Category: GTNF

Marewa Glover

Marewa Glover
Constraining the Overton Window
Marewa Glover, director of the Centre of Research Excellence on Indigenous Sovereignty and Smoking in New Zealand, drew analogies between the Covid-19 response and tobacco control. Smokers are a minority, and most people don’t care how they are treated, she said.
Now, however, with similar strategies being employed to achieve compliance with governments’ Covid elimination policies, many are balking at being subjected to similar disrespect for their autonomy. “The authoritarian restrictions on what they can do and the dirty looks when not wearing a mask where it is being advised […] If you have experienced any of that, now you know what it is like to be a smoker in New Zealand or a vaper in Sweden where the public have been incited by government to police and punish people who disobey the rules,” Glover said.
As in the formulation of antismoking policies, authorities have been cherry-picking their counsel in the fight against the coronavirus, according to Glover. “Many public health experts have advised against lockdowns because of psychological and economic losses,” she said. “But their voices have been ignored—a familiar pattern from tobacco control.”
Glover warned that Covid has been exploited by power-hungry governments to blast open the Overton Window—the range of policies acceptable to society. “A public health argument now starting to be voiced is that if government and the public were willing to do what they had to do to eliminate Covid, then they should allow public health to employ similarly excessive strategies to end smoking and all nicotine products,” she said.
Glover further noted that New Zealand rammed through its new vaping regulation during the first lockdown. “We had to prepare and submit concerns during lockdown,” she noted. “Those who wanted to present to the Health Select Committee overseeing the proposed legislation had to do it via Facebook live—a prohibitive process for many.”
While New Zealand came out of the “quit-or-die-versus-harm-reduction brawl” better than Australia or India, according to Glover, she described the legislation as a “highway to prohibition.” Unlike tobacco, which can still be sold in corner stores, vapor products may be sold only in specialized shops, which require a license, she said. “The Ministry of Health can change the rules or increase the fees at any time, allowing it to strangle the vapor industry out of existence.” New Zealand, she cautioned, is not a model to be followed.
October 23, 2020
The Fight Against Illicit Trade

Where next?
Illicit cigarette trade causes an annual worldwide revenue loss that is estimated at $40 billion to $50 billion, which means that about 600 billion cigarettes, or 10 percent of global consumption, comprises illegal product.
The European Union (EU) is one of the major targets, with illicit cigarette consumption in 2019 amounting to 38.9 billion cigarettes, or 7.9 percent of all cigarettes smoked in the region. With €7.8 billion to €10.5 billion per year, the profit of illicit cigarette trade is comparable to that of the cocaine or heroin markets, making it a “crime enabler” and financer of organized crime and terrorism.
Over the past years, the nature of illicit cigarette trade has changed: The countries of origin are increasingly located in the Middle East. Today, the fakes are primarily cheap whites manufactured closer to their destination markets, with the number of illicit factories in the middle of Europe having risen significantly.
In response to this trend, Europol has adapted its structure. The EU law enforcement agency now works closely with liaison bureaus in all EU member states, according to Simone Pierre di Meo, senior specialist, head of office and project manager of Analysis Project Smoke at the European Financial and Economic Crime Centre for Europol.
As the cash flow generated by illicit trade activities is huge, Europol has come to focus on tracking the money. In June, the agency launched a European economic and financial crime center that is aimed at strengthening the cooperation between EU member states to promote the consistent use of financial investigations to combat illicit crime.
In the fight against contraband cigarettes, getting the support from the public is essential. The nongovernmental organization (NGO) Crime Stoppers International supports law enforcement efforts to prevent and solve crime by mobilizing citizens to anonymously share information about suspected illegal activity. According to CEO Shane Britten, the organization will, over the next 12 months, focus on raising governments’ awareness of the links between illicit trade syndicates and groups involved in criminal activities, such as human trafficking, wildlife smuggling or terrorism.
Attempts to curb smoking through disproportionate tax increases has provided fertile ground for illicit trade. Malaysia provides a cautionary tale: As of August 2020, 65 percent of the country’s tobacco market was illegal, according to Cormac O’Rourke, general manager of Japan Tobacco International (JTI) Malaysia.
Before a significant tax hike in 2015, contraband cigarettes accounted for around 35 percent of the market; since then, the country has become the country with the world’s least affordable legal cigarettes. A sophisticated system of illegal syndicates, which have been able to infiltrate state agencies, has made it difficult to tackle the problem. Illicit cigarette trade costs the Malaysian government approximately $1 billion in lost tax revenues annually. The country has a coastline of almost 4,700 kilometers. Most illegal cigarettes are brought into Malaysia on container ships from countries such as Indonesia, China and Vietnam.
Declared as nontaxable transshipment goods destined for a third country, they are not examined by customs. Instead of being shipped to their destinations, however, the smokes are smuggled into Malaysia. The practice is called transshipment. To address the long-standing issue, Royal Malaysian Customs in January 2020 established a multi-agency task force, which has paved the way for a public-private sector partnership.
The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to further aggravate the global cigarette contraband situation. A report commissioned by JTI, which was conducted across 50 countries where tobacco smugglers currently have a strong presence, found that the global public health crisis and financial downturn has contributed to a “perfect storm” where organized criminal groups will further exploit public demand for cheap goods and capitalize on dwindling buying power in the impending global recession, particularly in countries with high tax regimes.
As Ian Monteith, JTI’s global anti-illicit trade operations director, pointed out, criminal gangs were biding their time in readiness for an anticipated boom in illegal tobacco sales. They then quickly exploited the inconsistent approach to travel and lockdown rules and found alternative routes from production to distribution, and they used the limited supply in legal cigarettes brought about by changed law enforcement priorities and border restrictions.

