccines against the coronavirus and other diseases. Compared to other nations, the sum is small—the U.S. federal government, for example, has invested more than $9 billion, spread among seven companies, in the development of a Covid-19 vaccine. But if one of Thailand’s vaccine candidates will be approved for human trials, it will be the first such anticoronavirus vaccine developed in Southeast Asia.
“Governmental funding in Thailand is quite limited,” explains Waranyoo Phoolcharoen, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacognosy and Pharmaceutical Botany of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and head of development for a Covid-19 vaccine candidate. “To date, most vaccines are imported. There is currently no facility to produce the vaccine entirely—from laboratory to manufacturing and human trial—in Thailand.”
Chulalongkorn University, which has two centers in vaccine research and development, has become the focus of present vaccine developments against the coronavirus in Thailand. One initiative has applied mRNA technology transferred from the U.S., and another is using tobacco plants to develop an inoculation.
Tobacco plants have proven their potential as an efficient biopharmaceutical producer of vaccines. It’s a road other contenders in the race for a cure have chosen as well, among them U.S.-based Kentucky BioProcessing, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco, and Medicago, a privately held Canadian biotech company in which Philip Morris International bought a stake in 2008.
Basically, the manufacturing process involves identification and reception of genetic sequences from a pandemic strain to produce a virus-like particle (VLP), or antigen. VLPs resemble a virus, allowing them to be recognized readily by the immune system, but they lack the core genetic material, making them noninfectious and unable to replicate. Before the genetic construct representing the protein of interest is inserted, plants are seeded, germinate and grow. They are then genetically modified with the VLP in a technique known as transient expression.
With this transformation, plants incubate for several days during which they are reproducing the target protein. At this point, they are harvested and crushed to create a green-juice slurry. This liquid passes through filtration processes and sophisticated purification techniques to produce a final product. The process, which employs Nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative of the tobacco type used for cigarette production, can deliver a vaccine for testing in less than a month after production of the VLP.
Using tobacco plant technology has several advantages over conventional vaccine production processes. It can reproduce the antigen consistently with high fidelity and allows for rapid production of scale within a short period of time. It is also potentially safer given the fact that tobacco plants can’t host pathogens that cause human disease. In contrast to conventional vaccines, which often require refrigeration, a tobacco plant-based formulation remains stable at room temperature, making it suitable for distribution in warmer climates.
For Thailand, using tobacco has the additional advantage that the country can rely on its own resources, says Phoolcharoen. According to The Bangkok Post, Thailand has 10,450 tobacco growers, of whom 15 have production capacity of more than 12,000 kg a year. “Although we use different species of the tobacco used for cigarette manufacture, people have approached us and want to grow tobacco for our vaccine. The cost for tobacco cultivation is very low in Thailand—farmers view it as a business opportunity. Although funding is limited, molecular pharming matches the country.”

Plant technology reproduces antigens with high fidelity and allows manufacturers to rapidly scale up production.
A chance for young researchers
For Phoolcharoen and her team, the Covid-19 vaccine project represents a unique opportunity. Eighteen months ago, she established Baiya Phytopharm, a biopharmaceutical startup, together with Suthira Taychakhoonavudh. The plant technology-based platform can produce biopharmaceutical products within weeks rather than months or years, which results in faster and lower cost research and development, Phoolcharoen points out. The team also worked on a cure for the hand-mouth-foot virus, which is widespread among infants in Thailand. The company also has products against rabies, cancer and the Ebola virus in the pipeline. With the advent of Covid-19, the platform shifted its focus and capacity completely to produce SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.
If approved by Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the company’s vaccine would be the first to be produced from the laboratory to clinical trials in the country, Phoolcharoen says. “The business environment in Thailand differs largely insofar that the big pharmaceutical players only have their marketing side in our country but not the R&D and manufacture. For graduates in Thailand’s pharma industry, this means that there are hardly any adequate jobs. As a consequence, there is a lot of brain drain among highly qualified young scientists.”
Baiya Phytopharm aims to promote the commercialization of biopharma research in Thailand. “With the startup, I wanted to create a workplace for my students,” explains Phoolcharoen. “The company is based on the campus. My partner, the CEO of Baiya Phytopharm, is also a faculty member in the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences [at] Chulalongkorn University. She is a pharmacoeconomist taking care of business models, marketing and fundraising. I am responsible for research and use the platform for my students to give them practical lessons and experience. The students are all employees of Baiya Phytopharm and use the company’s project as their theses. We have post-doctoral researchers, Ph.D., master and undergraduate students presently work on different variations of the Covid-19 vaccine. This way, the students learn about planning, marketing—and about being rushed. We hope that there will be more biopharma startups like us in Thailand. The ecosystem will build up the capacity in the country, and in the future, we will be able to develop drugs and vaccines in the region, for the region.”

