Category: Featured

Board Authorizes 97 Million kg for Karnataka

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
The Tobacco Board of India has authorized a 2021–2022 crop of 97 million kg for Karnataka, 9 million kg more than in the previous growing season, reports The Times of India.
“We have decided to fix the crop size of Karnataka at 97 million kg keeping in view the demands of growers as well as traders,” said board Chairman Raghunatha Babu, adding that the board had also taken into consideration global demand.
The board had originally authorized a 99 million kg crop for Karnataka in 2020–2021. However, after considering the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic, it reduced the crop size to 88 million kg.
Some analysts expressed surprise at the crop size increase, given that global demand for tobacco has slipped in the wake of the pandemic.
Tobacco growers who switched to producing ginger following the crop size reduction reportedly suffered heavy losses, increasing pressure on the board to increase the crop size for 2021–2022.
Meanwhile, tobacco growers in Andhra Pradesh threatened to stall auctions from Monday if there is no marked improvement in the prices offered for their produce, according to a report in The Hindu.
Due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases and uncertain global demand situation, exporters have adopted a wait-and-see approach, citing a lack of confirmed orders.
“We were hoping to recoup the losses incurred last year as the virus-induced lockdown coincided with the peak marketing season, said farmers’ representative Mareddy Subba Reddy.
“We will not hesitate to stall the auction from next week if the market continues to remain lackluster, said V.V. Prasad, a farmer’s welfare association leader at the Ongole II auction platform.
To date, Andhra Pradesh famers have marketed only 12.5 million kg of their 70 million kg crop. The 6.5 million kg Southern Light Soils tobacco sold earned a price of INR167 ($2.23) per kg while the 6 million kg Southern Black Soils tobacco sold for INR165 per kg, according to the Tobacco Board.
April 23, 2021
Covid Paper Retracted Over Industry Links

Photo: Soloviova Liudmyla
The European Respiratory Journal has retracted a scientific paper claiming current smokers are 23 percent less likely to be diagnosed with Covid-19 compared to nonsmokers after it was discovered some of the paper’s authors had financial links to the tobacco industry, reports The Guardian.
The World Health Organization has warned that because smoking impairs lung function, there is an increased risk of severe symptoms if respiratory infections, including coronaviruses, are acquired by smokers. Covid-19 is an infectious disease that primarily attacks the lungs.
But the paper, published in July last year by the European Respiratory Journal, found “current smoking was not associated with adverse outcome” in patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19 and claimed smokers were at a significantly lower risk of acquiring the virus.
The article was originally published “early view” on July 30, 2020. Subsequent to this, and prior to publication of the version of record in an issue of the European Respiratory Journal, it was brought to the editors’ attention that two of the authors had failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest at the time of the manuscript’s submission.

I disagree with the retraction, and I consider it unfair and unsubstantiated.
Konstantinos Farsalinos, senior author
Jose M. Mier at the time provided consultancy services to the tobacco industry on tobacco harm reduction. Konstantinos Poulas at the time was a principal investigator for the Greek NGO NOSMOKE, a science and innovation hub that has received funding from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, which in turn has received funding from the tobacco industry.
After careful review of the manuscript content alongside the new disclosures brought to light, the editors and society agreed that if these conflicts of interest had been disclosed at the time of manuscript submission, the editors would not have considered the article for publication.
The European Respiratory Society has bylaws in place that do not permit individuals with ongoing relationships with the tobacco industry to participate in its activities.
The editors of the European Respiratory Journal acknowledged that, aside from the failure of two contributing authors to disclose their conflicts of interest relating to the tobacco industry, at no point was there a question of any scientific misconduct on the part of any of the authors.
The senior author of the paper, Konstantinos Farsalinos, said in a statement to the website Retraction Watch that the conflicts of interest “were irrelevant to the study’s main aims and objectives.”
“Additionally, I proposed to publicly release the full dataset and the statistical script so that all findings could be independently verified,” he said. “The editors declined. I requested my proposal to be mentioned in the retraction letter, but that was also rejected by the editors. I disagree with the retraction, and I consider it unfair and unsubstantiated.”
April 22, 2021
Charlie’s Pachamama Sell Out in 21 Days

Brandon Stump
(Photo: Charlie’s Holdings)
Charlie’s Holdings has sold its entire initial stock of Pachamama Disposables e-cigarettes in fewer than 21 days, making Pachamama the fastest-selling new product in the company’s history, according to a press release.
“It is estimated that more than 20 percent of the world’s population consumes nicotine in some format,” said Brandon Stump, CEO of Charlie’s Holdings. “We believe that our new technologies and products can provide adult consumers with a better, more responsible and therefore more enjoyable means of experiencing nicotine.
“Now that we have launched Pachamama Disposables in the United States, later this year, our distribution will expand into more than 75 international markets, where we expect to introduce millions of adult consumers to the extraordinary Pachamama sensory experience. We are very excited about what this launch—and the new $600 million market opportunity—will mean for our customers and our company.”

