Category: Harm Reduction

Critics: TPD Proposals Would Ban Most Vapes

Photo: areporter
The Independent European Vape Alliance (IEVA) has expressed concern about “the content and the tone” of the European Commission’s recent report on the application of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), which suggests that further restrictions on vapers might be proposed.
According to the IEVA, the effect of the commission’s proposals would be to ban most vaping products on the market today.
“While the commission is careful not to say it out loud, its proposals would effectively ban most vaping products available today,” the organization wrote in a press release. “It suggests revising all the unjustifiable limits the last TPD set downward, removing most flavors and banning many of the devices commonly used today. Vapers in the EU would lose most of the products they use to stay away from cigarettes today. A flavor ban alone would, according to the commission’s own figures, remove two-thirds of today’s vaping market.”
The IEVA says the report fails to acknowledge the concept of harm reduction. “The report fails to acknowledge any of the evidence on the relative risks of vaping and smoking,” the IEVA wrote. “This is despite member state governments running campaigns trying to encourage smokers to switch to vaping. Sante Publique France, for example, has launched an anti-smoking campaign called ‘Je choisis la vapotage’ (‘I choose vaping’), which makes clear that ‘you can use vaping products without taking short-term health risks.’ The commission must take account of best practice in the EU, not ignore it.”
Some of the report’s proposals on vaping, says the IEVA, could also lead to more young people smoking.
“Shortly after this report was published, Yale University released the first real world study on the effect of flavor bans on youth smoking prevalence,” the IEVA stated. “In the city of San Francisco, flavored vaping products were banned in 2018. Since then, smoking has doubled among high school students in the area relative to trends in districts without the ban, even when adjusting for individual demographics and other tobacco policies. This study was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products. There was no industry involvement in the study.”
The IEVA says the report insufficiently focuses on the real enemy of public health—smoking. “While the commission does question whether the nicotine threshold for vaping products should be lower, it has brushed aside calls from members of the European Parliament to adapt the method for measuring tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in cigarette smoke,” the IEVA wrote. “This combination of policies would ensure that cigarettes deliver far more nicotine—an addictive substance—than vaping products. While there have been no reported deaths in Europe caused by vaping TPD-regulated products, smoking kills half of its regular users.”
June 7, 2021
A Solid Foundation

Photo: Auremar
The transition to less harmful nicotine products will succeed only if investors buy into the concept.
By George Gay
It is probably reasonable to suggest that in a fully rational world, it would not be difficult to raise investment funding for companies trying to reduce the incidence of tobacco smoking around the world. After all, smoking, we are told, is extremely harmful to the health of smokers and those around them. Therefore, if you reduce the incidence of smoking, you reduce the harm done to smokers while reaping wider societal benefits.
But we don’t live in a fully rational world. Reviewing in the London Review of Books in 2019, Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Soren Kierkegaard, by Clare Carlisle, Terry Eagleton made the point that while Kierkegaard and a number of other thinkers would have accepted the idea that without reason we perish, they believed there was something more fundamental than reason shaping the way we think: power, desire, emotional bonds …
Raising money, even for good causes, has never been a simple matter.
One company with skin in this game is London-based Idwala Research, which offers research and advisory services aimed at promoting global tobacco transformation and harm reduction. In an email exchange in April, Managing Director Pieter Vorster told Tobacco Reporter that part of Idwala’s offering comprised advising companies on their capital-raising activities. “Before approaching potential investors, it is critical to develop a clear investment thesis, which requires a deep understanding of its business model and how it is positioned or likely to be positioned within the tobacco harm reduction product (THRP) universe and the evolving regulatory framework,” he said.
Idwala’s clients are typically smaller businesses and startups since large corporations, tobacco companies in particular, generate strong cash flows and finance their own THRP activities. On the other side of the equation, meanwhile, Idwala focuses its search for potential investors based on where the company seeking funding is in its development life cycle and on the amount of capital it is looking to raise. Potential investors include high-net-worth individuals, venture capital funds and private equity funds.

