Category: News This Week

Fake cigarettes seized
Bulgarian customs agents have seized 5.9 tons of counterfeit cigarettes at a border crossing with Romania, according to a Xinhua News Agency story.
Officials in Sofia were quoted as saying yesterday that the cigarettes were seized at the Danube Bridge checkpoint near Vidin, Bulgaria.
The cigarette packs, which were said to have carried the brand logo of a popular [but unnamed] English cigarette brand, were found in a truck traveling to western Europe, the National Customs Agency (NCA) said in a press note. The trademark owner had been notified.
The shipment was declared only as cardboard, the NCA said.
Bulgaria is a favorite transit country for those involved in illegal trade.
Last year, the NCA seized 51.2 million cigarettes and 5.4 tons of tobacco, along with other non-tobacco-related goods.
March 8, 2019
Plugging into the future
Plug and Play, a global leader in technology incubators, is partnering with Japan Tobacco International to run Vapetech, a program aimed at bringing together innovators and data experts to develop technology that improves the experience and health benefits of vaping.
In a note posted on its website, JTI said this global program would operate from Silicon Valley and launch with a first batch of selected start-ups on March 11, 2019.
“At Plug and Play we are always interested to support innovation in new industries,” Saeed Amidi, the founder and CEO of Plug and Play was quoted as saying. “We believe vaping has the potential to reduce the health risks from smoking. Our goal is to identify the next generation of products and services, and by connecting them with JTI and others, we will continue to push forward innovation in this industry.”
The JTI note said that, through a global application and sourcing process, Plug and Play, supported by JTI, would each year select about 20 start-ups who would ‘develop ideas and solutions for a more enhanced vaping experience’. ‘Start-ups with new devices or technology applicable to IoT (Internet of Things), Biometrics, Data, and Lifestyle will enter a three-month program to develop their product and services and have access to investment and corporate partnerships,’ the note said.
Daniel Torras, JTI’s senior vice president, reduced-risk products, said that with the rapid rise of vaping products, the dynamics of innovation in the industry had changed drastically. “In addition to our own R&D, Vapetech will allow us to explore and develop consumer relevant features for the next generation of products and services,” he said. “It will also extend our network to new sets of entrepreneurs offering disruptive ideas to empower a future of choice in the vaping sector.”
March 8, 2019
Catch as catch can
The outgoing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, has said his departure won’t have any impact on the agency’s crackdown on youth vaping, according to a story by Jessie Hellmann at thehill.com.
“I’m very confident of that, and I’m very confident that we’re going to continue with this policy over the next month, including the policy that we’ve been formulating,” Gottlieb was quoted as saying during an event hosted by The Hill on Wednesday.
Hellmann wrote that Gottlieb had proposed limiting the sales of most flavored electronic cigarettes to age-restricted, in-person locations, effectively ending sales at gas stations and convenience stores.
“I think there is widespread recognition that this is a major public health crisis,” Gottlieb said. “I think for the vaping community and the tobacco industry this is an existential threat.
“I don’t think they fully appreciate what they’re facing and the tsunami that they’re facing if we don’t get this under control.
According to the story at The Hill quoting FDA data, there was a 78 percent increase in e-cigarette use among US high school students from 2017 to 2018, and a 48 percent increase among middle school students.
Gottlieb’s actions have been questioned by some people who argue the proposed changes would make it harder for adults who are trying to quit smoking to get e-cigarettes as an alternative.
But Gottlieb seemed not to buy that argument.
“I think the arguments that the folks who are advocating a completely laissez-faire hands-off approach with respect to vaping don’t hold true,” he was quoted as saying.
“We’re catching the beginning of an epidemic.”
March 8, 2019
Nightmare scenario
In Sri Lanka, the Vavuniya South Tamil Pradeshiya Sabha (the town of Vavuniya’s local authority) has banned the sale of cigarettes in areas which fall under its purview, according to a story in The Times.
The ban was brought in on March 1 after a proposal to this effect was unanimously approved by the members of the Pradeshiya Sabha (legislative body that presides over the third-tier municipality).
Meanwhile, the Vavuniya South Sinhala Pradeshiya Sabha was said to have mostly implemented a similar ban in areas under its purview.
The sale of cigarettes in Vavuniya was said to have dropped by 78 percent by October last year as a result of the ban.