October 1, 2020
Europe/Africa Stream

Global tobacco harm reduction trends and policies, sustainable growth, next-generation products (NGP) and illicit trade were at the core of discussions in the European/African stream of this year’s Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF). Covid-19, which continues to impact our daily lives and turned the industry’s annual get-together into a virtual event, was also a major theme—the pandemic unexpectedly added a new dimension to the role of nicotine, revealing potentially beneficial traits of the alkaloid.
Early in the outbreak, scientists observed that smokers were underrepresented among patients hospitalized with coronavirus infections. Since then, research has suggested that nicotine may prevent the disease from taking a severe course that requires hospitalization. Some believe the substance may even reduce the risk of contracting Covid-19 in the first place. Clinical trials have been set up with both smokers and nonsmokers to examine the value of nicotine in the fight against the coronavirus.
The pandemic has also provided an opportunity to show the potential of the tobacco plant as an efficient producer of vaccines. Protecting nearly eight billion people against the coronavirus will require a multiple vaccine product and vaccine manufacturer approach. Tobacco plant-based vaccines have several advantages over conventionally developed vaccines, including high fidelity in virus gene expression and fast availability and stability at room temperature, which is likely to make them an important pillar in immunization strategies. To date, several biotech companies—among them British American Tobacco’s subsidiary Kentucky Bioprocessing and Philip Morris International’s affiliate Medicago, along with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok (see “Joining the Race,” page xx)—have developed Covid-19 vaccine candidates from tobacco plants that have all been successful in preclinical testing.
Whether in traditional or plant-based vaccine development, Covid-19 has meant a great disruption to scientists who have the ethical responsibility and now need to have the courage to do research including society, a panelist claimed. It has also moved forward the interaction between politics and science. In terms of tobacco, consumers’ increasing focus on health during the pandemic is hoped to help accelerate the transition to reduced-risk products (RRPs) as the intensified interest in science could encourage evidence-based policies and acceptance of tobacco harm reduction (THR).
Rocky road to harm reduction
Presently, THR policies continue to vary greatly between countries. The debate on the value of THR interventions remains ideological and emotional, which continues to hinder a constructive dialogue. While some progress has been made on the acceptance of alternative tobacco products, as evidenced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authorization of several products, there’s still a long way to go, with events such as last year’s EVALI crisis and the recurring “gateway” discussions impacting the process negatively.
To drive THR, RRPs should be seen and pitched as complimentary to traditional smoking strategies, such as nicotine-replacement therapy, a panelist suggested, whereas at the same time more quality research and especially more local scientific research are needed to enable informed, context-specific, risk-proportionate regulatory policies. Particularly developing countries, which look to the World Health Organization (WHO) for guidance, are still deprived of THR options.
Judging from a recent European WHO report and the fact that RRPs were discussed at the last Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s (FCTC) Conference of the Parties, though, panelists were optimistic that the organization will soften its stance toward THR in the future, finally acknowledging that RRPs could benefit public health. A major hurdle to the acceptance of THR within the WHO, however, is the conflict of interest caused by state ownership of tobacco companies, according to one panelist. Almost 50 percent of the global tobacco industry is controlled by eight governments—China, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam—which are at the same time signatories to the FCTC. In total, there are 18 countries where governments own 10 percent or more in tobacco companies. Seventeen of these countries have endorsed the FCTC—an unethical issue the WHO refuses to address, according to one speaker.
Harm reduction could be an interesting opportunity for governments to escape this conflict as the choice would not be between all and nothing as with the WHO’s current abolitionist stance. To enable the acceptance of THR, it would be necessary to amend the FCTC, which was launched at a time when RRPs were in their infancy.
The greatest irony, according to one panel member, is that even as the WHO has excluded the tobacco industry from debate, FCTC signatories owning the world’s largest tobacco companies are allowed to help shape regulations. He singled out five conditions required for the acceleration of a framework for THR: an evidence-based approach, proportionate regulation that is enforceable for the regulator and understandable to the consumer, the freedom to innovate and to market new products, an engagement and dialogues involving stakeholders that society can understand, and responsible marketing to the consumer.
Contraband
The prevailing strategy to curb cigarette consumption with repeated and often disproportionate tax hikes has prepared fertile ground for illicit trade, and the associated damage is often underestimated. Illicit tobacco trade is a “crime enabler,” funding gangs and terrorism, for example. About 600 billion cigarettes, or 10 percent of annual global consumption, are estimated to be illicit, amounting to worldwide revenue loss between $40 billion and 50 billion.
In the EU alone, illicit cigarette traders generate profits of between €7.8 billion ($9.19 billion) and €10.5 billion annually. However, the nature of the black market for tobacco products in the EU has changed in recent years, with the countries manufacturing cheap whites getting closer to their destination markets and the number of illicit factories rising in central Europe.
In response, the EU police authority, Europol, has adapted its structure and now works closely with liaison bureaus in all EU member states. In the U.K., the organization Crimestoppers International is educating the public on the consequences of buying tobacco from illegal sources.
Following a steep tax hike in 2015, Malaysia now has the world’s most expensive cigarettes relative to purchasing power. As a result, contraband product today accounts for 65 percent of its tobacco market. There is a sophisticated system of illegal syndicates, which have the resources to infiltrate state agencies. One strategy to tackle the illicit cigarette trade problem is to “follow the money.” Indonesia, China and Vietnam supply most of the cigarettes sold illicitly in Malaysia, which itself is just a transit market for illicit products destined for Australia. Experts have called for closer cooperation among law enforcement agencies, private-public partnerships, harmonized national legislation and tax moratoriums.
A more sustainable supply chain
With the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) set to become mandatory by 2030, sustainability of the leaf supply chain remains an important theme for the tobacco industry. Increasingly, authorities are including human rights considerations in their regulatory frameworks. When violations occur, companies are not only liable but also risk reputational damage. Over the past years, tobacco companies have stepped up their efforts to support the most vulnerable link in their supply chains—tobacco farmers. A large percentage of the world’s tobacco is cultivated by small-scale farmers in low-income and middle-income countries.
In 2016, all major global cigarette manufacturers and leaf suppliers adopted the Sustainable Tobacco Program (STP), an industry-wide initiative aimed at bringing together best practice from across the industry and driving continuous improvement. The program covers areas such as sustainable farming, agrochemicals, soil and water management and actions that can be taken to prevent child labor, forced labor and to create safer working environments. It is aligned to external standards, such as those of the International Labor Organization, and gets guidance from Coresta and the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development. The initiative is currently being reformed to attract more industry stakeholders.
To meet the unique challenges tobacco represents to sustainability and social responsibility, panelists called for a joint approach with unified standards.
What investors want
Investors too are increasingly interested in sustainable growth. Thus far, tobacco stocks have hardly been associated with environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. Benefiting from an addictive, highly profitable and recession-resilient product, they were valued primarily for being strong performers and offering generous dividends.
Over the past three years, however, most tobacco shares underperformed. While the combustible cigarette sector, despite risks such as increased regulation and declining smoking rates, has traditionally offered investors predictability, this has changed with tobacco companies’ stronger focus on NGPs. Developments over the next years are therefore difficult to predict, an analyst commented, but hopes are that investors will eventually get more comfortable with the uncertainty—and promise—of RRPs.
To become a more sustainable industry attractive to investors, panelists argued, the tobacco industry needs to be more regenerative and inclusive. The pace of its transformation toward harm reduction will also be important. Tobacco companies need to involve consumers, hear what they want and offer them more choice.
The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World’s Tobacco Transformation Index, which debuted shortly before the GTNF, was considered a good starting point. As a benchmarking exercise, it could become an incentive for companies to accelerate innovation in NGPs.
While both RRPs and a sensible regulatory framework are expected to come to most countries eventually, it remains limited to developed countries for the time being. Only once developed markets mature for these products are companies likely to start looking for new, emerging markets.
Channeling innovation
Innovations will be the crucial factor in the tobacco sector’s journey toward risk reduction. While the next big innovation in NGPs is impossible to predict, panelists agreed that e-cigarettes have revolutionized the consumption of nicotine, bringing about a realm of new developments in a short time compared to decades of stagnation in the combustible cigarette segment. In contrast to the early years when much innovation came from consumers, the leading companies are now the source of novel developments. Advances are expected in heating technology, prevention of youth access and automation of the manufacturing process, which would make RRPs more affordable.
Regulations and enforcement are essential in the transition toward harm-reduced tobacco products, but they also risk stifling innovation. Speakers cited the FDA’s approval process for novel tobacco products in the U.S.—on the one hand, the costly, long-winded authorization procedures are expected to drive smaller vapor companies out of business. Innovation in the future, a panelist argued, will focus more on demand of the existing consumers and follow FDA approval requirements. On the other hand, regulation will also allow companies to plan innovation rather than rush into something, making market entry a more meaningful, thought-through process.