ESG considerations are generally only applied once risk/return criteria are met.
Pieter Vorster, managing director, Idwala Research
Seeking returns
So what are these potential investors looking for? Are they interested mainly, perhaps entirely, in the level of return they might expect, or do they take, in part or in whole, an “ethical” view: either being repulsed by the presence of “tobacco” in the acronym THRP or drawn to its “harm reduction?”
“Ultimately,” said Vorster, “funds flow to where investors perceive the best returns for a given level of risk. ESG [environmental, social and governance] considerations are generally only applied once risk/return criteria are met, which means that whilst companies may be excluded from a portfolio on ethical grounds, they are unlikely to be included unless they also offer attractive returns.”
It is true, however, that some potential investors object to investing in anything related to tobacco and nicotine regardless. “To some extent, this is understandable,” said Vorster, “given the abstinence-based rhetoric evangelized by the likes of the Bloomberg Foundation and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Still, it results in a golden opportunity to accelerate both tobacco industry transformation and global harm reduction potentially being missed.”
And in answer to another question, Vorster added that, by making nicotine, rather than smoking, the enemy, organizations such as the World Health Organization were actively denying millions of smokers access to safer alternatives and, in doing so, perpetuating entirely avoidable smoking-related deaths. “This, sadly, also filters through to how many investors approach the sector,” he said.
Active engagement
But it is not all doom and gloom, and Vorster pointed out that last year’s launch of the Tobacco Transformation Index by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World had marked a key development in the process of industry transformation by encouraging investors to engage actively with publicly traded tobacco companies about change.
According to a note on the Idwala website, the biennial Index ranks the top 15 global tobacco companies on their relative progress toward harm reduction. “It aims to accelerate tobacco harm reduction by encouraging industry participants to speed up the implementation of measures that will improve their relative ranking,” the note says. “In addition, it seeks to provide investors with an objective tool for engagement with the industry.
“For the Index to have its desired effect, tobacco companies would need to perceive value from improving their index ranking, and, for investors, it needs to provide the tools that enable them to engage more effectively with the industry to bring about change. In time, we believe both could be achieved…”
Theoretical projections are all very well, but potential investors are likely to be convinced about the value of a new project also if similar projects have provided reasonable returns in the past. So the questions arise as to how past THRP developments have been funded and whether they have produced returns good enough to allow past performances to be used to convince potential investors?
“The tobacco industry—PMI and BAT in particular—has invested heavily in these products, which has all been financed from internal resources,” said Vorster. “There is a strong positive correlation between the contribution from reduced-risk products to sales and the valuation multiples tobacco companies trade on, principally because these revenues are growing much faster.
“Financing of nontobacco industry investment has come from a mixture of entrepreneurs’ own capital, friends and family, venture capital as well as private equity. There have been some notable successes, especially for early investors in some of these ventures. When Juul sold 35 percent to Altria, it valued the business at $37 billion, and Smoore International, which listed in Hong Kong last year, is currently also valued at $37 billion. Even RLX, whose share price has declined significantly since it listed in the U.S. in January, is still valued at $14 billion.”

There is a strong positive correlation between the contribution from reduced-risk products to sales and the valuation multiples tobacco companies trade on.
Pieter Vorster, managing director, Idwala Research
One apparent problem with the transition to THRPs is that it moves from one environmental concern—cigarette butts—to another—batteries, and the question arises whether this is a negative issue as far as some investors were concerned.
“It is bound to become an issue as sales of these products grow, and it is not only batteries that would be of concern,” said Vorster. “Disposable pods and nicotine liquid bottles are all nonrecyclable and are becoming a growing litter challenge. Furthermore, heated-tobacco products typically use filters similar to those found in filter cigarettes.”
At the same time, could it be the case that potential investors might be wary of the latent success of at least some THRPs because they possibly provide a route for smokers to transition through these products to abstinence and, therefore, are part of an endgame for both combustible cigarettes and THRPs?
“Potentially, yes,” said Vorster, “but there is no evidence to suggest that this is happening. Global nicotine use is rising, even though smoking is declining. In part, this is down to consumers having more opportunities to use these products than they do smoking cigarettes. It is also plausible to suggest that lower health risks would attract consumers to the category who would otherwise have avoided smoking.”
In offering the services it does, Idwala has nailed its colors to the THRP mast, and it seems fair to ask whether it has similarly strong views about the range of current THRPs. Does it believe, for instance, that vapes are more efficacious and less controversial than HnB products containing tobacco? Or does it believe tobacco harm reduction should be taken in the direction of oral pouches using synthetic nicotine?
“I believe all these products, and ones we don’t yet know about, have a role to play if they help consumers avoid the harm caused by smoking,” said Vorster. “What works for one doesn’t for another. The closer a product is to a cigarette, the more likely a smoker will initially switch to it. Over time, these same users may choose to distance themselves from tobacco whilst others may want to do so from the start. Synthetic nicotine is still nicotine and, currently, significantly more expensive to manufacture.”
From vision to reality
Idwala envisions an environment where persistent and broad-based tobacco harm reduction becomes a reality in both developed and emerging markets. “A prerequisite for this is an acceleration in the transformation of the mainstream tobacco industry combined with the continued growth of new enterprises adept at driving innovation,” the company’s website says. “This needs to be underpinned by sensible regulatory and tax regimes …
“Broad availability of reduced-risk products that appeal to smokers, and those who otherwise would have smoked, will require sustained and substantial investment.
“Ultimately, the pace of transformation and harm reduction will be a function of the quantum of investment into these products. In turn, this will depend on the potential risks and returns associated with these investments…”
This all sounds very plausible, but how confident is Idwala that enough potential investors will be found to finance within a reasonable time all the future developments necessary to push forward significant levels of tobacco harm reduction, and what part would Idwala play in uncovering that funding?
“On the assumption that the regulatory environment is conducive to the expansion of THR, which is by no means a minor assumption, funding will be available for opportunities that offer investors attractive risk-adjusted returns,” said Vorster. “With annual retail sales of combustible tobacco products exceeding $800 billion, there is no question of the potential market being big enough.
“How successful a given product is will firstly depend on how satisfying it is to consumers. The closer the sensorial experience and nicotine delivery to a cigarette, the more likely smokers will switch. But it also needs to be widely available at a price that doesn’t result in consumer resistance whilst delivering margins that generate the returns required by investors. Does the product have a competitive advantage over others, is this a sustainable advantage, and is its IP protected and defendable? These are all important additional factors that drive potential returns.
“Regulatory risk is a fact of life in tobacco and also tobacco harm reduction. As an emerging category, reduced-harm products are arguably subject to more regulatory uncertainty, and many investors find this hard to navigate. For those who are adept at understanding and pricing regulatory risk, extra-normal returns are obtainable.”
Finally, Vorster said that Idwala would play as big a part as the market allowed it to do. “Finding funding is the culmination of first identifying opportunities that we view as attractive, advising these businesses on strategy, regulatory developments and the competitive landscape as they evolve and helping them develop their investment proposition,” he said. “We furthermore aim to support the development of THR by contributing to the debate through our blog, conference appearances and research projects and by providing a financial markets’ perspective to THR activists and organizations.”
George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.