Advertisement
Positive results
In March 2020, Baiya Phytopharm launched a Covid-19 test kit and started studying its vaccine candidates in mice. Further trials of the vaccine on monkeys in June showed promising results: All primates generated neutralizing antibodies, which means that the antibodies induced by the candidate vaccine can block the coronavirus from penetrating or damaging cells. Meanwhile, the company has started toxicology testing on rats and is preparing for the clinical trial phase, which it hopes to begin next year in June.
Much of the timing depends on finding the right facilities for the production process. “In order to be allowed for use in humans, the tobacco plants with the inserted Covid-19 proteins need to be purified; tobacco proteins have to be removed,” says Phoolcharoen. “There are only two facilities in Thailand which can be used, but they have never done any purification of proteins.”
Her company is in talks with the NVI to see if it is ready to collaborate in the purification process of the vaccine candidates. If so, the vaccine could be ready for human trials around the beginning of next year. Otherwise, a new plant would have to be built, delaying the process by about nine months. Once facilities are available, more than 10 million doses of the vaccine could be produced in one month. The aim is to offer an affordable vaccine, possibly also to other Southeast Asian countries.
So far, Baiya Phytopharm mostly used the co-founders’ money and the donation for a Covid-19 test kit for its vaccine research. However, the startup is raising funds to finance the phase I clinical trial and is hoping for private investors. “We will start with a crowdfunding campaign,” says Phoolcharoen. To her, the vaccine development is a long-term engagement. “We know that something like the Covid-19 outbreak is likely to happen again. So it makes sense to be prepared.”

Baiya Phytopharm employees are working on different variations of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.

November 1, 2020
Recon Revival

Photos: SWM and SAI
New applications are creating new opportunities for reconstituted leaf tobacco.
By Stefanie Rossel
While many industries are still suffering the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, the reconstituted tobacco leaf (RTL) sector has remained largely unaffected. RTL suppliers report positive developments and remain optimistic. Also known as homogenized tobacco or recon, RTL was developed by SWM International (SWM) in the 1950s to save the valuable raw material by combining remnants of virgin tobacco during production. Today RTL is used for a multitude of applications.
In addition to reducing the filling cost of various tobacco product blends and reducing waste, RTL plays a vital role in cigarette blend design. What’s more, a dedicated form of recon, custom-made from carefully blended tobacco leaves, is the essential component of the consumables used in tobacco-heated products (THP).
There are several ways to produce reconstituted tobacco. Next to SWM’s papermaking method, there is the nano fiber technology developed by Star Agritech International (SAI) and a process called band cast, which is also known as slurry-type recon. Each of these types can be used in THP consumables.
Bruno de Veyrac
Bruno de Veyrac, SWM’s new generation product (NGP) director, says the RTL industry has held its own in the current challenging business environment. “So far, the Covid-19 pandemic has not affected our customers’ recon demand,” he says. “On the contrary, demand remains very strong during this period. We haven’t faced any supply disruption on both product lines conventional and THP. We have had to be creative to keep all our development programs with customers on track. And the global travel restriction makes it challenging to maintain close contact with our customers as we work to develop new products and to promote our product portfolio. We are working on virtual events to overcome this situation and will be sharing details on these events in the coming weeks.”

Advertisement
SAI president and CEO Iqbal Lambat says that his company’s recon sales were impacted as many countries locked down. “This resulted in some of our client’s factories completely shutting down for three to four months. As a result, deliveries were delayed.”
Like de Veyrac, however, he remains optimistic. With global consumption of combustible cigarettes declining for years now, demand for recon was shrinking even before the pandemic. Currently, there is a discrepancy of about 50 percent between global RTL demand and capacity, which SWM estimates at 335,000 tons.
De Veyrac believes demand for recon will grow for several reasons. “First, apart from all multinationals and most tobacco monopolies, recon is not fully understood among small[-sized] and medium-sized companies. These companies represent 10 percent of global production. Second, the price of recon is cheaper than most tobaccos in the world. Having a ‘cheaper’ constituent in the blend with substitution rates of 10 [percent] to 20 percent and higher filling power than tobacco lamina drives better blend cost optimization. Third, with increasing legislation on lowering tar and nicotine levels worldwide, recon addition to the blend is one avenue to achieve this without compromising taste and draw.”
According to de Veyrac, recon can follow a different trajectory from cigarette sales as the inclusion rate can be adjusted upward or downward. “Thus it can offset or amplify the impact of the cigarette market attrition rate,” he explains. “This can vary from one customer to another and from one region to another. For the moment, we have been successful in mitigating the cigarette market attrition impact with our footprint in growing segments like cut rag and by promoting innovative products.”
De Veyrac cites SWM’s Nexfill as a success story. “This tobacco product was developed to deliver added value, such as an improved sensory experience, and allows blenders to substitute some tobacco strips thanks to advantages such as consistency, low degradability and immediate availability,” he says.

