Category: News This Week

Taat and E1011 Labs Partner in HnB Tech
Photo: Taat Global Alternatives
Taat Global Alternatives has joined E1011 Labs’ Pilot Partnership Program (P3), an initiative by the California-based heat-not-burn innovator to leverage the capabilities and resources of third-party firms to advance its efforts in the tobacco and tobacco-adjacent categories.
In a press release dated May 17, 2022, Taat announced the release of its sales materials for a heat-not-burn offering made in collaboration with E1011 Labs using the company’s proprietary and patent-pending base material Beyond Tobacco, which contains no tobacco or nicotine.
In its June 14, 2022 press release, E1011 Labs announced the second edition of its patented Elon combustion-free device using precision heating technology with unique features including a touchless “pause” function with which a user can suspend a session by blowing into a circular sensor.
E1011 Labs stated the wide range of applications for heat-not-burn technology includes use cases in the pharmaceutical, cannabis and tobacco categories. As the very first participant in E1011 Labs’ P3 ecosystem, Taat will work closely with E1011 Labs to commercialize a novel heat-not-burn option with no tobacco or nicotine.
“E1011 Labs is proving to be a very strong partner for us, and we are honored to be the first in their P3 program for collaboration to advance their initiatives in the heat-not-burn space,” said Taat founder Joe Deighan in a statement.
“Our primary focus is on developing, manufacturing and commercializing our flagship combustible product, which is why E1011 Labs’ reach, R&D bandwidth and marketing capabilities are invaluable to us as an upcoming entrant to the heat-not-burn space. We are thankful to E1011 Labs’ management for their confidence in us, and we are very excited to be working together for our respective pursuits in the $812 billion global tobacco category.”
June 20, 2022
Botani Launches Tobacco-Free Wrappers

Photo: Botani
Companies looking for a more sustainable, tobacco-free and cost-effective alternative to traditional foil wrapped blunt wraps now have a new option: Botani Gummed Wrappers.
The new gummed wrappers offer a wide range of benefits over their traditional tobacco counterparts. Traditional blunt wrap papers come in single-use foil packages to keep them from drying out. Botani’s gummed wrappers are made using proprietary technology that does away with foil packaging for a more sustainable and cost-effective cannabis smoking experience. The wraps are ideal for blunt applications and moisture optimized for slow burning, safe storage and an extended shelf-life.
“The technology behind Botani’s natural hemp flower gummed wrappers helps roll-your-own tobacco influenced brands make a seamless entrance into the cannabis market without adding costly new machinery or storage solutions. This makes our gummed wrappers the ideal product for brands looking to go to market quickly, cost effectively and efficiently,” said Alex Boone, managing director at Botani.

Our time-tested sustainable processes for reconstituting hemp into natural hemp wrappers lets our customers scale quickly without compromising the quality or consistency that their customers and cannabis connoisseurs have come to expect and appreciate.
Alex Boone, managing director, Botani
Botani gummed wrappers leverage proprietary technology to help manufacturers take advantage of a high growth market. Plus, gummed wrappers offer brands and cannabis connoisseurs a more sustainable and convenient on-the-go solution that takes blunt-rolling to the next level.
“Our time-tested sustainable processes for reconstituting hemp into natural hemp wrappers lets our customers scale quickly without compromising the quality or consistency that their customers and cannabis connoisseurs have come to expect and appreciate,” said Boone.
Botani is a premium hemp and botanical solutions business delivering innovative hemp wraps, fillers, and rolling/pre-roll papers to the natural fibers industry. As a part of paper milling pioneer SWM, Botani inherits over 400 years of history in paper and natural fiber technology.
June 17, 2022
Top Court: South Africa Tobacco Ban Invalid

Photo: Alexlmx – Dreamstime.com
South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on June 14 upheld a high court judgement that declared the ban on tobacco products sales during the Covid-19 pandemic unconstitutional, reports Times Live.
In March 2020, Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma banned the sale of tobacco products to contain the spread of Covid-19.
In June 2020, British American Tobacco, JT International and several tobacco product consumers asked a court to invalidate the ban.
The matter was heard by a full bench of the court in August 2020 and judgment was reserved. Later that month, the minister lifted its tobacco sales ban.
Despite the lifting of the ban, the court passed judgment in December 2020 declaring the regulation inconsistent with the constitution and invalid.
The government appealed the ruling, but lost.
In its June 14 judgment, the SCA said assuming there was a causal link between smoking and the risk of contracting a more severe form of Covid-19, the minister would have had to show that stopping smoking during the tobacco ban would have reversed or reduced the risk of contracting a severe form of Covid-19.
The SCA said this had not been established as evidence.
As regulation 45 was not necessary to achieve any of the purposes listed in section 27 of the Disaster Management Act, it was invalid, the court noted.
Section 27 states that in the event of a national disaster the minister may make regulations dealing with steps that may be necessary to prevent the escalation of the disaster or to alleviate, contain and minimize the effects of the disaster.
June 17, 2022
Comment Period Extended for Flavored Cigar/Menthol Plans