June 1, 2021
Permission to Speak

A court ruling allows German e-cigarette retailers and manufacturers to tell customers that vaping is less unhealthy than smoking.
By Stefanie Rossel
In Germany, the concepts of tobacco harm reduction (THR) and relative risk haven’t quite arrived yet. Several representative surveys show that more than half of the population, especially smokers, mistakenly believe that e-cigarettes are at least as hazardous to health as combustible cigarettes. But perhaps things will get better: A recent court ruling allows vapor companies to set the record on e-cigarettes straight in their communications with consumers.
In February 2021, the Koblenz higher regional court cleared the way by overturning a May 2020 ruling by the Trier District Court. The case originated with a campaign to convert smokers by a Trier e-cigarette retailer, Michal Dobrajc, who is also executive chairman of German e-cigarette association Verband des e-Zigarettenhandels (VdeH). In mid-2019, Dobrajc placed billboards with the slogan “E-Ziga retten Leben—jetzt umsteigen.” The catchphrase is a pun on the German verb “retten” (to save) and means “E-cigarettes save lives—switch now.”
The German center for protection against unfair competition considered this misleading advertising and sued Dobrajc. The center argued that the advertisements suggested that e-cigarettes were harmless and that switching would save smokers’ lives. It argued that the campaign could convince nonsmokers that vaping products didn’t present health risks. The Trier District Court found in favor of the plaintiff and ordered Dobrajc to cease advertising with the slogan.

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Dobrajc appealed, and the Koblenz court came to a different result. The catchphrase, the court noted, did not contain any incorrect statements regarding the main characteristics of the advertised products. The advertisements were therefore neither misleading nor unfair. What’s more, plenty of scientific studies documented that e-cigarettes had a significantly less harmful effect on health than combustible cigarettes, the Koblenz court said.
Assigning a life-saving effect to a product is justified when the advertised alternative product has a less hazardous influence on the human body than a conventional cigarette, the court claimed. If consumers switched to e-cigarettes, a decrease of the hazardous impact caused by combustible cigarettes was to be expected, an effect that fundamentally has the potential to decrease the number of severe diseases that could also lead to death.
The “Switch now” campaign, the court further argued, did not encourage nonsmokers to start vaping but was clearly directed at current smokers. The target group of the advertisement, the court found, was sufficiently clear. The court did not permit an appeal.

