Category: Featured

Women in Tobacco to Meet in Paris

The next Women in Tobacco (WIT) event will take place May 5-6 at Hotel Villa Modigliani in Paris. The event is sponsored by SWM.
Patricia Kovacevic
The event will kick off with a snack lunch on May 5, followed by the GTNF In Focus: Sustainability virtual conference in the presence of Patricia Kovacevic, who will moderate the event.
The evening program features a Quayside dinner and a one-hour cruise on the river Seine.
The GTNF In Focus conference continues May 6 and is followed by a team activity.
Participants qualify for a special rate for the night of May 5 of €166 ($180.98) per room at Hotel Villa Modigliani with the code SWMWIT2022 .
For hotel reservations please contact: llegal@vacancesbleues.fr or cpasquet@vacancesbleues.fr. Reservations may be cancelled free of charge up to April 14, 2022.
To register for the WIT event, please contact Elise Rasmussen at witforwomen@gmail.com or +44 777 564 5048.
WIT Agenda
Thursday, May 5

12:30 pm
Welcome & snack lunch at the Hotel Villa Modigliani, 13 Rue Delambre, 75014 Paris, France

02:00 pm
GTNF inFocus Sustainability virtual conference in presence of Patricia Kovacevic who will moderate the event.
Stay tuned and Check the program here or on the website: sustainability.infocusseries.org.

08:00 pm
Quayside dinner followed by a one-hour River Seine cruise.
Friday, May 6

08:45 am
Welcome at the Hotel Villa Modigliani, 13 Rue Delambre, 75014 Paris, France

09:00 am
GTNF inFocus Conference Debriefing
& Specific Presentations

10:15 am
Team Activity:
Embark for a “Responsible World Tour!”

12:30 pm
Event closure

April 5, 2022
Survey: Smokers Happy to Buy Illicit Tobacco

Photo: BAT
Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of participants in a poll among U.K. smokers bought illicit tobacco in the past year, according to a recent survey reported in Talking Retail.
The figure is down from 2019, when the same survey found that 78 percent of respondents said that they had bought illicit tobacco.
One challenge for the industry is that few consumers have moral reservations about purchasing illicit products. Sixty-eight percent of survey participants said they had no issue with buying tobacco this way.
Carried out by the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association (TMA), the survey of 12,000 smokers also found that nearly one-fifth (19 percent) of respondents bought their illicit tobacco from social media sites.
“There is positive news in this year’s survey findings, with more people reporting illicit tobacco when they were aware of it—a major uplift to 32 percent compared with 17 percent in 2017—and a decline in people purchasing illegal tobacco in every region across the U.K., with the exception of London,” said Rupert Lewis, director of the TMA.
“However, the 2021 findings still highlight the continued widespread availability of illicit tobacco as well as the entrenched perception among many consumers that it is ‘acceptable’ to trade or buy illicit
April 5, 2022
U.S. House votes to decriminalize marijuana

Photo: p_gangler
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on April 1 to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, reports The New York Times.
While the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act is unlikely to get the required majority in the Senate, supporters said the vote was a necessary step toward building consensus on something that can become law.
The bill would remove marijuana from the federal government’s list of controlled substances, impose an 8 percent tax on cannabis products, allow some convictions on cannabis charges to be expunged and press for sentencing reviews at the federal and state levels. It would also make Small Business Administration loans and services available to cannabis businesses while setting standards for them.
By lowering law enforcement and incarceration costs and imposing new taxation, the bill would save the government hundreds of millions of dollars. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the act would reduce the federal deficit by nearly $3 billion over the next decade.
Thirty-seven states have legalized cannabis for medical use, and 15 have granted adults legal access for purely recreational purposes. Because cannabis remains a federally controlled substance, however, banks insured by the federal government have been loath to make their services available to the burgeoning marijuana industry.
Faced with declining demand for cigarettes, some tobacco companies have been eying marijuana as a new business area.
Sales in that industry totaled $20 billion in 2020 and are projected to more than double by 2025.
April 4, 2022
BAT invests in Bangladesh

