Category: Also in TR

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  • Gaining Momentum

    Gaining Momentum

    Photos courtesy of Cavandish Llloyd

    Cavendish Lloyd is eager to expand shisha tobacco production in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.

    By George Gay

    When I corresponded in 2022 with the president of Cavendish Lloyd, Koen Monkau, he was bullish about the market for shisha-style, low-nicotine flue-cured tobacco (LNFCT), the production of which his company was trialing in Zimbabwe. And, earlier this year, he was still bullish. The major manufacturers of shisha might have experienced a drop in sales recently, mainly due to vaping, he said, but a lot of new players had entered the market in the past few years, and shisha consumption was still growing worldwide. Five years ago, for instance, there were no shisha bars in Harare, but now there are plenty of establishments that offer shisha. “This is a worldwide trend,” he added.

    While this sounds like good news for Cavendish Lloyd, it seems to also be good news for Zimbabwe. As part of an email exchange in May, Monkau told me it was important for Zimbabwe’s tobacco industry that it diversified the portfolio of tobacco it offered buyers and, ultimately, manufacturers. “An industry is not sustainable in the long run if half its crop is sold to one customer, as is the case now,” he said. “LNFCT—and also other tobacco varieties—can assist in diversifying the industry so that it is able to stand the test of time.”

    Although Cavendish Lloyd is the only company currently producing LNFCT in Zimbabwe, it is certainly the case that the country’s tobacco industry, at least in the guise of the Kutsaga Tobacco Research Board (TRB), seems aware of the desirability of diversification. Monkau said his company had enjoyed a good cooperative relationship with the TRB, which had this season, 2023–2024, grown 7 ha for it on a commercial basis. At the same time, the TRB was continuing to experiment with alternative growing methods and different shisha tobacco seeds.   

    This season, Cavendish Lloyd is hoping that its Zimbabwe crop will reach 600,000 kg, and Monkau is looking for investors to help him expand LNFCT production into other countries, including Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. His company, he said, was now looking to hold talks with the tobacco research institutes of these countries, following initial approaches that had been made by the chief executive officer of the TRB, Frank Magama. In fact, Tanzania had already expressed serious interest in growing this crop, and representatives of the country’s Tobacco Research Institute had attended this year’s sales, which were ongoing at the time this story was written.

    Many Zimbabwean farmers are growing it for the first time this season.

    Challenges

    It would be wrong, however, to give the impression that everything has been going without a hitch. Monkau readily admits that his company was hit by financial and other constraints during the 2022–2023 season and that its crop of 150,000 kg was well below what had been initially targeted. And while the 600,000 kg crop expected this season would represent a major increase, it would have been even bigger, perhaps 1 million kg, but for the El Nino weather effect.

    But then El Nino affected all tobacco (and other) crops in Zimbabwe (and elsewhere, and the resulting drought was eventually declared a national disaster. The unhelpful weather conditions did not come out of the blue, however, and, in mitigation, Cavendish Lloyd was able to focus on growing an irrigated crop from the start. At the same time, Monkau said, the dryland crop had had to be scaled back to ensure that growers did not plant crops that they would not have been able to sell.

    Unfortunately, the current situation implies that things could reverse next season and create problems for those who use irrigation for growing tobacco because there has not been enough rain to fill dams and reservoirs.

    Despite these setbacks, it is not proving difficult to attract farmers to LNFCT. Cavendish Lloyd started out on this project three seasons ago with just one grower, who is still on board, but he has been joined by about 40 others, ranging from commercial to small-scale farmers. Monkau said that LNFCT was relatively easy to grow and provided good returns when cultivated well, so farmers had been lining up to produce this variety.

    LNFCT is closer grown than standard flue-cured tobacco; it requires the application of less fertilizer; it is not topped; it provides for faster harvesting because more leaves are reaped with each pass; and it requires less energy during curing. All this adds up to efficiency savings and better returns, not to mention environmental gains.

    Nevertheless, the switch from growing a regular flue-cured crop to LNFCT requires some adjustments on the part of the grower, who is presented with logistical challenges if he grows LNFCT alongside regular flue-cured. For instance, because LNFCT cures faster than regular flue-cured, growers need good barn management skills when scheduling curing. In fact, Monkau believes it is preferable for growers to concentrate on either LNFCT or regular flue-cured.

    To help growers further, Cavendish Lloyd is currently looking at employing more sophisticated ways of crop management than are now used. “By using satellite imaging to monitor crops, we can deploy our agronomy team more efficiently to areas that need immediate and special attention rather than have them do their weekly rounds of farmers,” he said. “It is a relatively cheap way of potentially increasing crop yields dramatically, and it is quite amazing what kind of information can be gathered on a day-to-day basis.”

    Looking to the future, I asked if African-grown LNFCT might be used for purposes beyond shisha manufacture, to which Monkau replied that his company had already had inquiries from companies operating in the cigarette and RYO markets that were interested in obtaining a bright, low-nicotine-style tobacco that fitted their established blends. In addition, a recent sale of 10,000 kg of LNFCT to a flavor extraction plant in Zimbabwe had shown that there were other outlets for this type as well.

    In finding and establishing these other outlets, it probably helps that as well as being involved in LNFCT production, Cavendish Lloyd has contacts made through some of its other operations, which include the marketing and distribution of cigarettes, and the trade in tobacco, cut rag and tobacco production materials, such as packaging. And since 2023, cigarette manufacturing can be added to that list since the company last year established a manufacturing plant in Lusaka, Zambia.

    This season, Cavendish Lloyd is hoping that its Zimbabwe shisha tobacco crop will reach 600,000 kg.

    Limits to Production

    Looking away from the demand side and toward the supply side of the LNFCT business, I also asked what limited the amount of this type that could be grown. “Limits are mainly defined by how much capital we can raise to fund the growers,” Monkau said. “I believe there is room to expand production to 5 million kg in Africa on a sustainable basis,” he added before providing an interesting comparison, “which would be comparable with the crop size of Germany.”

    This comparison chimes with a point Monkau had made to me in response to an earlier question about whether LNFCT could now be seen as an established commercial crop in Zimbabwe. No, it was not, he replied. Many farmers this season were growing it for the first time, so it would be an experiment to see if it worked for them. Only one farmer was growing it for the third time, and for several, it was their second season. Even with the volume of all Zimbabwe’s flue-cured crops expected to total less than 250 million kg this year because of El Nino, LNFCT would account for only 0.2 percent of the total.

    That, for sure, seems to be only a modest amount of LNFCT, but I was interested to know if it had been a smooth ride getting to that point. There was no such thing as a smooth ride in Zimbabwe, Monkau told me. The financial/economic situation in the country always kept you on your toes. For instance, on Cavendish Lloyd’s first sales day of 2024, April 5, the government had abolished the Zimbabwe dollar and introduced a new currency, the ZiG, which put the whole financial system on hold for a few days, and the company was still dealing with the fallout from that. Such changes did not make doing business easier, but, apart from that, things had gone quite well. There was a lot of interest and support from the government to make the LNFCT business successful, and the company’s efforts were the subject of regular local press reports.

    Of course, the real test of how things are going and will go in the future concerns whether growers are content with the prices they are receiving, and, in the short term, the answer is probably that they are. Nevertheless, Monkau made the point that pricing was something of a thorny issue in respect of LNFCT. His company was required to follow the pricing arrangements specified by the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB), arrangements that could lead to anomalies since LNFCT fell outside the regular classifications of the TIMB. It wasn’t too much of an issue for the tobacco that met shisha standards, but, in the case of lower grades that were unsuitable for shisha, the company was obliged to pay regular market prices for tobacco of substandard quality.

    But at least the next season, 2024–2025, should see farmers keen to grow LNFCT—in fact, any tobacco type or variety. “Overall, prices for all tobacco have been good this year, so I don’t see many farmers complaining,” said Monkau. “I expect current prices will push more farmers back into tobacco growing until we see more balance between supply and demand.”

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

    Puffs with Papers

    Under the cumbersome U.S. product authorization system, it’s easier to bring new cigarettes to the market than to gain approval for lower risk products such as vapes. | Photo: Jet City Images

    U.S. states are passing vape product registry bills to compensate for meek federal enforcement.

    By Timothy S. Donahue

    Vaping product registry bills are gaining momentum in the U.S. This surge is a direct response to the perceived lack of action from the Food and Drug Administration in curbing the influx of illegal disposable vaping products. Currently, three states have implemented registry rules, with four more set to follow suit in 2025. Several other states are drafting similar bills.

    Critics claim that registry bills favor big tobacco companies over independent vape manufacturers, and many continue to condemn the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) process as excessively onerous. They point out that it’s easier to bring new cigarettes to the market than it is to gain authorization for lower risk products such as vapes.

    “The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products [CTP] is supposed to comply with a statutory, 180-day deadline to review new tobacco product applications, many of which are potentially less harmful than combustible cigarettes,” says Nick Orlando, president of the Florida Smoke-Free Association. “However, as Florida’s vape manufacturers have experienced, working through this process is often a painstaking, costly and onerous ordeal that has resulted in a backlog of thousands of applications that have sat with the CTP for years.”

    There are currently 13 million vapers across the U.S., according to Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association. Out of millions of applications, the FDA has authorized only six different types of e-cigarettes—all made by large cigarette manufacturers, which have the resources to meet the onerous PMTA standards. To date, the FDA has not authorized any nontobacco-flavored vaping products.

    Abboud compares the impact of the registry bills to a scenario in which all beer except for Bud Light and Miller Lite are removed from stores. “Bud and Miller would love it, right, because they are definitely going to pick up some more customers,” he says.

