Category: Featured

  • Investors Enticed by KT&G Share Buybacks

    Investors Enticed by KT&G Share Buybacks

    Photo: KT&G

    KT&G’s share buybacks have attracted the attention of investors interested in high-dividend stocks, reports The Korea Times.

    Earlier this month, the company announced it will buy back 4.1 million of its own shares worth around KRW342.7 billion ($288.18 million) to enhance shareholder value. They will be acquired through an exchange-trade purchase through Feb. 4.

    It also unveiled a mid- to long-term shareholder dividends policy—KT&G plans to pay out about KRW2.75 trillion by 2023, through existing cash reserves.

    KT&G has paid high dividends to shareholders with an average payout ratio of 50.8 percent for the past 20 years, higher than the average Korea Composite Stock Price Index ratio of 40 percent and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ratio of 41 percent. It has paid dividends for 22-consecutive years since its listing in 1999.

    KT&G’s third-quarter performance this year slightly exceeded the market consensus. Consolidated sales for the third quarter reached KRW1.57 trillion, up 7.2 percent compared to the same period last year, although operating profit decreased 2.3 percent to KRW423.9 billion.

    The increase in sales was driven by the growth of KT&G’s heat-not-burn business and overseas cigarette subsidiaries. Operating profit, however, was impacted by a decrease in cigarette exports and delayed recovery among KT&G’s nontobacco subsidiaries.

  • Zimbabwe Aims to Capture More Value from Tobacco

    Zimbabwe Aims to Capture More Value from Tobacco

    Photos: Taco Tuinstra

    By Daisy Jeremani

    Tobacco farmers in Zimbabwe and Malawi have voiced concern over growing of the leaf under contract, saying the agreements are structured to benefit contractors, leaving them perennially in debt.

    The Zimbabwe government, for its part, is unhappy that as much as 95 percent of the crop is financed by contractors, most of which are backed by offshore financial institutions. As a result, net foreign currency inflows into the country are only a small fraction of the value of exported tobacco, according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

    For example, net foreign currency inflows over the past two years were $87million from $1.6 billion worth of tobacco that was exported. 

    To reverse the trend, the government will, from the October 2021 to the March 2022 growing season, directly support farmers under a $60 million loan facility created under the recently launched Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan.

    Broadly, the plan seeks to localize 70 percent of tobacco cultivation financing, increase output to 300 million kg per season, expand local value addition and create a $5 billion industry by 2025.

    Shadreck Makombe, who farms tobacco in Gweru, 200 km south of Harare, welcomed the decision, saying the funding will not only benefit farmers but also help resuscitate auction floors, which now account for 5 percent of leaf sales. Under the current financing model, he told Tobacco Reporter, contractors are getting the lion’s share of proceeds while farmers are getting little, making it impossible for them to retool and go back to the fields without returning to contractors for more support.

    “Whatever the farmers were getting through contractors is only going back to them, as the funds and inputs provided would be repaid at premium interest. So basically, the farmer becomes a worker of contractors,” he said.

    Makombe, who is also the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president, said if the $60 million is well managed and distributed, it will leave farmers at a better position to repay as they will be assured of a profit if they work efficiently.

    “There’s no way farmers can do it alone. Yes, large-scale farmers may do that, but generally, the middle-income and small-scale [growers] need to be assisted,” said Makombe.

    Zimbabwe is Africa’s No. 1 producer of tobacco by volume. It produced 210 million kg this year, an increase from 185 million kg in 2020.

    However, farmers complain that some contractors inflate prices of inputs, charge high interest rates and unilaterally determine producer prices.

    In a Sept. 7, 2021, briefing to journalists in Harare, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said the Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan aims to boost farmer viability and independence as well as increase net foreign currency earnings. The strategy is not meant to supplant contractors, she said, but to push the industry to contribute more to the gross domestic product (GDP), foreign currency earnings, employment and farmers’ incomes.

    “The strategic objectives of the plan are to localize the funding of tobacco to complement external funders, to raise tobacco production and productivity from 262 million kg to 300 million kg by 2025 and to diversify and increase the production of alternative crops, such as medicinal cannabis, and increase their contribution to the farmers’ incomes to 25 percent by 2025,” she said.

    The plan also aims to increase the level of value addition of tobacco from 2 percent to 30 percent. Furthermore, she said the plan will incentivize investors to set up cigarette manufacturing plants locally so that the country exports less raw or semi-processed tobacco.