The recognition of e-cigarettes as a less hazardous product by a higher regional court is a milestone as it confirms the reduced risk and explicitly allows such statements as based on scientific evidence.
Michal Dobrajc, executive chairman, VdeH
Dobrajc welcomed the ruling. “The recognition of e-cigarettes as a less hazardous product by a higher regional court is a milestone as it confirms the reduced risk and explicitly allows such statements as based on scientific evidence,” he said. The ruling, however, has no effect on existing or planned advertising bans for e-cigarettes as products, he adds. “These can’t be advertised in Germany anymore, for example in print media or on the internet, and billboard advertising will soon be banned too.”
The ruling is nevertheless a positive development because it enables retailers and manufacturers to use advertising to highlight the reduced risk inherent to vape products. “The VdeH will continue to educate society and politics with independent scientific evidence on the chances of harm reduction,” says Dobrajc.
“Especially with a view to envisaged regulatory measures such as taxation of e-cigarettes [see sidebar] and the revision of the European Union’s Tobacco Product Directive, it is vital that politicians in particular comprehend the chances and listen to science. Every excessive regulation will impact on the perception of the population: ‘If something is particularly strictly regulated or highly taxed, it must be especially harmful for me,’” he notes.
“Our influence as an industry association is limited, but there must be a development that public authorities and especially the media turn away from their often dogmatic views characterized by personal ideology and start to inform in a differentiated and objective manner about e-cigarettes as a product. It’s the only way to bring about a turnaround in the perception of consumers, and we need to place a greater onus on politicians and the media.”
No sin tax for no-sin products
The German e-cigarette association Verband des e-Zigarettenhandels (VdeH) recently drew attention to the unintended consequences of a controversial vapor tax bill with an unusual initiative.
In March, Germany’s ruling coalition, largely driven by the social democratic SPD, proposed a tax on vape products and heated-tobacco products (HTPs) as part of a tobacco tax modernization initiative. The new tax would triple e-liquids prices from the current €5 ($6.03) per 10 mL bottle, making the products more expensive than conventional cigarettes. Germany’s finance ministry expects the measure to generate several hundreds of millions of euros in tax revenue per year.
On a huge screen in front of the Reichstag building, which houses Germany’s Parliament, de VdeH projected imagery depicting former smokers’ experiences with e-cigarettes and scientists’ findings on the products’ harm reduction potential.
VdeH Executive Chairman Michal Dobrajc called the planned tax a disaster in terms of health policy. “Studies have shown that the tax has no relevance for the protection of youths as prevalence of e-cigarette use has been at a consistently low level for years,” he said. “As a result of the horrendous price increase, consumption of adult consumers is expected to shift back to the much more hazardous combustible cigarette, according to a recent survey.
“Besides, it is also likely that no significant additional tax revenue will be generated but that jobs will be destroyed, and a lucrative black market will be created. German customs called the planned tax ‘a startup for criminals’ and ‘a stimulus package for smugglers.’ It is incomprehensible that valuable experience from other countries in this regard is being ignored and that Germany is attempting a solo run while at the same time consultations for a harmonization of e-cigarette taxation are taking place on European Union (EU) level and are intended to be finalized by 2021,” said Dobrajc.
Dobrajc cited Italy as an example of what happens when a country sets its vapor taxes too high. In 2014, Italy became the first EU country to tax e-liquids. And while its rate was only half of what Germany is envisioning, it turned out disastrous. Many vape shops closed while the black market flourished. In 2018, the government felt compelled to slash its vapor tax by 90 percent. Italy had collected only one twentieth of the tax it anticipated. Estonia and Hungary had similar experiences. Germany’s intended tax would be fivefold the EU average.
“With still 11 million smokers in Germany, the e-cigarette is the biggest health opportunity we have. We must take advantage of it. Every tax has a steering effect,” Dobrajc said. “But if this drives consumption back in the direction of the significantly more dangerous combustible cigarette, something is going completely wrong. Making e-cigarettes unattractive through a tobacco tax is like taxing green electricity like gasoline.” Taxation of vape products and HTPs, Dobrajc explains, should be based on scientific evidence and consider products’ relative risk profiles.
The projection in front of the Reichstag complemented the VdeH’s regular talks with parliamentarians in which the association seeks to convey knowledge about vape products. “Interest is growing,” noted Dobrajc. “An increasing number of politicians understand the context and set straight their perceptions of vape products and their health protection potential. As politicians attach more importance to scientific evidence, resistance against the draft law increases across all political groups. The parliamentarians think carefully whether they want to take on responsibility for an experiment at the expense of the health of millions of smokers.”
Dobrajc believes the initiative in Berlin has achieved its objective. “With the event, we showed that there is serious resistance against the bill and that our industry is looking for dialogue. And exactly this dialogue took place: During our demonstration, many parliamentarians were leaving the building, and we were able to have constructive exchange with them. This way we could also reach politicians who previously had perhaps not taken our written information into account.”—S.R.
Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.

