Author: Taco Tuinstra

Real Brands Acquires Vapor Shark Assets
Real Brands has signed a letter of intent (LOI) to acquire Vapor Shark’s assets.
Since 2010, Vapor Shark has been a pioneer in the online B2B and B2C business, developing sales channels and e-commerce back-end pick and ship capabilities able to manage regulated product distribution. It also maintains recognizable service brand reputation in the vapor markets.
“The Vapor Shark transaction brings an established brand in the vapor consumer and retail markets to Real Brands,” said Real Brands President and CEO Thom Kidrin in a statement.
“This deal will bring new distribution channels to Real Brands that would enlarge Real Brands’ existing distribution channels. This outstanding opportunity should enable Real Brands to capture market share of the tobacco and hemp vapor industry, which is expected to grow to $29.3 billion by 2029.”
Real Brands is the result of a 2020 merger with Canadian American Standard Hemp that brought together industrial scale hemp CBD oil/isolate extraction and processing, wholesaling of CBD oils and isolate, and production and sales of numerous hemp-derived CBD consumer brands of smokable, edible and topical products.

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
May 3, 2024
‘Quebec Lobby Groups Blind to Illicit Trade’

Photo: Thorsten
Imperial Tobacco Canada is taking anti-tobacco groups to task for their silence about the boom in illicit sales following Quebec’s ban on flavored e-cigarettes.
“You cannot claim ‘Mission Accomplished’ by simply passing regulations,” said Eric Gagnon, vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs for Imperial Tobacco Canada, in a statement. “The regulations must work. And these ones don’t. Flavored vapor products are still being sold in Quebec. The problem is that they are now being sold illegally.”
Quebec banned flavored vapes Oct. 31, 2023, following years of pressure by anti-tobacco groups. According to Imperial Tobacco Cananda, the same groups refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem with the regulations and will not call on the government to fully enforce the regulations.
“It’s time that the Coalition Quebecoise pour le controle du tabac and other so-called health groups acknowledge that there is a problem with the regulations and push to fix it,” Gagnon said. “If the real objective of the regulations was to ban flavors, where are these health groups now that flavored vapor products are being sold illegally?”
Imperial Tobacco Canada noted that some of the lobby groups have ties to the provincial government and receive funding from them.
“It is time for the public to see the real intentions behind these anti-tobacco lobby groups,” said Gagnon. “They hide behind the virtue of public health, but their recent silence demonstrates that their only real objective is going after tobacco companies, even if this means pushing consumers to illegal products.”
“It is astonishing to see that Quebec’s anti-tobacco lobbyists prefer turning a blind eye to illegal flavored vaping products rather than recognizing that this is a failed policy and working with us to demand concrete enforcement measures to Minister Dube,” said Gagnon. “This says a lot about the real intention behind the individuals leading these organizations.”
May 2, 2024
Sales Down, Profit up at Turning Point Brands
Turning Point Brands announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2024.
For the first quarter of 2024, total consolidated net sales decreased 3.9 percent to $97.1 million compared to the first quarter of 2023.
Zig-Zag products net sales increased by 11.5 percent compared to the previous year. Stoker’s products net sales increased by 8 percent compared to 2023.
Creative Distribution Solutions net sales decreased by 44.9 percent compared to the same period the previous year.
Gross profit increased 6.8 percent to $51.9 million compared to the previous year period. Net income increased 58.1 percent to $12 million. Adjusted net income increased 29.8 percent to $15.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased 21.6 percent to $25.3 million.
“We are encouraged by our first-quarter results,” said President and CEO Graham Purdy in a statement “We believe the execution of our strategy has Zig-Zag back on a sustainable growth trajectory; Stoker’s continued to grow and improved its market share; and the national launch of our FRE Modern Oral product is off to a good start.”
“We were encouraged by the outsized performance of the alternative channel in the quarter,” said Purdy. “Our ongoing efforts continue to demonstrate progress toward sustainably growing the Zig-Zag brand.”
The company is maintaining its previous expectation of full-year 2024 adjusted EBITDA of $95 million to $100 million.
May 2, 2024
Vector Reports Results

Photo: tippapatt I
Vector Group has reported its first-quarter 2024 results, noting that it has had continued strong earnings growth in the tobacco segment.
In the first quarter, consolidated revenues were $324.6 million, down 2.9 percent compared to the prior-year period. Tobacco segment revenues were $324.6 million, down 2.9 percent compared to the prior year.
Tobacco segment wholesale market share declined to 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent in the prior-year period, and retail market share remained at 5.8 percent, unchanged from the prior-year period.
Montego wholesale market share increased to 3.9 percent from 3.3 percent in the prior-year period, and retail market share increased to 4 percent from 3.4 percent in the prior-year period.
Reported operating income was $77.8 million, up 4.7 percent, or $3.5 million, compared to the prior-year period.
Tobacco segment operating income was $83 million, up 5.6 percent, or $4.4 million, compared to the prior-year period, primarily attributable to the continued transition of the Montego brand strategy from volume-based to income-based.
Adjusted EBITDA was $82.8 million, up 6 percent, or $4.7 million, compared to the prior year. Tobacco adjusted EBITDA was $84.4 million, up 5.5 percent, or $4.4 million, compared to the previous year.
“Vector Group delivered strong performance in the first quarter, driven by continued growth of our Montego brand,” said Howard M. Lorber, president and CEO of Vector Group, in a statement. “Our proven ability to increase Montego’s market share and profitability underscores the effectiveness of our brand strategy, market analysis, broad-based distribution and excellent retail execution. We remain confident in our ability to continue driving sustainable growth and creating long-term value for our stockholders.”
May 2, 2024

The Great Scramble

Buyers have been paying record prices to secure their shares of Brazil’s smaller-than-expected tobacco crop.