March 8, 2019
Easy to lose track
The EU Commission said yesterday that the EU’s traceability system for tobacco products contains multiple safeguards, including independence requirements that ensure the system is controlled by member states and is independent of the tobacco industry.
The Commission was replying to questions posed by a French member of the EU Parliament who had claimed that the Commission’s tobacco-products tracking-and-tracing acts did not take into account the entry into force of the World Health Organization’s ‘Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products’.
In a preamble to two written questions, Michèle Rivasi said that parallel trade in tobacco resulted in increased smoking, particularly among adolescents, who were more sensitive to prices, and an annual tax loss for EU member states estimated at between €15 billion and €20 billion.
‘The World Health Organization (WHO) considers that the best way to put an end to this phenomenon is to apply its Protocol “to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products,” which was drawn up in 2012 and entered into force on 25 September 2018,’ she wrote.
‘To date, there are 48 parties to this international treaty, including the European Union, which ratified the WHO Protocol on 24 June 2016, following the vote of the European Parliament on 9 June 2016.
‘Article 8 of the Protocol requires, in particular, that a tracking and tracing system be set up for tobacco products which is strictly independent of tobacco manufacturers, who are suspected of fuelling parallel trade.
‘At the beginning of 2018, the implementing and delegated acts on the traceability of tobacco products adopted by the European Commission entrusted several essential traceability-related tasks to cigarette manufacturers themselves.’
Rivasi then asked:
1. ‘Why do the Commission’s acts not take into account the entry into force of the WHO Protocol?
2. When will the Commission revise them?’
In reply, the Commission said that the traceability system for tobacco products contained multiple safeguards, including independence requirements that ensured that the system was controlled by the authorities of the member states and that it remained independent from the tobacco industry. ‘To that extent, Article 15 of Directive 2014/40/EU (on tobacco traceability), along with the relevant implementing and delegated legislation, is fully in line with the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s Protocol (notably Article 8), it said.
‘Article 35(9) of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/574 provides that the procedures governing the appointment of service providers and the monitoring of their compliance with the independence criteria set out in the secondary legislation will undergo a periodic review by the Commission. Conclusions of that review will form part of the report on the application of Directive 2014/40/EU provided for under Article 28 of that Directive. Following the publication of the report, the Commission may, if deemed necessary, table a proposal for amending respective legislation.’
March 7, 2019
Lazy regulation
At least one manufacturer of cigarette alternatives has criticized the Greek Government for lumping heat-not-burn products and electronic cigarettes with combustible cigarettes when considering legislation, according to a story at ekathimerini.com.
An urgent bill debated in Parliament yesterday provides for the alternative products to be treated in the same way as conventional tobacco products are treated.
The story said that, under the provisions of the bill, the alternatives would have to carry warnings saying that they damage health, but it wasn’t clear from the report whether those warnings would mirror those carried by combustible products.
In a statement, the Philip Morris International subsidiary Papastratos accused the Health Ministry of avoiding launching a dialogue and examining the scientific data relating to alternative products.
It said that because the bill assumed cigarette alternatives to be equal to cigarettes [in respect of risk], eventually, smokers would choose the most damaging option – continuing to smoke.
March 7, 2019
La la la
Philip Morris New Zealand (PMNZ) is looking for a tax break on its heated-tobacco sticks, according to stories by Madison Reidy for Television New Zealand and Bonnie Flaws for Stuff.co.nz.
Flaws quoted the PMNZ GM James Williams as saying that the combustible-cigarette excise taxes applied by the Government to discourage people from smoking and recoup the costs associated with smoking were not appropriate for non-combustible products, such as its tobacco sticks, which had less impact on people’s health.
To motivate consumers to move to these alternative products it was necessary to provide them with information, access and a financial incentive.
“Unfortunately, our heated tobacco product at the moment is still treated like a combustible product,” Williams was quoted as saying. “It still carries health warnings like it’s a cigarette.”
Meanwhile, Reidy’s story quoted Williams as saying that PMNZ wanted New Zealand to become the first market free of [combustible] cigarettes.
“There is no motivation, at all, from anybody within Philip Morris to keep selling cigarettes in New Zealand,” he said.
But the National Tobacco Control Advocacy Service’s general manager Mihi Blair said the plan was just a bold public relations stunt.
“If Philip Morris was very serious about it, they would just stop it [selling cigarettes] right now,” said Blair.
“It is just swapping one addiction to another.”
