Category: News This Week

THR Activists to Broadcast During COP9

Image: sCOPe
Nancy Loucas
A group of tobacco harm reduction experts will hold a round-the-clock broadcasting event Nov. 8-12, coinciding with the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP9) to the World health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
Dubbed “sCOPe,” or “streaming Consumers On Point everywhere,” the five-day livestream will be simulcast via YouTube and Facebook. Presenters and panelists will challenge and scrutinize COP9, questioning, for example, who is influencing and funding its efforts to demonize vaping.
“Before the Covid-19 pandemic, consumers were planning to front up to COP in person and show media our increasing anger for being shut out, once again, from the proceedings,” said sCOPe organizer Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of the Coalition of Asia Pacific Harm Reduction Advocates. “The FCTC’s decision to delay COP9 and host it exclusively online, with no discussions to be publicly released, meant consumers had to take alternative action. Hence, the development of sCOPe,”
“sCOPe is our response to being excluded from the table, as the main stakeholders, of the discussion and decision-making process that directly impacts our health and our right to make informed decisions,” she said.
October 22, 2021
Hong Kong Bans ENDS Sales

Photo: fazon
Hong Kong has banned import, sale and manufacture of electronic nicotine-delivery systems, but personal use is still allowed. The ban will come into effect in mid-2022, Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said. The maximum penalty for offenders will be a HK$50,000 ($6,431) fine and six-month imprisonment.
The long-delayed Smoking (Public Health) (Amendment) Bill 2019 passed Oct. 21, “delivering a major victory for health activists and educators who have blamed the devices for encouraging smoking among young people,” according to the South China Morning Post.
While the new law targets only vape shops and the local business of vaping, consumers will still be free to use the devices, prompting some politicians to call for more aggressive measures to curb tobacco use, including banning smoking in all public places except for designated areas. Others, however, argued Hong Kong should allow reshipment of vaping products and warned the ban would hurt logistics companies.
The bill was approved by a vote of 32 to three in the Legislative Council. Two lawmakers abstained.
October 21, 2021
U.K. Lawmakers Want Warnings on Sticks
Photo: vchalup
U.K. lawmakers want to require tobacco manufacturers to print the message “smoking kills” on each individual cigarette, reports The Guardian.
Members of Parliament have submitted an amendment to the health and care bill going through parliament which would allow the health secretary to make such warnings mandatory.
“We know that cigarettes are cancer sticks and kill half the people who use them. So I hope that health warnings on cigarettes would deter people from being tempted to smoke in the first place, especially young people,” said Mary Kelly Foy, the Labour MP behind the move.
Foy’s amendments would also let the health secretary:
Raise the legal age for buying cigarettes from 18 to 21.
Stop e-cigarette makers using tactics that might entice children to try them, such as sweet flavorings and cartoon characters.
Make it illegal to give e-cigarettes away free as sampler products.
Empower the government to impose a new levy on tobacco company profits, with the proceeds being used to fund stop smoking activities.
The plan is backed by Cancer Research UK and the Royal College of Physicians.
These stale and tired ideas have been around for years. The reason they haven’t been adopted in the U.K. is because there is no evidence that they will significantly reduce smoking rates.
Simon Clark, director, Forest
Simon Clark, the director of the pro-smoking group Forest, criticized Foy’s proposal.
“These stale and tired ideas have been around for years,” he said in a statement. “The reason they haven’t been adopted in the UK is because there is no evidence that they will significantly reduce smoking rates or discourage young people from smoking.
“Everyone is aware of the health risks of smoking. There are huge, impossible-to-miss health warnings on every pack of cigarettes including grotesque images of smoking-related diseases.”
He added: “Introducing a levy on tobacco companies would disproportionately hurt less well-off smokers because it will inevitably be passed on to consumers who already pay punitive rates of taxation on tobacco.”
October 21, 2021
Altria and Juul Support Age-Verification System
Altria Group Distribution Co. and Juul Labs have announced their support of TruAge, a new digital solution that enhances current age-verification systems and protects user privacy.
Developed by the National Association of Convenience Stores and Conexxus, TruAge makes it easier and more accurate to verify a customer’s age when purchasing age-restricted products. At the same time, the system makes identity theft difficult. One-time-use tokens are used to share only the most important elements to confirm the purchaser is of legal age, which also protects the user’s privacy.
TruAge is free to retailers, consumers and POS providers, and its relevant intellectual property will be placed in the public domain—removing barriers to adoption.
“We are excited to join this important initiative because TruAge deepens our trade partners’ support of underage prevention and helps establish retail as the most trusted place to responsibly sell tobacco products,” said Scott Myers, president and CEO of Altria Group Distribution Co., in a statement.
“Over the past few years, we have worked closely with our retailer partners across the United States to implement enhanced access controls for the sale of Juul products, automatically requiring electronic ID scanning to verify the purchaser is at least 21 years of age and limiting the amount of product sold to reduce social sourcing,” said Parker Kasmer, vice president of regulatory engagement for Juul Labs.
“We are eager to support TruAge and the extension of technologically based age-verification solutions across all vapor and other age-restricted products to combat underage use and support a more responsible marketplace.”
TruAge is also supported by more than 130 retail companies that represent 22,000-plus convenience store locations in the United States, plus four industry point-of-sale providers.
October 21, 2021
Health Policies Linked to Corporate Influence

