Category: Featured

  • FDA Updates Authorized Products Database

    FDA Updates Authorized Products Database

    Photo: Andrey Kuzmin

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has uploaded the first update to its recently created Searchable Tobacco Products Database, which provides an overview of tobacco products and vapor products that may be legally marketed in the United States.

    Due to timing factors associated with the initial launch, the products included in this update cover a longer time period (January through mid-April 2024) than will typically be included in the future. The agency intends to update the database every month.

    The current database updates include the addition of several tobacco products that were issued a substantial equivalence or exempt order, a number of tobacco products that were determined to be preexisting tobacco products through voluntary submissions, and links to redacted and 508-compliant order letters, decision summaries and other documents for various authorized products that were already in the database.

    The database is available here.

  • Kenya Gathering Input on Graphic Warnings

    Kenya Gathering Input on Graphic Warnings

    Photo: Vitaliy Sova

    Kenya’s health ministry is gathering public feedback on a proposal that would require cigarette manufacturers to print new graphic health warnings on packs of nicotine products, reports The Standard.

    The new rules will require tobacco manufacturers to display labels covering 80 percent of the packaging of cigarettes, nicotine pouches and e-cigarettes.

    “The objectives of the graphic health warnings are to increase knowledge about risks associated with tobacco use, to deter initiation to tobacco, to reduce tobacco consumption and persuade tobacco users to quit and to break the challenges of languages and the inability to read text-only messages,” said the Ministry of Health in a public notice.

    Some 8.6 percent of Kenyans smoked in 2020, according to World Health Organization data. The government wants to reduce this figure to less than 5 percent by 2025.

    Tobacco industry representatives contend that the proposed measure does not appropriately distinguish between cigarettes and smoke-free nicotine products, such as nicotine pouches, which they tout as less hazardous than cigarettes.

    “There is a need for legislation in Kenya to separate tobacco products from nicotine products and for an appreciation of the role played by alternative nicotine-delivery products,” an unnamed official was quoted as saying. “The current graphic health warnings campaign does not distinguish between the two products.”

  • ‘Tobacco Lobbying Booming in U.S.’

    ‘Tobacco Lobbying Booming in U.S.’

    Credit: Ball Studios

    Around the United States, statehouses from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania., to Tallahassee, Florida., are being flooded with tobacco industry lobbyists, according to a new report from the anti-smoking advocacy group Action on Smoking and Health.

    According to the latest edition of the group’s Tobacco Industry Lobbyist and Lobbying Firm Registration Tracker, released Thursday, at least 950 lobbyists represent cigarette, vape, and snus companies in statehouses around the country, according to an article from StatNews.

    The number of lobbying registrations tied to tobacco companies jumped over 10 percent from 2023 to 2024.

    ASH’s overall tally, based on publicly available lobbying registration data, is likely an undercount because several states only require lobbying firms, not individual lobbyists, to register with them.

  • Outdoor Smoking Bans Constitutional

    Outdoor Smoking Bans Constitutional

    Photo: J. studio

    South Korea’s law designating public facilities, including crowded outdoor plazas, as nonsmoking areas is constitutional, according to the Constitutional Court.

    In an April 25 ruling, reported by the Korea JoongAng Daily, the court held that the National Health Promotion Act, which requires all public facilities, including outdoor spaces, to be designated as nonsmoking areas, does not violate the Constitution.

    Article 9 of the National Health Promotion Act designates public facilities that are 1,000 square meters or more as nonsmoking areas.

    The law was challenged after a smoker fined for lighting up outside of the Bexco convention center in Busan filed a legal case arguing that it was excessive to designate such open areas as nonsmoking areas.

    The case eventually made its way to the Constitutional Court, which held that even public outdoor areas can’t be considered completely free from the risk of secondhand smoke, noting that it is difficult to completely block cigarette smoke even if there are separate nonsmoking and smoking areas.

    The court noted that the need to protect people who do not want to breathe in secondhand smoke is greater than the need to guarantee smokers’ freedom to smoke.

  • PMI Boosts Investment in Ukraine

    PMI Boosts Investment in Ukraine

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Philip Morris International will launch the latest version of its IQOS Iluma heat-not-burn device in Ukraine, reports Interfax. The debut had been delayed in the wake of Russia’s military invasion.

    “It is another proof of our support to the economy of Ukraine in the difficult times alongside our investing in the factory in the Lvov region,” Philip Morris Ukraine General Director Maxim Barabash was quoted as saying.

    In order to meet anticipated demand, PMI has opened 40 stores in 24 cities, launched express shipping across Ukraine and established 120 recycling stations across the country accepting used products for reprocessing or eco-disposal.

    “Philip Morris launched the first IQOS tobacco-heating system in 2016. Since then, about 1.3 million of adult smokers in Ukraine abandoned cigarettes and chose our companies’ smoke-free alternatives,” said Roman Ivanov, head of PMI Ukraine’s smoke-free products department. “We will continue developing our brand retail and testing new formats of our commercial infrastructure in 2024.”

    PMI says it has invested more than $700 million in Ukraine since starting operations there in 1994. In February 2022, following Russia’s attack, the company suspended the operations of its factory in Kharkov and started importing products from eight PMI factories outside Ukraine while partnering with another international manufacturer in Ukraine.

    The company plans to launch a new, $30 million factory in the Lvov region in the second quarter of 2024.

