Author: Taco Tuinstra

  • Fighting The Wrong War

    Fighting The Wrong War

    Image: nosyrevy

    The automatic criticism of everything associated with tobacco is not merely misguided; it has the potential to do real harm.

    By Clive Bates

    Yes, the tobacco companies worked hard to acquire a terrible reputation over many decades. With the publication of authoritative reports on smoking and health in the early 1960s, the tobacco companies entered a prolonged existential battle with reality. Emerging science threatened one of the most lucrative cash cows ever milked. What became known as the tobacco wars were fought over doubt, the marshy no-man’s land between ignorance and certainty, and it was ugly. That war essentially ended around the turn of the century with ignominious defeats in the courts and at the hands of the U.S. states’ attorneys general. It became clear that the costs of deceit and obfuscation were just too high. With advancing scientific knowledge, the companies would be left clinging to indefensible positions, and their executives would look increasingly absurd.

    But where are we today? Let us consider six recent developments.

    First, in March 2022, the World Health Organization blocked approval of a new SARS-CoV-2 vaccine even though Canada’s regulator had approved it and despite the Canadian government investing in its development. The WHO’s reason? The vaccine is made by a biotech company, Medicago, in which the tobacco company Philip Morris International holds a minority stake. The WHO argues that this would be to protect health policy from “tobacco industry interference.” The global health agency seemed to care little about suppressing the expanded supply of a new vaccine with possibly innovative benefits to a world that will need Covid-19 vaccines for the foreseeable future. And it didn’t explain how a company could conceivably exert any influence through this implausible route or why it might try.

    Second, in September 2021, tobacco control activists tried to stop a tobacco company, again PMI, from acquiring a pharmaceutical company, Vectura, that specializes in inhalation technologies. When they failed to stop the acquisition, they resorted to bullying directed against the scientists at Vectura, threatening to isolate and marginalize them from the scientific community. The activists argue that such investments “legitimize tobacco industry participation within health debates.” But they did not explain why PMI’s clearly stated strategy of diversification to facilitate its transition out of the cigarette trade would be a bad thing or something that they should try to prevent.

    Third, in July 2021, the board of the scholarly Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) voted to ban tobacco industry employees from attending the SRNT’s annual conference. Employees of the tobacco industry were already prohibited from SRNT membership. The SRNT defines the tobacco industry as any company owned (in part or whole) by a commercial tobacco manufacturer, implicitly tainting any effort at pro-health diversification or innovation. Yet, the society’s January 2020 guiding principles declared, “SRNT supports, without bias, the generation, dissemination and facilitates debate of rigorous science to address challenging public health questions regardless of the direction the evidence leads.” The tobacco companies now produce some of the highest-quality science in the field in connection with products that can significantly improve health. The SRNT’s words about open-mindedness and freedom from bias are undoubtedly noble, but they failed in their first collision with reality.

    Fourth, in May 2021, the specialist journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research produced a reasoned argument for accepting the occasional paper from an industry source. “Some feel that the tobacco industry’s history, motives and current activities should exclude them from publishing in the journal. Others feel equally strongly that science should be judged on its merits, irrespective of its origins. […] Our current position requires us to sit with this tension and trust that our editorial and review process, and our policies, will ensure that work can be judged on its merits whilst also allowing reviewers and readers to form a view based on its origins.” But in October 2021, the journal issued an “update,” which was little more than an abject reversal of the reasoned policy it had set out six months earlier. The journal felt compelled to follow the direction set by the board of the SRNT. The quality of the science or contemporary evidence of manipulation of scientific discourse was not offered as a justification. However, racial equity and the diversification of the industry were among the stated reasons.

    Fifth, in May 2021, the leading vape company, Juul, published a series of papers summarizing the behavioral science behind its premarket tobacco product application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A special issue of the American Journal of Health Behavior brought together 13 papers covering everything from switching behaviors to retailer compliance. It was all collected in a single publication and free to read. But such brazen openness provoked fury in the tobacco control establishment. The British Medical Journal quoted Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, saying, “… one thing should be abundantly clear: Research funded by tobacco companies cannot be treated as a credible source of science or evidence. No credible scientific journal should allow a tobacco company to use it for this purpose.” Even United States senators took time off from running the country to protest to the FDA at the impertinence of a company publishing its science in an accessible format. Some of the attacks focused on Juul paying fees to the journal for open publication, though that is a standard publishing model. Perhaps critics believed it would somehow serve the public interest if the 13 papers were paywalled, spread over multiple subscription-only journals and published on different dates? So far, no one has found any material fault with the actual science. So far, none of Juul’s critics has shown any curiosity about the findings and what they mean for public health policy.

