Blog - Tobacco Reporter

CTP Releases Strategic Plan

On Dec. 18, Brian King, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products, published a statement about the release of the center’s comprehensive strategic plan. The new strategic plan outlines CTP’s programmatic and workforce initiatives for the next five years.

The CTP’s strategic plan defines five goals, 10 outcomes and several corresponding objectives. As outlined in the goals and outcomes in the plan, the center is collectively committed to issuing impactful regulations, using robust science to inform application reviews, pursuing timely and impactful compliance and enforcement strategies, and educating the public about the risks of tobacco products.

King said the CTP will also continue to invest in its staff by advancing operational enhancements and supporting the further development of its workforce.

In conjunction with the strategic plan, the CTP also published the center’s policy agenda of rules and guidance documents that are in development or planned for development. According to the agency, this policy agenda will create a more efficient approach to meeting the CTP’s strategic plan. The agenda will be updated annually.

December 18, 2023

Resolution to Exempt Premium Cigars

A resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would remove the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate premium cigars, according to Halfwheel.

Cigar Rights of America (CRA) worked with Representative Byron Donalds to introduce the joint resolution, which would provide a definition of premium cigars and specify that the term “tobacco product” does not mean premium cigar.

To be considered a premium cigar, a product must meet these requirements: is wrapped in whole tobacco leaf; contains a 100 percent leaf tobacco binder; contains at least 50 percent (of the filler by weight) long filler tobacco (i.e., whole tobacco leaves that run the length of the cigar); is handmade or hand-rolled (i.e., no machinery was used apart from simple tools, such as scissors to cut the tobacco prior to rolling); has no filter, nontobacco tip or nontobacco mouthpiece; does not have a characterizing flavor other than tobacco; contains only tobacco, water and vegetable gum with no other ingredients or additives; and weighs more than 6 pounds per 1,000 units.

The resolution has gained 10 co-sponsors from both political parties. It has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and is awaiting further action.

If the resolution is passed, premium cigars would be exempt from all aspects of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Congress would take back authority over cigar regulation.

December 18, 2023

Colin Mendelsohn Announces Retirement

After nearly a decade advocating for vaping as a tobacco harm reduction strategy in Australia, Colin Mendelsohn announced his retirement in Filter.

In his piece, Mendelsohn expressed distress at what he described as Australia’s “descent from its former status as a global leader in tobacco control to the current slow-moving train wreck.”

“Where vaping is seen by other Western democracies as a huge opportunity for public health, successive Australian governments have framed it as a threat,” he wrote. “The ensuing prohibitive regulations have neutralized the potential benefits and led to troubling and escalating unintended consequences.”

During his career, Mendelsohn endured heavy criticism from anti-vaping groups.

“My evidence-based advocacy and the efforts of others are undermined with smears, insults and harassment,” he wrote. “I have repeatedly faced false accusations of being funded by Big Tobacco, including in national print media and on national radio.”

Despite his disappointment over Australia’s tobacco-control policy choices and the personal attacks, Mendelsohn, remained optimistic that tobacco harm reduction would eventually prevail.

“As I retire, my hope, still, is for a balanced, evidence-based approach to vaping in Australia,” he wrote. “It won’t come soon. The latest regulatory crackdown will need to run its course and fail again before much-needed reforms are possible.

“Then we will need to move beyond the echo chamber of Australia’s tobacco control group-think, if we’re to recognize vaping not as a ‘public health menace’ but as a powerful ally in the fight against tobacco-related harm.”

December 18, 2023

Indonesia Adds Vapes to Inflation Basket

Indonesia is adding e-cigarettes and vape liquids to its inflation basket, a collection of goods and services used to calculate the Consumer Price Index rate, reports Bloomberg.

The change will update the composition of Indonesia’s consumer basket to reflect changes in technology, income and people’s consumption patterns, especially after the pandemic, according to the country’s statistics office.

Other new inclusions include face masks, hand sanitizers, TV receivers and fares for Jakarta’s recently-launched Mass Rapid Transit line. Online shopping for men’s and women’s shoes, Muslim clothing, mobile phones and perfume will also be tracked in five major cities, including Jakarta, Bogor and Surabaya.

Items like TV antennas, DVDs and print magazines have been dropped from the basket.

Indonesia is one of the world’s largest tobacco markets. Vapes have gained popularity in recent years, especially in urban areas.

December 18, 2023

Kodiak Premium Wintergreen Recalled

American Snuff Co. (ASC) is voluntarily recalling certain lots of Kodiak Premium Wintergreen Longcut Tobacco manufactured at the company’s facility in Clarksville, Tennessee, and distributed in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. ASC has notified the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of the voluntary recall and is working with the agency on this matter.