By Taco Tuinstra

On March 21, a ferocious storm tore through Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. The wind flattened numerous outdoor pavilions at the Expoagro exhibition in Rio Pardo, forcing its organizer, tobacco growers’ association Afubra, to close the event for a day and repair the damaged stands. In a more welcome development, the tempest brought relief from the heat wave that had been making life tough for those toiling in the region’s numerous fields and leaf processing facilities.

But while Expoagro reopened to large crowds and the temperature dropped to more tolerable levels in the wake of the storm, other pressures on the industry continued unabated throughout the selling season. Alliance One Brazil Leaf Production Director Samuel Streck, who has worked in the business for two decades, described this year’s crop as the most challenging in his career, and his view was echoed by many other industry veterans throughout the Brazilian tobacco sector during Tobacco Reporter’s visit to the region in March.

A significantly smaller-than-expected crop, acute labor shortages and record-high prices, along with heightened scrutiny of tobacco farming in the wake of the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), have kept the Brazilian leaf sector on its toes this year.

Low Yields, High Quality

It wasn’t supposed to be that way. When planting for the 2023-2024 crop started in May last year, the industry predicted a volume increase of about 10 percent over the previous season, when the country’s growers harvested some 605.7 million kg of all tobacco types, according to Afubra.

At first, the weather conditions appeared to validate that assessment, but then El Nino hit. The recurring weather phenomenon, which typically boosts precipitation in South America, had been anticipated but turned out much more intense than normal. From mid-July until the end of November, El Nino dumped unprecedented volumes of rain on southern Brazil, leading to flooding in lower lying areas. Accompanied by many sunless days, the wet conditions depressed yields not only in Rio Grande do Sul but also in Santa Catarina and Parana, the three southern states that together account for 98 percent of Brazil’s tobacco production. (The remaining volumes grow primarily in Bahia and are used to make cigars.)

Crop	Hectares planted	Production (million kg)	Leaf export earnings
2023	261,740	605.7	$2.66 billion
2022	246,590	560.18	$2.24 billion
2021	273,356	628.49	$1.31 billion
2020	290,397	633.02	$1.47 billion
2019	297,310	664.36	$1.99 billion
2018	297,460	685.98	$1.85 billion
2017	298,530	705.93	$1.96 billion
2016	271,070	525.22	$2.01 billion
2015	308,260	697.65	$2.06 billion
2014	323,700	731.39	$2.35 billion
2013	313,575	712.75	$3.09 billion
Sources: Afubra/SindiTabaco

Instead of a 10 percent boost, the industry was now looking at a 20 percent drop in volume from 2023. By late March, Afubra was expecting about 470 million kg of flue-cured Virginia (FCV) and roughly 40 million kg of burley.

But even as the excessive rainfall slashed yields, it worked wonders for leaf quality. Brazil’s 2024 crop boasts good color, uniformity and smoking properties, according to buyers. High oil levels give this year’s leaf a better visual appearance than in 2023. What in the previous year was predominantly light orange to orange is this year orange to deep orange, observed Kohltrade in a recent crop report. “It’s perfect, in my opinion,” said Kohltrade Account Executive Simone Velasques.

And it’s not just looks that set this crop apart; the tobacco smokes exceptionally well, according to Eduardo Renner, president and CEO of CTA-Continental. “That’s also the feedback we are getting from customers,” he said. On the flipside, the rain also suppressed nicotine levels in this year’s tobacco. According to Jay Barker of YTL, the excess rainfall has resulted in below-average chemistries across the board. Because the wet season followed three consecutive dry ones, the gap in nicotine levels between the current crop and the previous one is greater than normal, which may challenge some customers in creating their desired blends.

Chasing Tobacco

The combination of low volume and high quality, along with a persisting post-Covid-19 tobacco shortage at the global level, sparked a scramble among tobacco companies in Brazil to secure their requirements. As a producer of sought-after flavor tobacco, Brazil has only two true competitors on the world market—Zimbabwe and the United States. Zimbabwe, where El Nino brought drought instead of rain, is also looking at a smaller crop this year (albeit from a record volume in 2023), according to that country’s Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board. United States FCV production, meanwhile, has been stable for three years at just below 140 million kg, TMA figures suggest.

The shortage has been aggravated by the fact that last year some customers didn’t buy everything they needed because they were expecting cheaper tobacco this year. Coming out of the pandemic, many customers adopted a wait-and-see approach, carefully managing their stocks to avoid buying at high prices. Now, with inventories running out, those who didn’t buy last year had to buy this year.

According to local traders, Brazil’s leading tobacco buyers alone needed more leaf than the entire volume that was expected to come to the country’s market in 2024. Throughout the season, the vertically integrated companies—BAT, Philip Morris International, Japan Tobacco International and China Tobacco—were buying far above list prices, paying top rates for all grades and leaving independent traders with no choice but to follow their lead.

