Juul Labs has asked a U.S. federal judge to dismiss or pause hundreds of lawsuits alleging the e-cigarette manufacturer fueled a youth vaping epidemic, reports Reuters.
The company on Friday asked a federal judge in San Francisco to stay the lawsuits by consumers and local governments while the Food and Drug Administration determines whether it may continue to market its products.
Altria Group has filed suit against competitor R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. for patent infringement on e-cigarettes and associated products.
Earlier, Reynolds filed its own patent-infringement suit against Altria and Philip Morris International over their IQOS heat-not-burn cigarette, a competitor of Reynolds’ Eclipse.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, USA, Altria’s suit claims that Reynolds Vapor, owned by Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), violated nine patents held by Altria Client Services in producing its Vuse Vapor e-cigarette line. Altria contends that Reynolds’ Vuse brand of e-cigarettes uses heating technology, mouthpieces, batteries and liquid-filled pods covered by Altria’s patents for its Juul e-vapor products.
“Reynolds Vapor has infringed on Altria’s intellectual property, and we are seeking financial damages for each of these violations,” Altria Client Services spokesman George Parman said Thursday, according to the story.
Altria seeks unspecified monetary compensation but asks for “treble damages” for “defendant’s willful infringement” of the patents, as well as awards of compensation, supplemental damages after discovery cutoff and attorneys’ fees and expenses.
Universities Superannuation Scheme, Britain’s largest private pension scheme by assets, will stop investing in tobacco manufacturing and other sectors it deems “financially unsuitable” over the long term.
Companies that make more than 25 percent of their revenues from thermal coal and those with ties to controversial weapons such as cluster munitions, landmines and white phosphorus will also be excluded, the fund said in a statement on Monday.
Thousands of Australians are using the coronavirus shutdown to give up smoking.
Between January and May this year, the My Quitbuddy app was downloaded more than 24,000 times—a 310 percent increase over the same time last year.
“These figures are very encouraging, and I congratulate those who have taken the first step,” said Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, adding that there is growing evidence that smokers are more likely to develop a severe case of Covid-19 if they contract the virus.
The Australian government aims to reduce smoking to less than 10 percent by 2025 through its 10-year National Preventive Health Strategy and has committed $31.6 million over four years to reduce smoking prevalence.
Meanwhile, health authorities in Israel have observed increased interest in quitting smoking during the pandemic.
A new study by the Israel Cancer Association found that 51 percent of Israelis between the ages of 18 and 24 who smoke considered quitting during the coronavirus crisis. Additionally, almost half (49.2 percent) reported smoking less.
However, the study also found that nearly a third of Arab Israelis said someone in their family began smoking during the coronavirus. Only 8 percent of Jewish respondents reported that someone started smoking.
Taiwan’s Health Promotion Administration (HPA) wants to ban the sale of novel tobacco products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products reports The Taipei Times.
On May 29, the agency announced draft amendments to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (THPA) to cover products currently not covered by the act.
One amendment would raise the legal age for smoking and the minimum age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 20.
A recent survey found that smoking and vaping rates among young Taiwanese increased last year.
The smoking of cigarettes and e-cigarettes by junior high and high school students last year increased for the first time since the THPA took effect in 2009, HPA Tobacco Control Division Director Chen Miao-hsin said.
Physician Chen Mu-jung said that teenagers are less cautious when it comes to addictive substances and that flavors added to cigarettes could overpower the pungent taste of tobacco, making teenagers more curious and even leading some to believe that flavored cigarettes are somehow healthier.
Japan Tobacco (JT) is rolling out its Ploom S 2.0, an upgraded heated-tobacco device specialized for menthol. In addition, JT will launch two new menthol tobacco stick products under the Camel brand—Camel Menthol Red and Camel Menthol Yellow. These products will gradually be available at convenience stores and select tobacco retail stores across Japan beginning July 2, 2020.
Ploom S 2.0 is equipped with a new heating mode that lengthens the duration of the peak heating temperature compared to that of the current Ploom S. According to JT, this allows for a balance among the freshness of menthol, rich vapor and clear tobacco taste.