    Gregory Conley, director of legislative and external affairs at the American Vapor Manufacturers Association, says there is no need to guess why companies like Altria have dedicated massive resources to support the passage of PMTA registries. In its investor reports, Altria has acknowledged that disposable vapes have been hurting the company’s cigarette sales.

    “This is not about giving a competitive advantage to [Altria subsidiary] Njoy products; it’s about selling more combustible cigarettes, which kill over 400,000 people each year,” says Conley. “Fortunately, the more politicians learn about these bills, the less they like them, which is why most states that considered these bills in 2023 and 2024 have rejected them.”

    Yet plenty of states are pushing ahead. Alabama, Louisiana and Oklahoma already have PMTA registry bills in effect while laws in Kentucky, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin are set to take effect in 2025. Many vape directories are similar. Louisiana and Oklahoma, for example, nearly mimicked Alabama’s vaping registry rules. It should be noted that both the Alabama and Oklahoma registry rules, while technically in effect, are not currently being enforced. Bills to fund the enforcement of regulations in both states have been defeated by vaping industry advocates.

    “This is not about giving a competitive advantage to [Altria subsidiary] Njoy products; it’s about selling more combustible cigarettes, which kill over 400,000 people each year.”

    Florida’s Fortune

    Florida has a reputation of doing things differently. According to Orlando, Florida’s House Bill 1007 addresses the state attorney general’s concerns without forcing retailers out of business.

    Unlike other state registries, Florida’s system will not create a list of FDA products that have marketing authorization or are currently under PMTA review. Instead, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will compile a registry of products deemed illegal only after an administrative review process and a public comment period. The law focuses on disposable products and allows for the sale of most open system and pod system products.

    “The list does not currently have any products on it. The state must create a list, SKU by SKU, meeting specific criteria,” explains Orlando. “The list and the products listed are then placed on a referral to a rules committee, which would then open up for public comment any items that made the ‘unauthorized’ list. There would also be mediation with the product owner. The real benefit is that this process is very long, and it only deals with single-use products. You can keep a product on your store shelves until the entire process is completed.”

    Orlando says several state vapor industry associations are trying to figure out ways to tailor the Florida bill to their respective states.

    Not everyone is excited about Florida’s approach, however. “While undoubtedly better than a full-blown ban on 98 percent-plus of the current vaping market, Florida’s bill should not be a model for other states,” says Conley. “Politicizing vaping by putting unilateral control into the hands of attorneys general does not make sense, particularly in light of the decline in youth usage we have seen since 2019 …. Adult use of vaping products has grown significantly since 2020 all while youth vaping has continued to fall. In any other reality, this would be celebrated as a significant public health victory. On the plus side, Florida does have strong due process rights built into its administrative law statutes, so Florida businesses and consumers will have the opportunity to weigh in on future bans and potentially bring litigation.”

    Other manufacturers praise the Florida rules. “Properly constructed and effectively enforced product directory laws can be an important supplement to federal enforcement against illegal vapor products,” Juul Labs wrote in a statement.

    “Properly constructed and effectively enforced product directory laws can be an important supplement to federal enforcement against illegal vapor products.”

    Disciplinary Reaction

    Another difference in Florida’s vaping rules is that the regulations have teeth to combat underage retail sales. Any person who sells a nicotine product, including vapes, to someone under 21 for a third or subsequent time will face a third-degree felony charge, punishable by up to $5,000 in fines and five years in prison.

    Beginning March 1, 2025, manufacturers that sell prohibited products in the state will face a $1,000 daily fine for each such product until it’s removed from the market. This stricture will also apply to retailers, wholesalers and distributors who ship products into Florida.

    Orlando says retailers have embraced Florida’s new rules. The options were either an outright ban on all flavored vaping products or HB 2007, which allowed for adult vapers to have access to a variety of flavors and hardware options to help a broader swath of combustible smokers make the switch to vaping. “Once I explain to them what really happened and they understand the dynamics of it and what it takes, actually, to get something on the list and that open systems are totally excluded, they’re happy with it,” he says.

    Orlando says that, at the end of the day, the vaping business needs reasonable regulations and industry players need to be responsible. He believes the Florida regulations are a step in the right direction for tobacco harm reduction. “Let’s get real. Let’s get accountable and start doing business like we should,” he says.

    Generational Bans Growing

    The idea of banning access to legal nicotine products, even for those born after January 2007, originated in New Zealand. The proposal then spread to other countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. In the U.S., states such as California, Tennessee and Massachusetts are all pushing for generational smoking bans under the guise of protecting youth and promoting social well-being.

    New Zealand ditched its plans after a new government was elected earlier this year. Then, a month later, the U.K. government announced its intention to introduce a bill in Parliament prohibiting nicotine sales for future generations, aiming to phase out smoking among young people.

    The U.K.’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill, if passed unamended, will be one of the world’s most rigid anti-tobacco laws and prevent children turning 15 this year or younger from ever being able to be legally sold nicotine products. Under the new law, each year, the legal age for cigarette sales—currently 18—will increase by one year. It means that people born in or after 2009 will never be able to buy cigarettes legally. The law will not affect those who are already allowed to buy cigarettes.

    Critics say the Conservative Party’s proposal is “unconservative,” and some have derided it as a desperate attempt by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to leave a legacy amid an otherwise ineffective tenure. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss is one of several members of the governing party who have said they will vote against the legislation. However, the U.K. bill was put on hold after Sunak called a general election for July. The House of Commons unveiled a list of bills it would take up before the U.K.’s Parliament dissolves ahead of this summer’s elections; the generational tobacco ban was not included. The postponement will not necessarily mean the U.K. will follow New Zealand’s example, however, as Britain’s Labour Party, which is expected to win the elections, has appeared committed to the ban.

    In the U.S., generational bans recently gained some legal support after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a generational tobacco ban instituted by the town of Brookline in 2020. Since the ruling, several other localities in the Greater Boston area have quickly followed suit.

    The Boston suburb of Brookline law makes it illegal for anyone born after Jan. 1, 2000, to purchase tobacco products—including cigarettes, cigars and vaping products—for their entire life. The law went into effect in 2021, and despite legal challenges that pushed the ruling all the way up to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the law has remained intact.

    It was the first time legislation of this kind had become law in the United States. Just three weeks after the court decision, Stoneham, Massachusetts, became the first town to follow Brookline, approving a generational tobacco ban for anyone born after Jan. 1, 2004. Now, several other communities in Massachusetts are also considering generational bans.

    Detractors claim generational bans infringe upon civil liberties and could have negative economic consequences, including boosting the black market and causing job losses. These bans also raise concerns about enforcing age restrictions and protecting the rights of adults to make their own choices.

    “The tobacco industry and their clients are resurrecting all the old arguments that we have come to expect in their efforts to delay and divert this important legislation,” Martin McKee, professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says. “Once again, we see loaded polling questions and discredited claims about increasing illegal sales. Inevitably, these ludicrous arguments will have some traction among MPs [Members of Parliament] that reject any public health measure or have accepted the industry’s hospitality, but most will, rightly, not give them the time of day.”

    In Australia, where a ban on disposable vaping products has caused a violent war between motorcycle gangs and other crime syndicates over the illegal trade of black market vapes, dozens of vape and tobacco shops have gone up in flames. According to media reports, police in Victoria were forced to investigate 27 fires linked to the illegal tobacco trade over a seven-month period. 

    Experts believe a convenience store crime wave could reach Britain, and the black market could explode if the U.K.’s generational ban comes into effect. “These crime groups are in the midst of a dangerous turf war as they try to gain ultimate control over the vape and illicit tobacco black market,” Theo Foukkare, CEO of the Australian Association of Convenience Stores, says. “Tobacconists are being firebombed on a weekly basis. In Victoria alone, there have now been more than 50 firebombings of retail stores in the last 12 months. They target any store that will not sell their black market product.”

    The anti-nicotine agenda behind many of the government and public health groups that support generational nicotine bans is relentless and could eventually target other consumer goods, according to experts, who add that the bans are not just about nicotine but about individual freedoms and democracy.

    THR advocates say that generational bans are simply another form of prohibition with dangerous consequences. 

    Timothy Donahue is the assistant editor of Tobacco Reporter. Since joining our team in January 2013, he has become not only an expert on the traditional tobacco business but also a well-respected voice in the rapidly developing vapor industry. Tim spends much of his time on the road, attending conferences and interviewing industry representatives. His networking skills, work ethic and quick mind are valuable assets to our diverse audience.
  • Punching Above Its Weight

    Punching Above Its Weight

    LTL’s tobacco reclaimers are characterized by their high levels of efficiencies and relatively low running costs. | Photo: LTL

    A small family business, LTL holds its own as a supplier of equipment to the global tobacco industry.

    By George Gay

    While I was corresponding in March with the founder of LTL, Paul Lawton-Bryant, he was involved hands-on with others in his company fulfilling an order for one of its CR120P super-slim format cigarette-tobacco reclaim systems (CTRS). I mention this because LTL is very much a family company, and when asked what its strengths were, Lawton-Bryant said at the end of his reply that one of them was down to his personal drive for perfection in everything he did.

    “I am very hands on in the business and spend many hours in our workshop machining parts and building the machines to ensure that the high quality I demand is maintained,” he added. And the point is that I could see this quest for perfection from another angle. Although heavily involved in the new CTRS project, he took the time to answer with precision and clarity every one of a long list of questions that I had sent to him. And he answered frankly: He even made the point that his drive for perfection could also be seen as a weakness.