The result has been an unprecedented escalation of leaf prices and an acceleration of deliveries. In mid-March, farmers were receiving up to $5.50 per kilogram of green tobacco, according to Kohltrade. For processed leaf, customers were paying up to $9.50 for grades that cost perhaps $5 only three years ago. “Prices are up, up, up,” observed Afubra President Marcilio Drescher.

Daison A. Kohl, who grows 2.7 hectares of tobacco in Vale do Sol, said he has never in his time on the farm witnessed such high prices and such fierce competition. Unlike many of his neighbors, Kohl contracts only with one buyer. Yet throughout the buying season, his phone rang nearly daily with representatives from other companies asking him to sell his leaf to them instead.

Kohl had to disappoint them all. “It doesn’t matter how much they offer; the tobacco is just not there,” he said. Merchants have been telling their customers a similar story. Whereas in a more typical year, they may exaggerate and say, “there is no tobacco” as a price negotiation tactic, this season it is simply a statement of fact.

The scramble for tobacco has also greatly accelerated the purchasing process, leaving some receiving stations struggling to keep up with the influx of leaf. At the time of Tobacco Reporter’s visit, leaf merchants were expecting farmers to run out of tobacco by the end of April—two months earlier than in 2023. “Customers who come late to Brazil may not find what they are looking for,” warned Velasques.

Labor Scarcity

For the growers, the 2024 marketing season has been a mixed bag. Even with record per-kilo prices, the additional income may not make up for the reduced weight that they are bringing to market, according to Afubra. Kohl, who suffered a 26 percent drop in yield from last year, said that as long as the companies continue paying above list prices, his operation will remain profitable this year. “But if they resort to paying list prices, it will be a problem,” he said.

While the cost of inputs such as fertilizer have been coming down from their Covid-19-induced and Ukraine war-induced spikes, a long-running shortage of labor has worsened in recent years, impacting both farmers and tobacco factories. But whereas tobacco buyers can mechanize operations such as rack loading and stripping, farmers have fewer options. With an average property size of 10.5 ha and an average area devoted to tobacco of only 3.29 ha, according to Afubra, the typical tobacco farm in southern Brazil is simply too small to justify the investment in equipment. What’s more, many of the tobacco growing activities lend themselves poorly to mechanization. There are no machines for delicate tasks such as sucker control and topping, for example.

Meanwhile, aware of their growing scarcity, farmhands have started driving harder bargains. In Vale do Sol, they have organized themselves in collectives, forcing farmers to negotiate with groups instead of individuals, according to Kohl. To guarantee a group’s labor throughout the growing season, he must pay a premium on top of the already inflated salaries.

Determined to control their cost of production, Kohl and his wife, Solange, carry out many of the tobacco farm activities, including land preparation, themselves. They hire labor for the first, second and third reapings, when the leaves are still thin and easily damaged and speed is of the essence. “If we don’t harvest quickly during that time, we will lose quality,” said Kohl. From the fourth reaping onward, the tobacco is thicker and less fragile, allowing the Kohls to harvest by themselves and save money on labor.

Their workload has been lightened a bit by a recent switch from bundles to loose leaf. In the past, growers in Brazil would classify their tobacco according to quality and color and then tie the leaf into bundles—a laborious process that could take up to two months. As demand increased, some buyers told farmers to skip this step and deliver the tobacco in loose form instead. The practice spread rapidly and has now been adopted by all merchants. After drying the tobacco, the farmer can take his tobacco directly from the barn to the bale and put it on a truck, not only saving time and labor but also greatly accelerating the speed of delivery.

While some buyers at first worried about how the new practice would impact processing, those concerns turned out to be manageable. “Loose leaf is not necessarily the best way to receive tobacco in terms of the feeding table and the presentation of each grade, but we quickly realized it’s possible,” said Streck. According to Renner, the process remains the same. “You can still tip and thresh the leaf because it is straight laid.”

Farmer Succession

The Kohls are happy with the change to loose leaf, as it allows them to focus on other farm activities. As they work their fields, they are occasionally joined by their oldest son of 34, who has no interest in farming but feels a duty to help on some evenings after he’s done with his day job. Their middle son (25) by contrast “does not even want to see the tobacco,” according to Kohl, while their youngest (8) is too little to work on the farm. (Brazilian law requires tobacco workers to be at least 18 years of age, and following intense industry-led awareness campaigns, the country’s sector today is considered a role model in in eradicating child labor.)

The Kohls’ family dynamics hint at another challenge facing Brazil’s tobacco business: farmer succession. Like their counterparts around the world, many rural youngsters in Brazil aspire to work in the city, which has led to an exodus of skills and talent from the countryside. “Keiner will die Finger mehr dreckig machen”—nobody wants to soil their fingers anymore—observes Solange, who, like many people in southern Brazil, is more conversant in German than English as a foreign language.

