Category: News This Week

  • Restricting tobacco imagery

    Restricting tobacco imagery

    The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) has sent letters to leading U.S. video streaming services, such as Amazon, Apple, AT&T, CBS and Walt Disney, urging them to limit tobacco use in their content.

    “My colleagues and I joined forces on this because we see the benefit in taking a proactive approach to protecting our young people from tobacco imagery,” said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. “We have seen a significant rise in the use of e-cigarettes among middle and high schoolers since 2017, and given my position as Attorney General, I have a duty to protect Michigan’s children from the influences of tobacco use.”

    “Tobacco is still the United States’ and our world’s greatest preventable killer,” Nessel continued. “It is incumbent upon us to initiate this dialogue with the streaming services in an effort to protect our youth.”

  • JT requests price hikes

    JT requests price hikes

    Japan Tobacco it has asked the Finance Ministry for permission to raise cigarette prices in Japan in tandem with the planned consumption tax increase on Oct. 1.

    If approved, most of the company’s 115 cigarette brands will be ¥10 ($0.09) more expensive to reflect the tax hike from 8 percent to 10 percent, with the price of bestseller Mevius going up to ¥490 per 20 sticks and that of Seven Stars to ¥510 yen per pack.

    The price of a pack of 20 refill tobacco capsules for JT’s new Ploom S heat-not-burn device will increase by ¥10 to ¥490, in line with the government’s decision to raise in stages the currently tobacco tax rate for such capsules to the level for cigarettes by 2022. The per-pack price of refills for the conventional Ploom Tech device will remain at ¥490 yen.

    Meanwhile, cigarettes labeled as “third-class” products by JT’s predecessor, Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corp., will see the preferential tobacco tax rate for them evoked at the end of September, prompting price hikes of 90 yen for brands suc as Golden Bat, Echo and Wakaba, currently sold for 330 yen, 350 yen and 360 yen, respectively.

    The three old cigarette brands will disappear when they run out of stock and will be replaced by cigar brands with the same namesakes.

  • Enforcement urged

    Enforcement urged

    The Malaysian government could potentially lose as much as MYR6 billion ($1.4 billion) in taxes from cigarettes and vapor products due to poor enforcement against smugglers, according to Japan Tobacco International Berhad (JTI Malaysia).

    The JTI Malaysia managing director, Cormac O’Rourke, said that currently one in seven Malaysian smokers was using illegal cigarettes and vapor products, and he added that the numbers would rise exponentially if left unchecked.

    O’Rourke said unlicensed vape shops and the trade in illegal cigarettes were growing due to corruption and lack of enforcement of laws regulating the use of nicotine, such as the Poison Act 1952.

    “Why is the government not acting? In the cigarette industry alone, they are losing MYR5 billion annually and yet we haven’t seen any sort of proper enforcement action taken,” O’Rourke said.

    O’Rourke then suggested a three-pronged approach that included an independent task force on the matter, a moratorium on tobacco duty increases for three years and a ban on cigarette transshipments in Malaysia.

  • Improper health warnings

    Improper health warnings

    A majority of tobacco companies in Bangladesh do not follow the tobacco control act properly while providing pictorial health warning on packets, reports The Daily Star citing a new study.

    The Tobacco Control and Research Cell (TCRC) of Dhaka International University in association with Bangladesh Tamak Birodhi Jote, a coalition of anti-tobacco organizations, conducted the study through surveying 437 samples of tobacco products from December 2018 to March 2019.

    The study found that 88 percent of tobacco products are marketed without proper pictorial health warning as per the Smoking and Tobacco Products Usage (Control) Act. The study also said a majority of the companies provide such warnings, though in a neglectful manner.

    “It is frustrating to find that only a few tobacco products are using pictorial warnings properly,” said Farhana Zaman Liza, one of the lead researchers.

  • Following vapers

    Following vapers

    Juul has launched the first in a series of bluetooth-connected e-cigarettes that can monitor users’ vaping and track their devices. The Juul C1, as the device is known, started selling in the United Kingdom this week after a successful pilot in Canada.

    Dan Thomson, managing director of Juul’s U.K. business, said that in order to use the device, which is linked to an app on users’ smartphones, customers had to go through stringent age verification checks that included facial recognition and two-step background check with third-party databases.

