Category: News This Week

Boys and girls will be …
Twenty-one percent of Swiss boys and thirteen percent of girls aged 11-15 have tried electronic cigarettes at least once, according to a story at swissinfo.ch reporting on a survey of addiction among schoolchildren.
The findings were said to have alarmed the group Addiction Switzerland, which carried out the study of 11,000 children between the ages of 11 and 15.
“Vaping should not become normal consumer behavior among young people,” said Grégoire Vittoz, director of Addiction Switzerland, in a statement.
Swiss law is currently being adapted in relation to vapor products, but Addiction Switzerland has called also for such products to be priced beyond the means of schoolchildren, and for advertising restrictions.
The organization said that nicotine was addictive and could damage brain development in young people.
Overall, marginally fewer 11-15-year-olds said they had tried addictive substances than was the case during the previous survey in 2014.
In 2018, 10 percent of boys and eight percent of girls said they had smoked conventional cigarettes at least once a week, while in 2014 the respective figures were 12 percent and nine percent.
About 11 percent of boys and four percent of girls said that they had drunk alcohol at least once a week (10 percent and six percent in 2014).
The survey found also that 27 percent of boys and 17 percent of girls had used illegal cannabis at least once in their lives (30 percent and 19 percent in 2014). The figures for trying CBD (cannabidiol) products were nine percent and five percent for boys and girls.
The 2018 survey was part of an international Health Behavior in School-aged Children external link (HBSC) study carried out under the auspices of the World Health Organization external link, and was financed in Switzerland by the Federal Office of Public Health external link and cantons. It was the ninth time the HSBC study has been conducted in Switzerland.
March 29, 2019
Grower returns squeezed
Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB) has hiked weighing and auction floor charges, further eroding growers’ earnings, according to a story by Fidelity Mhlanga for Newsday.
The charge has been increased from US$4.50 per bale last season to US$7.70 per bale this season, much to the chagrin of growers who feel their earnings are being squeezed.
Mhlanga said that apart from the weighing and auction fees, other deductions incurred by farmers included a tobacco levy of 0.75 percent, TIMB stop order levies of 0.8 percent, and the Ministry of Agriculture levy of US$0.875c per kg.
An industry source told NewsDay that the move by the TIMB would affect the viability of tobacco growing, and added that pegging fees in US$ was in violation of Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019 that required ‘prices’ to be charged in RTGS dollars [Real Time Gross Transfer dollars made up of bond notes, bond coins and RTGS balances (electronic money)].
The sources said the TIMB had not consulted with stakeholders in coming up with a decision that ultimately affected growers’ livelihoods.
Contacted for a comment, TIMB spokesperson Isheunesu Moyo attributed the increase in auction fees to an upsurge in the cost structure at the auction floors. “As regulators we consider the viability of all stakeholders,” he said. “The cost structure of auction floors has gone up as a result of what we expect of them, such as those related to the new payment system, among others.”
At a time when the amount of tobacco that is sold via the auction floors is estimated at 20 percent, there is concern that the increase in charges could drive more growers to contract floors where charges remain low.
March 28, 2019
E-cigs to be legalized
The Seychelles is to legalize the use of electronic cigarettes with a new regulation that will place ‘alternative nicotine products’ (ANDs) under the country’s tobacco control law, following the approval of Cabinet Ministers, according to a Seychelles News Agency story.
Bharathi Viswanathan, program manager within the Prevention and Control of Cardiovascular Diseases unit at the Seychelles Hospital, was said to have told the news agency that currently all ANDs were banned in the Seychelles.
But the agency reported that, under the new regulation, ANDS would be classified as tobacco products so that nearly all provisions in the Seychelles tobacco control law would extend to their manufacture, distribution, sale and use.
ANDs were not on the market when the Seychelles’ first Tobacco Control Act was drafted in 2009, said Viswanathan; so amending the law would ensure that a ‘framework’ existed for consumers and sellers. Under the new regulation, sellers would need a license.
Viswanathan said that the only difference in treatment of traditional tobacco products and ANDs would be in respect of labeling. The warning labels would not be the same as those on cigarette packaging, but the details were still being worked out.
Presumably, ANDs warning labels will reflect the comparative risks because Viswanathan said that ANDs comprised a good option to help smokers who wanted to quit smoking.
“It is a good way to help smokers quit the habit and it is also less detrimental to health as it contains less nicotine and other harmful substances found in real cigarettes,” she said.
March 28, 2019
Gateway leads nowhere
The Philippines’s Department of Health (DOH) is stubbornly refusing to consider the growing body of evidence supporting electronic cigarettes as comprising a less harmful alternative to combustible cigarettes and an effective smoking cessation aid, according to an opinion piece by Mary Ann LL. Reyes published in The Philippine Star.
Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo was said recently to have reiterated the DOH’s warning that the use of e-cigarettes was not a good alternative to cigarette smoking and that, because e-cigarettes contained nicotine, the DOH was concerned that vapers would become addicted to nicotine and then become cigarette smokers.