Williams said the company could not pull cigarettes from shelves immediately because that would simply force smokers to buy from other manufacturers.
He said PMNZ wanted to help the government achieve its smoke-free-by-2025 goal, but that the Ministry of Health had refused to meet with him even after he had sent to the agency six binders of scientific information.
A spokesperson for the Ministry would not say if it had refused a meeting with Williams.
The Ministry was not aware of the details of PMNZ’s plan to pull cigarettes from New Zealand shelves, the spokesperson added.
March 7, 2019
Growers say prices too low
The Philippines’ National Tobacco Administration (NTA) on Tuesday appealed to tobacco growers in the Ilocos Norte region to sell their tobacco only to licensed traders, according to a story by Leilanie Adriano for the Philippines News Agency.
The appeal was purportedly made ‘to ensure [a] fair market price’.
The NTA officer-in-charge, Luzviminda Padayao, said there were at least two NTA-licensed buying stations located in Batac city and Currimao town where growers could offer their tobacco.
“We have no control over cowboys/traders who are going to villages to buy tobacco leaves,” she said in an interview on Tuesday. “These NTA-licensed buying stations are being monitored through the use of prescribed trading forms such as purchase invoice vouchers (PIVs) and certificate of purchase.”
But as Padayao was speaking some growers in the province were coming together to appeal to the concerned authorities to increase the price of tobacco this season.
The current tobacco price ranges from PHP60 to PHP75 per kg, but it was suggested that this should be increased up to PHP128 per kg as a result of the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, which had affected production costs.
Growers stretching across several regions are currently staging a five-day protest.
March 7, 2019
Tobacco agreements helpful
EU member states appear to be keen to let run to their expiry dates the three remaining anti-fraud agreements signed with tobacco manufacturers and aimed at countering tobacco smuggling.
Toward the end of last year, a Croatian member of the EU Parliament had asked the Commission if it believed it was feasible to terminate by May agreements that it had made with tobacco manufacturers and that were aimed at countering the illegal trade in tobacco products.
In a preamble to two questions, Biljana Borzan said that, in 2016, Parliament had called on the Commission not to renew such an agreement with Philip Morris International.
‘Last April, it expressed the conviction that the agreements with the other tobacco companies should also be terminated and called on the Commission to present the feasibility of doing so by the end of the year,’ she said.
‘The Tobacco Products Directive introduced a traceability system for tobacco products, which will be operational on 20 May 2019, following the recent approval of the secondary legislation.
‘In addition, the WHO [World Health Organization] Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which was ratified by the EU in 2016, entered into force last September.
‘As Parliament made clear in 2016 and 2017, these agreements are becoming irrelevant and send a damaging and counterproductive message to third countries that the EU is engaging in inappropriate dealings with the tobacco industry.’
Borzan asked:
‘Does the Commission believe that it is feasible for the agreements with the tobacco companies to be terminated by 20 May 2019, as Parliament requested in its report?
‘When does the Commission expect to have a response ready for Parliament?’
In reply, the Commission said that the three remaining anti-fraud agreements to counter tobacco smuggling in the EU had been concluded between the EU, the member states as well as the respective tobacco manufacturers.
‘As member states are co-parties to the agreements, they would need to agree to shorten the duration of the agreements,’ the Commission said.
‘Following the European Parliament’s call on the Commission to study the feasibility of terminating the three agreements ahead of their original deadline, the Commission has launched a consultation procedure with all member states to seek their views. The Commission has now received replies from more than half of the member states. In all the answers received by the Commission, the member states expressed their preference to continue the existing agreements until their expiry date.
‘Several member states have underlined in this respect that, as the new traceability rules under the Tobacco Products Directive and the [WHO] Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Protocol will require some time in order to have a tangible impact on smuggling, the anti-fraud agreements in question can still be considered relevant.
‘The Commission will inform the European Parliament of the outcome of the consultation process and its conclusions in due course.’
March 6, 2019
Caught on camera
A study by researchers at the Limerick Institute of Technology, Ireland, has found that ‘diversity is ostensibly lacking’ in images used as part of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive, according to a story by Sarah Burns for The Irish Times.
Among 42 anti-smoking images used on cigarette packages and in campaigns, none ‘distinctly include’ members of a racial or ethnic minority, they found.
‘All visible models, or body parts of models, used in the campaigns are Caucasian,” the researchers concluded.
March 6, 2019