    Tobacco Association of Zimbabwe President George Seremwe urged the government to involve farmers in working out disbursement modalities for the financing localization facility to succeed.

    “Without the involvement of farmers and farmer organizations, we will fail,” he warned.

    An average of 120,000 households, mainly smallholders, grow tobacco in Zimbabwe, according to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB). They often lack resources to finance production, and because they lack collateral security, they do not qualify for bank loans, hence their reliance on contractors.

    “This fund is meant to support 50,000 hectares (ha) of tobacco production, so ideally, if all applicants who apply are growing one hectare, that means 50,000 farmers will benefit,” said TIMB spokesperson Chelesani Moyo. “The funding facility aims at boosting production using local funds as the country works toward driving the tobacco sector into the $5 billion industry by 2025.”

    Shasha Tobacco, a Zimbabwean leaf merchant, does not foresee the government-backed financing localization plan crowding out contractors.

    The company’s finance and administration executive, Augusta Ajento, expected the loan facility not only to create employment but also to facilitate capacitation of the downstream. The packaging, fertilizer manufacturing, banking and insurance industries will benefit from more funding into tobacco cultivation, he said. The interest burden to be borne by farmers, he added, is likely to decline because a portion of funds that ordinarily would have been obtained offshore by contractors will now be available locally at lower cost.

    “I don’t see any threat to contract farming because what it does is maybe improve efficiency and reduce overpricing. It improves efficiency on the part of [the] contractor because they will now be competing with the open market because at the moment, farmers have got no option; they have to go [with] the contractor, and they are contracted at the contractors’ terms. Such arrangements leave farmers with no alternative of sourcing financing, but [the contractors] are now given an opportunity and option to source their needs from various suppliers to improve on their returns,” he said.

    Shasha contracts 4,800 growers yearly, and Ajento was optimistic it will retain them, citing the company’s investment in building relationships.

    “The farmer will ask, ‘Was I getting a fair deal from the contractor or a raw deal?’ If it was a raw deal, the farmer will leave you. If the inputs were overpriced, they will also leave you, but if you were professional in your approach, they will stay put,” he said.

    On the future of contract tobacco farming, Ajento called for increased technical support to farmers so that they can produce more per hectare as well as improve leaf quality. This, he said, can be achieved through regular training.

    “We give agronomist services to our farmers. We just don’t give inputs; we employ what we call leaf techs and agronomists who move around teaching farmers best practices in tobacco farming,” Ajento said of Shasha.

    Malawi President Laments Farmers’ Low Bargaining Power

    At the opening of Malawi’s selling season in April, President Lazarus Chakwera expressed dissatisfaction at what he said were “dubious” levies imposed on farmers by contractors who support production of 80 percent of the Malawian leaf. He lamented farmers’ low bargaining power. 

    Protests at trading floors over low prices are common in Malawi. In February 2015, unions petitioned the government to change contract farming legislation to better protect their rights.

    “It’s better to withdraw and let those companies do the work. It’s not in order for a farmer to spend time growing tobacco and later earn less. This is disgusting,” farmer David Chirwa told Malawi24 in August.

    Other farmers threatened to quit contract tobacco farming and take up farming maize, groundnuts and soyabeans.

    Malawi is the world’s most tobacco-dependent country. The golden leaf accounts for up to 40 percent of the nation’s exports, 60 percent of foreign currency earnings and 11 percent of its GDP. 

    However, a top buyer of Malawi’s crop insisted his company pays growers well.

    “For us, the trend is different,” said Limbani Kakhome, director of corporate affairs and communications at Japan Tobacco International Leaf Malawi. “Our grower retention rate is over 95 percent year-on-year for the past five years or so, and the queue of growers asking to join our contracts is endless. We also are working with growers to diversify their farm revenue income streams.”

    Last year, Malawi growers sold 114 million kg, with output growing to 123.7 million kg this year. Of that crop, JTI bought 40 million kg, according to Kakhome.

    A Malawian think tank says that while grower numbers have declined, yields and acreage have risen.

    According to the Malawi Agricultural Policy Advancement Agenda (MwaPata) there has been movement into and out of tobacco cultivation by farmers depending on market and growing conditions, but a larger share of households is dropping cultivation than adding tobacco.

    The percentage of households growing tobacco declined from 15 percent in 2009–2010 to 6 percent in 2015–2016 and to 5 percent in 2018–2019. The area under tobacco cultivation declined from 147,000 ha in 2009–2010 to 82,000 ha in 2015–2016 but rose to 92,000 ha in 2018–2019.