    Sixth, since 2017, there have been intense and ongoing attacks on the nonprofit Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. The foundation’s stated mission is “to end smoking in this generation.” But because it was set up with a billion-dollar, 12-year commitment from a tobacco company, it has been the subject of intense hostility. Did anyone stop to ask whether research on ending smoking in this generation might be a good idea? Instead, the WHO and tobacco control mainstream would rather the research was never done and that the money was kept by the company. Why?

    What is Going on Here?

    First, this hostility has nothing to do with bad science or inappropriate influence. The tobacco companies, the larger vaping companies and industry consultants produce very high-quality science. Much of it captures the harms caused by cigarettes and shows how such harms could be reduced. Their regulatory science must convince skeptical regulators and withstand public, professional and legal scrutiny for signs of manipulation. Today, tobacco industry science must be and generally is credible.

    Second, several companies are indeed trying to influence the debate about the evolution of the tobacco and nicotine market. But this is in a direction that would be good for public health. With varying assertiveness, the companies want to diversify from combustible products to much safer noncombustible nicotine products and from nicotine businesses to non-nicotine businesses. They would like to discuss the policy frameworks that would cause this to happen more quickly. Tobacco control activists do not like this argument. It implies a future for their nemesis, Big Tobacco, and a diversion from their path to the “nicotine-free society,” a Utopian ideal typical of the War on Drugs. Rather than confront the science head-on, they would prefer the arguments not to be made or not to be heard.

    Third, their cause is served by framing the tobacco and nicotine issue in the simplifying Manichean certainties of good and evil. This makes for more straightforward stories. It supports a well-worn narrative that describes a predatory industry hooking teenagers into lifelong possession by an addictive drug. That sells well, even though it is a grotesque simplification and misunderstanding of how nicotine use works in reality. It also means tobacco control benefits from “white hat bias,” in which embarrassingly poor science escapes scrutiny and challenge. The result has been a steady debasement of the currency of tobacco control sciences.

    Fourth, the most profound reason is that tobacco control activists really need an enemy. They frame their work in war-like language, and the leaders had their formative experiences in the tobacco wars of the last century. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids now uses the slogan “Taking on the Toughest Fights for 25 Years.” Fighting wars is what they do, even if this is increasingly at the expense of public health. It is why the WHO and others cling to the principle that there is an irreconcilable conflict between the interests of tobacco companies and public health. That way, there will always be a battle, they always have the prestige of war heroes, and there will always be money, conferences and entire institutions devoted to the struggle. But permanent belligerence will leave us in a slow-moving stalemate. If there is to be a war, can we please make it a common front against disease and death and not a rerun of the battles of the last century?

  • BAT Ukraine Resumes Pryluky Operation

    BAT Ukraine Resumes Pryluky Operation

    Photo: Igor

    BAT Ukraine has resumed manufacturing operations at the Pryluky tobacco factory in Ukraine as of April 25, reports InterFax Ukraine.

    The company has reportedly decided to resume manufacturing at the factory in phases after making a thorough risk and threat analysis.

    The operations at the Pryluky factory comply with all applicable security and safety requirements, curfew and other restrictions proper to martial law, according to BAT.

    BAT Ukraine is monitoring the security and safety situation in Pryluky and the Chernihiv region and plans to adapt activities as the situation changes.

  • IEVA Launches Vaping Awareness Campaign

    IEVA Launches Vaping Awareness Campaign

    Dustin Dahlmann (Photo: IEVA)

    The Independent European Vape Alliance (IEVA) has launched a new campaign aimed at educating smokers about the harm reduction potential of vaping compared to smoking combustible cigarettes.

    Tobacco consumption is the single largest avoidable health risk and the most significant cause of premature death in the EU, responsible for nearly 700,000 deaths every year, according to the European Commission. Around 50 percent of smokers die prematurely.

    Independent studies have shown that the switch to vaping is often an effective way to stop smoking completely, according to the IEVA.

    “The developments in New Zealand and the U.K. are examples of progressive and enlightened public health policies. Political and public health leaders should take a close look at these results. Vaping can make a significant contribution to reducing smoking rates,” said Dustin Dahlmann, president of the IEVA, in a statement.

    The European awareness campaign will take place over the coming weeks via the social media channels of the international members of the IEVA.

  • Nepal Bans Tobacco Imports

    Nepal Bans Tobacco Imports

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Nepal has banned the import of tobacco, cars, alcohol and other luxury items and shortened its workweek to conserve its dwindling supply of foreign exchange, according to the South China Morning Post.

    Under the ban, only emergency vehicles can be imported, and imports of alcohol or tobacco products, large-engine motorcycles and mobile phones costing more than $600 are prohibited. Import of toys, playing cards, diamonds and other “nonessential” goods are also banned.