Since 2014, SWM has a joint venture with the China National Tobacco Corp.
Preparing for China
Meanwhile in China, the world’s largest market for combustible cigarettes with 350 million smokers, the excess RTL capacity versus demand remains unchanged, according to Steven Shu, general manager at SWM China. This is despite efforts in recent years to add a higher proportion of recon to cigarette blends, which traditionally have a rather low share of homogenized tobacco.
Steven Shu
Since 2014, SWM has a joint venture with the China National Tobacco Corp. (CNTC). “Functional, i.e., flavor sensory, RTL offers added value compared to cost-driven combustible cigarette blends,” Shu points out. “Therefore, the cost-driven RTL has higher share among low-end cigarette brands while the functional RTL has a higher share among medium-to-high-end brands. The key success factor in this market is the unique value offered for cigarette designing and processing. Indeed, the RTL product applications can be extended to cigarette peripheral applications such as cigarette paper, tipping paper and filter media. The commercialization and scale-up of THP products is a unique opportunity to boost overall RTL demand in China.”
Although China manufactures most of the world’s vapor hardware, domestic sales of next-generation products are comparatively small. “China has banned most electronic cigarette categories arguing that electronic cigarettes would take away market share from conventional cigarettes and progressively destroy the livelihoods of millions of farmers and workers employed by the tobacco sector,” Lambat explains. “There are some 30 million people engaged in the tobacco sector in China.”
For THP, no regulation has been implemented yet. According to Tobacco China Online, the CNTC is actively pursuing THPs. By March 2020, there were 852 open patents for THP and 56 patents for THP-related RTL, most of which were owned by the CNTC, the publication found.
“In the field of THP, China tobacco companies have made technological innovations and introduced various heating methods, such as chemical heating, infrared heating or other heating methods, to bypass Philip Morris International [PMI] IQOS’ heating method with a heating blade in order to reduce the possibility of intellectual property disputes with PMI,” says Lambat. “However, there are no THP products commercialized at present in China.”
Shu says that SWM is ready to supply the Chinese THP market as soon as it opens. “We have built a great expertise on THP papermaking recon over the past seven years, and we have the necessary assets to anticipate the THP market start in China. For the moment, CNTCs is conducting some market tests outside China with varied success. Product designs may evolve in the coming months, building on early consumer feedback and the challenging patent environment. Chinese authorities will most probably allow THP product sales in China only when they will be fully ready with the right products.”

Demand on the rise
China left aside, THP demand for RTL has increased remarkably in recent years, according to de Veyrac. “Over the last four years, we have managed to slow the erosion of recon papermaking in the conventional market, and it is now eroding less quickly than the conventional market. Indeed, papermaking recon sales for the THP market have been growing and now represent more than 20 percent of our recon sales. The THP market has shown some volatility, such as in Japan with the plateauing situation observed in 2018–2019, but hopefully the Japanese market is growing again. The launch of THP products in other markets, such as CIS and Europe, supports the global demand of THP papermaking recon, even if the growth rate is smaller than in Japan.”
The recon weight-per-stick on today’s THP consumable is eight times to 15 times that of the conventional cigarette, he explains. “A current THP stick contains 100 percent of recon as opposed to 5 percent to 15 percent in a conventional cigarette. So the growth of THP papermaking recon demand is much faster than the attrition of conventional recon demand.”
SAI selectively supplies recon to THP manufacturers, relates Lambat. “To be forthright, there is only one successful THP product in the world—IQOS,” he says. “There are many companies looking at the segment, but none have been remotely successful. Initially launched in 2014 in Nagoya, Japan, and Milan, Italy, IQOS is being gradually rolled out to other countries. As of October 2019, I have been informed that IQOS is available in 49 countries. However, I am equally informed that as much as 90 percent of all IQOS sales take place in a single country—Japan.”
Last year, SAI developed a THP device and tobacco sticks with its Chinese partner, Global Leaf. The design of the product, named XGen, however, was changed into a Juul-like vaping device in light of Juul’s promising development. “Our foray into XGen in the test market of South Africa has been highly successful apart from the lockdown—i.e., total smoking ban—period [of] April to August.”

