Category: News This Week

The government of Thailand is delaying its plans to increase the tax on cigarettes costing around THB60  ($1.89) a pack by 40 percent, reports Thaivisa News.

The measure would have raised the cost of a pack of cigarettes to THB90-THB100. The increase has been delayed until October 2020.

However, the government also announced an increase in taxes on loose rolling tobaccos because it believes the current disparity in tax between regular cigarettes and loose tobacco was too large.

The tax on rolling tobacco will go up from THB0.005 per gram to THB0.1 per gram.

Swedish Match’s group sales and sales from product segments both increased by 11 percent, to SEK3.26 billion ($337.8 million) and SEK3.17 billion, respectively, in the first quarter of 2019.

Currency translation positively affected the comparability of sales from product segments by SEK221 million. In local currencies, sales from product segments increased by 3 percent.

While sales in local currencies were higher for all product segments, the snus and moist snuff product segment was the principal contributor to sales growth during the quarter.

Swedish Match’s operating profit from product segments increased by 15 percent to SEK1.24 billion during the quarter. In local currencies, operating profit from product segments rose by 7 percent.

All product segments delivered higher operating profit, lef by the snus and moist snuff and the other tobacco product segments.

Swedish Match also reported strong growth for its Zyn nicotine pouches outside of Scandinavia. Zyn products are now available in the U.S. and Sweden, and on a limited basis in Denmark and the Czech Republic.

In the U.S., the company recently commissioned new Zyn production lines at its Owensboro, Kentucky, factory. The company expects Zyn to be available in approximately 60,000 stores across the U.S. by the end of the year.

“The first quarter financial performance showed the importance of our strategy of prioritizing market segments that present the greatest opportunity for long term profitable growth,” said Lars Dalgren, CEO of Swedish Match.

“Growth in the quarter was hampered by calendar shipment effects in our Scandinavian snus business and continued shortages of tobacco leaf supplies in our cigar business,” he said.

“We anticipate that the timing of the Easter holiday this year will benefit our Scandinavian snus volumes in Q2. Alternative sources of cigar tobacco leaf have been secured and we expect rolled leaf shipment volumes to return to year on year growth in the second half of 2019.”

The Danish Tax Ministry has released figures showing a 14 percent decline in cigarette sales from 2017 to 2018. The fall in cigarette sales could be attributed to more people using products such as e-cigarettes, Swedish-style snuff, or heat-not-burn tobacco.

“People are smoking less because it has become more inconvenient; it’s simply more difficult to be allowed to smoke in public spaces,” said tobacco researcher Charlotta Pisinger.

“This is excellent,” said Jesper Fisker, CEO of the Danish cancer organisation Kræftens Bekæmpelse. “The fewer cigarettes sold the better, and it would be wonderful if the trend continues.”

Health minister Ellen Trane Nørby said that even though fewer cigarettes are being sold “we’re nowhere near attaining our goal. We must remember there is no one simple solution and that we must work on a number of fronts to get the number of smokers down.”

Farmers at the Mzuzu Auction Floors in Malawi suffered high rejection rates as the tobacco market opened on May 6.

Merchants bought only 1,102 bales of the 1,723 bales offered for sale, with some of the rejected bales being sent back for regrading.

The highest price was $1.75 per kg while the minimum was $0.90 per kg.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Development Gray Nyandule Phiri told farmers that the price will rise as the marketing season continues.

“Don’t worry with the price that you are receiving today because many bales you are selling today are from bottom leaves,” he said. “We are sure the prices will be adjusting up when the market goes on.”

The Tobacco Association of Malawi advised farmers to avoid mixing different types of tobacco to prevent rejection at the market.

Levels of secondhand smoke in Scotland’s prisons fell by more than 80 percent in the week after smoking was banned, according to a study published in BMJ Tobacco Control.

Led by Stirling’s Institute of Social Marketing (ISM), the study is the first of its kind to examine secondhand tobacco smoke concentrations across an entire prison estate where smoking is prohibited in all establishments.

Since 2006, smoking has been banned in most enclosed public spaces in Scotland. However, prisoners continued to be permitted to smoke in their cells, with the doors closed. This situation changed on Nov. 30, 2018, when smoking was banned in all prisons in Scotland.