A 2023 survey conducted by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul at the request of the Interstate Tobacco Industry Union (SindiTabaco), revealed that with an average monthly income of BRL11,755.30 ($2,234.75), tobacco farming families in southern Brazil are relatively well off, earning considerably more than the average Brazilian family. The Kohls, for example, live in a spacious, well-built home equipped with plenty of conveniences and some luxuries, including a small swimming pool. Within agriculture, too, the golden leaf continues to generate the best returns, according to industry sources, contradicting the narrative pushed by certain nongovernmental organizations that tobacco leaves growers in poverty.

But while the earnings from tobacco farming exceed those of other crops, the golden leaf is also more demanding. Unlike some other agricultural products, the farmer cannot just plant it and watch it grow. A good tobacco farmer, notes Kohl, must constantly keep an eye on the plants. “The weather can change things very quickly,” he said. “If rain comes, it puts the leaves on the plants and—boom—they become big overnight. And if you don’t go in and take the flowers off and the wind comes, it can topple the plants.”

With no one lined up to take over the farm, the Kohls’ tobacco volumes will disappear from Afubra’s production statistics after they retire. “We have another 10 years, and then we’ll be gone,” said Kohl. Unfortunately for tobacco buyers, their situation is not exceptional. According to the University of Rio Grande do Sul study, 27 percent of the growers in southern Brazil have no succession plan.

Acutely aware of the demographic drain, the tobacco industry has been looking for ways to keep young adults in the countryside. Originally set up by SindiTabaco and its associate companies to help combat child labor in rural Brazil, the Growing Up Right Institute (also see “Alternatives for Adolescents,” Tobacco Reporter, April 2021) now also runs programs educating young people on the verge of adulthood about the opportunities on the farm. By teaching youngsters how to optimize farm operations through technology and professional management, the institute hopes to convince them that they can live good lives in the countryside.

According to program manager Nadia Fengler Solf, the initiative has had some success. Upon graduation from the program, she said, many students have a completely new perspective on the possibilities in the countryside. Some decide to develop their family properties, investing in new technologies and diversifying their business, while others elect to pursue degrees in agriculture.

COP Fallout

But even as the industry is working to keep farmers interested in tobacco, others are campaigning to steer them away. At COP10 in Panama, delegates vowed to step up action on Articles 17 and 18 of the treaty, which call for the promotion of economic alternatives for tobacco workers and the protection of the environment and health of tobacco workers, respectively. According to a speaker at this year’s Americas Regional meeting of International Tobacco Growers’ Association in Santa Cruz do Sol, the Panama COP could be the first to have a direct impact on the farm.

SindiTabaco President Iro Schunke dismisses the talk about alternative crops in Southern Brazil as unrealistic. “If we had another crop that generates the same income, farmers would have switched long ago on their own accord,” he said. Part of the problem, he explains, is the small average size of farm properties. “To replace the money from one hectare of tobacco, you need to grow 7 hectares of soybeans or 10 hectares of maize.” The pressure for diversification, meanwhile, is unnecessary, according to Schunke. “Tobacco farmers in Brazil are diversified already,” he said. While generating between 60 percent and 70 percent of the average grower’s income, tobacco claims only 20 percent of their property, according to SindiTabaco. Part of the money earned from tobacco is used to plant supplemental crops.

“If we had another crop that generates the same Income, farmers would have swItched long ago on theIr own accord.”
Iro Schunke, president, SindiTabaco

Brazil was one of the most vocal proponents of stricter tobacco controls at COP10, a position that Schunke considers odd, given that leaf tobacco accounts for 11 percent of Rio Grande do Sul’s exports, employs more than half a million farmworkers and earned Brazil an average of more than $2 billion annually through exports over the past 10 years (see chart). Schunke attributes the government’s tough stand to pressure from nongovernmental organizations and the exclusion of tobacco stakeholders from health policy debates along with an ideological aversion to capitalism.

Some suspect the government’s position is driven partially by ignorance, with bureaucrats in faraway Brasilia unaware of how much rural communities in the south of the country depend on the golden leaf. “Although hostility against tobacco from agencies all over the globe is the new status quo and the path of least resistance, the fact is, the economic impact to the communities where tobacco is prevalent is very significant,” says Barker.

Santa Cruz do Sul Mayor Helena Hermany believes that Brazil’s national health surveillance agency, Anvisa, grossly underestimates and misrepresents the industry’s economic significance. More than 50 percent of the city’s revenue comes from tobacco, she told participants in the ITGA Americas meeting. “If tobacco does well, we all do well,” she said.

If tobacco does well, we all do well.
Helena Hermany, mayor of Santa Cruz do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

It terms of sustainability, the tobacco industry is also performing much better than it is given credit for. “We are doing quite well in terms of soil protection, reforestation and the prevention of child labor,” said Drescher. For example, Brazilian farmers are self-sufficient in curing energy, sourcing wood from dedicated plantations rather than indigenous trees.

According to Renner, sustainability is already an integrated part of everything the tobacco industry does. “Whatever we supply must cover these three capital letters,” he said, referring to the environmental, social and governance considerations that the abbreviation stands for. “What we do for our people, our clients, in our operations and in the communities we work with … our suppliers need to do for us.”

As they prepare for next season in the wake of this year’s short crop, industry stakeholders are keen to avoid a wild swing in the other direction. Emboldened by the high prices and keen to recover their lost volumes, many growers are likely to increase their plantings for the 2024–2025 season. Kohl, by contrast, is cautious, worrying that a surplus next year will depress prices, and he plans to plant the same hectarage as last year.