    Despite the decline in participation rates and the rise in total acreage over time, tobacco output only declined from 130,000 tons in 2009–2010 to 100,000 tons in 2015–2016, and it rose back up to 120,000 tons in 2018–2019.

    MwaPata said the average area under tobacco cultivation increased from 0.40 ha in 2009–2010 to 0.53 ha in 2018–2019. At the same time, average yields increased from 984 kg/ha in 2009–2010 to 1,281 kg/ha in 2015–2016 to 1,372 kg/ha in 2018–2019. —D.J.

  • Late to the Game: Harm Reduction in the Middle East

    Late to the Game: Harm Reduction in the Middle East

    Photo: Fertas

    The Middle East lags behind other regions in limiting the risk of tobacco consumption.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    At the end of August, Chinese vape brand RELX officially launched in Saudi Arabia. After the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait, the kingdom became the third country in the Gulf region where RELX International’s products are now available. The move also signaled the manufacturer’s intention to expand into the rest of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) this year. “The MENA region is one of our category’s fastest growing markets, growing at a rate just short of 10 percent until 2024,” Fouad Barakat, general manager at RELX International for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, commented on the launch. “Saudi Arabia is one of the region’s largest and most prosperous markets, hence the need for any brand to launch there if it wants to thrive and grow bigger.”

    One of the reasons for expansion was the kingdom’s announcement of new regulations, similar to those set across Europe, following the standard setup for e-cigarette and heated-tobacco product (HTP) packaging and labeling, which was introduced in September 2020. With these plans, the country would be a forerunner in the region—few Middle Eastern countries have no regulation for cigarette alternatives in place. In fact, prohibition is the most common attitude in the Middle East when it comes to tobacco harm reduction (THR).

    Often, the legal status of reduced-risk products (RRPs) is unclear: According to a list published by Vaping360 in October, vapor products are legal to use but illegal to sell in Egypt, which is alleged to be on the verge of regulating vaping production, Lebanon and Turkey, where the import of e-cigarettes is also banned. In Iran, Kuwait and Oman, e-cigarettes are merely believed to be legal to use but illegal to sell. Marija Obradovic, head legal analyst at ECigIntelligence, claims that vape products have remained forbidden in Oman since 2015 and in Qatar since 2012, whereas Bahrain and Kuwait legalized them in 2016 followed by Jordan and the UAE in 2019. Vaping products are legal in Israel but banned in Syria.

    Similar disparities prevail with other RRPs. According to the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR), snus is allowed in Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the UAE whereas HTPs are legal only in Israel, Syria and Turkey but are not marketed in Syria and Turkey. Instead, they are on sale in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE where laws for these products don’t exist yet.

    Against this background, it is unsurprising that the adoption of alternatives to conventional cigarettes in the Middle East has lagged behind other regions. According to Euromonitor International, a mere 1.8 percent of smokers in the region had switched to RRPs in 2020, up from 1.4 percent in 2017. Adoption was even lower than in Asia-Pacific nations (4 percent) and Latin America (2.3 percent). 

    Smoking rates in the Middle East, however, remain among the highest globally. Jordan, for example, now has the world’s largest share of smokers in its population. With 66 percent of Jordanian men and more than 17 percent of women smoking, the country seems to even have surpassed Indonesia, a government study carried out in 2019 in collaboration with the World Health Organization found.

    “At one level, it is up to manufacturers to produce affordable products, but there has to be a regulatory system including taxation levels that allows for the R&D finances to be recouped and for markets to be allowed to grow.”

    Harry Shapiro, author of the GSTHR reports

    Monopolies and Taxation

    One reason for the failure of RRPs to make significant inroads is the fact that many Middle Eastern governments have financial stakes in their tobacco markets through state monopolies or shareholdings in tobacco companies. “There are four countries in the Middle East where the state owns 100 percent, one where the state owns over 50 percent and one over 30 percent of at least one tobacco company,” says Harry Shapiro, author of the GSTHR reports. “In Egypt, the state owns 51 percent, in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Syria, 100 percent, and in Yemen, 34 percent. Within those countries, Lebanon adult smoking prevalence is very high at 42 percent. Others are much less, but clearly where you have a state-owned industry, the state is not going to welcome the importation of alternative products, which will threaten revenues even where there is a proven health benefit. It all comes down to money in the end. Politically, business and finance interests will always trump health.”

