Category: News This Week

Zimbabwe’s tobacco deliveries remain low as prices show little signs of firming up, reports Newsday, quoting statistics from the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB). As of day 37 of the 2019 marketing season only 87.8 million kilograms of tobacco had been delivered at both auction and contract floors, representing a 23 percent drop from the 115.1 million kg delivered last year.

The average price being offered for the golden leaf has tumbled 37.6 percent from $2.89 per kg in the previous season to $1.80 per kg this year. The sale price is in United States dollars, but payment to the farmer is made in “Real Time Gross Settlement” (RTGS) dollars. The farmers have an option to use 50 percent of their earnings to apply for foreign currency at the official rate.

“We want full value of our tobacco,” said Tobacco Association of Zimbabwe president George Seremwe. “The 50 percent U.S. dollar component is not sufficient to cover the cost of production and not easy to access. We can’t retool for the coming season because of the RTGS component. Our farmers were hoping for an improvement on both the rate and prices. We, therefore, would like to call an urgent stakeholders meeting coordinated by TIMB and the Ministry of Finance. We are very much concerned by the manner this selling season has gone so far.”

This year, Zimbabwe has a target of 220 million kg, but output is likely to remain depressed.

Imports of packaged cigarettes have soared in Israel after the country equalized the taxes for rolling tobacco and packaged cigarettes in February, reports Haaretz.

Previously, Israel levied lower taxes on rolling tobacco, prompting many smokers to shun packaged cigarettes and make their own.

In February, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon signed an order for tax parity between the two categories after the High Court of Justice ruled that since both kinds of tobacco present the same and equal health risks, they should receive the same tax treatment.

The change was immediately apparent in the Israel Tax Authority’s figures for April, which showed that imports of rolled tobacco plunged 58 percent from a year ago while imports of packaged cigarettes climbed 13.3 percent. Anti-smoking activists say that while the tax parity order was partially responsible, tobacco importers also played a role by slashing cigarette prices in recent weeks.

“The quiet discounting of cigarette prices is a cynical act by the tobacco companies, whose goal is to snare rolled tobacco users in their nets and make sure they return to buying cigarettes now that the tax has been equalized,” said Shira Kislev, the CEO of Smoke Free Israel.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Tim Kaine have filed a bill to raise the nationwide age to buy tobacco products to 21, reports USA Today.

“The latest threat … is an epidemic among teenagers and even middle school students using tobacco products and vaping,” McConnell said. “It includes nicotine and runs the risk of hooking these children at a very early age to a lifetime of using tobacco products.”

McConnell initially had said he would exempt members of the military from the bill but reconsidered after discussions with constituents and public health advocates.

“On further reflection, I decided the military carve-out made no sense,” McConnell said.

His bill also does not preclude state or local governments from enacting tougher laws.

McConnell had previously announced his intent to sponsor the Tobacco 21 legislation at a news conference in Kentucky, citing his concern about rising youth rates of e-cigarettes that contain high doses of nicotine.

Additionally, Louisiana’s House committee approved yesterday a Tobacco 21 plan that is now heading to the House floor for debate. The Louisiana plan, however, includes a military exemption. Fourteen states have already raised the tobacco buying age to 21.

A petition to legalize heat-not-burn tobacco products in Taiwan and subject them to the same health and welfare surcharges as other tobacco products has garnered more than 5,000 signatures on the government’s public policy participation platform, reports The Taipei Times.

The petition, titled “legalize heat-not-burn tobacco products, but include them in the health and welfare surcharge of tobacco products” was proposed on the National Development Council’s online policy platform on April 27. It was approved two days later and entered the signature collecting period.

When a petition receives more than 5,000 signatures, the government is required to issue a public response on the platform within two months.

There is currently no law regarding the bringing heated tobacco products into Taiwan, so the petition states the products should be subject to the health and welfare surcharge on tobacco products to improve regulation.

Taiwan Tobacco Harm Reduction Association chairperson Danny Wang said the health and welfare surcharge is the main source of funding for the government’s long-term care services, so the president should create new revenue sources for it.

“Hopefully, the Executive Yuan would perform its administrative duty,” Wang said.

Sweden will ban smoking in outdoor public areas beginning in July, reports Famagusta Gazette.

The smoking ban includes outdoor serving areas at cafes and restaurants, public playgrounds, bus shelters, train platforms, sports arenas and entrances to civic buildings. The ban applies to both cigarettes and e-cigarettes.

“The goal is to prevent people suffering from diseases associated with smoking and passive smoking, such as cancer,” Minister for Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren was quoted as saying.

The new legislation is a step toward the government’s “Smoke-Free Sweden 2025” goal, which aims to see less than 5 percent of the population smoking by the year 2025. As it stands, only 11 percent of the total Swedish population smoked daily in 2016. Smoking in bars and restaurants has been banned since 2005.