    Juul’s C1 device will allow users to monitor how many puffs they take a day, as well as locate their vape if they lose it. It also has an auto-lock option that means the e-cigarette can be locked when out of the phone’s range in order to prevent others using it.

    However, privacy experts have raised concerns about the gathering of data required to develop the device.

    “Data about the machine that goes back to the manufacturer can tell you a lot about the user and who that user is,” said Martin Garner, COO of the technology consultancy CCS Insight. “The main risk is if that data gets out . . . you could identify the person from it . . . and that it could be health-related information, which is a super sensitive area in GDPR [the EU General Data Protection Regulation].”

  • Funding healthcare shortfall

    Funding healthcare shortfall

    A proposed increase in taxes on alcohol, heated tobacco products and e-cigarettes in the Philippines will raise close to PHP370 billion ($7.17 billion)—enough to cover the funding gap for healthcare services, reports The Philippine Star, citing Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua

    Chua said a bill in Congress seeks to increase the current uniform tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products from PHP35 per pack of 20 to PHP45 per pack for 2020, PHP50 in 2021, PHP55 in 2022, PHP60 in 2023, and 5 percent indexation every year thereafter.

    Meanwhile, Congress plans to impose a tax of PHP10 per pack of 20 of heated tobacco products in 2020 and five percent indexation onwards.

    For e-cigarettes, lawmakers want to impose a tax ranging from HPP10 for every 10 milliliters to PHP50 for 50 milliliters plus PHP10 for every additional 10 milliliters.

    Chua said the finance department is pushing for a uniform rate for heated tobacco products with that of cigarettes.

  • Preparing for harvest

    Preparing for harvest

    Farmers in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, expect to plant about 20,050 hectares of tobacco for the 2019-2020 season, according to local press reports.

    Accounting for around 65 percent of production, Pinar del Rio is the country’s largest producer and supplier of the aromatic leaf, which is used to produce Cuba’s famous cigars.

    Cuba harvested more than 30,000 tons of tobacco for the second consecutive year in 2018, when about 300 million hand-rolled cigars were produced on the island, almost 100 million of them for export.

    The tobacco industry is the fourth biggest contributor to Cuba’s gross domestic product. In 2018, its exports reached almost $260 million.

    The sector employs about 200,000 workers on the island, with up to 250,000 at the peak of the harvest.

  • Fears about forex

    Fears about forex

    Tobacco sales in Malawi are down compared to the same period last year, bringing fears that the country might face foreign exchange shortages, reports the Nyasa Times.

    Statistics show that on the 14th week of trading on auction floors, 1.2 million tons of tobacco has fetched MWK138 billion ($185 million) so far. During the same period last year, 1.5 million tons of tobacco was sold, fetching over MWK170 billion

    Some economists say this is as a result of the anti-tobacco campaign worldwide, but the Tobacco Control Commission maintains the tobacco prices are now picking up.

     

     

  • BAT beats estimates

    BAT beats estimates

    British American Tobacco’s (BAT) first-half profit beat analysts’ estimates as smoking alternatives cushioned the continuing decline in cigarette sales, according to a Bloomberg report.

    Adjusted operating profit rose 5.9 percent at constant rates to £5.21 billion ($6.32 billion). Analysts expected £5.14 billion.

    Revenue from alternatives such as heated tobacco and vaping rose 27 percent. The company said it’s still on track to meet the midpoint of its full-year guidance of a 30 percent to 50 percent increase, excluding the impact of foreign-exchange rates.

    BAT has a daunting task competing with Philip Morris’s IQOS and Juul, which have the most traction with consumers, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Michael S. Lavery. Product launches in the second half of the year are expected to accelerate growth, the company said.

     

     

  • Railways seek smoking ban

    Railways seek smoking ban

    ProRail wants to ban smoking at all train stations in the Netherlands, with all smoking zones disappearing at the 400-plus stations within the next two years, reports the NL Times, citing a company spokesperson.

    ProRail receives many complaints from travelers who are bothered by smokers, the spokesperson said, so the company does not want to wait for a national smoking ban. The rail manager is currently working on convincing all parties involved to support the plan.

    Earlier this week, Clean Air Nederland announced that 113 outdoor cafe terraces had banned smoking, up from 39. And late last year, the National Prevention Agreement was signed saying that smoking areas in restaurants, cafes and pubs must close by 2022.