    LTL is owned privately by Lawton-Bryant and his wife, Julie, who is the financial director. They started trading in 1997, though the company, as currently constituted, was founded in 2001. It operates out of premises in the village of Chilbolton,* Hampshire, U.K., where it designs and manufactures primary processing equipment for the global tobacco industry, though, in recent years, it has supplied mainly CTRSes, tobacco feed systems and central dust collection systems. It is involved, too, in nontobacco-related projects, but its core business is focused on tobacco-related products and services.

    Quality of Output

    The CR120P, which is LTL’s most in-demand reclaim system, and the higher-capacity CR250P are characterized by their high levels of efficiencies and relatively low running costs. “Our systems regularly achieve in excess of 96 percent reuseable reclaimed tobacco yield,” Lawton-Bryant told me in an email exchange. “Energy consumption is quite low, with a total electrical load of 4.2 kW and compressed air usage of just 3.0 cfm for the CR120P and a little higher on the CR250P. In addition to this, the machines use very few consumable spare parts and come with an industry-leading two-year warranty based upon single-shift operation.”

    LTL’s reclaim systems are 99 percent standard, though there are different versions for regular and slim cigarettes, and the company will supply units to feed rejected cigarettes into the CTRSes if required. Otherwise, the main customizations take in the usual elements such as supply voltages/frequency and paint color. The CR250P was launched about 10 years ago in response to several inquiries for larger capacity machines and a general trend among competitor companies. However, generally, LTL’s customers still prefer the flexibility of having a smaller capacity machine—running two or more for different blends rather than having one larger-capacity machine.

    The focus in developing the CR range of reclaim systems has been on the quality of the output product because, Lawton-Bryant said, once a cigarette had reached the stage where its tobacco needed to be reclaimed, that tobacco was probably at its most fragile and at its most valuable, having been conditioned, blended, cut, expanded, dried and flavored. “The particle size and moisture content of the tobacco within a cigarette means that the tobacco could easily be degraded through unsophisticated mechanical handling and separation processes, and it is in those areas that we have focused our design to minimize damage and maximize yield,” he added. 

    Return on Investment

    The potential monetary savings inherent in efficiently reclaiming processed tobacco that would otherwise become a costly burden would seem to make an indisputable case for CTRSes, but I wondered whether there were other factors in play. In answer to a question about whether tobacco industry ESG (environmental, social and governance) policies had been driving demand for CTRSes, Lawton-Bryant said that such policies would be a consideration in purchasing decisions but that he did not see them as driving demand.

    The key drivers in any business had always been and would continue to be the need to make a return on investment. A cigarette was at its most valuable having gone through the full primary process, he said, a fact often given less consideration than it deserved, so any damage and loss occurred at that point in the process would be the costliest that it could be. This fact alone often helped justify the relatively small investment required to purchase a good-quality CTRS, though actual payback periods would vary drastically depending upon individual circumstances.

    For example, in the past, LTL had sold a machine to a customer that previously disposed of all its reject cigarettes, which was said to have made the payback very short indeed. “A more usual scenario would be the savings our particular machine can make when compared to a competitor’s machine,” Lawton-Bryant said. “We have seen reuseable tobacco yields as low as 70 percent in other machines available in the market, so with our machine regularly achieving 96 percent yields, a 26 percent increase could mean payback within 12 months.”

    Global Reach

    LTL supplies machines to a wide range of customers around the world, though, recently, the Middle East and Africa in particular have provided good opportunities. In fact, the project mentioned at the start of this story involved the supply of a CR120P to a customer in the Middle East that is planning to buy a second machine following the installation of the first one. “We are very fortunate in that we have several repeat customers,” said Lawton-Bryant, “and I feel this is one of the best references we could possibly provide.”

    At the same time, LTL supplies machines to companies both large and small, though most of its customers tend to be those operating smaller manufacturing facilities with between one and 10 makers. In fact, Lawton-Bryant said that LTL was probably an unusually small-scale company among those supplying equipment to the global tobacco industry and that it was understandable that this could be seen by some customers as a risk. “However, I do feel that our long history of supplying high-quality and innovative equipment to the global tobacco industry proves our commitment to the industry and should provide some assurances,” he added.

    This takes us back once again to the start of the story because, clearly, small, family-run businesses offer several advantages. “I think it is our small size which allows us to react quickly and effectively to new challenges and changing customer demands,” said Lawton-Bryant. “A good example of this was our reaction to the recent global pandemic where travel restrictions were imposed. This had a massive impact upon our ability to install and commission equipment, so our team focused upon a remote commissioning solution, which included fitting a router and camera to machines, thereby allowing us to remotely access the PLC, guide the customers on installation, remotely commission the machines and view the product results through the camera.

    “Our core team has over 160 years of experience in the industry covering both mechanical and electrical/software engineering and process knowledge, which meant that the new system was conceived, designed and implemented within a matter of weeks, and not one of our customers suffered through our inability to travel to site throughout the restrictions. This remote access remains a feature of the CR range of reclaim systems today and can assist with ongoing support and training if required.”

    Enduring Resilience

    In fact, it is clear that Lawton-Bryant sees the advantages of running a small-scale operation as outweighing the potential pitfalls of trying to grow the business. “Over almost 30 years of running my own business, I have resisted the pressures to grow into a large company,” he said. “I wish to serve the niche industry that we are in to the very best of our ability, and that requires a very tight level of control throughout the business processes, something which can easily be lost in a larger company.”

    When I asked how confident he was about the future of the tobacco industry and, especially, the cigarette industry, that part of the industry LTL mainly served, he was frank in his reply. “For more than 20 years now, I have had regular periods of concern over the sustainability of our business in the tobacco sector, though I am happy to say that so far those fears have been relatively unfounded,” he said. “Of course, the industry has faced several challenges and continues to do so, but generally, it is very resilient.”

    And finally, I asked how confident Lawton-Bryant was about LTL’s future. “I am confident that we can respond to the many challenges that running a business encounters,” he said. “Whether that remains mostly in the tobacco industry remains to be seen, but I sincerely hope that it does,” he said.

    *Although “only” a village, Chilbolton, too, punches above its weight with an observatory that boasts facilities and expertise in atmospheric science, satellite tracking, radio astronomy and communications that support U.K. academia and industry.

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

    A Broader Approach

    According to experts, established tobacco control measures may be insufficient to achieve the desired reductions in smoking and the associated burden on healthcare systems. | Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    To lower the health and economic burden of smoking, lawmakers should incorporate tobacco harm reduction into their policies.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    The figures are staggering. Smoking cost the world economy an estimated $1.85 trillion, or about 1.8 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), in 2012, according to a monograph published by the World Health Organization and the U.S. National Cancer Institute in 2016.

    The authors distinguish between direct and indirect costs. Direct costs, which include both healthcare expenses, such as physician fees or medical supplies, and nonhealthcare costs, such as transportation, were approximately $467.3 billion, representing 6.5 percent of global health expenditures, or 0.5 percent of global GDP. Indirect costs, which include the value of productivity and lives lost due to tobacco-related diseases, were an estimated $446.3 billion for disability and $938.6 billion for mortality.

    Low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) account for almost 40 percent of the expenses incurred globally due to tobacco use, with direct costs representing up to 4 percent of total health spending in these countries. The total economic costs of smoking in LMICs ranged from 1.1 percent to 1.7 percent of GDP in the countries investigated in the report compared with an estimated 2.4 percent in the Americas and 2.5 percent in Europe.

    Some of the data in the monograph dates back to the late 1990s, and it is likely that costs have increased since its publication. While some research released since the publication of the paper suggested that reductions in smoking prevalence would translate into lower healthcare costs quite quickly, these papers focused primarily on the healthcare systems of large, wealthy and technologically advanced societies rather than LMICs, where 80 percent of the world’s smokers live.

    People in LMICs are significantly more likely to die from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), which include cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, cancer and diabetes, along with mental and neurological conditions. According to the WHO’s website, NCDs account for the deaths of 16 million people prematurely, i.e., before their 70th birthday, worldwide each year.

    Tobacco use represents the leading risk factor for NCDs, ahead of other risk factors such as air pollution, excess sodium intake, alcohol abuse or sedentary lifestyles. According to WHO data, tobacco currently accounts for 8.2 million deaths per year, including the effects of exposure to secondhand smoke, a figure that is projected to increase over the coming years.

    However, the WHO is far from achieving the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal of reducing premature deaths from NCDs by one-third by 2030. Depending on the source (and even the WHO’s numbers are inconsistent here), there are currently between 1.1 billion and 1.3 billion smokers in the world, and the figure is likely to rise, due in part to population growth.

    One of the major weaknesses of prevention is that the benefits take a long time to materialize.

    Focus on Prevention

    “When governments and government agencies lie about the health costs of vaping relative to smoking, they are betraying the trust of the public.”

    According to critics, the WHO’s established tobacco control measures are insufficient to achieve the desired reductions in smoking and the associated burden on healthcare systems. To accelerate progress, policymakers need to fundamentally change their approach, argues Andrzej M. Fal, president of the Polish Society for Public Health, who spoke at the Warsaw Global Forum on Nicotine in June.

    “If we enforce policies that reduce the risk of smoking now, there will be a significant reduction in cancer in 15 [years] to 20 years,” Fal pointed out. Because chronic diseases account for 90 percent of premature deaths, he argued, investing in their prevention is more cost-effective than treatment. The WHO itself recommends prevention as a response to noncommunicable diseases. Fal cited calculations from the global health body showing that every dollar invested in smoking prevention saves $7.43 down the road.

    Based on such considerations, Fal urges authorities to place greater emphasis on prevention and tobacco harm reduction. In 2023, the Polish Parliament analysis office asked Fal to prepare an analysis of the state of the tobacco “epidemic” in Poland. Fal and his co-authors concluded that the country lost 250,000 years of life as a result of tobacco consumption.