SAI nanofiber supplied as cut rag
All eyes on IQOS
Many expect the U.S. to become the next major market for IQOS. Following premarket approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), PMI launched the product in select markets in 2019. In July 2020, the FDA granted PMI “exposure modification” orders for IQOS, allowing the company to tell consumers that the product releases fewer harmful chemicals than a combustible cigarette.
Initial growth has been slow and has likely been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to de Veyrac. PMI is vertically integrating for recon supply, he adds, so this is unlikely to impact the supply-demand balance. “However, the significant step of FDA recognition of IQOS as a ‘reduced exposure product’ is very positive for this segment,” he says.
Another development that might bring new opportunities for the RTL sector has not materialized yet. The FDA intends to restrict the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and other tobacco products to make them “minimally addictive.” To date, however, the agency has taken no action to achieve this goal. “Should this legislation pass, then the opportunity for recon will be significant in the USA as well as internationally as other countries follow a USA-copycat approach,” says Lambat.
“We believe that papermaking recon is a strategic tool for the reduction of tar in general and nicotine in particular,” de Veyrac explains. “The challenge will be to reduce the nicotine while maintaining an acceptable taste, but we can also consider blending some botanicals, which will deliver natural flavors without adding nicotine. We are working on this topic with cigarette manufacturers in this region. In parallel, our experience with THP helps as papermaking recon in this environment plays a central role for taste generation and nicotine regulation. Moreover, we have found that in this new field there is no limitation on the percentage of recon in a blend. It is very difficult to predict the impact on recon sales of this type of maximum nicotine rule as we do not know what thresholds will be set or where and when they will be applied. Nevertheless, we do not see a shortfall of capacity even in this region.”

Reconstituted tobacco leaf originally was developed by SWM International.
Opportunities ahead
SWM diversified from tobacco in 2013, complementing its traditional tobacco and paper business now part of its Engineered Papers unit, with a second business unit, Advanced Materials & Structures, which specializes in resin-based materials for a variety of industries and applications. RTL, however, continues to play an essential role.
De Veyrac believes that papermaking recon capacity will remain higher than demand for the foreseeable future. “I see this as a great opportunity for developing new recon utilization in various product lines,” he says. “THP is one, and we believe that new platforms will be launched in the near future which are not cigarette-like, and papermaking recon will remain the major active component to generate the aerosol and transfer the natural nicotine and taste contained in the original tobacco. We also see that papermaking recon is still attractive to conventional cigarettes and OTP products, such as shisha, RYO or snus. The change and volatility of some markets and the pressure on some crops due to geopolitical or weather effects provide some uncertainty on the balance between the tobacco supply and demand and give more incentive to balance risk on blend structure. Papermaking recon is a sustainable product with permanent availability and short lead-time delivery. In addition, the high control and standard of those next-generation products will be maintained and even reinforced. An industrial process such as papermaking will ensure that those standards are fully respected, which is critical for our customers.”
SWM has also used its expertise in the papermaking process to explore another promising business category: Through its LeafLAB botanical-based product platform, SWM produces hemp “recon,” a malleable sheet from hemp leaf and flower biomass that allows for custom-made blending (see “Recon Mission: Hemp,” page xx).
SAI has chosen a different road, diversifying within the field of tobacco. According to Lambat, the company is on its way to transform itself from being a trader to being a producer. It therefore has invested heavily in derivatives. Among other things, it runs two recon factories.
“In the past 12 months, we have had a full year of ownership and management of our nano fiber recon plant in Santa Cruz, Brazil,” says Lambat. “The Brazilian senior management team has further perfected the manufacturing line and increased the plant’s output by 25 percent through efficiency generated modifications. Our full capacity of 3,000 tons per annum is fully booked. This line produces both Virginia and American blend recon,” says Lambat.
SAI has created a team to focus on capacity expansion. “This will consist of establishing a brand-new nano fiber recon plant with a target capacity output of 6,000 tons per annum. This will be housed in a new, dedicated building in Santa Cruz and will bring together our leaf trading team under one roof. We expect the new Brazil plant to be operational in the second half of 2021. The current recon line in Brazil will be deployed to Asia, and the selection of country is not yet decided, but Malaysia and South Korea are high up on the selection list. The capacity of Brazil, Asia and South Africa will exceed 12,000 tons per annum.”
The company broke new ground when it opened a recon line in Surabaya, Indonesia, in June 2019 that is devoted exclusively to the clove-flavored kretek sector. “In Indonesia, our recon plant in Java is now serving multiple clients with multinational and local manufacturers,” says Lambat. “It has also started exporting to the Philippines, Malaysia and Australia. The main service in Indonesia is toll production of clients’ kretek waste to kretek recon. We are evaluating establishing a recon line in southern Africa, most likely producing band cast as it is simpler to produce than nano fiber. And finally, we are evaluating an RTL line in Europe that will focus on the production of recon for cigar wrapper and binder in machine-made cigars. Both projects are slated for implementation in 2021.”
SWM is also considering such options.
Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.