    Of the world’s approximately 1.1 billion smokers, around 80 percent live in low-income and middle-income countries. Affordability of RRPs, or rather the lack of it, plays an important role, and this is also true for the Middle East, Shapiro adds. “This is a big issue, especially where you have a growing market in illegal cigarettes and no doubt centuries-old traditions in locally produced combustible tobacco products, which support the incomes of poorer people. At one level, it is up to manufacturers to produce affordable products, but there has to be a regulatory system including taxation levels that allows for the R&D finances to be recouped and for markets to be allowed to grow. The other problem for affordable products in an anti-THR climate is repetition of the tedious narrative that THR is all about boosting profits for Big Tobacco in a declining cigarette market.”

    Vapor products are unlikely to become more affordable in the Middle East soon. “Countries are quick to introduce specific taxes on e-cigarettes even before regulating the product itself,” observed Obradovic as she compared regulatory pathways in Eurasia and the Middle East in a webinar in April. Kuwait taxes e-liquids with or without nicotine at 100 percent of the sales price; Saudi Arabia and the UAE have introduced a 100 percent excise on liquids with or without nicotine and on devices. With a 200 percent tax on both nicotine-containing and non-nicotine-containing liquids as well as devices, Jordan has taken taxation of RRPs to the extreme. “Although e-cigarettes are nominally allowed, this makes it completely unfeasible to operate,” Obradovic said.

    Like the makers of RELX vape products, Shapiro nevertheless remains optimistic about the future adoption of reduced-risk products in the Middle East. “My understanding is that the market for safer nicotine products is growing as it is in many parts of the world. My guess would be that the market would grow fastest among the more well-off in society and among younger smokers who should be encouraged to switch. All the evidence shows that if you can switch away from smoking by the age of 35, you can reverse much of the damage caused by previous years of smoking.”

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • Consumer Confusion Preventing Cessation

    Consumer Confusion Preventing Cessation

    Photo: kues1

    Confusion about smokefree alternatives is preventing many smokers from quitting smoking according to a global survey, reports Arab News.

    Commissioned by Philip Morris International and conducted by Povaddo, the study surveyed nearly 30,000 people in 26 countries. The researchers found that many adult smokers remain unaware that alternatives to cigarettes exist, are unable to access them, or are confused by conflicting information that prevents them from making an informed choice.

    The survey showed that despite the science backing up smokefree alternatives, there was public confusion surrounding these products, such as heated tobacco products or e-cigarettes.

    Thirty-three percent of the respondents cited a lack of information about how these products differ from cigarettes and 35 percent said they were unsure about the science behind these new products.

    The survey found that 32 percent of smokers have easier access to cigarettes and so don’t switch to alternatives.

    “The findings of the survey show there is confusion about smokefree products. For those adults who would otherwise continue to smoke cigarettes, having access to evidence-based information about smoke-free products is critical,” said Tarkan Demirbas, area vice-president for the Middle East at PMI.

     According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 1 billion smokers in the world today, and this number is expected to stay steady until 2025.

  • Puff Bar Owners on TV “to Build Trust”

    Puff Bar Owners on TV “to Build Trust”

    Puff Bar owners Nick Minas and Patrick Beltran appeared on CBS Mornings for their first television interview.

    Puff Bar rose to prominence in early 2020 after the Food and Drug Administration banned candy and fruit-flavored e-cigarettes because of their youth appeal but continued to permit the sale of flavored single-use devices like Puff Bar because they were not yet very popular.

    Today, Puff Bar is the most popular e-cigarette brand among high schoolers and middle schoolers. Nielsen reports that store sales of Puff Bar in the United States topped $150 million last fiscal year, but much of that is believed to be counterfeit product.

    Puff Bar has operated in the shadows for most of its existence. It listed its mailing address first to a shuttered storefront on skid row in Los Angeles and more recently to a P.O. box. The company appeared to relish its obscurity. Last year, its website read “Who makes Puff Bar? Everyone wants to know.” Minas and Beltran say the brand was originally developed in China, where it continues to be manufactured.

    In 2020, the FDA ordered Puff Bar off the market amid lawsuits and a widening public outcry about youth appeal. The company pulled its products but later reintroduced redesigned versions using synthetic nicotine, which some believe remains outside of the FDA’s remit.