Photo: Piotr Pawinski
British American Tobacco will invest BDT5.74 billion ($66.55 million) in its Savar, Bangladesh, operations to cater to export opportunities and create contingency capacity, reports The Daily Star.
The announcement follows a BDT5.14 billion investment in 2021 to increase the facility’s production capacity.
“With an eye on future exports, the board has approved an investment of about Tk 574 crore to further expand the Savar factory’s production capacity,” said Sheikh Shabab Ahmed, head of external affairs at BATBC.
“We believe with the improved capacity we will be equipped for any future demand,” he added.
In 2021, the company’s net turnover rose 24 percent to BDT74.87 billion, up from BDT60.29 billion the previous year, according to its annual report. In the same period, BAT Bangladesh logged profits of BDT14.96 billion, up 37.5 percent over that posted in 2020.
BATBC has cigarette factories in Dhaka and Savar, a green leaf threshing plant in Kushtia, a green leaf re-drying plant in Manikganj, and a number of leaf and sales offices throughout the country.
April 4, 2022
Vectura Directors Step Down

Photo: Charnchai saeheng
Vectura CEO Will Downie and Chief Financial Officer Paul Fry have stepped down from their roles with the company following the £1 billion ($1.31 billion) takeover by Philip Morris International, reports The Times.
PMI acquired Vectura last year as part of the company’s “beyond nicotine” strategy. This move caused controversy in the healthcare industry as Vectura is a producer of inhalers and medicines for smoking-related conditions. Critics said the takeover represented a conflict of interest.
Following the takeover, Vectura was banned from many pharmaceutical industry conferences due to the company’s new ties to the tobacco industry.
The tobacco industry’s involvement in pharmaceutical businesses is facing increasing scrutiny. In March, the World Health Organization said it would deny an emergency use listing to Medicago’s Convifenz Covid-19 vaccine, because of the company’s tobacco ties.
PMI owns a minority stake in Medicago, which now faces pressure to seek a different shareholder.
April 1, 2022
Mixed Sentiments as Markets Open in Africa

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
Farmers earned more than $243,500 from the sale of 94,453 kg of flue-cured tobacco on the first day of Zimbabwe’s 2022 marketing season, reports The Herald. This reflects a 40.54 percent increase over previous year when growers earned $173,256 from 92,106 kg on the first day of sales.
On the first day of the 2022 marketing season the average price was $2.58 per kg, compared with $1.88 on the first day of 2021, according to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB).
TIMB Chief Execute Meanwell Gudu said prices are expected to be firm this year due to reduced volumes.
“Brazil is likely to be 80 million kg short of their usual production level because of drought. This creates less competition for us. India has fixed its 2021-2022 production of flue-cured Virginia up to 270 million kg, against 236 million kg in the previous year,” he said.
“Due to anticipated reduced volumes in Zimbabwe this season, there will be more pressure on the demand side to take the crop, which should naturally increase prices upwards. This is likely to be experienced in the medium to filler grades.”
Farmers in Malawi, meanwhile, were dissapointed with their earnings, with some asking President Lazarus Chakwera to intervene, according to The Nyasa Times.
On April 1, the highest price offered on the auction floor was $1.75 per kg and the highest offer on the contract market was $2.30.
Chakwera assured the farmers that the government would intervene. However, he also advised them to grade their tobacco properly to satisfy buyers’ requirement.
According to the Tobacco Control Commission there were more than 1,000 bales on the Lilongwe Auction Floors on the first day of the 2022 tobacco marketing season.
April 1, 2022
Thailand: New Graphic Health Warnings