    PMI held a 24 percent share of the Ukrainian cigarette market in October 2024, up from 14 percent after Russia’s invasion but still short of its 28.5 percent share before the conflict.

  • Congress Asked to Pass Economic Sabotage Act

    Congress Asked to Pass Economic Sabotage Act

    Photo: Mykhailo Polenok – Dreamstime.com

    Tobacco farmers in the Philippines are urging Congress to pass the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act to counter smuggling, reports The Manilla Times.

    The Philippine Tobacco Growers Association (PTGA) and the National Federation of Tobacco Farmers Association and Cooperatives on May 2 called for Congress to already convene a Bicameral Conference Committee before July.

    PTGA President Saturnino Distor emphasized the urgent necessity of passing the bill due to widespread smuggling, which not only affects the agricultural sector but also threatens local farmers and their dependents.

    The proposed legislation categorizes the smuggling of agricultural products, including tobacco, as “economic sabotage,” which carries a penalty of life imprisonment.

    Additionally, perpetrators will face fines that are triple the value of the smuggled products.

    More than 2.2 million Filipinos depend on tobacco for their livelihoods, including more than 430,000 farmers, farmworkers and their family members, according to data from the National Tobacco Administration.

    The tobacco farmers said the Philippine government loses about PHP200 billion ($3.5 billion) in revenue annually due to smuggling, with PHP30 billion attributed to smuggled cigarettes alone.

  • Tobacco Boosts Murphy USA’s First Quarter Results

    Tobacco Boosts Murphy USA’s First Quarter Results

    Credit: Refrina

    Murphy USA’s Q1 2024 results were below expectations due to various headwinds, but President and CEO Andrew Clyde highlighted the positive performance in tobacco and fuel during Thursday’s earnings call.

    The convenience store chain’s net income and adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2024 were lower compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

    Murphy’s net income for the first quarter of 2024 was $66 million, which is a decrease from $106.3 million for the same quarter in the previous year, according to media reports.

    Clyde said on the call that unique factors that distinguished the first quarter of 2024 from the same quarter the year before included product prices being up 50 cents compared to 8 cents in the prior year and an increase in severe weather events.

    Severe weather, especially on the Atlantic coast, drove customers to trade down for value and stock up on tobacco and fuel.

  • Oregon Court Approves Local Flavor Ban

    Oregon Court Approves Local Flavor Ban

    Credit: Mehaniq 41

    The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld a Washington County ban on flavored tobacco sales.

    Washington County commissioners approved Ordinance 878 in 2022, but it was not enforced because a circuit court judge overturned it.

    In his opinion, Circuit Judge Andrew Erwin wrote that prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco must come from the state, not the county, according to media reports.

    The county appealed the judge’s decision, and the court found that the county is not preempted by state law. According to Washington County’s website, businesses will be inspected each year to ensure compliance with the ordinance.

    Tony Aiello, Jr., the attorney for the plaintiffs-respondents, released a statement, saying, in part, “My Clients are disappointed with the decision by the Court of Appeals today and intend to seek review by the Oregon Supreme Court.

    “We read the Court of Appeals’ decision to conflict with itself in several places and are optimistic that the Oregon Supreme Court will reach a different conclusion if our case is granted review.”

  • Vapor Industry Cheers Pot Reclassification

    Vapor Industry Cheers Pot Reclassification

    Photo: Africa Studio

    Representatives of the U.S. vapor industry have welcomed a decision by the Biden Administration to reclassify marijuana.

    “The decision clearly underscores this administration’s commitment to listening to constituents and demonstrates a willingness to recognize and accept real-world, category-wide scientific evidence, said Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association (VTA) in an e-mailed statement.

    “In light of today’s decision, VTA is encouraging other agencies within the Biden Administration, specifically, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to follow the similarly overwhelming body of evidence on the use of vaping products as effective harm reduction and smoking cessation tools for adult smokers.

    “In just the past year, FDA’s selective pattern of prioritizing politics over science has led to the approval of more than 650 new cigarettes. VTA reiterates its call for the FDA to follow suit with other agencies in the Administration to stop turning a blind eye to the overwhelming body of science proving the benefits of flavored nicotine options to Americans looking to quit smoking.”

  • Sales Dip at Scandinavian Tobacco

    Sales Dip at Scandinavian Tobacco

    Photo: STG

    Scandinavian Tobacco Group reported net sales of DKK1.95 billion ($281.97 million) for the first quarter of 2024, down 1 percent from the comparable 2023 period. Organically, net sales decreased 2 percent.

    Organic net sales growth in the company’s handmade cigars and next-generation oral product categories was offset by decline in machine-rolled cigars and smoking tobacco. The EBITDA margin was impacted by declining volumes in a seasonally small quarter, mix changes and investments in growth, according to the company.

    The group expects to deliver organic net sales growth and a material improvement in the EBITDA-margin in the second quarter, and maintains its full-year guidance.

    “Despite a slow start to the year and the first quarter profitability being impacted by mix, cost inflation and investments in growth, we maintain our expectations for the full year,” said CEO Niels Frederiksen in a statement.

    “Entering the second quarter, we expect the net sales development to improve and we expect to see a more normalized mix, which will impact profitability and cash-flows positively. In the quarter we have continued to execute our strategy with the opening of three Macanudo concepts stores and investments in our growth initiatives. Our growth enablers constituted around 11 percent of net sales in the quarter.”