    The ban is in effect until mid-July, which marks the end of the Himalayan nation’s financial year.

    According to officials, without the ban, foreign currency reserves necessary to import goods will only last a few more months.

    Nepal’s main sources of foreign currency are tourism, remittances from overseas workers and foreign aid.

  • FDA Announces Plan for Menthol Ban

    FDA Announces Plan for Menthol Ban

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced a plan to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes in the United States. Menthols account for about one-third of the U.S. cigarette market.

    The agency expects that taking menthol cigarettes off the market will reduce smoking levels and lower the number of young people taking up the habit.

    “The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in a statement.  “Additionally, the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.”

    With the FDA plan, the U.S. is following in the footsteps of Canada and the European Union, which banned menthol cigarettes in 2017 and 2020, respectively. Menthol is the only cigarette flavor that wasn’t banned under the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gave the FDA authority over tobacco products.

    In 2019, there were more than 18.5 million current menthol cigarette smokers ages 12 and older in the U.S., with particularly high rates of use by youth, young adults and African American and other racial and ethnic groups, according to the FDA. The agency cited modeling studies suggesting that there would be a 15 percent reduction in smoking within 40 years if menthol cigarettes were no longer available in the U.S. These studies also estimate that 324,000 to 654,000 smoking attributable deaths overall (92,000 to 238,000 among African Americans) would be avoided over the course of 40 years.

    Health advocates oppose menthol because the ingredient’s “cooling” effect makes it easier to start smoking and harder to quit. The health consequences have disproportionally fallen on Black smokers, 85 percent of whom use menthols.

    Critics have cautioned that a menthol ban could have unintended consequences. For example, Guy Bentley, director of consumer freedom at the Reason Foundation, warned of increased black market sales and more incarceration. The desired public health gains, he wrote, could also be achieved by applying the harm reduction model to tobacco policy.

    Along with its menthol ban, the FDA also announced product standards to prohibit all characterizing flavors (other than tobacco) in cigars.

    “Characterizing flavors in cigars, such as strawberry, grape, cocoa and fruit punch, increase appeal and make cigars easier to use, particularly among youth and young adults,” the FDA wrote in its announcement. “More than a half million youth in the U.S. use flavored cigars, and in recent years, more young people tried a cigar every day than tried a cigarette.”

    Beginning May 4, the public can provide comments on these proposed rules. The FDA also will convene public listening sessions on June 13 and June 15.

  • Myanmar Postpones Plain Packaging

    Myanmar Postpones Plain Packaging

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Myanmar has postponed the implementation of standardized tobacco packaging until April 2023, following a lobbying campaign by opponents of the measure, reports Eco-Business. The law was originally set to take effect on April 10, 2022.

    The new packaging regulations require the outer surfaces of tobacco product packages to be a standardized dull dark brown, flat, smooth and devoid of any attractive designs or decorative elements.

    Health advocated criticized the delay.

    “Instead of postponing its implementation by 12 months, the government should have penalized tobacco companies for not complying by the April 10 deadline,” said Ulysses Dorotheo, executive director of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance.

    “Only the tobacco industry will profit from this bad decision while the government and people of Myanmar will suffer more diseases, healthcare costs, deaths and their related socioeconomic burden,” added Dorotheo.

  • Fortuna Possible New Owner Imperial’s Russian Business

    Fortuna Possible New Owner Imperial’s Russian Business

    Photo: ASDF

    Fortuna Cigar House (FCH) could become the new owner of Imperial Brands’ Russian business, according to an Interfax report citing the Kommersant newspaper.

    Following Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, several tobacco companies said they would scale back their operations in Russia. On April 20, Imperial Brands announced the transfer of its Russian business to local investors, subject to finalization of the registration of the transaction with local authorities. The company estimates a noncash write-off of around £225 million ($279.86) for this transaction.

    Founded in Odessa in 1999, FCH has been operating in Russia since 2011 as a joint venture with the distributor Megapolis, which was previously associated with Russian tobacco mogul Igor Kesaev. The company sells cigars, tobacco, smoking accessories and materials and equipment. It also has its own retail outlet.

    According to SPARK-Interfax, 50.01 percent of FCH belongs to Megapolis, and 49.99 percent belongs to BVG Cigar House Fortuna of Cyprus. In 2021, FCH posted revenue of RUR4.09 billion ($67.12 million) and a net profit of RUR404 million.

    In March, Imperial Brands said it was suspending operations in Russia, including production at its factory in Volgograd, as well as sales and marketing. The company then began talks with a Russian legal entity on transferring the business.

    Imperial Brands operates in Russia through Imperial Tobacco Volga, the production entity, and Imperial Tobacco Sales and Marketing. The company has held around 5.5 percent of the Russian tobacco market, according to business analysts cited by Kommersant.