“The two biggest factors that influence the flavor of T-Vapor products are heating temperature and its duration,” explained Toru Takahashi, vice president of the marketing group product and brand division for reduced-risk products.
“Ploom S 2.0 is capable of tailoring the device to heat the sticks at an optimal temperature and for an optimal duration with respect to the different stages from the first inhalation to the last rather than heating at a steady temperature,” he said. “This is the key to delivering the best flavor in T-Vapor products.”
Marking World No Tobacco Day, an international group of independent experts has criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for its “backward-looking” approach to innovation and new technology, such as vaping products.
The experts say they are exasperated by the WHO’s “dogmatic hostility” towards new technology and fear the U.N. health agency will squander the opportunity to avoid millions of premature deaths that will be caused by smoking.
Iowa State attorney general Tom Miller said the WHO has lost its sense of mission and purpose. “It’s as if the WHO has forgotten what it is there to do—to save lives and reduce disease,” Miller said.
“We can do that by helping and encouraging consumers to switch from cigarettes to lower-risk products. This means being honest about the much lower risks and by using smarter regulation to make switching more attractive.”
The group of experts criticizing the WHO include David Abrams of the School of Global Public Health, New York University; Tikki Pangestu, visiting professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; John Britton, professor of epidemiology at the University of Nottingham; Rajesh Sharan, of North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India; David Sweanor, Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, University of Ottawa; and Clive Bates, director of Counterfactual Consulting.
Celebrating the World Health Organization’s World No Tobacco Day, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on May 31 blasted the tobacco industry, saying it entrapped millions of young people in addiction.
“The tobacco industry has been filling its own pockets for decades, depriving the freedom of millions of young people, imprisoning them to a life of addiction,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Turkish youth via videoconference at an anti-smoking event in Istanbul.
Erdogan said temporary closures of hookah-smoking and entertainment venues introduced to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus would remain “for a while longer.”
In February, Turkey banned the import of e-cigarettes and related products. Asserting that the tobacco industry had tried to find new customers for the “poison” they produce, Erdogan accused the industry of propaganda and manipulation.
Turks consumed a record 119.7 billion cigarettes and spent TRY78 billion ($11.4 billion) to sustain their habit in 2019, according to data released by the country’s health ministry.
The figure exceeds the previous record, set in 2018, of 118.5 billion sticks, and comes despite a long-running anti-tobacco campaign.
Registering at up to 87 percent of retail price, Turkish cigarette taxes are among the world’s highest, following a series of hikes to tobacco taxes since the beginning of 2019.
An estimated 14.5 million adults and 252,000 children use tobacco every day in Turkey, according to Tobacco Atlas.
The sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, has become illegal in Massachusetts as of today.
Massachusetts became the first state to approve such a ban when Governor Charlie Baker signed the bill in November.
The law applies to the sale of all flavored tobacco products in Massachusetts retail stores and online.
Cigar bars, hookah lounges and other licensed venues can continue selling flavored tobacco as long as these products are consumed on-site.
Massachusetts’ decision to extend the ban to menthol flavors has been contentious in part because studies have shown menthol cigarettes are consumed disproportionately by minorities, which activists have warned could lead to disproportionate police enforcement in the black community.
The liberalization of vaping has considerable potential to help millions of people switch from traditional tobacco smoking to vaping, according to the Consumer Choice Center (CCC). Vaping is widely believed to be a less harmful way of consuming nicotine than smoking.
The CCC examined 61 countries and assessed how “smart” tobacco harm reduction policies could make the switch easier.
“We looked at 61 countries (including the U.K.) around the world and compared the current rate of daily and occasional vapers,” said Fred Roeder, health economist and managing director of the CCC. “We used the United Kingdom’s progressive tobacco harm reduction policies as a reference point and estimated how many current smokers could be helped to switch to vaping by having a more permissive vaping framework.”
“More liberal rules on advertising to smokers, displaying products at the point of sale for cigarettes, lower taxation, and public health bodies endorsing the evidence of vaping being at least 95 percent less harmful than traditional smoking can help smokers to switch to vaping.”
The CCC estimates that nearly 200 million adults in the analyzed 60 countries could switch to vaping and urges public health bodies and regulators to endorse tobacco harm reduction