October 1, 2020
Roberto Sussman

Vapor products didn’t begin to take hold in Latin America until 2009. They took the region by surprise. Everyone, including regulators and tobacco industry controllers, were “caught with their pants down,” according to Roberto Sussman, senior researcher and lecturer at the National University of Mexico and founder and director of Pro-Vapeo.
“The reaction was pure panic,” he says. “Tobacco controllers immediately wanted to prohibit the devices. The WHO [World Health Organization] was also afraid of them. In Mexico, tobacco controllers and a lot of physicians pressed a regulatory agency called COFEPRIS to ban them outright.”
In 2012, Mexican officials banned the marketing of e-cigarettes. However, Mexico’s tobacco laws were designed to ban candy cigarettes not regulate a market disruptor, according to Sussman. In 2015, the Supreme Court in Mexico ruled that the ban on marketing was unconstitutional. Now, Mexico, along with many other Latin American countries, has what is referred to by Sussman as “a tolerated nonregulation,” where regulators, tobacco control entities and other public bodies have become the “visceral opposition and [purveyors of] nasty misinformation campaigns.” The regulators started to take the same approach as the WHO, explains Sussman.
“These are nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies and associated charities like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, acting in synergy with small but influential groups of health professionals clustered in the tobacco control sections of government public health institutions. But at the same time, despite all this, the usage of the devices became socially accepted,” he explains. “It was tolerated even in many indoor spaces. Vaping started to boom. In Mexico, we estimate that we have 1.5 million vapers.”
Speaking during the 2020 Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF), Sussman told attendees that Mexico also has its own small, self-regulating vapor industry that produces e-liquids. Like many other countries, Latin America gets its hardware from China. While rules are fluid from country to country, Sussman says vaping was still helping people quit combustible cigarettes. This meant vaping itself was not a big concern for the most authorities.
In the last five years, the vapor industry in Latin America has changed, says Sussman. E-cigarettes are illegal in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay. These are the countries with the strictest rules against vaping. Vapor products are legal [with heavy restrictions] in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Columbia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Chile and Panama. Regulators, however, still did not see regulation as a priority in any of these countries. “The products were in a sort of nonregulation gray area,” Sussman says. “Regulators had better things to do and a lot of other things going on.”
Then, two events further changed the course of the vapor industry, especially in the region’s largest market, Mexico. First, says Sussman, the Mexican people elected Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and his MORENA party is now in control of both houses of congress. Mexico had not seen this degree of centralization of political powers since 1997.
“One of the most powerful officials in the government of Lopez Obrador is Dr. Hugo Lopez-Gatell. He’s an epidemiologist, and he has strong links with the Pan American Health Organization and with Bloomberg Philanthropies. He’s also the health minister. And at the same time, together with this appointment was a massive increase of lobbing activity by Bloomberg Philanthropies in the whole region,” says Sussman. “This [is] how Bloomberg works in our countries. First, they set up NGOs that they use as lobbying machines. This lobbying is done through the WHO or the Pan American Health Organization. Now, health ministries and government, they get grants from Bloomberg, but they will never say [that].”
Second, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced they had reason to believe a dangerous, newly identified lung disease was linked to vaping. The acronym EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury) was born.
“The use of EVALI to spread fear [of] nicotine vaping in Mexico and in Latin America was particularly crude, dishonest and more intense than in other places. Up to this day, all officials of the health ministry in Mexico are still blam[ing] nicotine vaping,” says Sussman. “And when you try to engage them, they say, ‘No, no, no. That’s it. Full stop. End of discussion.’ That’s it.” EVALI has since been found to be caused by illegal THC vape pens not nicotine-based e-cigarettes. Sussman says no one has told Latin America.
The misinformation surrounding e-cigarettes and their role in EVALI persist. Earlier this year, Mexico’s president signed legislature prohibiting the importation, manufacture and distribution of all noncombustible tobacco products, including heat-not-burn products. “Their justification was that we need to protect Mexican youth from EVALI. Given the proximity of the U.S., this epidemic can come to Mexico any time,” says Sussman. “Pure fear-mongering, and they’ve refused all debate.”
Sussman says the true objective of prohibition is to prevent the tobacco industry from introducing noncombustible tobacco products. Regulators and anti-vaping groups also want to destroy the existing distribution network of vape shops and the emerging local e-cigarette industry. “Like all regulations surrounding vaping products, this is failing because vaping still operates in Latin America and in Mexico not exactly through black markets, but through the informal sector,” explains Sussman. “And it is very widespread. Nevertheless, the WHO will praise the Mexican government for implementing this ban.”
Then came the Covid-19 pandemic. Now these same groups have begun to blame the spread of Covid-19 on vapor products, even though there is no record of any vaper being hospitalized or progressing to severe stages of the disease or death. Even combustible smokers are underrepresented, according to several studies.
Now, according to Sussman, more regulations and more enforcement are on the horizon. This time, The Union, a global scientific organization that says it is working to improve “health for people in low-[income] and middle-income countries” (LMICs) is stepping into the fray. Sussman says the group plan for vapor regulations is a “pernicious technocratic fantasy that is completely detached from the realities of smokers and health institutions” in Latin American countries. The Union’s plan is simple: total prohibition.
The Union justifies outright prohibition with arguments allegedly based on the need to comply with the tobacco control policy advice of the WHO’s Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC), an international treaty on tobacco regulation sponsored by the WHO, which has been signed by more than 180 countries, including most LMICs. At first glance, these arguments might look reasonable, but a closer look reveals that they are real recipes for disaster, says Sussman.
October 1, 2020
Oral Tobacco