June 1, 2021
Foundation Urges Smokers to Quit/Switch
Photo: auremar
Ahead of World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) on May 31, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) is urging smokers to quit or switch to harm-reduction products.
The fact that more than 1 billion people still smoke and 8 million annual deaths are attributed to tobacco use proves that health policies and actions have been inadequate, according to the FSFW.
“The challenges that smokers face when trying to quit have been largely ignored,” the foundation wrote in a press note. “The calls by the World Health Organization (WHO) for smokers to quit using fairly ineffective interventions suggest we need new approaches. Technology innovation, in the form of harm reduction, offers a new way forward for smokers that complements classic cessation efforts.”
“Since my involvement in the first WNTD in 1988, we have focused narrowly on cessation, often without engaging smokers in developing ways they feel work best. Too many efforts have failed because they have not addressed the fact that while many smokers want to quit, they are not being presented with options that appeal to them,” said Derek Yach, president of the FSFW.
“There is growing evidence that a range of harm reduction products, including e-cigarettes (vapes), snus, nicotine pouches and heated-tobacco products, can help smokers quit or at least substantially reduce their harmful exposure to combustible cigarettes. The WHO, supported by heavily funded Bloomberg Philanthropies grantees, continues to blindly ignore scientific evidence, vilifying these products instead of promoting their use to save lives.”
The FSFW cites a study published this week in The Lancet in which the authors say the current level of tobacco control policy implementation is insufficient in many countries around the world and that evidence-based policies are needed to reduce smoking. According to the foundation, the study ignores the role for tobacco harm-reduction (THR) products as part of tobacco control policy.
“This study was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which does not support the use of THR products as cessation aides,” said Yach. “This is likely one reason why they were not included in the report. Denying the value and benefits of THR products is irresponsible and blatantly discounts the research showing they can help smokers quit.”

There is growing evidence that a range of harm reduction products, including e-cigarettes (vapes), snus, nicotine pouches and heated-tobacco products, can help smokers quit or at least substantially reduce their harmful exposure to combustible cigarettes.
Derek Yach, president, FSFW
By contrast, The U.K. Royal College of Physicians (RCP) believes THR products should play a prominent role in tobacco control. In a recently released report, “Smoking and health 2021: A coming age for tobacco control?,” the RCP estimates that if the harm-reduction policies it advocated for in 1962 were adopted, smoking would have ended in the United Kingdom by now. The new report calls for doctors to play a more active role in helping their patients who smoke. “We argue that responsibility for treating smokers lies with the clinician who sees them and that our NHS [the U.K. National Health Service] should be delivering default, opt-out, systematic interventions for all smokers at the point of service contact,” the report’s authors write. The RCP also recommends that the U.K. government invest in media campaigns to urge smokers to switch from tobacco to e-cigarettes, which are less harmful. Governments and doctors worldwide should heed their advice.
A new report by BOTEC Analysis, a public policy research and consulting firm, finds that the availability of regulated alternative nicotine-delivery systems (ANDS) like e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products (HTPs), combined with traditional tobacco control efforts, such as tobacco taxes, smoke-free laws and cessation services, have helped to lower smoking rates in several countries. Titled “Investigating the drivers of smoking cessation: A role of alternative nicotine delivery systems?,” the report examines the policies in five countries that have long been considered international leaders in tobacco control: The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan.
According to the FSFW, BOTEC’s key findings presented interesting results per country, including:
United Kingdom: A leader in tobacco control, the country has proactively helped smokers switch to e-cigarettes, which have been shown to be 95 percent safer than combustible cigarettes. While the country has some of the highest tobacco prices in the world, the government has chosen not to tax e-cigarettes as tobacco products, making them less costly. Access to regulated e-cigarettes appears to also support smoking cessation services.
Canada: Following the introduction of e-cigarettes in 2018, there has been a significant decline in conventional tobacco sales. As stringent regulations and higher prices apply more to traditional cigarettes than e-cigarettes, smoking rates and tobacco purchases have collapsed, especially among young Canadians. Still, the country may be poised to reverse these successes with proposed regulations that would implement a new tax on e-cigarettes and cap the nicotine content of e-liquids.
Australia: The country succeeded in driving cessation with a combination of health warnings, tax increases and effective publicity campaigns. The government has implemented de-facto bans on harm reduction products, but many Australians continue to use smuggled and unregulated e-cigarettes, reporting a desire to quit or reduce smoking as a primary motivation.
South Korea: The country has more than 250 public health centers that provide comprehensive clinical services, including counseling, prescription medication, nicotine-replacement therapy and text/email follow-ups. Over six months, more than 800,000 adult male smokers used these clinics, with an estimated 46.8 percent quit rate. Despite the South Korean government’s disapproving stance toward ANDS, both e-cigarettes and HTPs appear to be aiding cessation.
Japan: Although Japan has imposed an excise tax on cigarettes and banned e-cigarettes containing nicotine, HTPs are widely available and increasingly popular. Moreover, the uptake of HTPs appears to be causally associated with a reduction in demand for combustible cigarettes. However, a lack of regulatory distinction between HTPs and combustible cigarettes appears to limit the numbers of smokers who shift to exclusive HTP use, so their effect on cessation may be muted, thus reducing HTPs’ potential to aid smoking cessation.
BOTEC Analysis is one of several FSFW foundation grantees that are spearheading research to uncover new solutions to combat this global health epidemic. The FSFW collaborates with other nonprofit, advocacy and government organizations to advance smoking cessation and harm reduction science. The FSFW also supports the development of alternative products and methods that may reduce a smoker’s health risks and help them to stop smoking entirely.
“In light of the billion smokers that remain, one may assume that the world has made little progress since the first WNTD three decades ago,” the FSFW concluded in its press note. “Yet, from a scientific and technological perspective, we have seen profound change. As a result of transformational research and development, we now have harm-reduction products that could end death and disease from tobacco. Still, innovation translates into saved lives only when smokers have access to the full range of cessation and harm reduction options. Thus, in the same way that the foundation calls on smokers to quit, it also calls on policymakers and physicians to embrace the tools that will help them do so.”
May 28, 2021
Celebrating ‘Safer Choice’ on Vape Day