    Four states have banned the product. It also faces a probe in the House of Representatives and lawsuits in at least three states. Recently, North Carolina’s attorney general launched an investigation.

    In early November, U.S. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, chair of the subcommittee on economic and consumer policy, wrote a letter to Minas and Beltran requesting information about its sale of synthetic nicotine products.

    Minas and Beltran, both 27, are childhood friends from Southern California who said they are now the sole owners and co-CEOs of Puff Bar. During the CBS interview, Beltran said they wanted to speak out to “build trust” with their consumers.

    “We’re aware that there is a lot of mystery, and there was a lot of shadowiness before. Us being here right now, talking with you guys [CBS News] is our first step in kind of really, like, building the trust with our consumers,” he said.

    The FDA declined to speak to CBS News about Puff Bar. In a statement, the agency said it was aware that companies have publicly announced strategies to switch to synthetic nicotine in an attempt to evade FDA jurisdiction, adding that it is investigating the issue.

  • Lebanon Picks Anti-Counterfeit Technology

    Lebanon Picks Anti-Counterfeit Technology

    David Thomas, sales director at OpSec Security, presenting a commemorative plaque to Regie Libanaise Chairman Eng. Nassif Sobhi Seklaoui.

    OpSec Security and Scopsis are partnering with the Lebanese tobacco monopoly, Régie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs, to combat the trade in illicit tobacco.

    As part of the deal, OpSec will provide authentication stamps to Régie Libanaise, enabling the protection of the company’s products, beginning with the market-leading Cedars brand of cigarettes. OpSec’s proprietary Insight software platform will be utilized to provide the authentication and traceability of each licit stamped pack throughout the supply chain.

    OpSec’s solution will provide advanced mobile authentication of stamp security features and product traceability for Régie Libanaise enforcement staff as well as customs and border officials. Retailers and consumers within Lebanon will also be empowered to authenticate packs and gain visibility of product provenance using the Insight customer engagement functionality, freely available on any mobile device.

    OpSec will further utilize its web monitoring technology to ensure any attempt by illicit traders to sell counterfeit stamps via online marketplaces, websites or social media will be captured, removed and reported to enforcement officials.

    “As well combatting illicit trade and protecting much needed revenues for the Lebanese Republic, the first phase implementation is a proactive step towards adopting the provisions of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,” said Mohamad Ali Ahmad, project manager at Beirut-based Scopsis, in a statement. “The project will be amongst the first of its kind in the region and represents a beacon of hope for Lebanon and a demonstration of its commitment to its roadmap for reforms.” 

    Illicit trade is estimated to account for around 25 percent of the Lebanese tobacco market, causing the government to miss between $200 million and $250 million in revenues annually.

  • PMI’s Di Giovanni Wins Communication Award

    PMI’s Di Giovanni Wins Communication Award

    Tommaso Di Giovanni (Photo: PMI)

     

    Philip Morris International’s vice president for market activation and support, Tommaso Di Giovanni, won the Gold Globee Award for “Communications Individual of the Year” at the 11th Annual 2021 Communications Excellence Awards. As the only gold award winner in the category this year, Di Giovanni was recognized for “Scaling communications encouraging honest dialogue and change in 100+ countries.”

    “I am delighted to achieve this distinction, which reflects above all the hard and very collaborative work of our team and all our colleagues around the world, who daily share information and engage in dialogue,” said Di Giovanni in a statement.

    “We can now replace cigarettes with better alternatives, and in some countries, this can be done in a matter of a decade or more. But, like any transformative vision, change needs to be explained and we have to face skepticism and misinformation,” Di Giovanni continued. “It is our collective responsibility to ensure people know the facts, understand who we are and what we stand for.”

    PMI’s Internal Communications team also received a Gold Globee Award for “Communications or PR Campaign of the Year,” with the judges recognizing the company’s “enhanced engagement by rewiring internal comms during pandemic-era business transformation.” PMI created interactive content through varied internal communication platforms, including videos, roundtables, and podcast channels, to ensure continued connection with the worldwide workforce during remote working conditions.

    “Philip Morris International aligned its internal communication strategy to its people-first culture to design influential communication programs during Covid-19,” said Bessie Kokalis Pescio, vice president of global internal communication, who won a Gold Globee Award as “Internal Communications Professional of the Year.”

    The Globee Awards comprise 11 awards programs created to honor and recognize the accomplishments and contributions of companies, business executives, and professionals worldwide.