Others predict that the era of cheap Brazilian tobacco is over, not only due to demand-and-supply factors but also as a result of the considerable investments the local industry has made in sustainability. These investments should serve Brazil well as it moves into the new era, giving the country a competitive advantage against origins with less robust practices. At the same time, leaf merchants insist that the effort should be supported throughout the supply chain. ESG initiatives, after all, come at a cost that should be reflected in leaf prices. “It must be sustainable for all parties,” insisted Renner.

Taco Tuinstra is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial director.Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, he coordinates the work of staff writers and contributors.On his watch, Tobacco Reporter has won several awards for editorial excellence.Since joining the magazine in 1997, Taco has visited more than 75 countries to meet industry representatives in their markets and to report tobacco news firsthand.

May 1, 2024

A Perfect Storm

Image: StockImageFactory
How India came to deny consumers legal access to safer ways of consuming nicotine.
By Samrat Chowdhery
India’s ban on commercialization of electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) in 2019 was the blunt political end to a meandering administrative and legal process that began after the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) stated of ENDS in a report presented at its sixth general body meeting held in Moscow in 2014: “while medicinal use of nicotine is a public health option under the treaty, recreational use is not.”
This early denial of harm reduction principles and mistaking product evolution and substitution for market expansion by the tobacco industry led many developing nations to begin formulating policies to ban e-cigarettes even as they were undergoing rapid development by small-scale Chinese producers—becoming safer, affordable and more effective in helping smokers switch.
In India, the then Union health minister, Harsh Vardhan, who was well-steeped in the WHO mindset through his earlier work in establishing smoke-free public spaces policies in the 1990s as a state health minister, formed committees soon after the FCTC meeting to evaluate the impact of e-cigarettes. Staffed with experts from the same WHO-linked tobacco control ecosystem, the committees recommended a complete ban. Notably, another panel formed by the commerce ministry to study ENDS favored the regulatory approach but was overlooked.
In an unexpected twist, the health minister was thereafter reshuffled to another ministry in late 2014, and the issue remained on the backburner until 2019 under the incumbent, although a slow-paced administrative and legal battle continued. The health ministry, through various regulatory bodies, tried to outlaw e-cigarettes, first by claiming they contain nicotine, which requires these products to gain medical approval, and thereafter by stating nicotine is governed by the Poisons Act, which forbids its sale as a consumer product. Both claims were shot down by courts that consistently indicated favor toward the regulatory pathway.
This deadlock continued until Vardhan was reappointed health minister when his party swept back to power in mid-2019 with an absolute majority. Strengthening his hand was a perfect storm. A major push to ban vaping was being led by tobacco control nonprofits linked to funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Among them were The Union, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) and Vital Strategies, which had been lobbying state governments to ban e-cigarettes. With the central government now on board, the wave became a tsunami, and soon, over 15 Indian states had declared a ban on vapor products.
An underlying economic factor could also be that U.S. e-cigarette maker Juul, which had captured 70 percent of U.S. market share in under two years, announced its entry into India earlier that year, spooking the Indian tobacco industry, which until then had made little effort to develop vapor products, perhaps because the regulatory cloud cast on them since 2014 made long-term investment a risky proposition. Data revealed recently through a Supreme Court directive shows that India’s dominant tobacco company, ITC, donated upward of $11 million to the ruling dispensation a few months before the vape ban. However, it is unclear if this was to influence the ban, to favor or oppose it, or if it was part of election-time funding corporations often provide.
Nevertheless, the insistence by Juul, which publicly led the pro-vaping side, on relying on foreign experts who did not well understand the complex and opaque Indian tobacco ecosystem; lack of homegrown research and tobacco cessation researchers who could have countered the anti-vaping narrative from the local network developed by Bloomberg-funded nonprofits; as well as the absence of the local tobacco industry from the debate were all contributing factors.
What followed in rapid succession was to counter the opposition from courts by first banning research into e-cigarettes, followed by a “white paper” by the country’s top government-controlled research body, which cherry-picked research to make a case for a complete ban. This became the basis for an executive order prohibiting the sale of e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco devices, which, breaking from tradition, was announced by the finance minister. Stocks of Indian tobacco companies spiked after the news.