New oral tobacco products have the power to dethrone cigarettes as the leader in nicotine delivery.
Think of combustible cigarettes as dinosaurs. Regulators want them to become extinct. Next-generation oral tobacco products are like the furry little animals scurrying about under the feet of the dinosaurs. These small creatures have the potential to take over when the dinosaurs are gone.
This analogy was presented to attendees of the recent Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF) by health behavior consultant Cheryl Olson while moderating the panel “Oral Tobacco Products — The Road Less Travelled … Until Now?” Olsen said that oral tobacco products are growing in market share and are less-risky alternatives to combustible cigarettes. However, getting consumers to make the switch to any less-risky product is difficult, especially an oral product that doesn’t mimic any of the properties of a combustible cigarette.
Karl Fagerstrom, clinical psychologist at the Smokers Information Center in Sweden, said that a cigarette and an oral product are very different objects, and it can be difficult for smokers to switch from a cigarette to a pouch-style product that is designed to be held between the upper lip and gum. Smokers become addicted to the mouth feel and other properties of the cigarette, not just the nicotine. “The reason for this difficulty is that an individual’s dependence to a drug or whatever is tied to a product. Our brains are not craving an invisible substance but the object that contains the substance,” he explained. “In many circumstances, the individual may not even be aware of the dependence to the substance.”
George Adams, cardiologist for Rex Healthcare at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said that the behavior that goes into the thought process of people who smoke is more personalized than what most people would think. He explained that there are different reasons that people smoke and use these different types of nicotine-delivery systems. He said that a major difficulty in getting smokers to switch are the misconceptions surrounding nicotine in general.
“There’s multiple different products. There are multiple technologies out there. Going from smokeless tobacco products to vaping, gums, pouches, tablets. I mean there’s a whole host of them rather than just the combustible cigarettes that we commonly know,” he said. “As a practicing physician, the thing is that we are not educated on these types of different products. When we think about beneficial effects of choosing products, to help our people who smoke, that causes detrimental effects.”
Doctors are untrusting of the tobacco community, according to Adams. This has led to a disconnect between the science conducted by tobacco companies and health professionals. “I think it’s a detriment to the patients not to have a collaborative effort between the two entities to figure out the best solutions [to help people quit smoking]. We [doctors] are ignorant. We don’t have enough education in terms of the products that are out there and the benefit that they could possibly offer [to our patients],” said Adams. “We know that nicotine is a stimulant; how it affects at the cellular level. And there’s a large group of us—or physicians—that believe that all nicotine products are the same.”
Fagerstrom said that the misconceptions surrounding nicotine are a detriment to public health. He said that many physicians and consumers wrongly believe that nicotine “causes cancer … is causing cardiovascular disease. He believes these misconceptions are the main reason next-generation tobacco products like oral have such difficulties gaining mainstream acceptance.
Adams agreed that many doctors wrongly believe nicotine causes cancer. This makes it difficult for them to recommend any product that contains nicotine, even if a product is 95 percent less harmful than traditional cigarettes. He said the mistrust between the tobacco and health communities runs deep, and doctors do not understand all the different types of nicotine-delivery systems. “It’s a lack of education,” he said.
Mohamadi Sarkar, scientific and regulatory strategist at Altria, said that oral tobacco products have been shown to be safer than combustible cigarettes. He said the vision of oral products is grounded in the foundation of the continuum of risk, which has not only started to gain acceptance in public health but has also been embraced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “Combustible products are in the extreme end, and noncombustible products, including inhaler and oral products, are on the other end of the spectrum.”
Sarkar showed attendees the results of a study he conducted on harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHCs) in oral products compared to traditional cigarettes. “The levels of many of the HPHCs are either not detectable or below levels of quantification. Harmful carcinogens and [other chemicals] are not even detectable,” he explained. “It’s not surprising that these products will completely either eliminate or substantially reduce the exposure to HPHCs, and if this is sustained on a long enough time period, we expect that they would also see a reduction in smoking-related diseases.”
Olsen said she conducted two primarily web-based surveys for another oral tobacco product. She said that her studies found that 43 percent of the never-smokers perceived a high or very high risk of getting a serious illness from using [the oral product] versus 18 percent of smokers not planning to quit,” she said. “And similarly, half of the smokers not planning to quit saw low or no risk versus a quarter of the never-smokers.”
Adams said the solution is education. The FDA needs to allow for better communication about the levels of risk in different types of tobacco products. Nicotine is dangerous and addictive, but if you [are] going to use nicotine, consumers should be able to choose the safest delivery method. “That is a testament to the lack of education that we have across the spectrum. You can’t just group everything together,” he said. “There may be a benefit with certain patient populations to get them off combustible cigarettes … but if you have a closed mind and your shutters are up, you’re never going to have the opportunity to help those patients because you don’t believe in them. It’s a lack of education.”
October 1, 2020
Innovations on the Horizon