We are very excited about what this launch—and the new $600 million market opportunity—will mean for our customers and our company.
Brandon Stump, CEO, Charlie’s Holdings
Earlier this month, Charlie’s Holdings raised $3 million through the private sale of common stock to the company’s founders, Brandon Stump and Chief Operating Officer Ryan Stump. The company intends to use the proceeds from the offering to drive substantial future growth, facilitate new product launches, increase working capital, retire outstanding debt and for other general corporate purposes.
The proceeds from the private placement will strengthen the company’s balance sheet, accelerate European growth, allow for expansion into the Middle East and facilitate the company reaching several important near-term milestones, including FDA approval of Charlie Holdings’ premarket tobacco product application.
April 22, 2021
Activists Enlist UN to Press U.S. on Menthol

Photo: simisi1 from Pixabay
Health groups want the United Nations to pressure U.S. regulators to ban menthol tobacco products, citing evidence that manufacturers market directly to Black communities, reports Bloomberg.
Nearly 100 advocacy groups, including the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, the American Heart Association and Action on Smoking and Health, will appeal to the U.N. Human Rights Council to restrict the marketing of menthol-flavored products in the U.S. on the grounds that Black Americans are targeted by tobacco companies.
“The decades of well-documented racialized and predatory tobacco industry targeting of African Americans, specifically with menthol flavoring, is a human rights issue,” the groups said in the letter to be sent on Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to unveil new regulations on menthol tobacco products on April 29 in answer to a lawsuit filed last year by the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council in which advocates argued the agency has repeatedly failed to act.
The likelihood of a ban on menthol cigarettes in the United States is increasing as the impact of menthol cigarettes on Black Americans becomes clearer, according to an article in The New York Times.
An estimated 16,000 Black Americans die from lung cancer each year, and deaths due to smoking are about 18 percent higher for Black people than white people, according to the University of California, San Francisco Smoking Cessation Leadership Center.
Congress has already banned all other flavors from being added to tobacco products.
April 22, 2021
Study: HnB No Less Harmful Than Cigarettes

Photo: Kuznietsov Dmitriy
The impact on lung cells of heat-not-burn (HnB) tobacco products may be no less harmful than that of conventional cigarettes, according to the authors of a small comparative study published by Thorax.
HnB products contain nicotine and tobacco but have been marketed by the tobacco industry as a less harmful alternative to conventional cigarettes on the grounds that they don’t produce specific harmful chemicals that are released when tobacco burns.
Smoking heightens the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, peripheral artery disease and abdominal aortic aneurysm because it has a role in all stages of artery hardening and blockage. And it causes emphysema and pulmonary hypertension because it contributes to the damage of blood vessels in the lungs.
Specifically, it contributes to endothelial dysfunction—whereby the lining of small and large blood vessels becomes abnormal, causing arteries to constrict instead of dilating or blood vessels to become more inflamed; oxidative stress—an excess of harmful cellular byproducts; platelet activation—creation of “sticky” blood; and plaque development that can block arteries.
The researchers wanted to find out if these effects could also be observed in people who used HnB products.
So they compared endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress and platelet activation in 20 nonsmokers (average age 28), 20 long-term conventional cigarette smokers (average age 27), and 20 long-term users of HnB products (average age 33).
The conventional smokers had been puffing away for an average of 3.5 years, getting through 13 sticks a day; the HnB users had been getting through around 11 products every day for an average of 5 years.
The findings showed that compared with not smoking, long-term use of HnB products was associated with reduced endothelial function and increased oxidative stress and platelet activation.
And there were no significant differences between conventional cigarette smokers and users of HnB products.
This is an observational study, so it can’t establish cause. And the researchers acknowledge several limitations to their findings.
These include the small numbers of study participants involved, the lack of random allocation to each group and the inability to confirm that a participant wasn’t a dual user of both conventional cigarettes and HnB products.
If confirmed by other large studies, these findings could provide evidence to strongly discourage nonsmokers to start using [HnB products].
Lorenzo Loffredo, et al.
Nevertheless, they conclude, “If confirmed by other large studies, these findings could provide evidence to strongly discourage nonsmokers to start using [HnB products] and to encourage [conventional cigarette] smokers to quit smoking.” In a second linked study, a team of researchers assessed whether the use of HnB products helped Japanese workers to give up tobacco for good.
They offered a smoking cessation program to 158 users of conventional cigarettes (94) alone and/or HnB products (64) between November 2018 and April 2019.
The workplace program included prescription varenicline or nicotine-replacement therapy (NRT), counseling and information about stopping smoking.
The quit rate was logged in August 2019, when 45 (29 percent) of the workers had successfully stopped using all tobacco products.
Those who availed themselves of pharmacological support were more likely to quit than those who didn’t (67 percent vs. 11 percent) as were those who received counseling (69 percent vs. 21 percent).
Analysis of the results showed that people who used varenicline or NRT were three times more likely to stop smoking tobacco than those who didn’t.
But those who either used HnB products alone or in addition to conventional cigarettes (dual users) were 23 percent less likely than exclusive cigarette smokers to give up tobacco altogether, after accounting for age, tobacco dependence, previous quit attempts and use of pharmacological support.
This, too, is an observational study, and the researchers acknowledge that their study was small and restricted to healthy men in just one workplace. Smoking status was also self-reported and assessed at a single time point, and successful quitters weren’t asked how long they had stopped using tobacco.
But they point out that those who used HnB products in their study did so because they thought they were less harmful than conventional cigarettes.
“It is possible that the rhetorical phrases by tobacco industries attract and make consumers misunderstand that changing from cigarettes to [HnB products] can provide a healthier environment for themselves and their surroundings,” they suggest.
“Although [HnB products] are misunderstood to be less harmful, they expose users and bystanders to toxicants, and the evidence does not show that [they] will reduce tobacco-related diseases,” they add.
“Given that [HnB products] undermine cessation among smokers without providing health benefits, [they] should not be recommended for any purpose,” they conclude.
In a linked editorial covering both research papers, Professor Irina Petrache of National Jewish Health, Denver, Colorado, and Esther de Boer of University of Colorado agree.
“[Both] reports provide impetus to conduct larger randomized validating studies and to assess the impact of [HnB products] on additional health parameters. Their work enriches the mounting evidence that [HnB products] are not safer than [conventional cigarettes], suggesting that any tobacco use should be strongly discouraged,” they write.
April 22, 2021
RJR Challenges Philip Morris Vapor Patent