The bill was debated in Parliament a few months later, where after a lengthy but low-quality debate as many politicians admitted they had not seen these devices and despite allegations of favoring the local tobacco industry and over 60 specific objections to the law, it was passed by brute majority. Vardhan was honored by the WHO with its top award for implementing the e-cigarette ban while The Union and the CTFK congratulated the Indian government along with claiming credit for the legislation. It was win-win for all, those selling tobacco and the ones opposing them, except the over 100 million smokers who had been denied legal access to safer ways of consuming nicotine, as well as the independent e-cigarette vendors, most of whom moved shop to Dubai when a Juul-led court challenge to the ban failed to bring relief.
The Fallout
After a year or two of realignment, which saw the vapor market change hands from rule-conscious vendors to black market operators who added e-cigarettes to their portfolio along with smuggled cigarettes (which constitute over a quarter of the market), mobile phones, gold and other prohibited or tax-evaded goods, the full scale of untended consequences some parliamentarians, policymakers and international experts had warned about started becoming apparent.
The first was a product shift from mod-based devices to much cheaper disposables, which had lower barriers to entry and could be stocked by streetside vendors who have become accustomed to and adept at violating tobacco control laws such as the bar on selling loose cigarette sticks and the ban on gutka and pan masala. It did not take long for these substandard and untested, though affordable, single-use devices from becoming available in small towns across the country, growing the illicit vape market into an industry worth billions as smokers voted for their health by trying to switch while teens had a lot freer and cheaper access to them, the key rationale for the ban. The constituents that suffered were older and women smokers, for whom risk reduction could be most beneficial but who are least likely to engage with the black market. Many of them who had switched went back to smoking.
A public health opportunity to convert over 100 million smokers and save lives with minimal stress on state resources while earning tax revenue and creating jobs, especially when unemployment rates are soaring, was lost and replaced by increased criminality, lost revenue, heightened risk for adult switchers as these products have not undergone quality checks, and easier access for teens and unintended users.
The ban led to a short-term windfall for the local cigarette industry with most companies witnessing steady rise in valuations—ITC’s market cap recently overtook BAT’s—especially with the additional sop of the government not raising taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products for three consecutive years. Yet, despite these remarkable industry concessions for a country hailed as the leader in tobacco control among developing nations, the picture is beginning to look less rosy by the day for local tobacco companies as these switchers are their lost customers who, given the high quit rates for smokers who try vaping, will likely never be back nor will those who are being introduced to recreational nicotine through e-cigarettes as there is little empirical evidence for the gateway theory.
Failure to preempt shifting consumer behavior and the ensuing black market explosion, that too in a competing future category in which they are now prohibited from participating, could have significant implications for the Indian cigarette industry as no amount of protections and launching sticks in new flavors, which is partly responsible for sustaining cigarette sales, can compete with the users’ desire to safeguard their health and consume nicotine in less harmful ways.
The Challenges Ahead
Despite the central government’s ban on e-cigarette research and the media gag on publishing anything pro-vaping, despite the ban on carrying vapes through flights even though their use is not prohibited and despite Bloomberg Philanthropies pumping in a large tranche of funds for anti-vaping efforts, it is hard to miss the rapid transformation taking place in Indian towns and cities as smokers switch en masse to vapor devices.
An additional pain point for the legacy industry could be the South African experience of the difficulty in shaking off the black market once it takes hold. Even if vaping was legalized in the near term, the legitimate taxed products will find it hard to compete with the cheaper illicit ones, more so when the consumers have been introduced to vaping through the black market.
The challenge also lies in re-educating the medical fraternity on nicotine—eight of 10 doctors in India believe nicotine causes cancer—such that they understand the role risk reduction can play in reducing tobacco-related mortality and morbidity and sign on to help people struggling to quit toxic forms of nicotine use, or those who do not want to, lower risks by switching to much less harmful alternatives. This will be a tough barrier to cross because high nicotine illiteracy has led to proposals to overturn even the 2014 Moscow statement by restricting access to medical nicotine by making nicotine-replacement therapy (gums and patches) available only through prescription.
But it is never too late to course correct, and there appears to be some signaling from the ruling dispensation, which, if opinion polls hold, is set to return to power in the ongoing national elections (the opposition already favors regulation over a ban). The home ministry recently restricted the funding of the CTFK, a significant anti-vaping voice in the country, along with its key local partner while pro-government media is beginning to publish in favor of tobacco harm reduction again. It must not be hard to see the health and economic rationale for ending the ban on safer nicotine alternatives when it is not working anyway.
Samrat Chowdhery is a journalist and tobacco harm reduction expert based in India.