Image: iQoncept
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is extending the comment period for its proposed rules prohibiting menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars from 60 days to 90 days. The public may now submit comments on these proposed rules through Aug. 2, 2022.
The agency says it is extending the comment period following requests from the public. The FDA also received requests to not extend the comment period from public health organizations but says it believes that a 90-day comment period is appropriate as it allows adequate additional time for people to fully consider the proposed rules, including specific requests for comments, and develop and submit comments without significantly lengthening the rulemaking proceedings.
In addition to accepting written public comments, the agency convened public listening sessions on June 13 and June 15 to expand direct engagement with the public, including affected communities. The recordings for the sessions will be posted to the FDA website once available.
June 17, 2022
Zimbabwe Seeks to Switch to Gas for Curing

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
Zimbabwe wants to replace wood with gas as fuel source for tobacco curing to curb deforestation, reports Xinhua News Agency, citing the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB).
The TIMB said it is seeking gas technology companies to partner with it in establishing a centralized gas curing facility for tobacco. Such a facility should allow for multiple farmers to cure their tobacco at the same time, the regulator noted.
According to the TIMB, of the 262,000 hectares lost to deforestation in Zimbabwe every year, 15 to 20 percent of this is attributable to tobacco growing, particularly curing.
“This is one of the sustainable curing initiatives which we are considering as a board,” TIMB spokesperson Chelesani Moyo was quoted as saying. “Sustainable tobacco production is the efficient production of quality tobacco, under conditions that limit the negative impact on the environment. This also entails the best agricultural practices that improve the socio-economic conditions of tobacco growers and communities in tobacco-producing areas.”
Zimbabwe’s policy of promoting small-scale production has accelerated deforestation as farmers indiscriminately cut down of trees to cure the golden leaf.
Tobacco is one of Zimbabwe’s major foreign currency earners.
Last year, the country sold 186.6 million kg of tobacco leaf valued at $515.9 million, up 16.8 percent in volume and 31 percent in value over sales in 2020.
June 17, 2022
Ramström: Tobacco Harm Reduction Works

Photo: Finn Bjurvoll Hansen
A new study launched at the ninth annual Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw shows implementation of the World Health Organization’s tobacco control measures known as MPOWER has no clear association with low-levels of tobacco-related mortality in Europe.
Instead, the independent research, conducted by Lars M. Ramström, shows that switching from smoking to Swedish-style snus, a safer nicotine product, is a more effective strategy to reduce the harms caused by tobacco.
In 2007, the WHO launched MPOWER, a process and monitoring mechanism to implement the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Comprising six measures, it aims to reduce the demand for tobacco. But, despite 15 years of MPOWER, there are still 1.1 billion smokers worldwide, a total unchanged since 2000, and 8 million annual tobacco-related deaths, according to researchers.
To assess MPOWER’s effectiveness, Ramström compared the extent of implementation of these tobacco control measures with tobacco-related death rates across Europe by using figures provided by the Tobacco Control Scale (TSC), a tool that grades every European country’s level of MPOWER application, and data on tobacco-related mortality from The Global Burden of Disease.
After analyzing his results, Ramström found no correlation between tobacco-related mortality and a country’s level of implementation of MPOWER measures for Europe’s women, and a very weak correlation for the continent’s men.
Crucially, though, the two countries with the lowest tobacco-related mortality for men were Sweden and Norway. In both nations a large proportion of male smokers have switched from cigarettes to Swedish-style snus, a product that is freely available in both, but banned from sale in the EU except Sweden. Despite Sweden’s TCS score being below average, it has achieved a lower rate of tobacco-related mortality than all the countries that have higher levels of MPOWER implementation except Norway, providing further evidence in support of tobacco harm reduction.
June 17, 2022
CAPHRA Condemns Anti-Vaping Campaign
“By stirring up anti-vaping hysteria, New Zealand’s Asthma and Respiratory Foundation will only send more minors back to smoking and put the country’s decade long Smokefree 2025 ambition in jeopardy,” says Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA).
Loucas’ comments follow the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation (ARFNZ) launching a video series titled, “Spotlight on Vaping.” The campaign claims New Zealand is experiencing an “epidemic” of youth vaping. Together with the Secondary Principals’ Association of NZ (SPANZ), it also claims over a quarter of students have vaped in the past week.
“What these sensationalized numbers don’t take into account is, if 26 percent of school students had in fact vaped in the past week, many would only be trying it, and secondly, almost all of them would’ve been smoking deadly cigarettes a generation ago,” says Loucas.
CAPHRA says while smoking-related illnesses kill around 5,000 New Zealanders every year, vaping has not reportedly caused one death in the country. In fact, vaping been widely attributed for positively contributing to New Zealand’s plummeting smoking rate. The overall adult daily smoking rate has fallen from 18 percent in 2006/07 to 9.4 percent in 2020-2021.
“What ARFNZ fails to mention is [that] the 2021 ASH Year 10 Snapshot survey that they selectively refer to confirms that vaping is not hooking nonsmokers. In that survey, just 3 percent of those who vape daily have never smoked. What’s more, while many may try it, very few ever become regular vapers, particularly non-smoking students,” she says.
Loucas says while ARFNZ attract headlines by alleging a “youth vaping epidemic,” University of Auckland researchers in 2020 came to a different conclusion: “Our findings do not support the notion of a so-called vaping epidemic in New Zealand or a large youth population dependent on vaping,” the researchers wrote
“While no one wants youth vaping, we are not seeing an ‘epidemic’ as ARFNZ would have the public believe.