The Philippine government is willing to terminate the cigarette industry and face revenue losses in order to get more people to stop smoking, reports The Manilla Times citing the Department of Finance.

During a press briefing on “sin taxes” last Friday, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said ending the industry was “what we want.”

“What we want to do is to reduce consumption, because actually, the more you smoke, the less healthy you are,” Dominguez said. “So actually if people smoke less, fewer of them will be requiring healthcare, right?”

Dominguez and Health Secretary Francisco Duque expressed support for the passage of Senator Emmanuel Pacquiao’s SB 1599, which aims to increase taxes on tobacco products to PHP60 ($ 1.14) per pack and by 9 percent annually thereafter in a bid to curb the number of smokers in The Philippines.

Coresta is launching a dedicated working group named the Heated Tobacco Product (HTP) Task Force. The group’s first meeting is scheduled for June 12 in London.

The HTP Task Force has the following objectives:

1) Establish standardized terminology and definitions that encompass all categories of HTPs

2) Define one or more specific approaches and regimes for the generation and collection of emissions for Heated Tobacco Products.

3) Define and agree on priority compounds to be analyzed (or not); review current CRM suitability, edit, or develop methods for HTPS.

The task force is looking for participants who will contribute to defining and characterizing HTPs.

Click here for more information.

The parties competing in this week’s European elections agree that e-cigarettes need to be regulated but not banned.

Vaping will be among the subjects the next European Parliament and Commission will have to consider, with the planned revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and the upcoming tobacco taxation system. The question goes right down to whether vaping products should continue to be included under tobacco-based rules, or have their own regulatory and tax regime.

A new ECigIntelligence report published this week revealed that while e-cigarettes have not been top of the campaign agenda, all the major EU parties broadly support the idea of regulation without prohibition.

The European Popular Party (EPP) told ECigintelligence the center-right was not in favor of banning the sale of vaping products, but rather endorsed the idea of a specific taxation system for them.

On similar lines, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) is against the prohibition of e-cigarettes but believes their impact on public health requires monitoring. The socialists said taxation was an effective tool for reducing tobacco use and could be applied similarly to e-cigarettes.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE) confirmed to ECigIntelligence that their party doesn’t support the classification of e-cigarettes as medicinal products because it would increase the price of devices and e-liquids.

Outgoing health commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis has been hostile to e-cigarettes, but the official outlook could change, depending on who is appointed as his successor by the next president of the European Commission.

Whoever follows Andriukaitis will be required to implement public health policies for the next five years, including the revision of the current TPD by 2021.

The Freedom Organization for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (Forest) says awareness in the U.K. of the ban on menthol cigarettes, to be introduced on May 20, 2020, is “minimal.”

The group says the ban could also lead to the prohibition of other products that are currently legal but are said to be attractive to young people, including sweets and sugary drinks.

“Britain is sleepwalking to prohibition,” said Simon Clark, director of Forest.

“Policies such as the display ban and plain packaging have tried to denormalise tobacco but the product has always been available to adults who choose to smoke.

“Now we’re seeing the elimination of a product that accounts for almost 20 percent of all cigarettes sold in the U.K.”

Forest has accused the government of doing little to inform the public about the ban.

“Awareness of the ban is minimal. In 12 months over 1 million smokers will walk into their local store and find that a product they’ve been buying for years if not decades is no longer available,” said Clark.

“Some will switch to non-flavored cigarettes, others may switch to menthol vapes and some may quit nicotine completely, but many will turn to the black market where criminals will be happy to meet the demand for illicit menthol fags.”

Forest wants the government to reverse the ban on menthol cigarettes after Britain leaves the European Union.

“The policy was foisted on Britain by the European Union with very little debate and almost no parliamentary scrutiny,”” said Clark.

“Almost one in five smokers in Britain buy menthol cigarettes. Brexit is an opportunity for the U.K. government to restore choice and stand up for consumers.”

In a series of raids throughout the United States, police have seized significant quantities of counterfeit Top and Job cigarette papers, according to Republic Tobacco.

Republic has filed civil actions seeking monetary and punitive damages and injunctive relief from those who traffic in counterfeit goods and who have profited from their sale and distribution.

The company says it continues to work closely with both federal and state law enforcement authorities and police departments to prosecute criminally and punish those who would knowingly traffic in counterfeit cigarette papers.

On May 14, 2019 DeKalb County, Georgia Sheriff’s Police executed search warrants on three wholesalers and retailers who were allegedly trafficking in counterfeit goods, resulting in substantial criminal and civil seizures, according to Republic.

The company has filed lawsuits against wholesalers and retailers trafficking in counterfeit goods in states throughout the country, with additional actions forthcoming. Republic says it has also filed actions against foreign nationals selling counterfeit goods at trade shows, and it monitors trade shows for the proliferation and marketing of counterfeit products.