Category: News This Week

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a proposed rule to require new health warnings on cigarette packages and in advertisements to promote greater public understanding of the negative health consequences of smoking.

The proposed warnings, which feature photo-realistic color images depicting some of the lesser-known, but serious health risks of cigarette smoking, stand to represent the most significant change to cigarette labels in more than 35 years.

The new cigarette health warnings, once finalized, would appear prominently on cigarette packages and in advertisements, occupying the top 50 percent of the area of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages and at least 20 percent of the area at the top of cigarette advertisements. The warnings would be required to appear on packages and in advertisements 15 months after a final rule is issued.

“As a cancer doctor and researcher, I am well aware of the staggering toll inflicted on the public health by tobacco products, which cause cancer, heart disease, stroke, emphysema and other medical problems,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless.

“While most people assume the public knows all they need to understand about the harms of cigarette smoking, there’s a surprising number of lesser-known risks that both youth and adult smokers and nonsmokers may simply not be aware of, such as bladder cancer, diabetes and conditions that can cause blindness

“With these new proposed cigarette health warnings, we have an enormous public health opportunity to fulfill our statutory mandate and increase the public’s understanding of the full scope of serious negative health consequences of cigarette smoking.

“Given that tobacco use is still the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., there’s a lot at stake to ensure the public understands these risks. We remain committed to educating the public, especially America’s youth, about the dangers associated with using cigarettes and other tobacco products.”

The proposed new warnings, each comprising a text statement and corresponding photo-realistic image in full color, include:

• WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children.
• WARNING: Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers.
• WARNING: Smoking causes head and neck cancer.
• WARNING: Smoking causes bladder cancer, which can lead to bloody urine.
• WARNING: Smoking during pregnancy stunts fetal growth.
• WARNING: Smoking can cause heart disease and strokes by clogging arteries.
• WARNING: Smoking causes COPD, a lung disease that can be fatal. (paired with two different images)
• WARNING: Smoking reduces blood flow, which can cause erectile dysfunction.
• WARNING: Smoking reduces blood flow to the limbs, which can require amputation.
• WARNING: Smoking causes type 2 diabetes, which raises blood sugar.
• WARNING: Smoking causes age-related macular degeneration, which can lead to blindness.
• WARNING: Smoking causes cataracts, which can lead to blindness.

British American Tobacco’s (BAT) proposed takeover of e-cigarette maker Twisp won approval from South Africa’s Competition Tribunal on August 13 after the company agreed to a series of conditions, reports Reuters.

BAT announced the deal in 2017 as part of its efforts to increase its offering of next-generation products or alternatives to smoking cigarettes. But the deal had faced opposition, with the Competition Commission coming out against it in July 2018.

The commission later changed its recommendation to a conditional approval.

Under conditions placed on the deal, the combined group would not be allowed to make deals with retailers to allocate their products more than 70 percent of the visible sales space given to e-cigarettes. They also can’t incentivize retailers to deny space to rival products.

The conditions will apply for five years.

Competitors have rushed to fill the void after Juul, under pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, stopped selling most of its flavored nicotine pods in stores last fall, according to a report in The New York Times.

The companies are offering fruity and candy-flavored pods that are compatible with Juul devices. Sales of flavors such as “Strawberry Milk,” “Peach Madness” and “Froopy” have reportedly soared.

Juul Labs has filed numerous lawsuits and complaints with the U.S. International Trade Commission, seeking to beat back the cheaper copycat devices and pods.

“If the box isn’t around, the parent would say it’s a Juul pod, but it’s not us,” said Matthew Hult, a Juul Labs lawyer. “It injects confusion and tarnishes the Juul brand.”

The company is also targeting sellers of counterfeit vapor devices and pods sold under the Juul name and training federal customs officials to catch them at ports of entry.

“We are taking aggressive actions against counterfeit and compatible products because they are a direct threat to our plan to combat youth usage,” said Joshua Raffel, a Juul Labs spokesman.

Swiss officials have reportedly asked Moldovan authorities to give Philip Morris International (PMI) a voice in discussions around new tobacco legislation.

According to the Le Temps newspaper, diplomats from the Swiss embassy in Kiev—which also covers the country’s interests Moldova—lodged the request in July as politicians in the eastern European country were debating a strict new tobacco law.

PMI told Le Temps that they asked the Swiss embassy to push for “the possibility to contribute, like all other interested parties, to a public consultation about legislative proposals that would affect smokers and our business”.

The story comes just a few weeks after a public debate around PMI’ role in sponsoring the Swiss pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. Following negative headlines and criticism by health organizations, the partnership was dropped.

PMI is headquartered in Switzerland.

The health ministry of India wants to strengthen the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COPTA) with a ban on the sale of loose cigarettes.

