TobaccoReporter logo

Category: Featured

  • Morocco Cigarette Prices to Increase

    Morocco Cigarette Prices to Increase

    Morocco will see an increase in cigarette prices this year, reports Morocco World News.

    Some packs will increase by up to MAD2 ($0.20) while premium brands will have minimal or no increase.

    The increase is aimed at narrowing the gap between low-cost and premium cigarettes to create a more balanced market, according to the Moroccan government.

    Entry-level brands are the main targets of the increase. Societe Marocaine des Tabacas raised prices of Gauloises and Marquise by MAD1. Philip Morris International increased L&M and Chesterfield prices by MAD2. Japan Tobacco International increased prices of Monte Carlo by MAD2 and LD by MAD1. Camel saw an increase of MAD0.5.

    Morocco’s 2025 finance bill introduced measures to boost tax revenues while increasing public spending and investment, with a goal of reducing the budget deficit to 3.5 percent of GDP. In order to achieve this goal, the government plans to raise domestic consumption taxes on products like hard alcohol, beer, and manufactured tobacco. This is projected to bring in MAD657.8 billion, which is a 14.49 percent increase. Tax revenues from cigarettes are expected to be MAD13.7 billion.  

    The Domestic Consumption Tax’s specific quota will increase to MAD550 while the minimum tax per 1,000 cigarettes will increase to MAD953.

  • Latvia: Tobacco Sellers Look for Loopholes in New Regulations

    Latvia: Tobacco Sellers Look for Loopholes in New Regulations

    Tobacco sellers in Latvia are reportedly looking for loopholes in the new regulations that go into effect this month, according to Euro News.

    Beginning January 2025, tobacco products, including disposable vapes, refillable e-cigarettes, and nicotine pouches, cannot be sold to individuals under 20 years old, and vaping products can no longer have flavors other than tobacco. The amount of nicotine in nicotine pouches will also be reduced.

    According to Latvijas Televizija, a Latvian public television channel, companies selling refill cartridges are looking for ways to circumvent the new rules and continue selling the same products—some are planning to sell separate bottles of flavoring and nicotine that customers can mix themselves.

    “Certainly, after the new year, there will be alternatives that can be offered to the client, but they will not have such a wide range. Let’s increase the range bit by bit and, after some time, it will definitely be bigger,” said Jakaterina Smirnova, representative of e-cigarette company Ecodumas.

    “I assume that, similarly to other products, relatives and friends who travel will be able to bring them [the banned products] from abroad. Like all illegal things, Telegram trading will probably also develop. And it’s hard to stop,” said Anrijs Matiss, a board member of the Traditional and Smokeless Tobacco Products Association.

    The association estimates a state budget loss of €10 million annually following the new laws.

    The nicotine pouch industry expects that products will disappear from retail shelves, at least temporarily.  

  • Milan Bans Outdoor Smoking

    Milan Bans Outdoor Smoking

    Milan has banned smoking in outdoor and public areas, effective Jan. 1, 2025, reports Euro News.

    The ban includes “all public spaces, including streets” but provides an exception for isolated spaces as long as smokers maintain a distance of at least 10 meters from other people. Those caught violating the ban face fines ranging from €40 to €240.

    The ban aims to improve the city’s air quality and protect the health of citizens from secondhand smoke. Milan is one of Europe’s most polluted cities in terms of air quality.  

    The new law does not apply to electronic cigarettes, however.

  • Study: One Cigarette Decreases Life Expectancy by 20 Minutes

    Study: One Cigarette Decreases Life Expectancy by 20 Minutes

    Photo: Nopphon

    A new study in Addiction shows that smoking a single cigarette decreases life expectancy by an average of 20 minutes, reports CNN Health. The study is based off British smokers and was commissioned by the U.K. Department for Health and Social Care.

    The research, which came out of University College London, estimated that the loss of life expectancy for men was about 17 minutes and for women was about 22 minutes.

    According to Sarah Jackson, lead author of the paper and a principal research fellow in the UCL Alcohol and Tobacco Research Group, “20 cigarettes at 20 minutes per cigarette works out to be almost seven hours of life lost per pack.”

    “The time they’re losing is time that they could be spending with their loved ones in fairly good health,” Jackson said. “With smoking, it doesn’t eat into the later period of your life that tends to be lived in poorer health. Rather, it seems to erode some relatively healthier section in the middle of life. So when we’re talking about loss of life expectancy, life expectancy would tend to be lived relatively good health.”

    The research used mortality data from the British Doctors Study and the Million Women Study, showing that people who smoked throughout their lives lost, on average, around 10 years of life compared to nonsmokers. Life expectancy is similar in the U.S. for smokers versus nonsmokers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The amount of life expectancy that can be recovered by quitting smoking can depend on several factors, according to the new research.

    “In terms of regaining this life lost, it’s complicated,” said Jackson. “These studies have shown that people who quit at a very young age—so by their 20s or early 30s—tend to have a similar life expectancy to people who have never smoked. But as you get older, you progressively lose a little bit more that you can’t regain by quitting.

    “But no matter how old you are when you quit, you will always have a longer life expectancy than if you had continued to smoke. So, in effect, while you may not be reversing the life lost already, you’re preventing further loss of life expectancy.”

  • Iowa Vape Companies Sue to Block Registry

    Iowa Vape Companies Sue to Block Registry

    A group of e-cigarette and vaping product distributors and retailers is suing the state of Iowa to block enforcement of a new law set to take effect in February.

    Alternatives to Smoking and Tobacco Inc., Global Source Distribution, Triton Distribution, Smokin Hot, Central Iowa Vapors WDM, and Route 69 Vapor filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

    The companies allege that House File 2677 violates the supremacy clause and equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution as well as the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.

    State records show House File 2677 was introduced on March 27, 2024, with backing from lobbyists for R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies. Lobbyists for the American Cancer Society Action Network declared their opposition to the bill within two days, according to Iowa Capital Dispatch.

    The bill was approved in the Iowa House on April 3, 2024, and in the Iowa Senate on April 19, 2024. Governor Kim Reynolds signed it into law on May 17, 2024.

    The law stipulates that manufacturers whose electronic nicotine-delivery systems—more commonly known as electronic cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and vaping products—are sold in Iowa must certify that their products “have received a marketing authorization” from the Food and Drug Administration or that their applications for authorization were filed by September 2020 and are still under review.

    The Iowa Department of Revenue is then tasked with producing a publicly accessible directory listing all certified vaping products—at which point any retailer selling products not on the registry is subject to fines or other enforcement action.