In their comparatively short time in the market, electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) have revolutionized the consumption of nicotine. While the next big thing in the category remains anyone’s guess, the continuous developing pipeline of these products shouldn’t be underestimated. In the early days, a lot of innovation was inspired by consumers; these days, new developments mostly come from the leading ENDS manufacturers.
Regulations across the world have so far been rather friendly toward innovations, creating an open atmosphere for the industry to innovate, noted panelist Ming Deng, a professor at Yunnan University. In the U.S., the world’s largest market for e-cigarettes, which is often pointing the way for policymaking in other countries, all innovations are now regulated under the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) guidance.
Critics say the long-winded, costly PMTA approval process was inherently designed to stifle innovation. Jon Glauser, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Demand Vape, believed the market would adjust but that it would take time for U.S. consumers to get new products.
Eve Wang, vice president of Shenzhen Smoore Technology Co., expected future innovation in the U.S. to focus more on demand of the existing consumer following FDA approval requirements. She was confident that U.S. consumers would still have choices for devices and e-liquids as companies could plan innovation rather than rushing into something.
James Xu, CEO of Avail Vapor, said that with FDA approval as a barrier, small players would disappear, but bigger players would invest more. Furthermore, they were able to collect data in, for example, Asian markets in order to access the U.S. market. Development of new products, he stated, now was a more meaningful, thought-through process.
While the time PMTA orders take to be processed (they can take up to two years) represents a major hurdle for innovations to be marketed, the guidance has led to significant investments in ENDS manufacturers’ in-house lab facilities, enabling them to better evaluate their products. Due to FDA regulation, the amount of scientific data and studies on ENDS has increased significantly, which panelists hoped would contribute to the public’s understanding and differentiation between ENDS and combustible cigarettes.
For the switch from cigarettes to ENDS, flavor bans or partial bans in the U.S. were counterproductive, according to the panelists. A large variety of flavors offering former smokers more choice is pivotal to the category as only a small percentage of first-time switchers is interested in tobacco flavors. Besides, studies have shown that smokers who start using ENDS without tobacco flavors are more likely to stay away from combustible cigarettes. The benefit of flavor bans, however, was that they forced e-liquid manufacturers to work on their tobacco flavor liquids, Deng said. If that happened, he predicted a switch time 10 times as high as the current one.
As far as ENDS sales in 2019 and 2020 are concerned, Glauser spoke of a perfect storm: Last year’s EVALI crisis, followed by partial flavor bans, PMTA regulation and the Covid-19 pandemic, have had quite an impact on the U.S. vapor industry. Jonathan Ng, global head of external affairs for Relx Technology, criticized the misinformation spread during the EVALI crisis, saying that more consumer education was needed and required to be allowed. For the better information of the public, Deng suggested publications on ENDS in leading magazines such as Nature whereas Glauser saw the responsibility of consumer education with the industry.
October 1, 2020
Population Modeling

Population modeling has a major influence on the regulatory framework of tobacco products.
Population modeling is a key component in meeting regulatory requirements for traditional tobacco and next-generation tobacco products, such as oral and electronic nicotine-delivery system products. Population modeling is a complex process that requires vigorous fundamental procedures for safeguarding clean data, proper computing platforms, suitable resources and effective communication.
Saul Shiffman, senior scientific advisor of behavioral science, study design and analysis at Pinney Associates, said population health is at the center of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) framework for regulating tobacco products.
“We want to understand what the impact is of the entire population. And that includes people who perhaps are intended to use the product, such as the adult smokers, and people who are not intended to use the products, so those former smokers or perhaps youth,” said Shiffman. “So, there’s a balance of benefits and harms, and the purpose of modeling is to integrate all of those to look at the net effect.”
Although there are many ways that researchers can implement population models, the basic principles are simple, according to Schiffman. The model defines the transitions or flows between the stages of tobacco use (going from being a never smoker to a smoker and going from being a smoker to being an abuser of cigarettes). “We start with a model that’s referred to as the base case—that is, what does the world look like now before a policy change or product introduction?” he explains. “And then, we contrast that to [a] counterfactual case, which is basically what do we expect to happen once this policy change or product introduction is implemented?”
Everyone models. They just do it very informally, said Shiffman. “If you [or] someone has ever thought to themselves, ‘How much does the harm that a new product might do to youth compare to the benefit to adult smokers?’ you’re doing modeling,” he said. “You’re just doing it nonquantitatively, intuitively. [What experts] have done is to do it very systematically and quantitatively.”
Ray Niaura, professor of social and behavioral science for the College of Global Public Health at New York University, said that conventional statistical analyses of data gathered is all about the past. It’s analyzing what happened, and by definition, the results are the results—it’s over and done with. However, population modeling is very different.
“It’s very hard to look at what happened in the past and project that into the future without a formal toolbox and framework to do that, and that’s what modeling represents,” he said. “It’s really the tools that allow us to go from the past to the future, the multiple futures. Any other statistical analysis just does not permit it. So, that’s why population modeling is a great set of tools.”
Population models are based on complex algorithms, according to Ryan Black, senior director of psychometrics, analytics and methods at Juul Labs. However, at its core, it’s quite straightforward.
“It really is. It’s posing the question whether or not—in the tobacco regulatory research—more people are going to move down the continuum of harm versus move up, and it does a fair assessment, taking into account both beneficial pathways—that is, cigarette smokers switching exclusively to noncombustible products as well as initiation, as well as relapse,” he said. “But a model is only [as] good as its inputs.”
Benjamin Apelberg, director of the Division of Population Health Science at the Center for Tobacco Products in the Office of Science at the FDA, said that Black touched on one of the more challenging questions faced by tobacco companies: trying to understand how new products, novel products, are going to behave once they’re on the market.
“Ultimately, it tends to be a kind of triangulation of different types of information that can be informative in a premarket setting. Sometimes we see actual use studies, so over a short period of time trying to understand how consumers respond to a product. We’ve seen experimental studies, consumer perception studies trying to understand at least the marketing and the positioning of a product.”
Schiffman said that while modeling is a powerful tool, it isn’t perfect. He said an example of the fallacies can be seen in most surveys pertaining to youth use. “I’m thinking here not about publications, but what’s in the press often neglects the fact that when they’re talking about use, they’re talking about any use in the past 30 days,” he said. “Someone who had a puff on a friend’s cigarette at a party is counted as a user, and that obviously leads to confusion because that has no health impact, and yet it’s what we count as use.”
According to David Levy, professor of oncology at Georgetown University, models become useful in not what they tell researchers but in that they suggest what is important. “We live in a world that can be simplified … what models can do is get us started thinking about what factors are important,” he said. “They ultimately tell us what pathways are important.”
October 1, 2020
Communication