The aim is to better align national law with the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control guidelines. The proposal also includes heavier fines for violators of smoking restrictions. Currently, the penalty for smoking in restricted areas is up to INR200 ($2.81).

The ministry had proposed a number of amendments to the 2003 legislation and put the draft COTPA Amendment Bill in the public domain in 2015. However, the draft was withdrawn in 2017 for reevaluation.

The earlier draft proposed increasing the fine amount to INR1,000, doing away with on-site advertising of tobacco products and removing designated smoking areas from hotels, restaurants and airports.

Thailand’s finance ministry wants to reduce the tobacco excise tax by one-fourth to lessen the burden on farmers after the previous government hiked the tax from THB0.005 ($0.0016) to THB0.01 per gram, reports The Bangkok Post.

However, Deputy Finance Minister Santi Prompat said it was unlikely that the tax would be rescinded altogether.

“Even though the tobacco tax is not a significant portion of the government’s tax revenue, revoking the levy is unlikely as Thailand is committed to protecting people from secondhand smoke under international health regulations,” he said.

The previous government approved hiking the excise tax on tobacco to 10 satang per gram from 0.5 satang to narrow the retail price gap between factory-made and hand-rolled cigarettes after dozens of smokers switched to hand-rolled. The prices for hand-rolled are far cheaper than factory-made cigarettes following enforcement of a new excise tax structure in September 2017.

KT&G is strengthening its international tobacco business in the wake of declining sales at home, reports The Korea Times.

In July, the South Korean cigarette manufacturer created four new teams in its global division—two overseas expansion teams and two overseas brand teams.

The expansion teams will open up emerging market opportunities whereas the brand teams will plan and execute successful localization strategies, the company said.

KT&G also plans to extend its global network to 100 countries by 2020 and 200 countries by 2025.

The moves are made in the context of stagnant domestic sales, driven by anti-smoking measures and a shrinking population.

Cigarettes sales declined by 0.6 percent in the first half of 2019 from a year earlier, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Smokers purchased 1.67 billion 20-cigarette packs between January and June 2019, compared with 1.68 billion packs in the same period last year. KT&G’s cigarette sales were down by 100 million to 9.1 billion.

Over the same period, KT&G’s overseas cigarette sales totaled 8.1 billion, up 25 percent from a year ago.

KT&G accounts for 63 percent of South Korea’s tobacco market, which does not include e-cigarettes.

Activists in Malaysia have created an organization, Pertubuhan Kesedaran Perokok Malaysia, to create awareness among smokers about their rights under the law and constitution, reports The Star. The group also wants to sensitize smokers to the rights of nonsmokers.

“We have created history, as this is the first time that a registered association exists to represent the voice of the 4.7 million smokers in the country,” said founder Mohd Hanizam Yunus.

Among other activities, the new group will oppose a pending smoking ban in restaurants. It is seeking to meet with Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad to give its views on the proposed Tobacco Control Bill, which is expected to be finalized by the year’s end.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court is scheduled to hear a challenge to the restaurant smoking ban on August 22.

Mohd Hanizam was among six individuals who filed for a judicial review of measure. The group claims that the ban goes against the federal constitution, as smoking is not deemed a criminal activity or banned in the country.

The suit contends that the proposal does not provide adequate facilities such as smoking areas, nor includes provisions for business operators to prepare their own nonsmoking areas.

A large majority of Americans (73 percent) say the minimum age to purchase tobacco products should be raised from 18 to 21, according to a Gallup poll. These findings come as Ohio became the 18th state, along with the District of Columbia, to raise the minimum age to 21 and as federal legislation with the same goal is pending in the U.S. Senate.

This data is from a July 1–12 Gallup poll in which the percentage of Americans who report that they smoke cigarettes has reached 15 percent, the all-time low in Gallup’s 75-year trend.

Support for raising the minimum age for tobacco purchases is strongest among adults aged 65 and older—though majorities of other age groups support the policy change as well. Support is a bit lower among young adults aged 18 to 29—some of whom the policy would affect—but even among this group, two in three support it.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating 127 cases of people suffering from seizures after vaping, the agency announced Wednesday.

The agency received about 92 new reports of people, especially kids and young adults, experiencing seizures after using e-cigarettes since it first announced its investigation into the issue in April. The FDA said it’s unclear whether e-cigarettes caused the seizures and cautioned that these cases occurred over a 10-year period.

When the FDA announced its investigation in the spring, it asked for people to let the agency know if they had ever experienced seizures after vaping. The FDA on Wednesday again encouraged people to report if they had seizures after vaping.

“We appreciate the public response to our initial call for reports, and we strongly encourage the public to submit new or follow-up reports with as much detail as possible,” acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless said in a statement.