Despite the change in policy, experts were unsure if smoking would immediately cease as it was believed that prisoners could have stockpiled tobacco ahead of the ban.

Marking a change of heart, the New Zealand ministry of health will soon start promoting the use of e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to smoking.

A campaign encouraging smokers to make the switch will be launched in August. A website offering vaping information and tips is expected to go live this month.

While the campaign pushes vaping as a way to quit, it will also aim to stop nonsmokers, particularly those under the age of 18, from picking up the electronic devices.

The drive represents a change in position for the health ministry, which has been cautious in its stance on vaping as a tool for would-be quitters.

Currently the ministry’s website states that it doesn’t have enough evidence to recommend vaping products as a smoking-cessation tool, and that people who choose to vape should eventually stop that as well.

Despite that, a spokesman described vaping as a safe gateway for smokers wanting to transition from cigarettes.

“There is scientific consensus that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking,” he was quoted as saying. “It is likely vaping can also be used to stop smoking, but the evidence is still emerging. A number of large studies are underway, and more information will be available over the next year.”

According to Smokefree NZ, 13 percent of New Zealand adults smoke daily, down from 25 percent in 1996-1997. Maori women have the highest smoking rate at 37 percent, followed by Maori men at 30 percent.

Heated tobacco products (HTPs) can be as addictive and harmful to the body as regular cigarettes, Taiwan’s Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said on May 2nd, according to The Taipei Times.

The agency issued the warning a day after the U.S. FDA authorized Philip Morris International (PMI) to market its IQOS tobacco-heating system in the United States.

“Smoking cigarettes does nothing but harm the body, and new types of products—e-cigarettes and HTPs—are the same,” an HPA representative told The Taipei Times.  Citing a World Health Organization information sheet on HTPs, the agency said that “there is no evidence to demonstrate that HTPs are less harmful than conventional tobacco products.”

It pointed to the presence in HTPs of nicotine, which is addictive, and that of tar, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde.

Tobacco Control Division head Lo Su-ying also expressed concern that THPs might attract more young people to smoking.

Effective the next growing season, leaf merchants will no longer be allowed grow their own tobacco in Malawi, President Peter Mutharika said on May 4th, according to a report in The Maravi Post.

During a tour to the north of the country, Mutharika complained about the prices offered by leaf buyers to independent farmers.

“Tobacco buying companies will not be allowed to grow tobacco because they are stealing from the farmers,” he said.  “They grow their own tobacco and buy just a little from us.

“They even go to the extent of rejecting some. They will not grow the tobacco so that they are forced to buy from farmers. This will start from this year,” said Mutharika.

To ensure compliance with strict customer production requirements, leaf merchants in Malawi have been sourcing an increasing share of their tobacco from contracted growers rather than at auction in recent years.

Reynolds American Inc. says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should reign in Juul, reports CNBC.

Responding to federal data showing a significant increase in underage vaping, the FDA in March proposed limiting sales of fruity e-cigarette flavors to websites, vape shops and retailers that impose age restrictions.

The public comment period closed this week

Responding to the agency’s plans, Reynolds said that the FDA has already identified the main driver of youth interest: Juul.

“As the agency’s public statements confirm, underage users disproportionately prefer Juul to all other products,” the company wrote. “Armed with such knowledge, we believe the agency can take appropriately tailored steps to curb youth use.”

Juul countered that categorywide action is the best way to curb youth use.

“It is disappointing but not surprising to see a legacy tobacco company whose core business remains combustible cigarettes—the very product we intend to eliminate by offering adult smokers an alternative—attempting to thwart the category-wide regulation that’s needed,” Juul told CNBC.

The United Arab Emirates has banned the importation of cigarettes without digital tax stamps, reports The Khaleej Times.

According to the UAE Federal Tax Authority (FTA), the step is part of the timeline for the “Marking Tobacco and Tobacco Products Scheme,” which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2019 and enables the electronic tracking of cigarette packs from production until they reach consumers.

The scheme will be gradually expanded to cover all tobacco products and support the FTA’s efforts to collect taxes, combat tax evasion and protect consumers against low-quality, contraband products.

“Phase two of the scheme is scheduled to be launched in the last quarter of 2019, where it will be expanded to cover tobacco products used in shisha and electrically heated cigarette rolls, whether imported or locally produced,” said FTA Director General Khalid Ali Al Bustani.