    Education about health, Fal suggested, should begin in kindergarten. People who are already ill and refuse to quit smoking should be incentivized to minimalize their risk using less hazardous nicotine-delivery alternatives. “If someone is already seriously ill,” Fal explained, “they can still achieve a better quality of life, live longer, and cost the system less,” he said.

    Fal proposed that each country launch at least one prevention clinic, which should be accessible without referral and would offer access to anti-smoking therapy, nicotine-replacement pharmacotherapy and harm reduction products. The clinics should also be responsible for regional health prevention programs and smoking information campaigns.

    Governments, he suggested, should set tobacco tax rates based on the relative harm of each product category, following the principle of “less harm, less tax.” Taxes on cigarettes—the most harmful tools for tobacco consumption—should rise “radically but progressively,” said Fal, who also called for publicly funded and supervised studies assessing the efficacy, safety and harm reduction in cases where the existing evidence was insufficient.

    One of the major weaknesses of prevention, however, is that the benefits take a long time to materialize. In a U.S. study analyzing the relationship between cigarette sales and lung cancer deaths, for example, it took 20 years for the first measures taken to curb tobacco consumption to show up in lower lung cancer death statistics. That time frame is too long for many lawmakers. “Politicians are not interested in investing in prevention as its benefits are seen long after they have left the government,” said Fal.

    Progress is also obstructed by conflicts of interest. In 2018, he noted, Poland’s tobacco-related health expenditures plus productivity loss were between PLN7 billion ($1.71 billion) and PLZ8 billion in 2018, whereas excise and VAT income from cigarettes amounted to PLN23.5 billion.

    Every dollar invested in smoking prevention saves $7.43 down the road.

    Myopic MPs

    Sinclair Davidson

    All too often, politicians are uninterested in considering the potential unintended consequences of their decisions. For example, Australia’s rules requiring vapers to get a medical prescription and banning imports of disposable e-cigarettes have caused the illicit market to flourish. Ninety-two percent of Australian vapers currently source their vapes from the black market, exposing them to unrelated products. More than 70 tobacco shops have gone up in flames since Health Minister Mark Butler started his crackdown on vapes. Police suspect some of the attacks are carried out by criminal groups as retaliations against store owners who refuse to stock their black market products.

    “Australia tends to pursue harm minimization policies in most areas—except in tobacco and nicotine consumption,” said Sinclair Davidson, professor of institutional economics at RMIT University, Melbourne. “Here, Australia pursues the most socially harmful policies that the so-called public health lobby can dream up. The costs this policy’s short-sightedness imposes on the economy are likely to be large but hidden or indirect. For example, when cigarettes are stolen from convenience stores, this results in insurance costs being increased on those stores and prices being increased for all consumers.

    “Similarly, when criminal profits are increased, criminal behavior in the economy increases. When criminal behavior increases, police budgets increase, resulting in higher taxes for all citizens and higher levels of criminal behavior. We are all victims of crime and criminal behavior—except, of course, the public health lobby, who have built careers off their policy work, and politicians and law enforcement agencies who get expanded budgets and powers as a result of poor policy. It is a vicious cycle of ‘Baptists and bootleggers’ who benefit while the rest of society suffers.”

    Meanwhile, the decline in tobacco tax revenue even as smoking rates have stabilized suggests that people are still smoking—they’re just not smoking legal cigarettes. “The challenges are twofold,” said Davidson. “Government itself has become addicted to tobacco excise revenue, and that source of revenue has become unreliable. The subsidy from smokers to the rest of the population has been captured by criminals. Criminality imposes huge costs on society. This occurs through the normalization of violence and the misallocation of resources from legal activity to illegal activity. Furthermore, criminality has a corrupting influence on law enforcement activities. Poor policy corrodes civil society by undermining public trust in public institutions. When governments and government agencies lie about the health costs of vaping relative to smoking, they are betraying the trust of the public and undermining their moral worth in society.”

    By contrast, Sweden’s success in reducing smoking rates by accommodating snus is a public health success story, according to Davidson. Since 2008, Sweden has slashed its smoking rates from 15 percent to 5.6 percent, according to Smoke Free Sweden. The nation’s smoking prevalence is expected to dip below 5 percent this year, making it the first country to achieve “smoke-free” status as defined by the WHO.

    Sweden’s incidence of cancer is 41 percent lower than in the rest of the EU, corresponding to a 38 percent lower level of total cancer deaths. The country has a 39.6 percent lower rate of death of all tobacco-related diseases compared to the EU average. “I don’t know to what extent Australian consumers are familiar with snus and what the uptake would be—but the principle remains. Low(er) risk products on the market result in consumers substituting away from the high(er) risk products,” said Davidson.

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • A Clean Sweep

    A Clean Sweep

    Holger Twrdy

    At Cerdia’s much-anticipated 12th filter colloquium, speakers detailed the progress in reducing the industry’s carbon footprint.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    “On the road toward a sustainable future” was the theme of Cerdia’s 12th filter colloquium, which took place in Freiburg, Germany, June 3–5. The conference has a rich tradition. Except for the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, the acetate tow manufacturer’s event has taken place every three years since the mid-1980s. This year, speakers from all parts of the tobacco industry supply chain shared their strategies to reduce their carbon footprint.

    Sustainability has always been important to Cerdia, which was created after the Blackstone Group purchased Rhodia’s acetate tow business in 2016. However, as Cerdia CEO Jens Ebinghaus explained in his opening speech, the topic gained even greater prominence after the acquisition and the company’s subsequent rebranding.

    Cerdia employs approximately 1,100 people worldwide and has revenues of around $750 million. In addition to its Freiburg facility, it operates factories in Santo Andre, Brazil; Serpukhov, Russia; and Kingsport, Tennessee, USA. While investing in core filter tow technology and diversifying into new business segments, the company focuses heavily on ESG, which encompasses energy diversity and efficiency as well as safety, compliance and governance, and community engagement.

    In 2023, Cerdia allocated 45 percent of its capital expenditure to projects supporting sustainability. According to Ebinghaus, the business environment for tow manufacturers has become significantly more volatile since 2019. The rising costs of raw materials, for example, has forced manufacturers to increase efficiencies. At times and often regionally, the industry also suffered from issues relating to transportation, disrupting supply chains. In addition, the geopolitical situation has become more challenging, with conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East erecting new hurdles for business, for example. At the same time, business opportunities have emerged from next-generation products such as heated-tobacco products (HTPs), sales of which have been growing rapidly in recent years.

    Maria Viloria

    Lots of Levers

    Part of Cerdia’s roadmap to sustainability was a “double materiality” assessment, carried out in 2022, according to Maria Viloria, Cerdia’s head of sustainability and R&D. Through a survey, the company learned what was most important to its customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Based on these findings, it created a “significance map” that put Cerdia’s ESG priorities in perspective. The company then developed a set of sustainability objectives that are in line with the U.N. Sustainable Development goals and established a sustainability committee to support its strategy.

    By 2030, Cerdia aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent, its landfill waste to zero and its water withdrawal by 10 percent compared to 2019. Medium and major injuries are to be reduced to zero and complaints to under 0.5 per delivered kiloton. The company has been sourcing its wood pulp from 100 percent certified sustainable forestry for years.

    By 2030, Cerdia aims to have trained 95 percent of its employees in compliance and to have fully implemented the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). In autumn 2024, Cerdia will move its Basel headquarters to a new, carbon dioxide (CO2)-neutral building. The company, which in 2021 received a silver medal from the business sustainability rating provider Ecovadis, is now aiming for gold.

    Cerdia’s new biosteam project, which is planned to come online in the first quarter of 2025, will play a vital role in the company’s CO2 reduction strategy by using biomass for steam production, according to Holger Twrdy, Cerdia’s vice president, manufacturing. The power plant will reduce the Freiburg factory’s CO2 emissions by 15 percent to 20 percent, or 26,000 tons annually, and Cerdia’s overall CO2 emissions by 10 percent.

    Further CO2 reduction of around 1,500 tons per year will come from a new absorption column in the Freiburg plant’s acetone absorption division, which will also start production early next year. In addition, the company will expand an existing CO2-free residential heating project, supplying green energy to Freiburg’s Dietenbach district.

    Esther Abe

    HTPs on the Rise

    Esther Abe, Cerdia’s market intelligence manager, provided an overview of the global tobacco market during the colloquium. After years of decline, cigarette sales stabilized in 2020, and Abe expects them to grow slightly, with increases in HTP and super-slim cigarette sales offsetting declines in other categories.

    She expected the global cigarette market to reach 5.55 trillion sticks in 2024 and anticipates it to increase to 5.7 trillion units by 2030. According to Abe, China’s cigarette market is likely to increase by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.3 percent by 2030 due to the rising popularity of super slims and restrictions on vape products while HTPs are the fastest-growing segment in the rest of the world.

    Abe expects sales of combustible cigarettes to remain stable in China but to decline in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Americas and Europe. The main sources of volume growth will likely be Africa and the Middle East, she said.

    The HTP category is envisaged to grow by a CAGR of 17 percent, to reach approximately 526 billion sticks in 2030. While Cerdia will remain focused on filter tow for the tobacco industry, which accounts for 85 percent of its business, it is also exploring other lines of business. To that end, the company recently established a new business development (NBD) team, which is exploring complementary acetate tow applications.

    According to NBD head Josef Hudina, the product is meltable in various recipes, soluble in many eco-friendly solvents and hydrophobic enough to be suitable as a plastic substitute. Moreover, it can be processed in the form of fibers, films, granules or powders. With its new cellulose acetate compounds, CellspherA Micro and CellspherA Granules, Cerdia offers an alternative to fossil materials that are widely used in the personal care industry. As the EU microplastic restriction boosts the demand for natural alternatives, Hudina is convinced that cellulose acetate could pass the EU microplastic exemption.

