Category: Flavors

Cyprus Government to Ban Flavored HTPs

Image: Arid Ocean
The Cyprus government is moving to ban the sale of flavored heated-tobacco products (HTPs) following the Ministerial Council’s decision to adopt the relevant European legislation, according to In-Cyprus.
HTPs still allowed on the market will have to apply special warning labels and images to packaging, which will align the packaging with that of conventional cigarettes.
The aim of these changes is to “harmonize national legislation with European directives, as today’s Ministerial Council approved an amendment to regulations regarding the withdrawal of certain exemptions for heated-tobacco products.”
The council decided on the “extension of the ban on the sale of tobacco products with characteristic aroma/flavor or containing aromatic substances in any of their ingredients and on heated-tobacco products.”
“It was also decided to include verbal warnings/notifications about the harmful effects of smoking on the packaging of heated-tobacco products. These warnings will be accompanied by deterrent images.”
“In the legislation for smoking control, established in 2017, these products were exempted, and the sale of conventional cigarettes and rolling tobacco that contained aromatic substances in their ingredients was prohibited,” said Health Minister Popi Kanari. “With these regulatory amendments, the sale of heated-tobacco products containing aromatic substances in any of their ingredients is prohibited beyond conventional cigarettes and rolling tobacco.”
“The amendment does not apply to vaping products that contain liquid but only to the category involving heated-tobacco products in which cigarettes with aromatic substances are placed,” said Kanari.
September 21, 2023
Menthol Rule Expected ‘in Coming Months’

Photo: Luis Pinto
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will finalize its rules to prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars “in the coming months,” according to a spokesperson quoted by CBS News.
When the FDA in April 2022 announced that it was going to ban the flavor, it set a deadline of August 2023 to work out the details. However, the agency made no announcements last month.
While the number of people who smoke cigarettes in the U.S. has fallen to historical lows, the proportion of people who smoke menthols has been increasing, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Tobacco companies insist there are better ways to reduce the health impact of smoking than banning menthol in cigarettes. “Evidence from other markets including Canada and the EU where similar bans have been imposed, demonstrates little impact on overall cigarette consumption,” Luis Pinto, vice president of corporate communications and media relations at Reynolds American Inc., told CBS News in an e-mail.
Experts say that even when the FDA enacts a nationwide ban, it could be many years before it goes into place, as tobacco companies are likely to challenge the measure in court.
September 4, 2023
Romania Bans Flavors for Heated-Tobacco Products

Image: Dancing Man
Last month, the Romanian government enacted Governmental Ordinance No. 23/20.07.2023 amending and supplementing the Romanian Tobacco Law (GO 23). The move bans all flavored heated-tobacco products.
The law takes effect on Oct. 23, 2023.
Prior to enacting GO 23 under the framework of Romanian Tobacco Law, only cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco were subject to the prohibition of characterizing flavors and containing flavorings in any of their components, such as filters, papers, packages, capsules or any technical features.
The aim of GO 23 is to extend this prohibition to heated-tobacco products and to impose more restrictive requirements on packaging and labeling of such heated-tobacco products, according to media reports.
For the first time, GO 23 enacts a legal definition of “heated-tobacco products,” which refers to “a novel tobacco product that is heated to produce an emission containing nicotine and other chemicals, which is then inhaled by user(s) and that, depending on its characteristics, is a smokeless tobacco product or a tobacco product for smoking.”
This definition will include any type of vaping devices that entail heating of tobacco in view of obtaining an inhalable emission containing nicotine and other chemicals.
Heated-tobacco products with any type of “characterizing flavor,” such as menthol, fruits, etc., will no longer be allowed in the Romanian market.
Additionally, each unit of and any outside packaging of heated-tobacco products must carry the mandatory message: “Tobacco smoke contains over 70 substances known to cause cancer.”
GO 23 also states that each unit packet and any outside packaging of heated-tobacco products for smoking must carry combined health warnings that observe all the requirements set out in art.
All producers and importers of heated-tobacco products in Romania must notify the Romanian Health Ministry within 90 days after the enactment of GO 23.
August 25, 2023
Industry Group Lobbies Against Flavor Ban

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The Russian Union of Nicotine Industry Enterprises (Spini) has called on the government to exclude food flavorings and nicotine salts from the list of active ingredients and additives that are expected to be banned by the Ministry of Health for issues of nicotine dependence, reports ECigIntelligence.
Representatives of Spini, which has more than 50 members, have sent a corresponding letter to the minister of finance asking for the exception to the ban.
August 22, 2023
Flavors Help Smokers Quit

Image: Tobacco Reporter archive
People are more likely to quit smoking combustible cigarettes by vaping if they receive help choosing the right flavor, plus supportive messages, according to new research reported by Filter.
The journal Addiction recently published a study conducted by London South Bank University (LSBU) that involved 1,214 eligible participants who were heavy smokers and expressed interest in quitting by using vapes. The researchers recruited these participants through social media.
They then tested five remote interventions aimed at helping people switch—mostly online surveys that produced recommendations based on individual responses. The interventions were “tailored device selection advice; tailored e-liquid nicotine strength advice; tailored e-liquid flavor advice; brief information on relative harms; and text message (SMS) support.”
“Simple tailored advice on selecting a flavor along with supportive text messages could increase quit rates by 55 percent,” said Lynne Dawkins, professor of nicotine and tobacco studies at LSBU and one of the study authors.
By offering different groups of participants different interventions (including all or none of them), the study sought to determine which combination was most effective.
“In the adjusted model,” the researchers concluded, “the only significant interaction was a two-way interaction, advice on flavor combined with text message support, which increased the odds of abstinence [from cigarettes].”
August 14, 2023
Warning Against ‘Mimic Menthols’