June 17, 2022
Tobacco Authority to Rent Out Land

Photo: Pcess609
The Tobacco Authority of Thailand (TOAT) wants to boost revenue by renting out prime land plots in the capital and northeastern Thailand, reports The Bangkok Post.
The authority’s acting governor Nophadol Hantanasarn said the TOAT wants to auction off three plots this year. The rental period is for 30 years. The TOAT expects earn at least THB1.3 billion ($36,87 million) from such leases.
The authority has 6,000 rai (960 ha) of plots across the country, of which 2,000 rai can be rented out as most have been leased to tobacco farmers to plant tobacco.
Nophadol insisted that the auction would be transparent and observed by representatives of the Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand.
The state authority is scheduled to hold a market sounding event for these three plots on June 28, then sell the bid documents in August before bids are required to be submitted sometime in November.
June 17, 2022
Jury Awards PMI $10.7 Million in Patent Case

Photo: md3d
A U.S. jury awarded Philip Morris International $10.7 million on June 15 after finding that R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.’s Vuse e-cigarettes violate its patent rights, reports Reuters.
The federal court jury in Alexandria, Virginia, said RJR’s Vuse Solo and Alto devices infringe two PMI patents covering parts of a vaping device for heating substances and preventing leaks. At the same time, the jury cleared Vuse Alto of infringing one of the patents.
A Philip Morris spokesperson told Reuters the company was “grateful” for the verdict, which “rejects an attempt by BAT to free-ride on our hard work and investment.”
A spokesman for RJR indicated it may appeal the June 14 verdict.
The case is part of a multi-front patent dispute between PMI and RJR parent company British American Tobacco.
The recent verdict concerned counterclaims in RJR’s ongoing patent lawsuit over PMI’s IQOS heated-tobacco device. RJR won an order blocking IQOS imports at the U.S. International Trade Commission last November.
PMI succeeded earlier this year in invalidating parts of some patents RJR accused it of infringing at a U.S. Patent Office tribunal.
BAT has also sued PMI over IQOS in the United Kingdom, Germany and elsewhere. A PMI filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year said IQOS patent lawsuits and challenges outside of the U.S. have “repeatedly and universally failed.”
Altria has separately sued RJR for patent infringement in North Carolina over the Vuse line, in another case that is still pending.
June 16, 2022
Louisville University to Study Vape Flavorings

Photo: wolterke
The National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have given the University of Louisville $3.6 million to study the effects of flavorings used in vaping products, reports Kentucky Today.
Researchers at the University of Louisville’s Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute hope to better understand the short-term and long-term impacts of flavorings—specifically on the heart—and catalog which are potentially harmful.
“E-cigarettes are still relatively new, and we don’t yet fully understand what their health effects are,” said Alex Carll, an assistant professor in the department of physiology and co-lead on the project. “Understanding this could help us make better purchasing and regulatory decisions.”
The FDA banned flavors used in disposable e-cigarettes and has not approved any flavors except tobacco through its premarket tobacco product application process. The agency contends that some flavors could appeal to kids and help fuel rising rates of youth vaping.
Matthew Nystoriak, an associate professor of medicine and co-lead on the project, said some flavors may seem harmless because they taste like or use the same ingredients as in food. But while those ingredients are safe to eat, they may not be safe to inhale.
“Our goal is to understand how individual flavoring chemicals impact the heart,” Nystoriak said. “There are many flavor chemicals used in e-cigarettes, and if we know which are potentially more harmful than others, it’s possible for people to make more informed decisions about which products they use.”
Identifying their biological effects is also likely to help the FDA in regulating flavoring additives in e-cigarettes in the future.
June 16, 2022