Reyes said that Domingo’s statement was hardly surprising. The DOH followed the World Health Organization position that the only way to reduce smoking was for smokers to quit or die, and that anything less than an abstinence-only approach was unacceptable. Like the WHO, the DOH was highly skeptical of the potential for new technologies, such as e-cigarettes, to reduce smoking-related harms.
What was worrying, Reyes wrote, was the DOH’s stubborn refusal to consider the growing body of evidence supporting e-cigarettes as a less harmful alternative to conventional cigarettes and an effective smoking cessation aid.
February 27 had seen the publication by Public Health England of its latest evidence update summary on vaping.
One of the updated evidence review’s key findings immediately stood out because it ran completely counter to Domingo’s statement. E-cigarettes were not a gateway to smoking.
The evidence showed that e-cigarette use in the UK remained largely confined to those who already smoked or ex-smokers who had now quit using an e-cigarette, while quitting smoking remained the key motivation among adult vapers. The fear that the number of young people using e-cigarettes regularly would increase sharply was not happening in the UK. While experimentation was increasing, vaping among young people remained low at 1.7 percent and was mainly confined to those who already smoked.
March 28, 2019
Health improvements
A study by BMC Public Health has concluded that health professionals should provide balanced information about the possible short- and long-term positive and negative health effects of electronic cigarette use.
The study, Perceived health effects of vaping among Hungarian adult e-cigarette-only and dual users: a cross-sectional internet survey, was said to have been aimed at exploring self-reported adverse events (AEs) and perceived health changes due to e-cigarette use among Hungarian adult e-cigarette-only users (former smokers who switched completely to e-cigarette use) and dual users (smokers who used e-cigarettes and combustible tobacco cigarettes concomitantly).
It was described as a cross-sectional, web-based survey of 1042 adult Hungarian e-cigarette users conducted in 2015, in which participants reported AEs and changes in physiological functions since they switched from smoking to e-cigarette use or while dually using e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes. Confirmatory factor analysis with covariates was applied to explain perceived health changes due to e-cigarette-only use and dual use.
The results showed that dual users were significantly more likely to report AEs of vaping than were e-cigarette-only users. ‘Experiencing health improvements were significantly more likely among e-cigarette-only users than for dual users for all surveyed physiological functions, the study found.
‘E-cigarette-only users reported larger effects of vaping on sensory, physical functioning, and mental health factors compared to dual users.
‘Self-reported changes in sensory and physical functioning were significantly higher among individuals using e-cigarettes more than a year and people who were past heavy smokers (smoked ≥20 cigarettes per day).
‘Gender was related to sensory improvement only; males reported greater improvement than females.’
The researchers concluded that the majority of e-cigarette-only users reported more perceived beneficial changes in physiological functions and fewer AEs than did dual users.
‘Perceived short-term benefits of e-cigarette use may reinforce users despite the uncertainty of long-term health consequences,’ they concluded.
‘Health professionals should provide balanced information regarding the possible short- and long-term positive and negative health effects of e-cigarette use during consultations with patients.’
March 28, 2019
Myblu performing well
Imperial Brands said today that its myblu vaping device was performing well, with increased investment driving brand awareness among smokers and vapers and significant year on year revenue growth.
Under a Next Generation Products heading within a trading update posted on its website, Imperial said it had built strong retail share positions in Europe and in Japan. ‘In the USA, we have achieved good year-on-year revenue growth, despite some constraints due to market uncertainty following statements by the US Food & Drug Administration.’
In its update issued ahead of its close period on April 1, Imperial confirmed it was on track to meet constant currency net revenue and earnings expectations for the full year, with group net revenue growth at, or above, the upper end of its 1-4 percent revenue growth range and EPS growth within its 4-8 percent guidance range.
Imperial said it was on track to deliver modest revenue growth in tobacco, with growth weighted to the second half more than offsetting a slight decline in the first half. Price/mix continued to be strong, while volume trends were slightly behind those of the second half of last year, impacted by the phasing of trade inventories, including in the US following a recent Imperial price increase.
‘Operating profit in the first half reflects continued underlying growth in tobacco profits albeit more than offset by increased investment in blu of £100 million, as highlighted in November,’ Imperial said.
‘First half earnings per share will also be impacted by the reduction of our Logista stake and last year’s divestment of our Other Tobacco Products business.
‘We continue to expect to realise £50-100 million of other gains this year which will benefit the second half.
‘Translation FX at current rate of exchange is expected to benefit first half earnings by c. 2 percent and be flat for the full year.’
March 27, 2019
When better isn’t best
The next EU Commission will propose strengthening tobacco regulations, based on a report ‘showing how the Tobacco Product Directive (TPD) works in practice’, according to a story by Sarantis Michalopoulos for Euractiv.com quoting the EU Commissioner responsible for health, Vytenis Andriukaitis.