May 1, 2024
Real-World Quitting

Photo: Pressmaster
What we know, and don’t, about how people stop smoking
By Cheryl K. Olson
Skip Murray was a failure at quitting. After trying countless times over the years to stop smoking, she was through. When she chose to try e-cigarettes, she says, “I had no intention of making a quit attempt. The purpose of my vape was to use it only when I could not smoke, as a temporary substitute.” Four months later, Murray realized that she could not remember the last time she’d lit up. She had accidentally quit smoking.
Randomized controlled trials are the widely acknowledged gold standard in research. They are great for establishing whether a particular approach can create a meaningful effect. Thus, trials of smoking cessation methods typically recruit people who intend to quit, and assign them to use specific products in particular ways. The downside? This approach fails to capture the messy quitting experiences of millions. This includes Murray, a Minnesota-based tobacco harm reduction advocate and writer.
Reviews by the Cochrane Collaboration that incorporate randomized trials and other planned intervention studies assure us that e-cigarettes have the potential to help people quit smoking. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey says 7.5 million adult Americans stopped smoking completely from 2020 to 2022. But how did they do it? Are people in the real world using reduced-harm alternatives to kick the habit?
Raymond Niaura, professor of epidemiology at the New York University School of Global Public Health, has been looking into this. “Over the years, there have periodically been reports that have come out talking about methods people use to quit smoking or try to quit,” he says. “But most information is out of date.”
For example, the 2014–2016 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) listed 10 possible quit methods. The two most popular were giving up cigarettes all at once (a.k.a., “cold turkey”) and gradually cutting back. Although those unaided methods are popular, they aren’t considered to be evidence-based and often result in relapse down the line. E-cigarettes were a distant third in popularity but ahead of nicotine patches or gum. Most people indicated trying multiple quit methods.
How We Quit Now
Niaura and statistician Floe Foxon were already doing some analyses of NHIS data. They decided to detour and look at the latest publicly accessible figures on quitting methods, from 2022. Study participants who had stopped smoking completely in the previous two years were asked whether they had used any of a list of methods. They were also asked whether they had tried “to quit by switching to electronic or e-cigarettes.”
“We found that use of e-cigarettes was pretty high. In fact, it was the No. 1 method used to quit smoking,” says Niaura. “That caught me a little by surprise.” These results hint at a quiet revolution. E-cigarettes may be playing a larger role than popularly assumed, in both attempted and successful quitting.
Niaura and Foxon presented a poster of their findings at the March 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. Updated and expanded results will be published shortly. (Foxon consults for Juul through Pinney Associates. The poster and paper received no funding.)
Survey Letdowns
The NHIS is unusual in that it directly asks people how they stopped smoking. Most studies simply don’t ask. Nationally representative data on this question is surprisingly scarce. The alphabet soup of U.S. government studies such as NHANES, BRFSS and NSDUH inquire only about whether someone smokes now or used to smoke.
Even the NHIS doesn’t ask annually about quitting. Because the survey covers a massive range of health issues, questions are often dropped or altered. The 2024 version asks whether in the past 12 months “a doctor, dentist or other health professional advised you about ways to stop smoking or prescribed medication to help you quit.” This is a worthy variation, but the approach thwarts year-to-year comparisons of change.
Researchers are left to puzzle over what little information they can get. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) survey asks about past-30-day use of cigarettes and electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS). Because participants complete a series of PATH surveys over time, we can see that the link between quitting smoking and using ENDS has gotten stronger over time.
Another problem with surveys? Varying or missing options for answers. In the 2022 NHIS, says Niaura, “We don’t know how many people quit cold turkey with no assistance. They didn’t ask that.” Instead, the response options included a variety of nicotine-containing medications and several behavioral help options, such as telephone quit lines and counseling. NHIS asked about ENDS but didn’t inquire about quitting smoking via other nonmedicinal reduced-risk products, such as pouches, snus or heated tobacco.
Shifting response options do give glimpses into how assumptions change over time. “Back in the 1950s and 1960s, people were interested in things like, did you switch to a pipe or cigar to help you quit smoking,” notes Niaura. Oddly, the 2014–2016 NHIS questionnaire included the discredited cessation option of “switched to ‘mild’ cigarettes.”
A third problem with nationally representative surveys is that they can’t tell us how people go about quitting. “We don’t really understand the whole process,” says Niaura. “The high numbers in the [NHIS] survey mean this is a frequent occurrence, that smokers are using e-cigarettes and quitting. How come there’s not a ton of research being conducted on those kinds of questions?
Harking back to Murray’s experience, Niaura notes that many smokers “didn’t set a quit date, make a plan and go out and buy some e-cigarettes. And it still worked.”
“So, what’s happening there?” he wonders. “What’s their experience along the way? What difficulties do they run into? Where are they getting advice?”
Finally, Niaura ponders how e-cigarettes might be made even more effective, perhaps with some form of counseling and support, such as vape shops have provided to customers. With vape shops closing due to regulatory restrictions, this question deserves urgent attention.

Regardless of what the government says or doesn’t say, in many ways, we are in a golden era of quit methods.
Raymond Niaura, professor of epidemiology, New York University School of Global Public Health
Success Factors
A few studies have looked at factors linked to successful quitting with e-cigarettes. In a 2021 online survey, vaping more often throughout the day was linked to good outcomes. So was an abrupt switch from smoking to vaping rather than a gradual one. Using a newer device type (e.g., rechargeable pods) rather than older cig-a-like products also helped. Researchers also noted that “most people reported trying more than one e-cigarette flavor and more than one device type when trying to quit smoking.”
A qualitative study used online individual interviews with people who had quit smoking with e-cigarettes, looking for factors that separated long-term success from short-term attempts. Those who gave up had trouble finding a vape they could stick with that met their needs and prevented cravings.
I asked Murray for a reality check. To her, it makes sense that newer vaping devices could more effectively help people quit smoking. “I tried a cig-a-like. I didn’t like anything about it—how it felt, what the hit was like or how it tasted,” she says. “It was more satisfying to smoke!”
She noted that, as with all new technologies, vaping devices have improved along the way. “There were issues with earlier products that leaked or weren’t reliable.”
Based on her experience as a former vape shop owner, Murray found that for people who smoked heavily, the newer pod systems that use nicotine salts can be a game changer. “Those products provide enough nicotine to replace what they got from combustible tobacco,” she states.
“A Golden Era”
Niaura finds it frustrating that the FDA does not do more to promote the visibility of studies like these, including ones that use the FDA’s own PATH survey data. “Regardless of what the government says or doesn’t say, in many ways, we are in a golden era of quit methods,” he points out. “The good news is there are more ways to stop smoking than ever before: e-cigarettes and other reduced-risk products as well as tried-and-true conventional methods.”
“Go and try something,” he urges. “And if it doesn’t work, try something else.”
“The one valuable lesson that society should have learned is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the smoking epidemic. So no one product is perfect for all consumers,” concludes Murray.
“Someone who smoked six cigarettes a day for a couple of years has drastically different needs than someone who has smoked two packs a day for 30 years,” she adds. “What part of smoking was most important to them, why they smoked and when or where they smoked are all parts of the equation when it comes to finding what will work best to help them stop.”
Cheryl K. Olson is a California-based public health researcher who specializes in behavioral health issues and consults on tobacco product behaviors via McKinney Regulatory Science Advisors. She spent 15 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School.