According to a announcement on the company’s website, ASC initiated the recall after having identified the potential for certain lots of the product to contain foreign metal objects that may or may not be visible to the consumer. The recall was as the result of identifying an issue with manufacturing equipment during routine inspection that caused metal-to-metal abrasion; this abrasion could have caused metal shavings to come into contact with tobacco during the manufacturing process. To date, there have been no products identified as containing these foreign objects, no consumer complaints, or reports of consumer injury received.

None of ASC’s other products are affected, including its other styles of Kodiak, Grizzly, Hawken, and Cougar smokeless tobacco products, and all of its loose leaf, twist, dry snuff and plug products.

ASC has instructed wholesalers and retailers to segregate the recalled Kodiak Premium Wintergreen Longcut Tobacco from their inventories. ASC’s sales representatives are assisting wholesalers and retailers in returning the product.

The affected products are labeled with the codes GxxxxIK3, GxxBxJK3, GxxAxJK3 and GxxCxJK3. ASC advises consumers in procession of such cans to refrain from opening the product and to contact the company for a refund.

December 18, 2023

Hugh Cullman Dies at 100

Hugh Cullman died at his home in Pittsboro, North Carolina, USA, on Nov. 4 at the age of 100, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Cullman was among the last members of his family to hold a leading role in the cigarette business. Robert Proctor, Stanford University professor, called Cullman’s family “the most important tobacco family in American history.”

Cullman worked at Philip Morris for more than 30 years, selling cigarettes and “the idea that you couldn’t prove that smoking was as bad as critics claimed,” according to WSJ.

Cullman is survived by his daughter, Katherine Hedges, his son, Hugh Cullman Jr., his daughter, Alexandra Haslingden, his sister, Marguerite Cullman, his brother, Brian Cullman, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

December 18, 2023

WHO Announcement Provokes Backlash

Tobacco harm reduction advocates have vehemently criticized the World Health Organization’s call to crack down on e-cigarettes.

On Dec. 14, the global health body issued a statement urging action to prevent the uptake of e-cigarettes and counter nicotine addiction. On the same day, it released a technical note with detailed information on the evidence and factors underpinning its guidance.

“E-cigarettes as consumer products are not shown to be effective for quitting tobacco use at the population level,” the WHO wrote. “Instead, alarming evidence has emerged on adverse population health effects.”

In its announcement, the WHO described e-cigarettes with nicotine as highly addictive and harmful to health. “Whilst long-term health effects are not fully understood, it has been established that they generate toxic substances, some of which are known to cause cancer and some that increase the risk of heart and lung disorders,” the organization wrote.

“Use of e-cigarettes can also affect brain development and lead to learning disorders for young people. Fetal exposure to e-cigarettes can adversely affect the development of the fetus in pregnant women. Exposure to emissions from e-cigarettes also poses risks to bystanders.”

To address the impact of e-cigarettes, the WHO encouraged national governments to ban vape flavors, limit the concentration of nicotine, and tax e-cigarettes.

Tobacco harm reduction activists were aghast. “The WHO’s latest stance on vaping flavors is not just misguided, it’s dangerously out of touch with scientific reality,” wrote Michael Landl, director of the World Vapers’ Alliance, in a statement.

“By pushing for a blanket ban, the WHO blatantly disregards a wealth of scientific evidence that underscores the benefits of vaping when compared to alternatives. Flavored e-cigarettes have been proven to increase the chances of successful smoking cessation by 230 percent compared to non-flavored alternatives. It’s appalling to see such a pivotal public health tool being dismissed by an organization that should be at the forefront of harm reduction.”

The WHO’s attack on vaping is both inaccurate and misleading and will further discourage smokers from making the life-changing decision to quit.

John Dunne, director general, UKVIA

The U.K. Vaping Industry Association said the WHO announcement was based on discredited research and predicted that the measures would be “disastrous” for public health.

“The WHO’s attack on vaping is both inaccurate and misleading and will further discourage smokers from making the life-changing decision to quit,” said UKVIA Director General John Dunne in a statement. “Vapes are 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes and are responsible for an accelerated drop in smoking in the U.K. in the past decade.”

“The WHO’s criticism of vaping is based on discredited research and implying that vaping is in some way proven to be cancer-causing is wholly misleading, as is the claim that it harms brain development in young people, a scare story that is simply not true.

“Banning flavored vapes would lead to more smokers and more smoking deaths. Indeed, 80 percent of vapers consider the availability of flavors to be a significant part of their quitting journey, according to One Poll in March 2023. 24 percent of respondents said that banning flavors would likely lead them to revert to smoking, potentially affecting over 1.1 million individuals in the UK.

“Restricting adult access to vapes has had disastrous consequences around the world, such as in Australia, where it has resulted in a massive unregulated black market and a boost to smoking rates.”