Photo: svetazi
Governments around the world have been slow to implement the World Health Organization’s recommended public health policies on alcohol, unhealthy foods and tobacco, according to a study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, published in the journal The Lancet Global Health.
Implementation has been particularly low in poor less-democratic countries where corporations had more influence for example through corruption and political favoritism, the study found.
In 2013, the WHO’s 194 member states endorsed a list of policies to combat non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease.
The researchers found that on average, only a third of the public health policies had been fully implemented in 2020.
Progress was especially slow in low-income countries and countries with less democracy. At the bottom of the list are three countries in West Africa—Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone—with one to two partially implemented policies.
The researchers found that the positive relationship between democracy on implementation was cancelled out in countries with above-average levels of corporate influence. Corporate influence was measured using an existing index with 25 metrics of corporate power, including corruption, bribery, government official favoritism, foreign investments and foreign contributions to political campaigns. Lobbying was not part of the assessment due to a lack of reliable data for many countries.
“Our analysis shows that corporate political influence is associated with the degree of implementation—the more influence corporations had, the lower the degree of implementation of preventive public health measures,” says Luke Allen, the first author of the study, told KI News. “While we cannot establish causality, our findings indicate that more work is needed to support particularly low-income countries in introducing effective NCD policies, especially around commercial determinants.”
October 21, 2021
U.S. Vapor Product Mail Ban Takes Effect
Photo: will milne
The ban on mailing vapor products through the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) takes effect Oct 20. The USPS has posted for public inspection its rules for mailing e-cigarettes with the Federal Register.
The rules don’t exempt cannabis vapor products, as many in the industry had hoped. The USPS is leaving it up to the U.S. Congress to carve out an exemption for hemp-based vaping products.
Under the new rules, retail customers will no longer be able to receive vapor products by way of USPS delivery. However, USPS will still mail vapor products under narrowly defined circumstances:
Noncontiguous states: intrastate shipments within Alaska or Hawaii
Business/regulatory purposes: shipments transmitted between verified and authorized tobacco industry businesses for business purposes, or between such businesses and federal or state agencies for regulatory purposes
Certain individuals: lightweight shipments mailed between adult individuals, limited to 10 per 30-day period
Consumer testing: limited shipments of cigarettes sent by verified and authorized manufacturers to adult smokers for consumer testing purposes
Public health: limited shipments by federal agencies for public health purposes under similar rules applied to manufacturers conducting consumer testing
The rules were originally set to into effect in March and then April; however, the USPS held back publishing the rule pending review.
October 20, 2021
Update of ‘Clearing the Smoke’ Report Urged
Forty-two public health leaders have signed onto a letter urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) to review and update the 20-year old Clearing the Smoke report so that it can address the evolved tobacco and nicotine marketplace.
Two decades ago, the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) issued its landmark report Clearing the Smoke—Assessing the Science Base for Tobacco Harm Reduction. The report had been compiled at the request of the FDA as it considered—even before Congress gave it the authority to do so—how best to regulate the growing tobacco and nicotine marketplace.
The signatories of the letter point out that much has changed in the tobacco and nicotine marketplace since the report was first published. Science, technology and innovation have dramatically advanced over the past two decades. Consumers can now choose from a range of nicotine delivery products spanning the entire continuum of risk—from deadly combustible cigarettes on one hand to less-harmful noncombustible products such as snus, e-cigarettes and tobacco heating products.
However, a slow product approval process means these products are not being made available to the public at a pace that would help significantly reduce the harms of cigarette smoking. What’s more, a lack of education efforts means consumers remain uninformed about the less-risky product choices available to them.
The signatories maintain that an update of the Clearing the Smoke report will help put all stakeholders on a track that will collectively advance public health objectives. They believe that the National Academy of Medicine, which produced the original report, is the most appropriate body to undertake such a review on behalf of the CTP.
The letter’s signatories include Scott Ballin, former vice president and legislative counsel of the American Heart Association; K. Michael Cummings, professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina; David Abrahams, professor in the department of social and behavioral science, at the College of Global Health at New York University; Aaron Biebert, former president and CEO of Clear Medical Solutions; Allan C. Erickson, former president for public education and tobacco control at the American Cancer Society; Ray Niaura, professor of public health global studies at New York University; and John R. Seffrin.
October 20, 2021
Broughton Moves Into New Markets