Photo: kikujungboy
Retailers and wholesalers in Thailand will have to sell cigarette packs with newly designed warning labels beginning April 11, reports The Bangkok Post.
The new packs must have text warnings and newly designed pictorial warnings showing graphic details of the consequences of smoking, according to Khachornsak Kaewcharas, deputy director-general of the Department of Disease Control.
“Violators who still sell cigarette packets with the old pictorial warnings are liable to a fine of no more than THB40,000 [$1,197],” he said.
April 1, 2022
More Ads for Menthol E-Cigarettes

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned flavored tobacco products, email and mailed advertisements for those products fell; however, ads for menthol-flavored products more than doubled, according to the Truth Initiative citing a Tobacco Control study.
The study showed that partial flavor bans may not deter consumers, including youth, away from tobacco products. “Rather, manufacturers and consumers are adapting to new FDA regulations,” the study authors write. “The restriction of some flavored e-cigarette products has resulted in a shift of the sales and marketing of restricted flavored e-cigarette products toward other available flavored e-cigarette products.”
“A more comprehensive approach that includes the consideration of disposables, refillable devices and other flavored e-cigarettes not covered by the current FDA guidance is needed to offer the most benefit for prevention efforts among youth and young adults,” the authors write.
The FDA is expected to ban menthol-flavored products sometime this year.
April 1, 2022
PMI Gives Ukrainian Army Cigarettes

Photo: Exclusive Dn
Philip Morris International has given the Ukrainian Army 500,000 packs of cigarettes, reports the Washington Examiner.
“Philip Morris donated 500,000 packs of cigarettes to help the army,” said People’s Deputy of Ukraine Danylo Hetmantsev. “Lviv Tobacco Factory and JT International Ukraine also handed over cigarettes to the military today in all regions where there are logistics warehouses.”
PMI stopped most operations in Ukraine due to the invasion of Russian forces, and the company stopped marketing and product launches in Russia.
“This included sales, distribution, and manufacturing,” said Corey Henry, PMI’s Director of U.S. Communications. “The Ukrainian army approached our colleagues and asked for stock in our warehouse in one of the most heavily bombed regions. We complied with the authorities’ request.”
“Our focus and all our efforts over the last four weeks have been to ensure the safety and security of our Ukrainian colleagues,” said CEO Jacek Olczak in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with the innocent men, women and children who are suffering.”
April 1, 2022
Brazil Mulls Legalizing E-Cigarettes

Photo: Rmcarvalhobsb
E-cigarettes may become legal in Brazil later this year as ANVISA, the federal health sanitary agency, plans to revisit its regulations regarding the products. Proponents of vaping have been pushing the government to legalize the products to help smokers quit combustibles, but critics are concerned about youth usage as well as potential higher rates of vaping that could follow legalization.
Electronic tobacco products have been banned in Brazil since 2009, but there are currently shops that sell the products anyway, often with statements that the products are safe, according to The World.
“Once the product is legally allowed to be commercialized, it gets into the distribution network of the tobacco companies, which have one of the best distribution systems around,” said Stella Bialous, a Brazilian expert on tobacco issues and a professor from the University of California, San Francisco. She fears that more people would likely take up vaping if the products are allowed to be commercialized. In 2019, less than 1 percent of Brazilians used e-cigarettes. However, if the products are commercialized, they would become more easily available, and that percentage could quickly rise.
“Considering that these products are attractive to youth and that we can’t affirm that they really work for tobacco cessation, we believe that we must prioritize the public policies to prevent smoke initiation and also to promote health for the Brazilian population,” said Monica Andreis, the executive director from ACT Promocao da Saude, a nongovernmental organization that focuses on tobacco control policies.
“Brazil has a leadership role in Latin America and also around the world related to tobacco control policies. I believe that the decision from ANVISA has the potential to influence other countries in Latin America,” Andreis said.
ANVISA has not commented on the situation, stating that it is still analyzing data. “Up to this point, there are still uncertainties and controversies related to the risks attributed to these devices,” the agency stated in February.
April 1, 2022