    Speakers at the colloquium anticipated tobacco industry regulations to increase further.

    Cerdia Product Stewardship Manager Emmerich Sackers detailed the scope and requirements of the European Deforestation Regulation, which entered into force in 2023 and will apply to large businesses from the end of this year.

    Jan Muecke, managing director of the German Association of the Tobacco Industry and New Products, pointed out that the recent decision at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to focus on the environmental concerns described in FCTC Article 18 will likely influence how the EU Tobacco Products Directive, the U.N. International Plastic Treaty and the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive end up dealing with cigarette filters.

    Further legislative initiatives are underway under the European Green Deal, including the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the CSRD, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the EU Batteries Regulation and the Green Claims Directive.

    Jens Ebinghaus

    Comprehensive Approach Required

    Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, the road to sustainability is a puzzle with many pieces, all of which are vital. Logistics, for instance, account for 11 percent to 12 percent of total CO2 emissions, as Sergio Barbarino, chairperson of the Alliance for Logistics Innovation through Collaboration in Europe (ALICE), explained.

    The EU aims to decarbonize its transportation sector by 2050. ALICE has identified five pillars for the future of logistics: In addition to energy-efficient fleets and assets that use the lowest possible emissions energy source available, which presently is at the center of efforts, the focus in the mid-term should be on the management of demand, smart use of transport modes and sharing of fleets and assets.

    Procurement is another factor. Benjamin Saur, global category manager of sustainability at BAT, shared that 42 percent of his company’s greenhouse gas emissions are under the procurement department’s remit. BAT has designed a Supplier Climate Enablement Program that segments the approach to neither overburden suppliers’ own organizations nor BAT.

    In manufacturing, the biggest lever for increasing sustainability lies in increasing machine and process efficiency, according to Klaus Masuch, head of strategic product management secondary at Koerber Technologies. Options for actions, he said, are machinery-driven, people-driven and service-driven improvements along with data-driven and software-driven improvements, with a focus on tobacco savings and emphasis on the development of eco-friendly alternatives, such as biodegradable filters.

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

    Bearing Fruit

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Alliance One’s seed breeders in Brazil are boosting crop quality and yields while improving disease resistance and tolerance for extreme weather conditions.

    By Taco Tuinstra

    Small may be beautiful, but in some cases, bigger is better. Take tobacco seeds, which range between 0.5 mm and 1 mm in diameter. A single gram of the material can contain a whopping 10,000 seeds.

    While that may seem efficient, seeds of that size are also difficult to handle. That’s why Alliance One International (AOI) has installed a pelleting machine at its Global Research, Development and Deployment Center in Passo do Sobrado, Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil. In a process similar to that used by pharmaceutical companies in pill production, the device coats tobacco seeds with a mix of inert materials, including clay (drug companies use gelatin), to beef them up to more manageable dimensions. The seeds that exit the machine are up to 50 times bigger than the ones that go in, allowing the grower to plant them accurately.

    The seed pelleting machine is only one of many investments at the center’s seed industrialization unit, which was inaugurated in January of this year. The facility also houses equipment that performs functions such threshing, grading, upgrading, drying and finishing—capabilities that help improve germination, stimulate healthy, consistent crop development and increase yield. The unit, which sits on an 82 ha farm housing greenhouses, laboratories and other key infrastructure, has an annual tobacco processing capacity of nearly 2 metric tons and the ability to pelletize more than 200,0000 cans of seed for sale each year.

    In addition to commissioning new equipment, the unit has been expanding its skills base, hiring agronomists, biologists and agricultural engineers, among other professionals. During the Brazilian crop’s peak period, the center employs approximately 100 people.

    The investments are part of AOI’s endeavor to strengthen its global function using existing capabilities. AOI has been a major supplier in Brazil’s tobacco seed market for years, selling not only to its contracted farmers but also to other leaf merchants. Roughly 40 percent of Brazil’s tobacco volume, or more than 100,000 hectares, are produced with AOI seeds, according to the company.

    Keen to share the “fruits” of the labor in Passo do Sobrado with its other origins, the seed industrialization unit now also services AOI operations outside Brazil. “Basically, we transformed a local research center into a global research center,” says Helio Moura, AOI’s vice president of global crop science and value chain. Already supplying AOI in Guatemala, Argentina, Turkiye and Thailand, the center is currently in the process of entering additional markets.

    According to Moura, the new unit provides the company with greater quality control and makes it possible for all activities to be governed by the company’s internal integrated quality management system. “Improved quality control opens doors to selling our seed in new markets at a faster speed, increases customer and farmer satisfaction, and drives efficiencies within our business,” he says.

    Those are important benefits because seed breeding is a finicky, labor-intensive and time-consuming business. For example, plants must be pollinated flower by flower—a delicate process that doesn’t lend itself to mechanization. Getting the necessary approvals and certifications requires time too. When you add up all the steps, creating a new variety can take up to 10 years.

    Moura likens the process to a funnel. “You have thousands of breeding lines, then we start selecting and narrowing it down until we are able to launch a better variety than we currently have,” he says, adding that there is always room for improvement. “The latest variety is not perfect, just superior to the previous one,” he observes.

    A single gram of material can contain a whopping 10,000 tobacco seeds. | Photos: Taco Tuinstra

    The seed industrialization unit breeds for characteristics such as quality, yields, disease resistance and tolerance for extreme weather conditions, an attribute that has become increasingly important in recent years, as was tragically demonstrated in early May when Santa Cruz do Sul suffered the worst flash floods in living memory.

    To ensure the required variation, the seed industrialization center houses a germplasm bank with thousands of “mothers” and “fathers” for burley, flue-cured and dark tobaccos, along with oriental styles. “We have access to more than 3,000 different tobacco varieties to cross and create new, unique strains,” says Moura. The resulting hybrids don’t produce seeds, which means they are impossible to replicate and thus guarantee return business for AOI. At least once every three years, seed samples in the germplasm bank are tested to make sure that they are germinating. That way, the company knows they will be available when it needs them.

    With the help of DNA markers, AOI’s scientists identify the desirable qualities. Advancements in biotechnology have made the work quicker, easier and more accurate. “Thirty years ago, there were only a few tools for making selections; nowadays, instead of looking for the phenotypes in the fields, we can look inside the plant and see the genes,” marvels plant breeding supervisor Elaine Batista. What’s more, the cost of equipment has decreased significantly, allowing biologists to make selections quicker, more accurately and with less effort.

    To ensure that the results of its research and development are rolled out correctly, AOI works closely with its contracted farmers. A new variety may deliver superior yields under controlled conditions, but if it’s improperly deployed in the field, the grower will not enjoy the full benefit. “So we spend much time training our growers on the correct way to work with the seeds,” says Moura.

    Aware of the importance of capturing and retaining knowledge within their organization, the scientists meticulously document their work. “For every project, we create a business case and a project brief. If someone asks about it 10 years from now, we can save time and money,” says Moura, who at previous employers faced many situations in which colleagues inquired about a past project only to be told that the results were no longer available, forcing the company to reinvent the wheel. And while it may be tempting to document only the projects that worked, the seed industrialization unit insists on documenting both its successes and failures. “We don’t have the time or money to spend on things that don’t add value,” says Moura.

    Even as demand for cigarettes stagnates and some nicotine users are switching to tobacco-free products, the work carried out at the seed industrialization unit is likely to remain relevant far into the future. As a respected flavorist pointed out during a recent Coresta meeting, consumers are able to tell the difference between nicotine created in a laboratory and nicotine derived from natural tobacco leaf. The depth of expertise and the sheer variety of genetic material housed in Passo do Sobrado will enable the unit to continue developing varieties that not only improve farmers’ operations but also meet and exceed consumers’ expectations for many years to come.

    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.
  • Brand ‘Zambia’

    Brand ‘Zambia’

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Operating in the shadow of its tobacco powerhouse neighbor, Zimbabwe, Zambia is trying to make a name for itself on the global market.

    By George Gay

    When researching leaf tobacco production in Zambia, it is almost de rigueur to seek an answer to the question of why the country grows a Virginia flue-cured crop only about one-eighth the size of that produced by its neighbor Zimbabwe. After all, Zimbabwe has a land mass only about 50 percent of that of Zambia, and the populations of the two countries are comparable.

    One of the answers normally given to this question is that tobacco has been prioritized in Zimbabwe because it is a hugely important contributor to the country’s GDP and foreign exchange earnings whereas it has been less important in Zambia, where mining plays a dominant role. Of course, this explanation seems to beg the question since both countries are rich in minerals and both have soils and climates ideal for growing tobacco, but that doesn’t mean the explanation is wrong. Presumably, sometime in the past, those who took control of the region of Africa now made up of Zambia and Zimbabwe decided, for whatever reasons, on where they should prioritize mining and agriculture, and those priorities remain in force today because change, even if desirable, is sometimes impossible or at least difficult to bring about.

    Decades ago, a tobacco grower of my acquaintance told me that Zambia struggled to attract international tobacco buyers who, after spending months in Zimbabwe each year, were reluctant to move on to Zambia to buy what was then a small crop, and without the prospect of a significant number of buyers showing up, there was no viable way of increasing the size of the crop and attracting more buyers …. If it wasn’t a catch-22 situation, it was close to it.

    Zambia produces about 30 million kg of flue-cured and 8 million kg of burley annually.