  • Smoker Awarded $6 Million in Engle Progeny Case

    Smoker Awarded $6 Million in Engle Progeny Case

    Photo: Aerial Mike

    A jury in Jacksonville, Florida, USA, awarded a former smoker with lung disease $6 million in a case against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., reports The Florida Times-Union.

    The case is part of a crop of lawsuits filed after the Florida Supreme Court decertified a large class action, known as Engle, in 2006 and required smokers to sue individually for injuries that appeared between 1990 and 1996. The recent suit is unusual because it is uncommon for plaintiffs in those cases to be still alive.

    “Many Engle case victims do not live to see case verdicts such as this one, so it’s gratifying that in this instance Mrs. Wydra is indeed here to experience justice served,” said Rod Smith, Partner, Avera & Smith, which helped secure the award, in a statement.

    Born in 1947, Kathleen Wydra became a regular smoker while in high school in the early 1960s and smoked up to two packs of cigarettes per day. She quit smoking in 1998, following a diagnosis of COPD in the mid-1990s.

    Jurors decided that Kathleen Wydra had been negligent in smoking and bore 35 percent of the fault for her injuries, but that R.J. Reynolds carried the other 65 percent of the blame.

    They set the price of those injuries at $1.5 million for suffering, disability and harm already incurred, plus another $1.5 million for suffering still ahead of her.

    They also found that R.J. Reynolds agreed to conceal information about smoking’s harmful effects or its addictive nature, and said the company should pay punitive damages, which accounted for the other $3 million judgment.

  • Institute Recognized for Fighting Child Labor

    Institute Recognized for Fighting Child Labor

    Photo: Rachel Almeida

    Brazil’s Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights has recognized the Instituto Crescer Legal (ICL)—the “Growing up Right Institute”—with its Brazil Child-Friendly Award for its efforts to combat child labor in rural areas.

    ICL CEO Iro Schunke accepted the award during a ceremony on Nov. 19 in Brasilia. “We are very happy, and it encourages us to spare no effort in creating opportunities for young people to continue expanding their horizons”, he said in a statement.

    Created in 2015, the ICL is an initiative of the interstate tobacco industry union, SindiTabaco, and its associate companies. In addition to promoting education, the institute facilitates apprenticeships and offers entrepreneurship courses.

    Previously, the ICL was recognized by the Innovare Institute, which represents prestigious associations in the legal profession.

    The Brazil Child-Friendly Award recognizes best practices in the promotion of children’s rights.

    Tobacco Reporter profiled the Growing Up Right Institute in its April 2021 issue.

  • FDA Rebuked Over Slow Progress Menthol Ban

    FDA Rebuked Over Slow Progress Menthol Ban

    Photo: New Africa

    On Nov. 17, Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore of the United States District Court in the Northern District of California issued a ruling putting the Food and Drug Administration on notice that further delay in issuing a proposed rule on ending the sale of menthol-flavored cigarettes could be constructed as “undue delay” under the Administrative Procedure Act.

    In April 2021, the FDA announced that it would begin the rulemaking process in response to a citizen’s petition filed in 2013. The announcement followed a lawsuit filed by the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC), Action of Smoking and Health, the American Medical Association, and the National Medical Association. Filed on June 17, 2020, the lawsuit asserted that the FDA had failed to act on menthol cigarettes contrary to the duties and mandate imposed by the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

    “We applaud District Court Judge Westmore for keeping the FDA’s feet to the fire,” explained AATCLC Co-Chair Phillip Gardiner. “The Black community has been waiting far too long for the FDA to act and protect the health of our people. Ending the sale of menthol cigarettes will be one of the most impactful steps this country can take to save African American lives and advance health equity.”

    “We’re very pleased that Judge Westmore agreed that the FDA’s April 29 announcement is a beginning, not an end, for complying with the lawsuit,” said Laurent Huber, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health. “Unfortunately, when it comes to tobacco the FDA has rarely met a deadline, even a self-imposed one. Every delay costs lives.”

    Each year, more than 72,000 African Americans are diagnosed with a tobacco-related illness and more than 45,000 die from a tobacco-induced disease, according to the AATCLT. Eighty-five percent of all African American smokers smoke menthol cigarettes compared to 29 percent of White smokers. Menthol cigarettes increase addiction and make it harder to quit. More than 70 percent of African American smokers want to quit, and more than 60 percent made a quit attempt in the previous year. However, African American smokers are less likely than White smokers to successfully quit smoking.