Photo: Aliaksandr Barouski
Consumer advocacy groups in the Asia-Pacific region under the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) are joining the celebration of World Vape Day on May 30, with a call on the World Health Organization (WHO) and governments around the world to provide smokers with a better choice and spare them from almost 50 percent mortality rate linked to smoking.
“The World Vape Day is a celebration of personal stories of smokers who have found a humane way out of smoking thanks to the advent of innovative smoke-free products such as e-cigarettes, heated-tobacco products and Swedish snus,” said Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of the CAPHRA, in a statement.
This year’s World Vape Day highlights smoke-free products as “the better choice” to combustible cigarettes, which are linked to more than 8 million premature deaths each year among 1.1 billion smokers globally.
“We celebrate World Vape Day because it symbolizes hope for millions of smokers in Asia-Pacific and around the world who now have access to innovative nicotine products such as e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products that were not available in the previous decades,” said Loucas.
“Vaping is the safer choice based on our experience and on the numerous independent studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Along with heated-tobacco products, e-cigarettes are considered a part of tobacco harm reduction—a public health strategy which aims to provide alternatives to reduce risks caused by smoking cigarettes,” she said.
Loucas said these smoke-free nicotine products provide countries an opportunity to end the global problem of smoking. “We have an opportunity to save millions of lives by making the switch to better alternatives. It is also a reminder to governments and health authorities that smokers should be given the freedom of choice for their health and for their future,” she said.
Asa Saligupta, representative of Ends Cigarette Smoke Thailand, said that while World Vape Day is being celebrated in many countries, some nations like Thailand still prohibit the use of e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products (HTPs).
“In several Asian countries, vapers continue to face imprisonment and fines for making the switch to e-cigarettes, which were found to be at least 95 percent less harmful than traditional cigarettes. It is a violation of consumer rights for safer alternative products and accurate information about e-cigarettes,” he said.
I believe that vaping can achieve what existing tobacco control policies failed to accomplish in many years—end smoking.
Peter Paul Dator, president, Vapers Philippines
“But we remain hopeful that authorities will listen to science and give tobacco harm reduction a chance to make a difference in the lives of smokers who represent a fifth of the population in Thailand,” he said.
Saligupta noted that Public Health England, in its 2018 independent evidence review, concluded that “e-cigarettes are around 95 percent safer than combustible cigarettes.”
Peter Paul Dator, president of Vapers Philippines, said more than 50 million smokers around the world have already switched to vaping, which means they have significantly reduced their exposure to toxins and carcinogens found in tobacco smoke.
“This is because unlike cigarettes, vapor products and HTPs do not burn organic matter at very high temperatures and therefore do not produce toxic fumes. I believe that vaping can achieve what existing tobacco control policies failed to accomplish in many years—end smoking,” Dator said.
Dator pointed to the dismal smoking cessation rate of 4 percent in the Philippines, which he said reflects the ineffectiveness of existing smoking cessation strategies such as the “quit-or-die” approach. “Smoke-free products can help 16 million Filipino smokers quit smoking or switch to these less harmful alternatives,” he said.
Mirza Abeer, the founder of the Association for Smoking Alternatives in Pakistan (ASAP), said he could attest to the effectiveness of vaping as a part of tobacco harm reduction.
We advocate the adoption of scientifically substantiated smoking alternatives among adult consumers and policymakers.
Mirza Abeer, founder, ASAP
“Quitting smoking is a tough challenge to surmount, but e-cigarettes helped me and other smokers quit. Switching to vaping after smoking for 13 years resulted in my improved health. This also saved me from asthma attacks, and now I feel much better. I hope to share this personal experience to more than 15 million smokers in Pakistan so that they, too, will have a choice,” he said.
“As head of ASAP, we advocate the adoption of scientifically substantiated smoking alternatives among adult consumers and policymakers to help significantly reduce smoking rates in Pakistan and positively impact public health as soon as possible,” said Abeer.
World Vape Day is celebrated a day before World No Tobacco Day on May 31. CAPHRA said that with more than 50 million vapers worldwide and growing, the campaign is expected to gain ground in more countries in the coming years.
May 24, 2021
WHO Reiterates its Opposition to THR