May 1, 2024
Japan Tobacco to Keep Russian Business

Masamichi Terabatake (Photo: JTI)
Japan Tobacco CEO Masamichi Terabatake said the company will keep its Russian business to satisfy investors following a supply chain reshape to comply with sanctions, reports the Financial Times.
According to the paper, JT is routing some business through Turkiye and has moved key personnel to Hong Kong. JT had originally said it would consider selling its Russian business following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia accounted for 20 percent of JT’s overall profits, according to Terabatake.
“If I said, for example, that we are going to quit the business, investors may face the risk of losses,” said Terabatake. “If worse comes to worst, there is even the risk of a shareholder lawsuit if we were to discontinue a business that we are able to continue.”
JT has more than 4,000 employees and four factories in Russia, one of the largest foreign companies left in the country. In 2023, JT’s overall profits were ¥482 billion ($3 billion).
“There are various things we need to be careful of from sanctions—what kind of people can be involved or not in decisionmaking, excluding people from unfriendly countries for Russia’s management … to putting people unrelated to sanctions in places such as Hong Kong,” said Terabatake on JT’s new structure following wide-ranging sanctions on Russia. “But otherwise, it’s business as usual.”
“We are making various efforts to ensure a sort of a ringfence by sending things from Turkiye, for example, since there are countries that cannot do trade with Russia,” he said.
Following the sanctions, many companies and investors left Russia. However, some have opted to stay, including Philip Morris International.
Japan has also implemented sanctions on Russia.
“It’s true that initially there was a question about reputation in regard to continuing our business, but more recently, it’s less of an issue,” said Terabatake. “There are fewer occasions where people are demanding to know why JT is continuing its business [in Russia].”
JT has not yet answered investors about how profits will get out of Russia and back to shareholders; to date, no dividends have been paid by the Russian entity from its 2022 and 2023 financial results.
Terabatake said he remains prepared to split off or sell the Russian unit “in the worst-case scenario,” but he does not believe it will be necessary under the current sanctions regime.
May 1, 2024
Support for Filter Ban at Pollution Summit

Photo: Gagula
Government delegations expressed support for a ban on cigarette filters during the fourth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4) to develop an international legally binding treaty on ending plastic pollution, according to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
During the weeklong conference, which adjourned April 29, negotiators sought to regulate plastic products according to their utility and environmental harm, with nonessential, polluting plastics slated for complete bans.
At the INC-4 negotiations, several countries proposed banning cigarette filters, including Peru, Panama and Switzerland. The World Health Organization also made a joint statement with the Secretariat of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to call for a cigarette filter and other single-use tobacco plastic product waste ban. Their joint statement called on the INC to acknowledge a WHO FCTC COP10 decision on the environmental impact of tobacco.
The list of plastics to be banned will be finalized at INC-5 starting Nov. 25, 2024, in Busan, Republic of Korea.
Roughly 4.5 trillion used filters, or cigarette butts, are tossed into the environment each year, according to ASH. Filters are made of cellulose acetate that breaks down into microplastics and leaches toxins and carcinogens into terrestrial and aquatic environments.
“It’s essential to remember that we don’t need industry permission to build a healthy environment, free from trillions of cigarette butts and other harmful plastics. We must demand our right to a healthy environment, and governments have a duty, both ethical and legal, to provide it,” said ASH. Executive Director Laurent Huber in a statement. “The right to a healthy environment has been recognized by the U.N. General Assembly. Banning cigarette filters is a step in the right direction to protecting those and many other essential human rights.”
Recycling cigarette filters is not a viable solution, according to ASH. Even if a substantial fraction of cigarette butts could be collected, there is no process for removing the toxins, recycling the plastic or turning the recycled plastic into other products.
May 1, 2024
22nd Century Eliminates Debt

Photo: Photo: Jade
22nd Century Group has entered into a binding letter of agreement to redeem $5.2 million in outstanding principal and interest associated with the Omnia subordinated note and outstanding warrants.
The agreement will exchange consideration of approximately $248,000 in cash, 1.15 million shares of common stock priced at $2.14 per share and 1.15 million shares of prefunded warrants priced at $2.14 per share as consideration of the debt. Additionally, the company will issue to Omnia 460,000 warrants with a term of five years and an exercise price of $2.14 per share.
“Paying Omnia at maturity with equity greatly improves our balance sheet, preserves cash for growing our operating business and significantly increases shareholder equity,” said Chairman and CEO Larry Firestone in a statement. “This transaction also reduces our monthly interest expense and adds to the progress made on increasing sales and margin while reducing operating costs. This is a key milestone toward reaching our goal of being cash positive in the first quarter of 2025.”
April 30, 2024