The modified-risk tobacco product (MRTP) authorization comes with challenges. The brand needs to communicate its message to adult smokers without allowing youth to misconstrue the risks of using nicotine products. That is the conundrum faced by the two companies who currently have MRTP authorizations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
During the Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF) held in September, Robyn Gougelet, director of health policy and regulatory strategy at Pinney Associates, moderated a panel representing 100 percent of the companies that have earned an MRTP designation: Swedish Match and Philip Morris International (PMI). Currently, three other products are under MRTP review by the FDA: 22nd Century’s low-nicotine cigarettes, Camel brand snus and Copenhagen snuff.
The panelists agreed that the MRTP authorization is complicated for consumers to understand. Consumers may think a product is safe or “FDA approved,” and this is not true. So, manufacturers are challenged to find a way to explain what the MRTP order means without confusing the consumer. The message must also be conveyed in a way that does not entice youth to try the products. The panelists said that none of the organizations they represent have perfected the process of communicating the MRTP’s complicated messaging. However, “helping people to understand how this process works is imperative,” said Gougelet.
Clifford E. Douglas, director of the Tobacco Research Network and an adjunct professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said that tobacco companies have to navigate a difficult path in collecting youth data. Douglas said he could not offer any advice on how tobacco companies should proceed, and he was “unclear on [any] best approach” to collect the youth data. “In the end, there has to be careful attention given to what is happening with youth use of products and the dynamics of youth use,” he said. “It also has to be done in real time … the data on youth use, it moves month-to-month.”
In a note on its website, the FDA states that to receive an MRTP order, a company must establish that submitted modified-risk data for a product is supported by scientific evidence, which shows “the product (as actually used by consumers) can significantly reduce the harm and risk of tobacco-related disease to individual tobacco users as well as benefit the health of the population.” Gougelet says that companies struggle with helping consumers understand the claims being made as well as the potential risks.
Tryggve Ljung, vice president of scientific affairs at Swedish Match, which received an MRTP authorization for its General brand snus products last year, says that while he understands why the Swedish Match claim reads like it does—it’s very evidence based—he fails to grasp how the message can be effective from a communications viewpoint.
In June of 2014, Swedish Match filed an MRTP application for its General snus brand. It was the first such application to ever be accepted for review by the FDA. In mid-December 2016, the FDA responded to the 135,000-page document. The regulatory agency decided to defer any decisions on whether to allow the company to claim the products cause less harm than cigarettes or whether to allow removal of a warning that the products may cause mouth cancer.
Then, on Oct. 22, 2019, the FDA announced for the first time that it had authorized the marketing of products through its MRTP pathway. The authorization order allowed Swedish Match to market these specific products with the claim, “Using General Snus instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.”
The FDA stated that it had made this authorization after reviewing scientific evidence submitted by the company that supports the claim. To help prevent youth access and exposure, the agency also placed stringent advertising and promotion restrictions on the products, including a requirement to restrict advertising to adults.
“It has helped to transform the company and the market,” Ljung told attendees. “It was a learning experience for both us and the FDA … it’s changing the industry.”
There are two types of MRTP orders the FDA may issue: a “risk modification” order or an “exposure modification” order. PMI’s IQOS tobacco-heating system was the second product to receive an MRTP and the first tobacco product to receive “exposure modification” orders, which permits the marketing of a product as containing a reduced level of or presenting a reduced exposure to a substance or as being free of a substance when the issuance of the order is expected to benefit the health of the population.
Moira Gilchrist, vice president of strategic and scientific communications at PMI, says the important aspect of the MRTP order is that it allows for exposure reduction communication, information PMI believes can help guide consumer choices toward less risky products.
“The IQOS authorization was a validation for what we set out upon as a viable path … IQOS has the potential to not only benefit health across the United States but also around the world,” explained Gilchrist. “The decision was an important milestone for our industry overall. Now we have a really clear example of evidence-based decision making that was done in an inclusive and transparent way and really clearly recognizes a continuum of risk.”
Gougelet said that the MRTP review is one of the most transparent regulatory processes. A company’s MRTP application is available for the public to review. The application also goes before the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee, a panel created to provide advice, information and recommendations to the FDA commissioner on matters related to the regulation of tobacco products. “It is important for everyone to remember it didn’t end with a ‘yes’ decision. There is continual oversight,” she explains. “In order to remain on the market, we have to be able to show that the product is appropriate for public health through its entire life cycle.”
The MRTP authorization requires the company to conduct post-market surveillance and studies to determine whether the MRTP orders continue to be appropriate, including assessing the potential for increased use among youth. Ljung said that Swedish Match has been carrying out its post-market study, but “it’s too early to say” what the data shows about consumer understanding of the MRTP authorization. Gilchrist said that PMI has submitted its plans for post-market surveillance to the FDA. She added that even though the company has not seen any data to support an uptick in youth use in other countries where IQOS is available, “we still think about it every minute of every day.”
Gilchrist added that people in public health were caught by surprise by the FDA’s decision to approve an MRTP application, especially the Swedish Match decision (because it was the first). She said she can understand why public health groups are cynical about large tobacco companies, but there is a general misunderstanding about how these products can help adult smokers and the guardrails the FDA put in place to prevent youth use and to stay abreast of developments to prevent it from happening. “Why this visceral reaction to hard work by scientists to figure out if a product is a benefit to public health?” she asked.
Douglas suspects U.S. tobacco control organizations view any FDA campaign placing e-cigarettes or heated-tobacco products in competition with combustible cigarettes as support for tobacco companies. “If the industry favors it, it immediately becomes suspect,” he says. “There are strong feelings about distrust on both sides.”
Another worry for both regulators and tobacco companies is that the “public in general, not to mention the medical community, suffers from a significant misunderstanding” of nicotine, according to Douglas. This is supported by a recent study from Rutgers University, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, that concluded that most specialists from fields that treat lifelong smokers believe that nicotine contributes to cancer, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
“As long as people are under the misconception [of] the effects that nicotine has physically and pharmacologically and the role it plays in different products … it is going to, to put it bluntly, is going to screw up this whole process,” he said.