November 1, 2020
On the Right Track

Photo courtesy of Covectra
Leveraging serialization technology to combat tobacco tax evasion and counterfeiting
By Terrence P. O’Neill
Over the years, the U.S. federal government has endeavored to reduce tobacco use by heavily taxing products such as cigarettes, cigars, dips and nicotine pouches. A primary target of this strategy are underage consumers who tend to be price-sensitive and must be at least 21 years old to purchase these products at retail outlets since President Donald Trump signed Tobacco 21 legislation into law in December 2019.
Unfortunately, the lack of tax harmonization at the state level has created lucrative arbitrage opportunities for diverters to smuggle tobacco products from lower tax states to those with higher taxes. The unintended consequences include billions in lost local and state revenues and the development of gray markets that often supply the unauthorized channels servicing underage consumers.
Historically, states have depended on tax stamps or other static markings to maintain the integrity of its tobacco commerce; however, over time, savvy diverters developed product sources and supply chain partnerships to circumvent these checks and balances that were better suited for a simpler time.
Today, there are smart, cost-effective packaging technologies that provide beneficial value for all the stakeholders: agencies looking to maintain the integrity of the tax system or discourage underage tobacco use as well as those who manufacture these products—solutions that create a new level of transparency by uniquely identifying products that are monitored as they traverse the supply chain to the point of sale and to the consumer. Disruptive technologies that raise significant barriers to product diversion/tax evasion can also be the foundation on which new e-commerce and brand loyalty programs are launched.

Advertisement
Fundamental benefits
Barcode identifiers have been permeating world commerce over the past 30 years, documenting data such as manufacturer, production dates and product codes. Initially its use was much like a tax stamp—one barcode for the many units in a production lot. Technology evolved; serialization enabled manufacturers to uniquely serialize each unit of production and aggregation allowed for each of the unique serial numbers involved in the packaging process (unit, pack, pallet) to be linked and then shared among trusted supply chain partners. New production and trade capabilities were created, and consequential efficiencies have been realized.
Track-and-trace solutions utilize the aggregation data shared between organizations by monitoring the product as it moves (tracking) and providing a history of where it has been (tracing). Like many new technologies, the initial benefits of track-and-trace were garnered within the internal business units from which the data was derived; however, over time, forward-thinking organizations have developed new strategies and solutions few could have imagined.
When one considers the factors that lead to tax evasion, the benefits of track-and-trace to enhance supply chain security are fundamental. Increased visibility to the movement of product from the manufacturer to the point of sale and the ability to develop an investigatory thread of who handled the product creates opportunities to prevent, monitor and respond to threats diverters pose. Additionally, as other internal organizations discover new methods of leveraging the track-and-trace data and supply chain partners become more sensitive to channel irregularities, the barriers to diversion are greatly reinforced.

Advertisement
Brand loyalty and e-commerce
The value of track-and-trace can be a shared benefit for all the stakeholders as well. A recent supply chain assessment conducted among small, medium and large tobacco wholesalers revealed several opportunities where track-and-trace could improve operations—particularly for wholesalers that service many retail customers who spend vital resources and time reconciling returns. Many of the organizations advised that they are certain they pay rebates on products they did not sell; however, they are reluctant to risk the business relationship debating their suspicions. Unit-level track-and-track eliminates any disagreements as the wholesaler and retailer will be able to verify all returns with 100 percent accuracy. It also eliminates return debates with manufacturers, especially for products that experience frequent price changes or are periodically offered at discounts.
Manufacturers are also finding innovative ways of incorporating track-and-trace into other commercial initiatives such as brand loyalty programs and e-commerce models. Cloud-based solutions enable omnichannel branding platforms for targeted emails, SMS campaigns, games/contests/sweepstakes/points-based systems that create personalized messaging and enhance the depth of knowledge relative to customers, all of which can be connected through a consumer’s smartphone and track-and-trace integration.
Online tobacco e-commerce requires sites to maintain comprehensive information pertaining to all sales. Unit-level serialization provides an efficient method to track each transaction to its lowest level as well as to link with other processes required to complete the transaction, such as age verification.
When looking to partner with a company to develop and execute a track-and-trace strategy, it is important to look for those that have experience bringing together cross-functional organizations within a manufacturer across the supply chain and other external entities such as government regulatory agencies. Understanding how change will affect people, processes, data and technology needs to be thoroughly understood from production to consumption.

Advertisement
A manageable endeavor
Technology should be adaptable and developed to be interoperable across IT systems not proprietary black boxes that require you to adapt to them. Integrating line, packaging, printing and vision systems, while complex, should not be presented as or understood to be a Herculean endeavor.
Track-and-trace solutions tend to rapidly grow in scope as the organization learns and discovers new ways of using the data and capabilities. Projects will require strict prioritization of goals and multigenerational delivery schedules to prevent scope creep from becoming a bottleneck or overwhelming an organization’s capacity for change.
Lastly, the regulatory requirements in the tobacco industry often change and evolve. Track-and-trace solutions offer manufacturers the opportunity to have a good faith dialogue with these agencies by demonstrating their efforts to comply with and improve upon the government’s interest in reducing tax evasion and addressing underage consumption. This provides a rare and vital opportunity to be a proactive partner in molding what the regulatory future may look like rather than being a passive onlooker waiting to react.
Terrence P. O’Neill serves as director of new product development at Covectra, a leader in track-and-trace solutions. O’Neill can be reached at toneill@covectra.com.