Photo: Olrat
In the runup to World No Tobacco Day on May 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reasserted its abstinence-only approach to nicotine.
In a May 19 press release titled “Quit tobacco to be a winner,” the WHO said that the tobacco industry has “promoted e-cigarettes as cessation aids under the guises of contributing to global tobacco control” while employing “strategic marketing tactics to hook children on this same portfolio of products, making them available in over 15,000 attractive flavors.”
The agency also insisted that the scientific evidence on e-cigarettes as cessation aids was inconclusive and that “switching from conventional tobacco products to e-cigarettes is not quitting.”
“We must be guided by science and evidence, not the marketing campaigns of the tobacco industry—the same industry that has engaged in decades of lies and deceit to sell products that have killed hundreds of millions of people,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “E-cigarettes generate toxic chemicals, which have been linked to harmful health effects, such as cardiovascular disease and lung disorders.”
We must be guided by science and evidence, not the marketing campaigns of the tobacco industry.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general, WHO
The global health body also reiterated its commitment to excluding the tobacco industry from the debate through article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
“The tobacco industry is the single greatest barrier to reducing deaths caused by tobacco use,” the WHO wrote. “Their interests are irreconcilably opposed to promoting public health and point to a critical need to keep them out of global tobacco control efforts.”
The organization also cited the United Nations Global Compact, which banned the tobacco industry from participation in 2017. “In line with Article 5.3, industry has been entirely excluded from the U.N. system, and its agencies have been urged to devise strategies to prevent industry interference,” the WHO wrote.
May 20, 2021
PMI Reports Progress Toward ‘End of Smoking’

Photo: krsmanovic
Philip Morris International on May 18 published its Integrated Report, a comprehensive overview of the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and its progress toward its purpose of delivering a smoke-free future.
This includes its 2025 ambitions to have switched more than 40 million adult smokers to its smoke-free products, with half from non-OECD countries, and for smoke-free products to account for more than 50 percent of PMI’s total net revenues.
Further accelerating PMI’s transformation, this year, the company introduced two new 2025 ambitions linked to its business transformation metrics: for its smoke-free products to be available in 100 markets and for at least $1 billion in annual net revenues to come from “beyond nicotine” products. The Integrated Report also outlines case studies of early indications of PMI’s smoke-free products’ impacts in markets where such products have a meaningful presence.
“I present this report with pride in what we have already achieved in just five years, such as smoke-free products accounting for nearly one-quarter of our total net revenues in 2020 from essentially zero in 2015. I also have a deep recognition of the immense work ahead. Our new ambitious goals signal our confidence in our ability to monumentally change our company’s long-term future,” said Jacek Olczak, chief executive officer, in a statement.

I present this report with pride in what we have already achieved in just five years, such as smoke-free products accounting for nearly one-quarter of our total net revenues in 2020.
Jacek Olczak, CEO, PMI
“PMI is committed to serving as an agent of change and advocate of positive values. Innovation and inclusiveness are key to solving our challenges, whether related to tobacco harm reduction, environmental impact or social impact. We aim to create a sustainable future that benefits our company, shareholders, consumers and society.”
PMI’s Integrated Report 2020 demonstrates how the organization’s strategy, governance and performance create value. To showcase impact, the company reports on progress in various ESG areas, including toward achieving its ambitious 2025 Roadmap—a set of forward-looking targets pertaining to all Tier 1 topics from PMI’s sustainability materiality assessment.
The report highlights PMI’s most material sustainability topics, including the health impacts of its products—an aspect often not captured by external ESG assessments—and describes how the company is working toward researching, developing and commercializing scientifically substantiated better alternatives to continued smoking for those adults who do not quit. It also includes a new section on the company’s business transformation—which extends beyond changing the product—and an update on its business transformation metrics (BTMs).
The company’s BTMs are a set of bespoke key performance indicators introduced in 2016 to complement its ESG disclosure. These metrics allow stakeholders to transparently assess both the pace and scale of PMI’s transformation. Since then, based on stakeholder feedback, PMI has expanded the number of metrics to 28, with three new metrics introduced in this report.
The report also outlines the company’s belief that sustainability strategy is corporate strategy and that ESG issues are business issues. Reflecting this commitment to sustainability, the global sustainability team is now part of the finance function, reporting directly to the chief financial officer. In addition, executive compensation is now more clearly linked to ESG performance, complementing the strong product transformation incentives already in place.
“Sustainability stands at the core of PMI’s transformation and drives our development of strong ESG programs to mitigate the risks associated with our value chain while spurring innovation and growth to secure our success over the long term,” said Emmanuel Babeau, chief financial officer. “It is our firm belief that sustainability and corporate performance do not follow separate paths, and I am proud that we have spent the last year continuing to strengthen our sustainability governance and ensuring that ESG is integrated into decision-making at all levels of our organization.”