Photo: Broughton
Broughton has unveiled a rebrand that reflects its evolving service offerings to support clients through their whole product life cycle journey. The company states that it is on a mission “to help our clients deliver life-enhancing products to market, by providing the most trusted integrated services in the world.”
Building on years of experience in the pharmaceutical and next generation nicotine products space, Broughton offers its clients fully integrated scientific and regulatory consultancy, combined with comprehensive in-house laboratory services. The launch coincides with the announcement that the business is expanding its services into the rapidly evolving cannabinoids industry.
Moving forward the company will focus on accelerating life-enhancing products to market within strategic markets including pharmaceuticals, nicotine and cannabinoids. Its combined expertise in formulation science, device technology, software applications and aerosol science makes Broughton the ideal strategic outsourcing partner to support client pipeline portfolios of future next generation products, according to the company.
“The launch of the Broughton brand formalizes our rapidly developing position as a full-service solutions provider to the life sciences sector,” said CEO Paul Moran, who founded Broughton Laboratories in 2006. “We will continue our commitment to investing further into global operations delivering scientific and regulatory consultancy combined with comprehensive product development and laboratory services.
“This next phase of our expansion is a natural evolution to grow capacity and capabilities into the broad life sciences sector as technologies improve to target unmet market needs.”
“One exciting aspect of this change is that it facilitates the expansion of our existing pharmaceutical quality and product stability services to support providers of pharmaceutical inhalation products,” said Broughton Chief Scientific Officer Chris Allen. “With expertise in device optimization, human factor studies, navigating complex regulatory pathways for combination products and a track record of quality compliance, our broad expert team can support device development from concept to commercialization.’’
“The expanding team at Broughton hold extensive knowledge of their specialist fields,” said Moran. “This rebrand brings together this expertise with a fresh focus on the journey of our clients’ products to meet an unmet market need. This is an exciting time for the business that will enable us to continue to innovate as we contribute to global health and wellbeing.”
As part of its rebranding, Broughton has created a new website at www.broughton-group.com.
October 20, 2021
PMI Affirms Outlook After Strong Quarter
Philip Morris International reported net revenues of $8.12 billion in the third quarter of 2021, up 9.1 percent over those reported in the previous year’s third quarter. Adjusted operating income grew 9.4 percent to $3.55 billion. The company’s adjusted operating income margin was 43.7 percent, compared with 43.6 percent in the third quarter of 2020.
PMI shipped 164.84 billion cigarettes and 23.49 billion heated tobacco units in the third quarter of 2021, down 0.4 percent and up 23.8 percent, respectively, from the previous year’s quarter.
The company estimated the total number of IQOS users at quarter-end to be approximately 20.4 million, of which approximately 14.9 million have switched to IQOS and stopped smoking.
Combined, PMI’s shipment of cigarettes and heated tobacco units increased by 2.1 percent from the previous year’s quarter, driven by higher heated tobacco unit shipments in Eastern Europe and Japan and higher cigarette shipments in PMI Duty Free and Turkey, among other factors.
“Our business delivered another strong quarterly performance, coming ahead of our expectations with adjusted diluted EPS [earnings per share] of $1.58, representing growth of 8.5 percent, excluding currency,” said PMI CEO Jacek Olczak in a statement
“The continued excellent performance of IQOS drove total shipment volume and organic net revenue growth of 2.1 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively, and was complemented by further sequential share gains for our combustible products.”
“Today, we are reaffirming our strong growth outlook for 2021, with an adjusted diluted EPS forecast toward the upper-half of our previous range and representing currency-neutral growth of 13 percent to 14 percent, despite ongoing tightness in device supplies due to the global shortage of semiconductors, which impacts our ability to fulfill consumer demand for IQOS.”
October 19, 2021
Eastern Co. Posts Record Results

Photo: Ludmila
Eastern Co. of Egypt achieved record sales and production volumes in fiscal 2020-2021, reports Daily News Egypt.
The company manufactured about 70 billion local cigarettes, 16 percent more than in its previous fiscal year. Sales increased by 12 percent to 67 billion cigarettes 2020-2021.
Eastern Co. also recorded a net income of EGP16 billion ($1.02 billion) in 2020-2021, compared to EGP14.5 billion in 2019-2020. Profits totaled EGP4.28 billion, up from the EGP 3.79 billion in the previous year.
The company is also exploring the sale reduced-risk smoking products in Egypt.
In an Oct. 17 statement to the Egyptian Exchange, Eastern Co. said it had examined the potential consumption and demand for such products in the local market.
October 19, 2021