The report was not specified, but, in line with Article 28(1) of the TPD, the Commission is required to submit in 2021 a report on the TPD.
“We have two issues: one is to collect information about electronic cigarettes but also different novel tobacco products,” Andriukaitis was quoted as saying. “They will have a lot of work to do. They need to show how the TPD works in reality and explore possibilities to improve it.”
The EU official, who recently announced he would run for Lithuania’s presidency, was said to have lashed out at the tobacco industry saying that it had not realised the damage it had caused.
Andriukaitis said tobacco was an “accidental product” in Europe as no one on the continent smoked before Columbus brought it here.
He said nicotine posed a completely different issue compared to that posed by alcohol. He conceded that alcohol consumption needed to be controlled but seemed to defend it on the grounds that alcohol had had ‘10,000 years of culture in the continent’.
Michalopoulos wrote that, ‘contrary to the EU executive and the World Health Organization’s strict approach, the tobacco industry claimed that vaping is a good way to replace smoking and eventually quit, and should, therefore, be encouraged’.
Andriukaitis, Michalopoulos wrote, insisted it was better to use smoking cessation aids such as Nicorette. But he added that if there was a real possibility to help heavy smokers kick the habit with the help of electronic cigarettes, then a specific methodology should be followed.
“If one uses electronic cigarettes as a method to stop smoking, it has to be managed by medical doctors and specialists, to be sold in pharmacies and not in supermarkets,” he said.
“But in reality, you see a different picture. The industry proposes dangerous products and they use different loopholes in the directive. And they use different advocates to say they are less harmful. Young adolescents who have never smoked before try to smoke electronic cigarettes. It’s ridiculous,” Andriukaitis said.
March 27, 2019
Tobacco study in Qatar
Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Tobacco Control Center has begun the fieldwork for a study that aims to examine knowledge, attitudes and practices related to tobacco use in Qatar, according to a story in The Gulf Times.
The study, which is thought to be the most comprehensive investigation of its type in the country, will seek input from Qatari citizens and non-Qatari residents, smokers and non-smokers, males and females.
Employees of ministries, government organizations, media outlets, including Al Jazeera and Qatar TV, healthcare workers, and university students are among those being targeted by researchers.
Dr. Ahmad al-Mulla, head of the HMC Tobacco Control Center, said the study had been endorsed by HMC’s Medical Research Center.
He said the main goal of the study was to gather data on the prevalence of smoking and tobacco use among those aged 18 and above, and information on the consumption rates of various tobacco products and paraphernalia, including cigarettes, shisha, sweika (chewing tobacco), pipes, cigars, electronic cigarettes, and electronic shisha.
Researchers will seek input from those who have tried to quit smoking, and will investigate which quit methods are most effective.
The study will address also the relationship between tobacco use and tobacco product advertisements.
Dr al-Mulla said a number of related topics, including opinions on second-hand smoke and the impact of a recent rise in prices of tobacco products would be examined also.
The results of the study, which is expected to involve as many as 6,000 participants, will be released later this year and will be used to inform government policies and tobacco control public health initiatives.
March 27, 2019
E-cig education sought
Vaping groups in the Philippines have urged the Department of Health (DOH) to educate smokers about alternative products, such as electronic cigarettes, to help them quit smoking, according to a story in The Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The appeal was made by The Vapers Philippines (TVP) and the Philippine E-cigarette Industry Association after Public Health England published new evidence on vaping.
“We call on the DOH and local health care professionals to look at the latest evidence on vaping from England, a country which is experiencing tremendous success in reducing adult smoking rates,” Peter Paul Dator, the president of TVP, was quoted as saying.
Dator lauded public health officials in the country for doing a good job in raising public awareness about the health risks associated with smoking.
“Unfortunately, their efforts stop there,” he said. “The public should also be educated about alternative products that can help smokers quit.”
March 27, 2019
A difficult question
A US public health expert has made the point that people – young people in this case – who vape are not tobacco users. They are vapers.
Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, was responding to a press release issued by city attorney Dennis Herrera and supervisor Shamann Walton announcing the introduction of legislation to ban the sale of all electronic cigarettes in the city of San Francisco.
In part, Siegel’s point-by-point response to the press release focuses on the seemingly strange disconnect between the way that e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes are viewed by legislators.
This is the second point of the press release that Siegel addressed:
“San Francisco has never been afraid to lead,” Herrera said, “and we’re certainly not afraid to do so when the health and lives of our children are at stake.”
And this is what Siegel had to say:
‘San Francisco is apparently afraid to lead because they are willing to take the politically expedient step of requiring safety testing for e-cigarettes, but they are not willing to place the same requirement on real cigarettes. In fact, tobacco cigarettes have already had their safety testing and they failed miserably. If San Francisco wants to lead, then why isn’t it taking cigarettes off the shelves?’
Siegel’s The Rest of the Story blog is here.
March 26, 2019