    Limits to Production

    Albert van Wyk

    Ironically, when significant change did come about in Zambia, it came in the form of a boost from Zimbabwe. Zambia’s current level of tobacco production can be traced back to the 2002–2003 season and the arrival of Zimbabwean growers whose land had been taken from them under compulsory acquisition policies brought in from 2000 under former President Robert Mugabe’s land redistribution policies. From that point on, apart from a hiccup that occurred about 10 years ago, production increased steadily.

    And contrary to the impression that might have been given above, tobacco comprises an important business in Zambia, which produces flavorful flue-cured and burley between September and April in its southern, eastern and central provinces, about 70 percent of it rain-fed and 30 percent under irrigation. It is clearly important in rural areas and, also, less obviously, in urban areas, in part because it helps to reduce population drift to the cities. Tobacco is produced by about 24,000 growers, and about 270,000 people depend on its production for their livelihoods. Most of its leaf is processed locally by Tombwe Processing and exported, mainly to China and Japan, for use in cigarette manufacture, earning much-needed foreign exchange.

    But having made the case for the importance of tobacco, it must be said that unless something unexpected occurs, it is unlikely that Zambia will in the future significantly increase the size of its tobacco crops from their current annual levels of about 30 million kg of flue-cured and 8 million kg of Burley. And here, at least, the reasons are not difficult to discern.

    Albert van Wyk, a Zambian tobacco grower for 40 years and the general manager of the Tobacco Association of Zambia (TAZ), told me during a telephone conversation in April that “compliance,” specifically its environmental aspects, limited the amount by which the tobacco crop could be expanded. To comply with buyer and manufacturer requirements, it was necessary for growers to maintain sustainable woodlots to produce the fuel they needed for curing, and these currently could only just keep abreast of current production; they could not be expanded easily and quickly to allow for a major increase in production. The only other option would be to move to using coal for curing additional flue-cured, but coal, which is produced in Zambia, raises its own environmental concerns, is relatively expensive, and its use might be phased out soon.

    The TAZ clearly takes seriously issues of compliance, which go far beyond the maintenance of woodlots, and van Wyk told me that the industry, which is fully private, liked to think of itself as self-regulating within the laws of the land. Currently, it was trying to establish “Brand Zambia” in the market, something that would put it ahead of Malawi and Zimbabwe. In fact, not only is tobacco production self-regulating in Zambia, but it is also self-propagating. Perhaps reflecting the relatively lowly status of tobacco growing in the country, there is no facility to train growers, so it keeps going on an informal apprenticeship scheme whereby established growers teach and mentor younger growers, as well as farm hands, who need to be skilled.

    Tobacco cultivation is clearly important in rural areas and, also, less obviously, in urban areas, in part because it helps to reduce population drift to the cities.

    Compliance

    So far, in talking about why it is unlikely that production will increase significantly in Zambia, I have ignored the elephants in the room—grower tobacco prices, efficiencies and profitability, which these days are connected to “compliance” because compliance, in all its guises, doesn’t come cheaply. Generally, prices on Zambia’s tobacco market, which runs from April to August and which are based on contracts, are not at a level to inspire major production increases.

    Having said that, this year’s crops are of good quality and are short in a year when all the major flue-cured and burley producer countries have come up with smaller-than-expected quantities of these types, so prices are likely to be better. In fact, van Wyk, who was in the process of selling his tobacco when I spoke with him, said that Zambia’s growers were expecting increases of $0.40 per kilogram and hoping for $0.80 per kilogram. “In a year of a shortage, I think things have to shift,” he said. “If they aren’t going to shift now, when will they shift?”

    Nevertheless, van Wyk is nothing if not practical, and he acknowledges that even though prices might not be as high as growers would like them to be, tobacco is still a better value crop than others. Tobacco, he said, would pay a grower’s medical bills and school fees and on a community-wide basis allow the building of schools and other social facilities. And in this sense, he is politely dismissive of the representatives of nongovernmental organizations who show up from time to time promoting moves away from tobacco and into other crops and business activities. And it is not hard to see his point. Tobacco growers such as van Wyk didn’t come down with the last shower of rain; they have been around for a long time. During their careers, they, like the rest of us, will have been looking for ways to make more money by doing less. They will have been down these other avenues, so the fact that they are still in tobacco tells its own story.

    Sealed Systems

    Van Wyk is politely dismissive, too, of the sorts of generational smoking bans being debated in the U.K. and discussed elsewhere. He sees such bans as playing a part in shifting the tobacco business from what he calls the honest trade to the dishonest trade. Again, it is easy to see his point and, indeed, wonder whether the problem doesn’t run deeper than he suggested. Is this just a demand issue or a supply issue also? Is the line in the sand between the honest and the dishonest trade maintained even if noncompliant tobacco is available in a year such as this, when there is a shortage of the main cigarette tobacco types? Is there no crossover? It seems difficult to imagine that there are two sealed systems working alongside each other—one involving sustainably grown compliant tobacco sold through proper channels and used in licit manufacture and the other comprising noncompliant tobacco grown unsustainably, sold through opaque channels and winding up with illicit manufacturers.

    The reason why this question must be asked goes back to the fact that Zambian growers are hoping for good prices this year but are not sure of them. Why not? If the two closed systems described above were in operation, prices would be bound to rise in a year of shortage, especially since licit manufacturers do not keep stocks as big as once was the case. The fact that higher prices are not guaranteed seems to suggest that there is some crossover—that noncompliant tobacco enters the mainstream, something that would clearly put downward pressure on prices—as well as call into question the very idea of compliance, sustainability and traceability.

    Of course, the above comprises just hypothetical questions, but it is worth giving some thought to them because there is another reason why the trade in noncompliant leaf might be more invasive than otherwise imagined—the permeability of some borders. Recently, people in the U.K. and some other countries have had to consider more closely than in the past the legacies left behind by colonialism. As you would expect, the reactions to such reflections have varied, at least in the U.K., but only the willfully obdurate cling to the claim that there have been no negative outcomes. Some of these outcomes are now widely discussed, though, often, the underlying reasons for them are not: for instance, the “creation” of African nations by the drawing by non-Indigenous people of boundaries seemingly heedless of the historical understandings and sensitivities of the way in which Indigenous people ordered their lives. And, certainly, this seems to be the case with Zambia, which has borders with eight countries, including Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Given the circumstances under which these borders were decided upon, I would be reluctant to use the word “smuggling” when talking about some of the cross-border movement of leaf tobacco; perhaps “osmosis” would be a better word.

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

    Celebrating Diversity

    Diversity and equal opportunities are an integral part of JTI’s business success.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    According to studies, diversity in the workplace can contribute to smarter decision-making, greater productivity and reduced rates of employee turnover, along with improved corporate reputations. In recent years, companies around the world have increasingly implemented diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs—a collection of practices and policies intended to support people from varying backgrounds and give them the resources they need to thrive in the workplace.

    More precisely, diversity is embracing the differences everyone brings to the table, whether it’s someone’s race, age, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability or other aspects of social identity. With different backgrounds come different perspectives, which ultimately lead to better ideas and solutions and better outcomes—or products, for that matter.

    To ensure equal circumstances for all individuals across the organization, employers must recognize that not everyone is starting at the same level. Rather than giving everybody the same tools, companies that strive for equity provide employees with what they individually need to have an equal opportunity for success.

    Inclusion means that while the workplace requires professionalism and etiquette, employees should not be barred from being themselves; they should not worry about “code-switching” or shielding part of their identity when going to work. Inclusion is what maintains diversity.

    Research conducted by McKinsey shows that in 2020, companies worldwide spent an estimated $7.5 billion on DEI-related efforts, a number that was projected to double by 2026. According to a LinkedIn analysis, the number of chief diversity and inclusion officer positions grew by 168.9 percent in the U.S. between 2019 and 2022. However, DEI programs have been under siege from some quarters recently, with U.S. state lawmakers launching efforts to restrict DEI efforts in public schools and universities and companies rolling back their efforts. DEI initiatives, opponents argue, are an overly political, damaging waste of time or a distraction from organizations’ primary activities.

    In fact, there has been little scientific research to evaluate the effects of DEI, which emerged at the time of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. A 2023 review by Boston University researchers found that successful programs were composed of trainings that were grounded in theory. Effective trainings were longitudinal instead of one-time and not only focused on defining concepts but also provided additional support, trainings and skills, such as how to navigate challenging conversations. In successful programs, DEI was not limited to diversity but also emphasized inclusion, meaning companies engaged individuals or groups who had been historically excluded from decision-making activities. This, in turn, drove equity.

    Culture of Inclusivity

    Fernando Bonaduce

    Geneva-headquartered Japan Tobacco International has had a comprehensive DEI program in place since 2018. “We foster an environment that embraces diversity, ensures equal opportunities and provides a safe space for everyone to contribute,” says Fernando Bonaduce, JTI’s DEI director. “This commitment is integral to our business success. I am proud that all JTI branches worldwide have adopted DEI principles. Our employees play a crucial role in this endeavor. Starting from the highest levels of the organization and extending through our global team, we are nurturing a culture of inclusivity. This gives everyone the freedom to choose, think, express themselves and be authentic.”

    In 2020, JTI launched its first employee resource group (ERG), PRIDE, for the LGBTIQ+ community. “Today, we have four ERGs with hundreds of change agents involved in key DEI areas such as gender equality, race and ethnic inclusion, gender identity and sexual orientations or diverse thinking,” says Bonaduce. Changes in corporate culture, he notes, require both time and effort and are “anything but an easy road.”

    In 2021, the company committed to increasing women in leadership roles to 30 percent by the end of 2023. “We achieved this ambition in August of that year, well ahead of schedule,” says Bonaduce. “Our commitment to gender equality reflects our efforts to foster a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace, creating an environment where female colleagues are set up for success.”