November 1, 2020
‘Covid Response Blueprint for Endgame’

The world’s ongoing response to Covid-19 offers a precedent for drastic action to eliminate the tobacco industry, according to Stanford University professor John P. A. Ioannidis and health economist Prabhat Jha
While most anti-tobacco measures to date have targeted demand, the “endgame” might require reducing supply, the scholars write in The Lancet. The public health community has little experience enforcing major changes that disrupt markets, but the Covid-19 pandemic provides a natural experiment, they argue.
Measures taken to prevent the spread of Covid-19 have disrupted multiple sectors of the economy quickly and deeply, including travel, tourism, restaurants, entertainment and retail. The cumulative share of these markets before Covid-19 far exceeded the $1 trillion tobacco market.
“Even if all 100 million tobacco-related jobs were lost, this number is still much lower than the number of jobs lost by lockdown measures for Covid-19 worldwide,” the authors write, citing 400 million full-job equivalents lost because of the pandemic in the second quarter of 2020 alone.
“Moreover, of 100 million people among the tobacco workforce, manufacturing accounts for only 1-2 percent of jobs. 40 million people work in tobacco-growing and leaf-processing, 20 million work in home industries, and the remaining people work on distribution, sales and promotion.”
The authors suggest a safety net could be provided during a transition period to reduce poverty, similar to that activated for Covid-19-related unemployment.
The benefits of eliminating the tobacco industry would also exceed those achieved by anti-Covid measures, according to the authors. “Even under the most pessimistic projections, Covid-19 fatalities are well below the perpetuated burden of tobacco deaths,” the write. “Moreover, Covid-19 kills mostly older people with multiple underlying diseases, whereas half of tobacco deaths occur in people aged 30–69 years.”

October 30, 2020
JT Ups Forecast After Strong Quarter

Masamichi Terabatake (Photo: JT)
Japan Tobacco’s (JT) revenue decreased 2.5 percent to ¥1.59 trillion ($15.25 billion) in the third quarter of 2020. Adjusted operating profit at constant currency increased 6.3 percent to ¥479.8 billion. On a reported basis, adjusted operating profit decreased 2.2 percent to ¥441.5 billion. Operating profit decreased 11.4 percent to ¥390.2 billion, while profit attributable to owners of the parent company decreased 18.4 percent to ¥257.9 billion.
JT revised its revenue and adjusted operating profit at constant currency forecasts for fiscal year 2020 upward by ¥60 billion and ¥30 billion, respectively. The company also revised upward its adjusted operating profit on a reported basis forecast (by ¥26 billion), its operating profit forecast (¥42 billion) and its profit attributable to the owners of the parent company forecast (¥24 billion).
“The JT Group posted encouraging results in the year-to-date, driven by strong underlying fundamentals, despite a challenging operating environment, and our adjusted operating profit at constant currency grew due to the share and pricing gains in the international tobacco business,” said Masamichi Terabatake, president and CEO of the JT Group, in a statement.
“Our forecasts are revised upward following the strong year-to-date performance as well as efficient cost management while we continue to invest in high priority activities, and we have confidence in achieving the revised forecast.
“Looking ahead and taking into account the prevailing and highly uncertain environment, we will continue investments to offer products and services with agility, as we adapt to evolving ways of working and changing consumer needs.”
October 30, 2020
Juul Labs Cuts Valuation Again
Juul Labs has cut its valuation to about $10 billion from $12 billion at the end of last year, reports Reuters.
Juul was valued at $38 billion in December 2018, when Altria Group took a 35 percent stake in the company.
The latest write down follows recent decisions to exit certain markets and related restructuring costs, according to the memo sent to Juul employees by chief executive officer K.C. Crosthwaite.
“Today’s valuation does not surprise me, and I expect other investors to also arrive at lower valuation marks that factor in our recent restructuring,” he reportedly said.
Juul has faced heightened regulatory scrutiny following a rise in teenage vaping and a ban on the sale of popular flavors.
In September, the company said it would make a significant cut to its global workforce and explore pulling out of some European and Asia-Pacific markets to save cash.
Earlier this month, the company announced its exit from Germany.
October 30, 2020
Japan: Smoking Drops to Record Low