Image: USPTO
R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. (RJRV) has petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a review of six claims relating to the basic functionality of e-cigarettes in a patent assigned to Philip Morris Products, reports Law Street Media.
RJRV argues that the patent describes an approach that dates from 1990 and has “become accepted in view of its comparatively easy technical realizability in combination with its convincing functionality.”
According to the filing, there are disadvantages in the prior technology that the asserted patent claims to fix, such as the increasing contamination of the vaporizing unit throughout its life, a fluid leak and that due to its design, the e-cigarette’s length cannot be shortened.
RJRV takes issue with the patent’s six claims on the basis that to a person having ordinary skill in the field, it would have been obvious to combine previous inventions to overcome the claimed deficiencies.
RJRV requests the cancellation of the claims as unpatentable.
It’s not the first time that Reynolds and Philip Morris have quarreled about intellectual property. In June 2020, Philip Morris International filed counterclaims against Reynolds for patent infringement in the federal court action that RJR commenced against PMI and Altria, PMI’s IQOS distributor in the U.S., on April 9, 2020 in the Eastern District of Virginia.
April 22, 2021
Postal Service Publishes E-Cig Mailing Guidance

Photo: Sean Locke Photography
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has published its guidance for mailing vaping products in the Federal Register. The notice provides some clarity on USPS policy and outlined potential exceptions, which could include legal hemp and its derivatives.
Until the final rule is issued, ENDS are not subject to the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act. The USPS suggests it may exempt cannabis products, but also says that it will not review any exemption applications before the rule is finalized. The agency did, however, state that it has attempted to streamline the application process.
“The Postal Service understands that those concerns are heightened by Congress’s decision to make ENDS nonmailable immediately upon publication of the final rule, rather than applying the 30-day notice period that typically follows a final rule under the Administrative Procedure Act,” the USPS wrote. “
If any of the relevant exceptions are ultimately made available, then, given the highly decentralized nature of the ENDS industry relative to the industries historically covered by the PACT Act, the Postal Service anticipates receiving ENDS-related exception applications at a rate several orders of magnitude above the historic norm.
U.S. Postal Service
“Therefore, this document is intended to clarify the state of the exception application process in advance of the final rule and to provide guidance to mailers interested in availing themselves of any exceptions that may ultimately be made available.”
The USPS anticipates many applications for exemption to its mail ban. “If any of the relevant exceptions are ultimately made available for [electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS)], then, given the highly decentralized nature of the ENDS industry relative to the industries historically covered by the PACT Act, the Postal Service anticipates receiving ENDS-related exception applications at a rate several orders of magnitude above the historic norm,” the guidance reads.
The USPS mail ban is only one of several challenges to the vapor business created by the recent legislation. Among other requirements, the PACT Act also stipulates that manufacturers register with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives (ATF), as well as file monthly reports with state tobacco tax administrators.
Recipients of all vaping products purchased online are now required to present ID and sign for their delivery, regardless of the carrier. Many states are expecting businesses to start filing monthly reports on May 10 and the USPS is expecting to post the final rule and officially end the mailing of ENDS products to consumers on April 27.
April 22, 2021
Kaival and Bidi Vapor Continue Cooperation
Kaival Brands approved an amended and restated distribution agreement, which sets forth the terms of the formal relationship between Kaival Brands and Bidi Vapor. The newly amended and restated distribution agreement extends the previous one-year, annually renewable term to an initial term of 10 years, which automatically renews for another five-year term provided that Kaival Brands satisfies certain minimum purchase thresholds.