October 1, 2020
BAT Calls for “Whole Society” Approach to Policymaking

Kingsley Wheaton (Photo: BAT)
British American Tobacco’s (BAT) Chief Marketing Officer Kingsley Wheaton called for meaningful change in the way that global tobacco and nicotine policies are developed. He stressed the need for a United Nations-style “whole of society” approach to policy development and emphasized the benefits that this more stakeholder-inclusive tobacco harm reduction approach could deliver.
Speaking at the first virtual GTNF, Wheaton also outlined the progress that BAT is making in transforming its business and pursuing its purpose to build “A Better Tomorrow.” He emphasized how a focus on innovation, transformation and sustainability is helping to accelerate change.
Highlighting the positive role that the industry’s expertise and science can and should play, Wheaton set out a five-point framework to accelerate progress toward more effective tobacco harm reduction policies, including: an evidence-based approach, allowing robust science to lead to greater consumer choice, quality and confidence; proportionate regulation where science-based relative risk is understood and differentiated to guide regulatory policy; freedom to innovate to ensure products can evolve to meet changing consumer preferences; engagement, dialogue and communication to ensure regulators and consumers can make well-informed decisions; and responsible marketing freedoms that facilitate the acceleration of movement of consumers from combustible to noncombustible products.
“At BAT, consumer-led innovation and product science are central to achieving our ‘A Better Tomorrow’ purpose,” says Wheaton. “We aim to reduce the health impact of our business through offering a greater choice of less-risky products to our consumers. We believe that a multi-category approach that includes e-cigarettes, tobacco-heated products and modern oral nicotine pouches is the most effective way to appeal to the diverse preferences of adult consumers around the world.
“However, the key to accelerating the movement of smokers to less-risky alternatives cannot be solved by our industry alone. We need a seat at the harm reduction table to discuss these issues directly and openly with all stakeholders—including regulators and public health professionals alike. Only through collaborative efforts can we develop effective regulatory solutions that will enable real choice for consumers whilst still serving tobacco-related public health objectives.”
September 23, 2020
Thank You!

The 2020 GTNF would have been impossible without the support of these generous sponsors.
TR Staff Report
In a crowded field of tobacco and nicotine events, the Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF) stands out. It is one of the few forums that brings together all stakeholders, including regulators and public health advocates, for a respectful dialogue and constructive exchange of ideas. The GTNF would not be possible without the support of our generous sponsors. We are honored to recognize them below.
Alliance One International is a tobacco leaf supplier that offers customers high-quality leaf they can trust. With more than 145 years of agricultural experience and customers in approximately 90 countries, Alliance One International purchases tobacco from a network of more than 300,000 farmers worldwide to produce products that are sustainable and fully traceable. Visit the company’s website at www.aointl.com.
Altria Group holds diversified positions across the tobacco, alcohol and cannabis industries. Through its wholly owned subsidiaries and strategic investments in other companies, Altria Group seeks to provide category leading choices to adult consumers while returning maximum value to shareholders through dividends and growth. Altria Group’s tobacco companies include Philip Morris USA, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co., John Middleton and Nat Sherman. Altria owns an 80 percent interest in Helix Innovations. Altria holds equity investments in Anheuser-Busch InBev, Juul Labs and Cronos Group. Visit the company’s website at www.altria.com.
Based in Richmond, Virginia, USA, Avail is a premium retailer that offers a broad array of products online and in its 97 stores across 12 states. The company delivers on the promise of quality and transparency. Information on Avail products is available through its retail stores and on the web at www.availvapor.com.
BMJ is the world’s No. 1 partner for specialty paper and packaging materials in the cigarette industry. BMJ produces cigarette paper, plugwrap paper, base tipping paper and printed tipping paper with standard weights of 18 grams to 40 grams per square meter. As a printing packaging company, BMJ represents high-quality packaging utilizing both rotogravure and offset. Visit BMJ’s website at www.bmjpaperpack.com.
Boegli-Gravures designs, develops and manufactures stateof- the-art embossing tools and solutions for an exacting worldwide clientele. The company’s combination of artistic vision and engineering excellence has brought it recognition as a world leader in high-precision embossing and as an original equipment manufacturer supplier. The secret of Boegli-Gravures’ success lies in the company’s vision and passion for innovation. Visit www.boegli.ch for more information.
British American Tobacco (BAT) is a leading multicategory consumer goods business. Its purpose is to build “a better tomorrow” by reducing the business’ health impact through offering a greater choice of enjoyable and less risky products. BAT’s ambition is to increasingly transition revenues from cigarettes to noncombustible products over time. BAT employs more than 53,000 people, operates in more than 180 countries and has factories in 43 of those countries. The company’s strategic portfolio comprises its global cigarette brands and a growing range of potentially reduced-risk products. These include vapor, tobacco-heating products, modern oral products, including tobacco-free nicotine pouches, as well as traditional oral products such as snus and moist snuff. In 2019, the BAT Group generated revenue of £25.8 billion ($33.86 million) and profit from operations of more than £9 billion. Visit BAT’s website at www.bat.com.
Broughton Nicotine Services (BNS) is a privately owned global contract research organization (CRO) offering fully integrated end-to-end services to deliver U.S. premarket tobacco product applications, EU medicinal product applications and EU tobacco product directive notifications. Its business culture is to continue to invest in new science and innovations. By partnering with BNS, clients will know they have access to some of the most experienced electronic nicotine-delivery system project managers and scientific professionals in the world combined with regulatory compliant CRO laboratory facilities committed to developing safer nicotine products. Find the company’s website at www.broughton-ns.com.
CNT is the world’s largest supplier of highly purified tobacco-derived nicotine to the pharmaceutical and e-cigarette industries. In addition to offering pure nicotine and derivatives such as Nicotine Polacrilex, CNT supplies pure synthetic S-Nicotine. The processing is done in Switzerland by CNT’s exclusive contract manufacturer, Siegfried, under pharmaceutical current good manufacturing practices. Complimentary to its nicotine platform, CNT is one of the world’s leading suppliers of sustainably produced tobacco leaf. For more information, visit http://nicotineusp.com.
Headquartered in Austria, Delfort is a global leader in tailor-made specialty papers. In addition to thin print paper, release base paper, food packaging paper and electrical applications paper, the company manufactures a complete portfolio of top-quality cigarette paper, plugwrap paper, tipping base paper and printed papers. By utilizing pure and certified raw materials with the most advanced equipment, Delfort ensures that its products meet the most stringent quality requirements. For more information, visit www.delfortgroup.com.
Part of Smoore, Feelm is a high-end atomization technology brand, a world leader in atomization. Focused on cutting-edge atomization technology research, Feelm also specializes in the development and manufacturing of high-quality atomization devices driven by Feelm black ceramic coil with metallic film. As the research engine of the global electronic atomization industry, Feelm delivers premium experience. Ever since the successful development of Feelm black ceramic coil in 2016, Feelm has had a significant impact on the research and manufacturing of closed vapor products, changing the whole competitive landscape. Feelm has won several domestic and international awards, including a Golden Leaf Award in 2018, a China Patent Award and the iF Design Award in 2020. For more information, visit www.feelmtech.com.