    One year later, the company’s DEI division was merged with the human resources department, an initiative that has been guided by a DEI strategy focusing on four strategic pillars: strategic commitment, value diversity, building inclusion and nurturing employees’ well-being. “This strategic focus has influenced talent attraction, retention and promotion processes by ensuring all our decisions are geared toward bringing out the human best in our organization. For instance, embedding the DEI principles means that talent management needs to develop a diverse representation in leadership roles,” says Bonaduce.

    The company’s DEI-rooted approach, he says, implies that JTI constantly seeks to identify and remove barriers that prevent underrepresented groups from fully participating in the whole recruitment process. Initiatives to achieve this objective include encouraging and monitoring language to not exclude potential applicants based on their background and designing interviews and panels in a way to provide every candidate with the best chance for success. “This approach helps us remove biases from the selection process as best we can,” says Bonaduce.

    Work-Life Balance

    JTI uses channels and platforms that directly address underrepresented groups, like myGwork, to attract a more diverse applicant pool. The remarkable increase in the number of women in leadership roles, Bonaduce says, is a direct result of the company’s efforts, which aim to enhance the visibility of its top female talents and provide mentorship for them. “Every year, each member of JTI’s global executive committee, except for the CEO, sponsors a senior female talent from around the globe for a period of 12 months. This program aids our talented individuals in their career development, fostering an inclusive and diverse culture from the very top of our organization.”

    To help employees recognize and overcome unconscious biases and ensure managers become a catalyst for inclusion and nurture individuals as they are, the company offers various training programs.

    Mental health is also an important element in JTI’s DEI strategy. “Our employees dedicate a significant portion of their day to work-related activities,” says Bonaduce. “We know how important physical fitness is for our health and well-being. Unfortunately, people can still hesitate to openly seek psychological guidance or support with mental health due to uncertainty about others’ reactions or feelings of shame. At JTI, we are committed to helping people remove the stigma that still exists in some parts of society.”

    The company therefore offers its employees a mental fitness test so that they can check how balanced and healthy they are, live training sessions and a global employee assistance program that provides round-the-clock access to over 40,000 counselors, mental health trainers and specialists 365 days a year. “This service is free, confidential and professional, with assistance available in 200 different languages.” Additional mental health first-aid program modules promote peer-to-peer support on various mental health and personal well-being topics.

    Taking Pride in Being Different

    Rene Staebe

    PRIDE is a particular success story within the company’s DEI approach. “Having an LGBTIQ+ ERG like PRIDE at JTI is crucial for fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace,” says Rene Staebe, co-founder of PRIDE. “Such groups provide a safe space where individuals can express their true selves, share their experiences and find solidarity among peers. This sense of belonging not only boosts individual well-being and job satisfaction but also enhances overall company performance.” According to research, a third of LGBT+ people in the European Union hide their identity from co-workers, and even more have faced discrimination at work because of who they are.

    “Our initiatives focus on educating colleagues, promoting understanding and encouraging open dialogue,” says Staebe. He says he has witnessed remarkable and positive changes across the company since PRIDE’s creation, one of the most significant shifts being the noticeable increase in active allies. “Employees from all levels and departments have stepped up to show their support, especially at senior management level, who have been instrumental in setting a powerful example for others to follow whilst their endorsement has helped embed the values of PRIDE into the fabric of our corporate culture, making inclusivity a core component of our identity,” says Staebe. “We have seen a substantial increase in the number of internal webinars and educational sessions focused on LGBTIQ+ issues providing valuable platforms for sharing knowledge, raising awareness and fostering open dialogue. This has been aided by the implementation of more inclusive policies and practices to include more comprehensive nondiscrimination clauses and more inclusive healthcare and parental leave benefits.”

    Meanwhile, PRIDE has a global ERG footprint, with chapters in Canada, the U.S., Switzerland, the Philippines and 13 other countries. Staebe highlights that continuous support is being provided to employees in regions that are not friendly toward the queer community. PRIDE is exploring ways to empower local markets, such as the Middle East, by setting up resource groups while complying with local regulations.

     

    “We are always striving to create a confidential environment where LGBTIQ+ employees can feel safe and valued, which is why it’s so important to have a presence within countries where there are challenges for community members. For this to be possible, we are supported by JTI’s “embassy” model, which enables us to have a presence despite the challenges that people may face,” says Staebe.

    In 2023, the company was honored with the Swiss LGBT Label award for the second time. Its progress was also awarded with EY’s Global Equality Standard certification in 2021, in which JTI received several of the highest assessment scores for equal opportunities and equal pay in the workplace. The company has also been recognized as a Global Top Employer.

    For a DEI program to be successful, it is important to maintain constant dialogue with underrepresented groups, Bonaduce says. “Feedback from our employees confirms that management is becoming increasingly inclusive. Almost 90 percent of our global employees experience a full sense of belonging to the organization. We also observe our leadership bench becoming even more diverse, with talent from different genders and cultural backgrounds.”

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • The Wrong Answer

    The Wrong Answer

    Photo: makcoud

    An e-cigarette ban would bring new public health concerns to Costa Rica.

    By Peter Clark

    Recently, Costa Rica’s Ministry of Health issued “Resolution MS-DM-RC-2381-2024” prohibiting the sale and importation of synthetic nicotine and cannabinoid vaping products. This measure appears to be a response to the uptick in vaping-related illnesses and injuries. The ban will remain until regulators promulgate rules guiding the “use and commercialization” of electronic vaping devices.

    The ban might be an effort to protect public health, but there are several downsides to banning vaping. Costa Rican officials should look to the example of other countries implementing failed e-cigarette bans because prohibition never works. Even a temporary ban is a disastrous policy since people will continue to vape, exposing Costa Ricans to the dangers of black market e-cigarettes.

    Most countries that prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes have seen increased vaping rates over the past couple of years. One of the best examples is Brazil. Brazil banned the sale, manufacture and importation of vaping devices in 2009.

    Despite stringent vaping laws, Brazil has seen an increase in vaping rates over the past couple of years. Some Brazilian states have seen over 100 percent increase in vape usage between 2022 and 2023. Approximately 4 million Brazilians vape regularly. There has been an approximate 600 percent increase in e-cigarette consumption since 2018.

    Brazil has made attempts to ramp up enforcement of vaping laws, but it has done little to dampen the burgeoning black market for e-cigarettes. E-cigarette sales have increased “fourfold” between 2018 and 2022.

    There are extreme risks with buying bootleg e-cigarettes that outweigh the benefits of protecting kids from nicotine addiction and cannabis exposure. Prohibition of marijuana and flavored vapes in the U.S. has created multiple public health crises. 

    In 2019, the United States experienced an outbreak of e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) associated with the use of illicit THC vape pens. Experts suspect that vitamin E acetate caused EVALI. A cutting agent is used to thicken and dilute the cannabis oil to “make it go further.” Vaporizing vitamin E acetate produces the toxic gas ketene, which causes lung damage. It was less common to find products contaminated with this adulterant in states with legal marijuana.

    The most insidious byproduct of the contraband market is the emergence of fentanyl-laced e-cigarettes. The iron law of prohibition at work; the “harder” the laws, the “harder” the drugs. The temptation lingers for black market e-cigarette sellers to lace nicotine or THC e-cigarettes with more potency-dense and addictive drugs, increasing profitability and the ease of smuggling.

    Fentanyl vapes illegally entered the U.S. market as the result of federal marijuana prohibition and restrictions on flavored nicotine vaping devices. These deadly cartridges are frequently mistaken for less dangerous vaping products. Most alarming of all, kids have gotten ahold of these illicit vapes, leading to school-aged children being hospitalized and even deaths.

    The other risk of a vaping ban is that many vapers will return to combustible cigarettes. Contrary to popular belief, e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful than analog cigarettes. That is not to say vaping is risk-free, but it is a better alternative to smoking. Public Health England has found e-cigarettes to be 95 percent less harmful than traditional cigarettes. E-cigarette vapor contains less toxic chemicals and biomarkers than tobacco smoke. Smokers who switched to vaping decreased their risk for cardiovascular harm by lessening the narrowing of their arteries.

    Beyond the harm reduction benefits of vaping, nontobacco-flavored vapes have been effective in helping adults quit cigarettes. A study published by The New England Journal of Medicine found that when combined with counseling, 59.6  percent of the participants using e-cigarettes completely abstained from smoking. In comparison, only 20.1 percent of participants who went cold turkey were able to quit smoking.

    Banning e-cigarettes is not the answer. I hope regulators quickly enact a reasonable regulatory framework guiding the sale, marketing, production and importation of nicotine and cannabinoid vaping products. Continuing to uphold the ban or dragging their feet on enacting regulation will generate new public health concerns for Costa Rica. Whether it is more Costa Ricans smoking or kids getting ahold of deadly vaping devices, banning e-cigarettes can have some devastating consequences.

    Peter Clark is a fellow with the World Vapers’ Alliance. You can follow him on X at @blog_logic.
  • Bhutan’s Tryst with Health Imperialism

    Bhutan’s Tryst with Health Imperialism

    The author standing with a local in front of a pharmacy stocking NRT gums adjacent to a grocery shop officially selling tobacco. (Photo courtesy of Sudhanshu Patwardhan)

    Without offering locally relevant cessation tools, prohibition is doomed to fail.

    By Sudhanshu Patwardhan

    Bhutan, a country that measures its riches in terms of “gross national happiness,” may have become an unsuspecting victim of a new form of imperialism: health imperialism. A blind copy-paste of Western tobacco control policies, worsened by local gold-plating, may have landed Bhutan in a mess. A visit to the landlocked nation gave the author a unique insight into how prohibition of tobacco without offering locally relevant and innovative tobacco cessation tools threaten this Shangri-la.