Photo: Esser
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should choose the wording of its intended ban on menthol cigarettes carefully to prevent the emergence of substitute products, according to Maciej Goniewicz, a professor of oncology at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s department of health behavior.
A study carried out by Roswell Park revealed that several nonmenthol cigarette brands introduced in California after that state banned flavored cigarettes in December 2022 contain synthetic chemicals to mimic menthol’s cooling effects.
“Synthetic cooling chemicals that may cause sensations similar to menthol have been reported recently in various tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches,” said Goniewicz, who contributed to the research, in a statement. “This is the first study to discover that synthetic cooling chemicals were added to conventional cigarettes marketed after the implementation of statewide menthol restrictions.”
The researchers measured the content of menthol and 15 other cooling chemicals in the new non-menthol cigarettes sold in California and compared those concentrations to similar products with “menthol” labels available in New York State, where menthol cigarettes are not banned.
Among other things, they found that two non-menthol brands marketed to appeal to menthol smokers were available only in California, which according to the researchers suggests that these products are new to the market and marketed to fill the sales void created by the ban on menthol cigarettes.
With the exception of one variety, menthol was not detected in any cigarettes sold in California. However, while WS-3, a synthetic cooling chemical, was not found in any cigarettes sold in New York, the agent was detected in four types of cigarettes in California that included package descriptions implying a cooling effect.
The study results led Goniewicz to conclude that the wording the FDA uses in its regulation will be important. “Otherwise, if the law says simply, ‘You cannot use menthol,’ the manufacturers may do exactly what we found in California—they will use menthol substitutes, and the product will remain on the market,” he said.
August 10, 2023
Quebec Flavor Ban to Begin in October

Image: Arcady
Quebec’s flavor ban will take effect Oct. 31, according to Vaping360.
The ban will include vaping products with flavors other than tobacco and will prohibit e-liquid sold in bottles with a capacity greater than 30 mL and prefilled devices with a capacity greater than 2 mL.
The flavor ban was announced in a draft published in April. More than 30,000 citizens of Quebec commented on the proposed ban, according to the Quebec Vaping Rights Coalition, but the health ministry reportedly didn’t make any changes to the rules in response.
Quebec is the largest province in Canada to pass a flavor ban. Four other provinces and territories have flavor bans in place, and one has passed a ban but has not set an effective date yet. Three other provinces restrict flavored products to adult-only stores.
August 4, 2023
Biden Opposed to Limiting Flavor Regs

Image: Tobacco Reporter archive
The Biden administration has published a Statement of Administration Policy outlining its opposition to parts of a proposed funding bill that would limit the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to ban flavored cigars and menthol cigarettes, reports Halfwheel.
The proposed bill would prevent the FDA from receiving funding if it introduced bans on flavored cigars and menthol cigarettes or introduced rules limiting the amount of nicotine a product can have.
The Statement of Administration Policy is not binding. It does not mention the nicotine cap either.
August 3, 2023
FDA Grant to Study Effects of Flavors

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given the Center for Tobacco Research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center a $3.9 million grant to evaluate the effects of e-cigarette flavors on smoking behaviors of current adult smokers, according to News Medical Lifesciences.
The study will be co-led by Theodore Wagener, director of Ohio State’s Center for Tobacco Research, and Tracy Smith from the Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center.
Wagener says, “the FDA must decide how to balance its goals of protecting young people and offering harm-reduction options to adults. This new trial will generate critical data to help make more informed public health decisions that have a lasting impact.”
“The FDA is currently making regulatory decisions about e-cigarette flavors with incomplete scientific data,” Wagener said. “Existing data show that smokers also prefer flavored e-cigarettes, and while there are a few survey studies suggesting that flavored e-cigarettes may be more helpful for switching to vaping, these studies are not rigorous enough for the FDA to base its regulatory decisions on. Our study will be the first to provide the FDA with definitive information as to the benefit, if any, of e-cigarette flavors to adult smokers.”
The national, randomized, controlled trial will recruit up to 1,500 cigarette users from across the country, and researchers will measure e-cigarette flavor impact on product uptake and appeal, cigarette craving, symptoms, dependence and smoking behavior. Combination nicotine-replacement therapy will be used as a comparator to determine potential increased benefit of e-cigarettes versus nicotine-replacement therapy.
“If our study demonstrates no significant improvements in switching with flavored e-cigarette use, then the continued sale of these products is likely indefensible; however, if improvements are significant, these findings will provide a critical counterweight to the current FDA regulations and will aid future decision-making,” Wagener said.
July 13, 2023
Germany to Ban Flavored Products

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The German Bundesrat approved a third amendment to the Tobacco Products Act, which would ban flavored heated-tobacco products, according to Dokumentations und Informationssytem fur Parlamentsmaterialien.
The amendment includes “alignment of EU rules banning flavorings and distinctive flavors in heated-tobacco products; definition of the heated-tobacco product and its classification as a smoking tobacco product or smokeless tobacco product, extended labeling requirements in the form of combined text and image warnings and an information message, extension of the ban on placing cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco with a characteristic flavor on heated-tobacco products; [and] amendment of various sections of the Tobacco Products Act,” according to the German Bundestag website.
July 11, 2023