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Imperial Brands is a dynamic global business borne out of a strong tobacco heritage. Its core business is built around a tobacco portfolio that offers a comprehensive range of cigarettes, fine-cut and smokeless tobaccos, papers and cigars. As nicotine consumption trends continue to evolve, Imperial has broadened its portfolio to proactively transition adult smokers to next-generation products, potentially harm-reducing innovations that deliver nicotine without tobacco combustion. Visit www.imperialbrandsplc.com.
Japan Tobacco International (JTI) is a leading international tobacco and vapor company with operations in more than 130 countries. It is the global owner of Winston, the world’s No. 2 cigarette brand, and Camel outside the U.S. and has the largest share in sales for both brands. Other global brands include Mevius and LD. JTI is also a major player in the international vapor market with its Logic brand and its tobacco vapor brand Ploom. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, JTI employs more than 44,000 people and was recognized with a Global Top Employer award for the sixth consecutive year. JTI is a member of the Japan Tobacco Group of Companies. For more information, visit www.jti.com.
Juul Labs was founded with the goal of helping to transition the world’s 1 billion adult smokers away from combustible cigarettes. The company believes that vapor products can offer adult smokers an alternative to combustible cigarettes and, in so doing, reduce the harm associated with tobacco. At the same time, Juul Labs also knows that providing an alternative to adult smokers is at risk if it comes at the expense of underage use. The company is committed to helping adult smokers transition away from combustible cigarettes while combating the serious problem of underage use. Visit the company’s website at www.juullabs.com.
Philip Morris International (PMI) is leading a transformation to ultimately replace cigarettes with smoke-free products to the benefit of adults who would otherwise continue to smoke, society, the company and its shareholders. PMI manufactures cigarettes as well as smoke-free products and associated electronic devices and accessories and other nicotine-containing products in markets outside the United States. In addition, PMI ships a version of its IQOS Platform 1 device and its consumables authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to Altria Group for sale in the U.S. under license. PMI is building a future on a new category of smoke-free products that, while not risk-free, are a much better choice than continuing to smoke. Through multidisciplinary capabilities in product development, state-of-the-art facilities and scientific substantiation, PMI aims to ensure that its smoke-free products meet adult consumer preferences and rigorous regulatory requirements. PMI’s smoke-free IQOS product portfolio includes heat-not-burn and nicotine-containing vapor products. As of June 30, 2020, PMI estimates that approximately 11.2 million adult smokers around the world have already stopped smoking and switched to PMI’s heat-not-burn product, available for sale in 57 markets in key cities or nationwide under the IQOS brand. Visit www.pmi.com and www.pmiscience.com for more information.
Founded in January 2018, Relx is Asia’s leading e-cigarette brand. Relx’s mission is to empower adult smokers through technology, product and science ethically. Relx independently develops its e-cigarette products at its CNASstandard R&D center and continues to make significant investments in R&D, e-liquid testing and new product development to deliver the best possible experience to its adult users. To protect minors from accessing e-cigarette products, Relx developed the guardian program, a companywide initiative that stretches from product development to sales and marketing, leveraging cutting-edge facial recognition technologies, GPS data and cloud technologies. The company has attracted global talent from Uber, Proctor and Gamble, Huawei, Beats and L’Oreal. Visit https://relxnow.com for more information.
Smoore is a global leader in offering vapor technology solutions, including manufacturing vapor devices and vapor components for heat-not-burn products on an original design manufacturer basis with advanced R&D technology, strong manufacturing capacity, wide-spectrum product portfolio and diverse customer base. According to Frost & Sullivan, Smoore was the world’s largest vapor device manufacturer in terms of revenue, accounting for 16.5 percent of the total market in 2019. For more information, visit www.feelmtech.com.
Turning Point Brands continues to grow and evolve to meet changing consumer preferences. Along with a tobacco portfolio that features iconic, historic brands such as Zig-Zag and Stoker’s, the company has expanded into the vapor and tobacco alternative segments with innovative brands such as VaporBeast, VaporFi, Vapor Shark, RipTide and Nu-X. A highly effective sales force and distribution network ensure that consumers, retailers, partners and shareholders benefit from these products. Visit www.turningpointbrands.com for more information.
For more than 100 years, Universal Corp. has been finding innovative solutions to serve its customers and meet their agriproducts needs. The company built a global presence, solidified long-term relationships with customers and suppliers, adapted to changing agricultural practices, embraced state-of-the-art technology and emerged as the recognized industry leader. The company conducts business in more than 30 countries on five continents and employs more than 20,000 permanent and seasonal workers. Visit the company’s website at www.universalcorp.com.

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September 1, 2020