The newly amended and restated distribution agreement also provides Kaival Brands with a right of first refusal in the event Bidi Vapor receives an offer that would constitute a “change of control transaction” as well as a right of first refusal to act as the exclusive distributor of any and all future products of Bidi Vapor that arise out of or related to electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) and components related to ENDS, arise out of or relate to the synthetic nicotine industry, or arise out of or related to the tobacco-derived nicotine industry.
“We believe the amendments to the distribution agreement further bolsters the commitment between the two companies,” said Niraj Patel, president, CEO and chief financial officer, in a statement. “The relationship between Kaival Brands and Bidi Vapor during the past 12 months has been fruitful, with Kaival Brands generating approximately $100 million in revenues during the previous 12 months from the sale of the Bidi Stick and expanding its distribution of the Bidi Stick to more than 50,000 stores.”
April 22, 2021
New Glue Additives from Tobacco Stalks

Photo: Inok
The Philippine Department of Science and Technology (DOST)—Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI) has developed glue additives from tobacco stalks and tea leaves, reports the Manila Bulletin. The new additive would reduce the cost of producing plywood.
“After several formulations and tests of the experimental plywood, the glue mixes that produced the desired improved properties were piloted to produce full-size plywood in two plywood factories in Sariaya, Quezon and Valenzuela City,” said Fortunato T. de la Pena, DOST secretary.
“Based on factory trials, the FPRDI-developed formulations could match the commercial glue mix formulation’s performance, showed lower formaldehyde emission and improved termite resistance,” he said.
Plywood is made of several layers of veneers that are bonded by adhesives that use fillers to improve the adhesive properties. Plywood manufacturers in the Philippines are currently using traditional additives of rice hull or coconut shell flour for fillers and wheat flour for extenders and the catalyst.
The newly developed additives would reduce the cost of plywood production by PHP60 ($1.24) per panel, according to de la Pena.
“The valued adding to the two waste materials would reduce solid waste disposal by converting them into useful products,” de la Pena said. “Tobacco stalks in the glue mix benefit the environment through reduction in air pollution and elimination of toxic pollutants in the soil as tobacco stalks are normally burned or allowed to decay in the field.”
Tobacco stalks in the glue mix benefit the environment through reduction in air pollution and elimination of toxic pollutants.
Fortunato T. de la Pena, DOST secretary
Tobacco farmers would also benefit from using tobacco stalks for additives: “The socio-economic benefit of the technology would be the potential added income to tobacco farmers through selling and/or processing of waste stalks for the use of the plywood industry.”
April 22, 2021
Study Shows Reduced Exposure HnB Products

Photo: Japan Tobacco
Japan Tobacco has announced the results of a clinical study that demonstrates a reduction in exposure to, and uptake of, selected harmful and potentially harmful constituents in healthy Japanese adult smokers who switched to four in-market heated-tobacco products, including Ploom TECH+ and Ploom S 2.0.
The study was conducted in consultation with a medical advisor, Yuji Kumagai, who is a professor at Kitasato Clinical Research Center.

These results strongly underpin the potential of heated-tobacco products, including Ploom TECH+ and Ploom S 2.0, to reduce the health risks associated with smoking.
Ian Jones, vice president and R&D principal scientist, JTI
“With this study, the JT Group contributes another small but meaningful piece to the jigsaw of scientific evidence on heated-tobacco products. Although further research is required, these results strongly underpin the potential of heated-tobacco products, including Ploom TECH+ and Ploom S 2.0, to reduce the health risks associated with smoking,” said Ian Jones, JTI vice president and R&D principal scientist, in a statement.
“We continue to conduct research to provide scientific evidence of the potential benefits of using our reduced-risk products. As we continue our studies, we will communicate our research data on our science website, JT-science.com,” said Jones.
April 22, 2021