Photo: Colleen Williams
Japan’s smoking rate fell to a record low last year, reports NHK World, citing to a government survey.
The health ministry surveyed about 5,700 people aged 20 or over last November.
The percentage of men and women who regularly smoke stood at 16.7 percent. That’s down 1.1 percentage points from a year earlier, and the lowest since the survey began in 1986.
The ratio for men was 27.1 percent, down 11.1 points over the past decade. The figure for women was 7.6 percent, down 3.3 points over the same period.
During the recent virtual Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum, experts attributed Japan’s rapid decline in traditional smoking to the emergence of heated tobacco products.
Of male smokers who participated in the recent survey, 27.2 percent said they use heated tobacco products, while 25.2 percent of female smokers said they do so.
The health ministry aims to lower the smoking rate to 12 percent by fiscal 2022.
October 30, 2020
Riding The High Horse–The Problem with Moral Crusades

Photo: Chon Kit Leong | Dreamstime.com
The problem with moral crusades
By George Gay
In his foreword to a new report, Smokefree Ideology, the director of Forest, Simon Clark, says that tobacco smoking cessation has become a moral crusade. This comment pulled me up sharply because, given that Forest is a pro-smoker group, it seems to imply, among other things, that moral crusades in general are wrong-headed. But can what is “moral” be “wrong-headed”? Does morality now exist simply in the mind of the individual as an ethical code formed of little more than personal preferences, so that what is moral to me might not be to you, at least as things stand today? I know that in an increasingly secular world we, as individuals, are said to have been left standing, confused, on the cliff edge of morality with nobody but ourselves to show the way ahead, but surely there is still some joint enterprise we can agree on as representing morality. Or is there?
Anyway, let me leave that thought for the time being and concentrate on the report, which is based on a study of the current tobacco-smoking policies of local authorities in Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and which is subtitled, “How local authorities are waging war on choice and personal freedom.” It was commissioned, funded and published by Forest, which describes itself as a voice and friend of the smoker and which is supported by British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher (a member of the Japan Tobacco group of companies); and it was written by Josie Appleton, whose biography describes her, in part, as director of the Manifesto Club civil liberties group and author of Officious – Rise of the Busybody State.
I certainly agree with Appleton—assuming I have correctly interpreted what she has written—that tobacco smokers are often treated appallingly, and I support their right to indulge in what is a legal habit without being subjected to petty restrictions that perform no useful function and often appear to be fig leaves for helping various authorities cover failures to take meaningful actions in other, more difficult areas. Take, for instance, a policy that has been much in the news lately whereby tobacco smoking would be banned or further restricted at pavement cafes. Given that, according to the World Health Organization figures on annual premature deaths worldwide, secondhand smoke accounts for 1.2 million while outdoor pollution accounts for 4.2 million, it would seem that tobacco smoking is being targeted because it is easy and cheap to “denormalize” smokers but devilishly difficult and expensive to tackle pollution.
It is difficult to understand how many of the restrictions that Appleton details can be seen as being put in place to protect the health of nonsmokers or even smokers, and, given that it is not the responsibility of local authorities, or any other authority, otherwise to police the activities of people engaging in legal activities, the actions of these authorities have to be seen as being based on something other than their obligations. But does that something amount to a moral crusade, or is there something else going on here, at least in respect of some restrictions?
There might be, and I think it is beholden for us to look as closely as we can at these issues. For instance, much is made in the report about restrictions on tobacco smoking in public parks and other outdoor spaces, and it is certainly my opinion that it is ludicrous to believe that a whiff of secondhand smoke is going to harm a nonsmoker walking in a park or that a glimpse of a smoker indulging her habit is going to have nonsmokers or ex-smokers walking zombie-like to their nearest tobacco retailer. But there could be another explanation for what these authorities are doing. They could be banning tobacco smoking in parks because the cost of picking up and disposing properly the butts carelessly discarded by smokers impacts health budgets. It cannot be ruled out, especially since local authorities in Britain have been starved of cash by successive national governments obsessed with centralizing control.
It is certainly important to ask whether what is being done will make the public significantly safer—safer to a point that justifies restrictions on their liberties or at least on the liberties of some. But getting this balance right is devilishly difficult. For instance, up to a point, libertarians are correct to say that people should be allowed to wallow in fatty, sugary foods, alcohol and gambling—all legal activities—if that is how they want to spend their money and time, but they are correct only in so far that these people live in isolation with only their ethical codes for company. Once they start operating within societies, their partners, children, neighbors and the public should be allowed to have a say at least. Specifically, in societies that claim to have the interests of children at the top of their priorities at all times, it would be odd if parents didn’t come under some sort of pressure not to expose their offspring to such things as fat- and sugar-laden foods that, I am told, condemn them to a shortened lifetime of obesity and ill health. And perhaps, by the same token, parents are almost bound to come under some level of pressure to stop smoking tobacco around children.