    The Forbidden Kingdom

    A series of district-wide tobacco control measures in Bhutan from the 1980s culminated in the declaration of a nationwide ban on the sale of tobacco products in 2004 through a resolution of the National Assembly. Overnight, Bhutan became a poster child of global tobacco control, an emerging David against the Goliath of transnational tobacco companies. Nanny statists got a lifeline, and the “p” word—prohibition—was resurrected after successive failures of over 150 years in alcohol and drug prohibition movements. The Tobacco Control Act of 2010 further enshrined into law restricted access, availability and appeal of tobacco products and gave sweeping powers for arresting those selling or even possessing tax-unpaid tobacco for personal consumption. Bhutan was all set to become a tobacco-free society. A happy nation was also going to become healthier. In theory.

    Market Forces Take Over

    The roller-coaster ride between 2010 and 2019 is captured in the World Health Organization’s regional office’s 2019 publication The Big Ban: Bhutan’s journey toward a tobacco-free society. A big achievement in this period was visible reduction in public place smoking. Otherwise, the optimistic title belies the details of the failed ban confessed in the publication. It is a classic tale of good intentions scuppered by poor execution. A highlight of the data reported there is the difficulty in enforcing the ban, evidenced by availability of tobacco products below the counter in most shops in Bhutan. Tobacco use among 13-year-olds to 15-year-olds went up from 24 percent in 2006 to 30 percent in 2013 based on the Global Youth Tobacco Survey findings. The severe penalties required by the initial law resulted in more than 80 people being imprisoned between 2010 and 2013. There was growing discontent about the disproportionality of the penalties among the people of a nation gradually moving from a benevolent absolute monarchy to a democratic constitutional monarchy. Public furor and rethinking among the lawmakers resulted in amendments and milder punishments, and the law’s “claws (were) trimmed,” states the WHO report. Between 2010 and 2014, permissible quantity for personal possession was steadily increased for both smoked and smokeless tobacco products. The ban and its enforcement were proving ineffective and untenable. And then Covid-19 happened.

    Reversal of a Failed Ban

    The government was obviously losing revenue due to the flourishing black market of smoked and smokeless tobacco products smuggled from India and elsewhere. The fear of tobacco smugglers bringing in the Covid-19 virus was enough excuse to act decisively. In July 2021, the government amended the 2010 Act, thus lifting a decade long ban on local tobacco sales.

    The pragmatism of the politicians who reversed the ban presents a sharp contrast to the previous prohibitionist policy. Today, sales and consumption continue, and based on the most recent (2019) WHO STEPwise approach to surveillance (STEPS) data, 24 percent of those between ages 15 and 60 currently use tobacco products. Sadly, the ban did not make Bhutan a tobacco-free society. Anecdotally, e-cigarettes are also available now in some grocery stores in the capital, Thimphu, and attracting use among smokers and never-smokers. These are not regulated nor used as smoking cessation tools, presenting another area of concern for public health. A ban may not be the answer for these products either. Regulation that balances current smokers’ needs for safer alternatives versus prevention of uptake by the youth and nonsmokers will be key.

    Peering Through an ‘Addiction’ Lens

    I first read about the ban’s overall failure in the 2019 WHO report and then heard about the reversal of the ban during the global Covid-19 pandemic. How did Bhutan land in this situation? There is, of course, economics at play: demand, supply and something to do with a genie being out of the bottle. When I put my doctor’s hat on, a key explanation stares at me: lack of quitting support for the existing 120,000 tobacco users. Reams of self-congratulatory publications and numerous WHO awards to Bhutan since the 1990s have focused on success in awareness-building and restricting access and use. The famous case of the Buddhist monk who was jailed for three years in 2011 for the possession of $2.54 worth of tax-unpaid tobacco misses the point that he was very likely addicted to tobacco and may have needed more than punishment to quit. In the absence of availability of tobacco products, it should have been a human right for him to have access to safer nicotine to manage nicotine withdrawals and achieve craving relief. This assessment should not be used to vilify tobacco users. Instead, it should be a reminder to those in tobacco control that preaching to nicotine-dependent users without offering alternatives is not enough and also unethical. A key demand-side reduction measure, to use Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) vocabulary, is that of providing tobacco dependence treatment and services. This is covered under FCTC Article 14 but rarely implemented in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), Bhutan included. I saw firsthand recently the country’s struggles with rising tobacco use coupled with a lack of cessation products and services.

    Tobacco Cessation: The Poor, High-Maintenance Cousin

    In Bhutan, like in most LMICs, overall tobacco control is run by public health experts, and tobacco cessation specifically (and separately) falls under the remit of psychiatrists. Neither groups are excited by tobacco cessation for a variety of reasons. Public health professionals often have little or no experience in treating individual patients and have increasingly been sold a unidimensional narrative that the tobacco epidemic is singularly driven by the commercial vested interests of tobacco companies (the “vector”). For them, the tobacco user is a victim of the tobacco industry, should be labeled an addict and then preached at to quit. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, are generally geared toward treating established mental health conditions and severe mental illnesses and even within the “de-addiction” field prioritize substance abuse treatment and alcohol de-addiction over tobacco cessation. Tobacco cessation with nicotine-replacement therapy and other pharmacological interventions are costly and need a level of training and qualification to prescribe—and are therefore cost-prohibitive to be offered at scale. They are also not without their failures, give around 20 percent quit rates at one year in controlled clinical studies and much less success in real-world settings. The success of quitting cold turkey is overrated and often drives policymakers’ wrong beliefs and attitudes about the ease of quitting. Public health tobacco control awareness campaigns and advocacy, on the other hand, are highly visible, scalable, inherently worthy endeavors, and most do not require impact assessment as proof of success. The FCTC’s Article 14 thus remains a neglected tool for reducing harms from tobacco globally and receives little or no funding from international donors and national governments nor any interest from pharmaceutical companies or tobacco companies to innovate in.

    Safer Nicotine Not Widely Available in Bhutan

    Nicotine illiteracy among healthcare professionals and lack of availability of safer nicotine alternatives can translate into poor quitting among tobacco user patients. From my field visits to pharmacies and discussions with frontline healthcare professionals in Bhutan, I noted that 2 mg and 4 mg nicotine gums have only recently become available in some pharmacies in Thimphu, but patches are not stocked. Patients come and buy these over the counter, but there is little record of how long they take it for, their quit and relapse rates and whether their doctors support them in their quit journeys. Varenicline or bupropion are not available for cessation. When called, the “national quitline,” contrary to the claim of the 2019 and 2024 WHO publications, do not deal with tobacco cessation support. Most of the healthcare professionals in Bhutan receive their undergraduate and graduate training in India, Sri Lanka and other nearby Asian countries. Similar to the rest of the world, doctors in Bhutan are not confident about prescribing nicotine-replacement therapy and may harbor misperceptions about nicotine itself. They have not received any tobacco cessation-related training in the past five years, and nicotine-replacement therapy is not available for free or at subsidized prices anymore, unlike other medications in Bhutan.

    Navel-Gazing Time for All?

    The backpedaling by Bhutan on the tobacco ban has not been reported or analyzed widely enough. Bhutan’s failure to rein in tobacco sales and increased use, despite a ban, should be a wake-up call for all parties involved. What was touted as a role model for other countries for eliminating harms from tobacco has instead become a cautionary tale for poor policymaking done to pander to international funders and organizations. The undue influence of a select few Western nations in national health policymaking for LMICs is also a matter of concern as the global geopolitical order rapidly morphs. Projects such as FCTC 2030, funded by the U.K., Norway and Australia, continue to churn out reports such as the Investment Case for Tobacco Control in Bhutan (WHO/UNDP, February 2024), ignoring lessons from the ban, mostly unaware of capacity issues on the ground and not addressing the need of current tobacco users for safer nicotine alternatives. Emergent strong economies such as China and India will no longer tolerate meddling by past colonial powers and imperialist nations in their health policies, but neither should other LMICs.

    Toward Gross National Health

    For a nation of around 750,000 people, tobacco use is claimed to kill between 200 people and 400 people every year—all preventable deaths (side note: the data for the same year varies dramatically between two WHO reports). Global tobacco control has failed Bhutanese tobacco users and their families. For a nation built on principles of sustainability, risky forms of smoked and smokeless tobacco products have no place in society. The mountains, the clean air, the happy smiles and peace-loving people of Bhutan deserve to own tobacco control initiatives, not be made to adopt hand-me-down Western ideologies or policies. That will require the doctors and pharmacists in Bhutan to understand the science of tobacco cessation and harm reduction and make quitting sexy. Availability of nicotine-replacement therapy products, innovation in safer nicotine alternatives and improved cessation services will need to be ensured and incentivized by the government. That has the potential to keep their nation happier and healthier for the coming generations.

    Disclaimer: The author’s work here or elsewhere is dedicated to using ethical and scientific evidence-based approaches to eliminate harms from all risky forms of smoked and smokeless tobacco products. The article is based on the author’s personal conversations with experts and lay people in Bhutan and from shop visits and an analysis of two of the most recent WHO reports on this topic. The intent of this article is to shine a light on a vulnerable LMIC’s experience with unchecked health imperialism to create insight and debate on the impact and implications of such practices. The author holds utmost respect for the nation, the policymakers and the people of Bhutan.

    Sudhanshu Patwardhan is a medical doctor, nicotine expert and health tech entrepreneur from India, based in the U.K. He works on projects around the world to reduce harm from tobacco, especially among the most disadvantaged tobacco user populations.