    Tobacco analysts Maxim Korolyov told Kommersant that Imperial Brands’ products will likely continue to be produced in Russia under a temporary license.

  • JT: Strong Quarter Despite Uncertainty

    JT: Strong Quarter Despite Uncertainty

    JTI’s headquarters in Geneva

    The JT Group reported revenues of ¥581.5 billion ($4.45 billion) in the first quarter of 2022, up 6.2 percent over that reported in the first quarter of 2021. Adjusted operating was ¥194.9 billion during the quarter, 9.4 percent more than in the comparable 2021 quarter. The JT Group posted an operating profit of ¥178.4 billion and a profit of ¥124.1 billion in the quarter, up 11.4 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively, over the 2021 quarter.

    “Following the combination of the tobacco businesses this year, the JT Group delivered strong results with adjusted operating profit at constant FX increasing by 4.5 percent,” said JT Group CEO Masamichi Terabatake in a statement. “However, several uncertainties remain, such as the changing operating environment in Russia, the rapidly evolving operational costs and a very volatile inflation. Considering these factors, as of the first quarter, we have decided not to revise the full year guidance.

    On March 10, the JT Group announced the suspension of new investments and marketing activities in Russia. The company is currently evaluating various options for its Russia business, including potentially transferring its ownership.

    Russia is one of the JT Group’s largest markets. The company has four factories and employs nearly 4,000 people in the country. Terabatake said the company remains committed to its employees in Russia, including to secure their employment.

    “We will continue to closely monitor the situation and prioritize the safety of our employees and their families by extending all possible support to affected people. We will take all necessary decisions to address the changing situation in accordance with the group’s management principle, which is to pursue the 4S model.”

    Under the 4S model, the JT Group strives to fulfill its responsibilities to consumers, shareholders, employees and the wider society.

  • Altria Businesses ‘on Track’

    Altria Businesses ‘on Track’

    Photo: Casimiro

    Altria Group reported its 2022 first-quarter business results and reaffirmed its guidance for 2022 full-year adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS).

    “We are off to a strong start to the year and believe our businesses are on track to deliver against their full-year plans. Our tobacco businesses performed well in a challenging macroeconomic environment, and we continued to make progress toward our vision to responsibly lead the transition of adult smokers to a smoke-free future,” said Billy Gifford, Altria’s CEO, in a statement.

    “We reaffirm our guidance to deliver 2022 full-year adjusted diluted EPS in a range of $4.79 to $4.93. This range represents an adjusted diluted EPS growth rate of 4 percent to 7 percent from a $4.61 base in 2021. We continue to expect that adjusted diluted EPS growth will be weighted toward the second half of the year.”

    Net revenues decreased 2.4 percent to $5.9 billion, primarily driven by the sale of the company’s wine business in October 2021. Excluding the wine segment, net revenues were essentially unchanged. Revenues net of excise taxes decreased 1.3 percent to $4.8 billion.

    A conference call to discuss results with the investment community and the news media was held today at 9 a.m. Eastern Time.

  • Smoking Down for Those with Certain Psychiatric Disorders

    Smoking Down for Those with Certain Psychiatric Disorders

    Photo: mitarart

    Significant reductions in cigarette use were found among U.S. adults with major depression, substance use disorder or both from 2006 to 2019, according to a new analysis of nationally representative survey data published in JAMA.

    The study was conducted by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). These findings suggest that groups at higher risk of cigarette smoking can be reached by, and may have benefitted from, tobacco use prevention and cessation efforts that have led to significant declines in tobacco use in the general population. At the same time, the findings highlight remaining disparities, documenting higher smoking rates in people with psychiatric disorders than in those without.

    “This study shows us that, at a population level, reductions in tobacco use are achievable for people with psychiatric conditions, and smoking cessation should be prioritized along with treatments for substance use, depression and other mental health disorders for people who experience them,” said Nora Volkow, director of the NIDA and co-author of the study. “Therapies to help people stop smoking are safe, effective and may even enhance the long-term success of concurrent treatments for more severe mental health symptoms in individuals with psychiatric disorders by lowering stress, anxiety, depression and by improving overall mood and quality of life.”

    “These declines tell a public health success story,” said Wilson Compton, the NIDA’s deputy director and the senior author of the study. “However, there’s still a lot of work to be done to ensure tobacco use in patients with substance use disorder, depression or other psychiatric conditions continue to decrease. It is crucial that healthcare providers treat all the health issues that a patient experiences, not just their depression or drug use disorder at a given point in time. To do this, smoking cessation therapies need to be integrated into existing behavioral health treatments. The result will be longer and healthier lives for all people.”