Earlier this month, tobacco harm reduction specialists raised concern about the FCTC’s direction of travel in a special report published by Forniche.

December 15, 2023

U.K. Smoking Decline Stalled Since Pandemic

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a decades-long decline in smoking prevalence in England has stalled, according to a new study from University College London (UCL) researchers.

The study was funded by Cancer Research U.K. and published in BMC Medicine.

From June 2017 to February 2020, smoking prevalence fell by 5.2 percent annually. From April 2020 to August 2022 (during the pandemic), the rate of decline slowed to 0.3 percent. The stall in decline was more pronounced in advantaged social groups.

“Smoking prevalence has been falling among adults in England at a steady rate for more than 20 years,” said Sarah Jackson, lead author from the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, in a statement. “Our data show that this decline has stalled, with an increase in quitting potentially having been offset by a rise in people taking up smoking or an increase in late relapse.

“These findings make bold policy action more urgent. The government was already not on track to meet its target for England to be smoke-free by 2030. This study shows we are even further off track than we thought.”

The researchers estimated that smokers in England accounted for 16.2 percent in June 2017, and in August 2022, this number was 15 percent.

The researchers used data from the Smoking Toolkit Study, aiming to see if the pandemic had resulted in sustained changes in smoking patterns. They found that there was a 40 percent increase in quit attempts during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic, and there was a sustained 120 percent increase in the proportion of people stopping smoking, but this was offset by an increase in the number of people taking up smoking during the same period.

Smoking prevalence increased among 18-year-olds to 24-year-olds at the start of the pandemic while it decreased among 45-year-olds to 65-year-olds. Both age groups saw the immediate changes followed by pre-pandemic declines stopping and prevalence remaining flat.

“In working toward the smoke-free 2030 target,” the researchers wrote, “there is a need for action to reignite progress in reducing smoking among the more advantaged social grades and identify ways to accelerate the decline among less advantaged groups.”

“The government’s proposal to make it an offense to sell tobacco products to anyone born after 2008 could get us much closer to a smoke-free 2030,” said Jamie Brown, senior author and professor at the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care. “Other bold actions that have been proposed, such as increasing investment in mass media campaigns and distributing a million e-cigarettes to smokers, could also make a significant difference.”

“These findings demonstrate why we can’t be complacent when it comes to tobacco,” said Ian Walker, Cancer Research U.K.’s executive director of policy. “It can be easy to start smoking but notoriously hard to quit.

“World-leading measures, such as changing the age of sale of tobacco, alongside critical funding to boost smoking cessation services, are essential to help us achieve a smoke-free U.K. We call on MPs from all parties to support the age of sale legislation at the free vote.”

December 15, 2023

Court Stays Kathmandu Ban on Plastic Packs

The Patan High Court on Dec. 15 stayed the Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s decision to ban the sale of tobacco products packed in plastics, reports The Kathmandu Post.

Judges Janak Pandey and Brajesh Pyakurel issued an interim order not to implement the decision while responding to a tobacco company’s petition against the decision of the metropolis.

In early December, the city announced a ban on the sale of tobacco products packed in plastics in the areas under its jurisdiction from Dec. 13. In its ruling, the court argued that tobacco companies are preparing to pack their products in biodegradable packages.

Kathmandu tried to ban tobacco several times before, but failed on each occasion.

December 15, 2023

KT&G Investor Urges Transparent CEO Search

Flashlight Capital Partners (FCP) is urging KT&G to select its next CEO in a more transparent manner.

In a video published ahead of the South Korean tobacco firm’s annual general meeting in March 2024, FCP highlighted what it considered the problems during previous CEO nominations. It lamented the fact that current CEO Beak Bok-in was the only candidate, for example, and criticized the board’s unusually swift 11-day decisionmaking.

FCP also expressed disappointment in the performance of Baek, who has held the position for three consecutive terms. Over nine years, KT&G stock fell by 19 percent while the KOSPI index rose by 26 percent, according to FCP.

The investor questioned management’s “vain pursuit on volume” at the expense of profit, noting a 40 percent revenue growth coupled with a 17 percent decrease in operating profit. FCP pointed to such “lack of profit motive” as a primary cause for the stock’s over 50 percent discount relative to its peers.

To address the shortcomings, Sanghyun Lee, managing partner of Flashlight Capital, suggested allowing sufficient time for a proper candidate evaluation process; considering outsiders with fast-moving consumer goods expertise; and thoroughly documenting the process for the sake of transparency.

“The 11-day CEO nomination is unprecedented in Korea, standing out even among other former government-owned companies,” said Lee in a statement.

In 2022, KT&G rebuffed a request by FCP to spin of its lucrative ginseng business and appoint certain outside directors.

December 15, 2023