How democratic?
One of Appleton’s major beefs—it is the first of her “key points”—is that there is a new wave of restrictions on tobacco smoking being introduced not through parliamentary legislation but through local authority policies, “many of which are not subjected to democratic scrutiny.” And this is where she and I fall out of step.
Let’s firstly consider how democratic is the national government in the U.K., and the first thing to note is that it is hugely London-centric. Also, it is possible for a political party in the U.K. to win an 80-seat majority in the 650-seat House of Commons, the lower house, with less than 40 percent of the popular vote. Looking at the current parliament, the Conservative Party (the current ruling party) has one seat for every 38,000 votes it won whereas the Green Party attracted 866,000 votes and won one seat.
There is no obligation for a Member of Parliament to live in the constituency that she nominally represents, though this is becoming increasingly unimportant as more and more power is being handed over to unelected “advisors,” some of whom, believe me, you wouldn’t want to give house room to.
At the same time, the public has more or less no say in who sits in the House of Lords, our grossly obese upper house, whose membership has swelled to about 830 people, appointed through old-boy, Buggins’ turn and nepotistic networks aimed at stuffing this house not with those most able but with a majority of lackeys of whichever is the party forming the current government. Twenty-six bishops of the Church of England sit in the upper house by dint simply of their being bishops.
It is difficult to make a direct comparison between the democratic credentials of the national government and those of local authorities because, to my knowledge, the latter embrace at least seven different types of authorities. But the list of councils in the annex of the report seems to indicate that most of the authorities studied (283 out of 372 responded to Freedom of Information requests) were borough or equivalent authorities, and I can report that the councilors representing my borough council are, almost by definition, part of the community they represent and are readily available. I can walk to my local town hall in 10 minutes.
So, to my way of thinking, the democratic deficit lies at the national level not at the local level. And it is surely from the national level where smokers’ main problems arise: grossly unfair levels of taxes, public tobacco smoking bans and standardized packaging, which, Forest says, attempts to infantilize smokers.
Careful what you wish for
Of course, you have to be careful in wishing for “democracy.” Surveys in various countries often find that, say, 85 percent of people are in favor of a proposed restriction on tobacco smoking while 15 percent are against. And, of course, if you look up the nonsmoker/smoker split in the population, it’s 85/15. In fact, the proportion of people who support such restrictions is often higher than the proportion of nonsmokers in the population because some smokers have become convinced that their habit is so disgusting that they deserve to be persecuted. And this sort of democracy, the tyranny of the majority, will no doubt come into play as local authorities use such figures to justify introducing no-tobacco-smoking policies in public housing. And once they are introduced, the ideology of the market economy will take over and ensure that all such housing eventually becomes tobacco-smoke-free because it won’t be worth the trouble of catering to the 15 percent.
As I understand it, the report is aimed at encouraging local authorities to think twice before they bring in unnecessary rules on tobacco smoking that merely interfere in the personal lives and habits of employees and authority residents. But will it achieve this? I somehow doubt it. Given the report’s provenance, I would imagine that those in charge at the various authorities will feel free to dismiss it as a moral crusade. And we all know what happens when opposing moral crusades collide.
My crusade
Which brings us back to the murky world of morality and takes us to an issue concerning the aging of my brain. You see, believe it or not, I started out meaning to write a story on organic tobacco and somehow got diverted.
As I have done annually at this time of year for a number of years now, I recently sent out emails to companies who had previously shown interest in organic tobacco, inviting them to take part in a story on this style of leaf. This year, some companies didn’t reply, some replied but said they were no longer involved in organic tobacco while only one replied positively. It has been my observation that interest in organic tobacco has been decreasing now for a number of years, and I have to ask myself why this might be. After all, we are living an environmental nightmare that we are not going to wake up from unless—and here comes my moral crusade—we start taking positive action, such as stopping spraying unnecessary chemicals onto crops, including tobacco crops.
Cigarette manufacturers have been good at addressing environmental issues in respect of their manufacturing facilities, but this is partly because these companies are profit driven and they can see the cost advantage in, for instance, cutting down on the power that they use. Having said that, I am certain they would be willing to embrace organic tobacco more widely than presently even if there were a cost increase, but there would have to be some sort of incentive. For instance, they would need to be able to write on packs that the cigarettes inside contained organic tobacco, with the rider that this did not make them less risky than other cigarettes. But there’s the rub.
A moral crusade seems to have been mounted against such statements being made because, it is claimed, smokers and nonsmokers alike would be led to believe that such cigarettes were less risky than other cigarettes. Come on. Let’s get real. This is a moral crusade that will result in no benefit to smokers and that will mean that the rest of us will not be able to enjoy the benefit of a major crop being produced in a way that will provide relief for the environment. It makes no sense at all. It is wrong-headed.

George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.

October 29, 2020