I am proud that we have spent the last year continuing to strengthen our sustainability governance and ensuring that ESG is integrated into decision-making at all levels of our organization.
Emmanuel Babeau, CFO, PMI
Acknowledging the unique and difficult challenges of the past year, PMI dedicated sections throughout its Integrated Report to showing how it addressed the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on its workers, business and value chain as well as instances where the pandemic directly affected the company’s sustainability efforts and the adjustments made in response.
“Despite the unprecedented challenges brought on by the global pandemic, we have not deviated from our efforts to show care, support those in our orbit and continue our quest to become a more sustainable company,” said Jennifer Motles, chief sustainability officer. “As we continue to transform, stakeholder engagement and constructive dialogue remain paramount to this evolution. In 2020, multi-stakeholder partnerships were key to the significant progress we made toward addressing many of our priority sustainability topics, ranging from protecting the health and safety of our employees to safeguarding the human rights of those impacted by our business and accelerating efforts to mitigate our impact on climate change throughout our value chain.”
The report was prepared following the Integrated Reporting framework and is in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative Standards (core option).
It aligns with the principles and standards of the U.N. Global Compact and indicates contributions to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and corresponding targets.
PMI’s Integrated Report addresses some recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, with its environmental reporting to CDP covering most of the remainder.
Despite the unprecedented challenges brought on by the global pandemic, we have not deviated from our efforts to show care, support those in our orbit and continue our quest to become a more sustainable company.
Jennifer Motles, chief sustainability officer, PMI
It also considers guidance from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). Furthermore, for the first time—and as a result of PMI’s business transformation—it cross-references most aspects of the SASB standards defined for technology and communications, more concretely the Hardware Standard, and it also describes alignment with some aspects of the standards developed for the healthcare industry, specifically the medical equipment and supplies standard.
Finally, the content of PMI’s Integrated Report 2020 is mapped against the 21 metrics defined by the International Business Council/World Economic Forum’s “Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Toward Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation” white paper to further reflect the importance of stakeholders, as per PMI’s statement of purpose.
On June 2, PMI will host an ESG-focused webcast during which the company will offer additional insight into how integrating sustainability across its business creates value for its shareholders and stakeholders. PMI will also publish in the coming week an ESG Highlights document, which will provide a more data-focused executive summary of the Integrated Report and will be made available on PMI.com/investor-relations.
Stakeholders can download the full Integrated Report 2020 as well as indexes mapping the company’s disclosures to internationally recognized frameworks on PMI.com/sustainability, including details about the company’s 16 Tier 2 sustainability topics.
May 19, 2021
Think Tank Urges Easing of ENDS Restrictions

Photo: lezinav
The U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) has welcomed the Adam Smith Institute’s report published today. “The Golden Opportunity—How Global Britain can lead on tobacco harm reduction and save millions of lives” warns that the U.K. is on course to miss its “smoke-free by 2030” target unless regulations around alternative products are relaxed.
The UKVIA has consistently called for the U.K. to make the most of the opportunities presented by leaving the European Union, which are now available to the vaping sector. This includes removing unnecessary regulations, which the association believes are often a barrier to harm reduction and tackling misinformation about e-cigarettes. The UKVIA included these matters in its recent submission to the government’s consultation on the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations (TRPR) published in March.
The U.K. has taken a world-leading role in harm reduction in this area, and it should continue to do so, according to the UKVIA. To achieve smoke-free status, however, more work still needs to be done. The report points out that despite huge take up in smoking cessation products in recent years, there are still 7 million smokers in the U.K., which equates to 14.1 percent of adults. There is a concern within the sector that current low rates for smoking could be reversed by an increase in social smoking because of recent Covid-19 lockdowns.
The Adam Smith Institute report, written by its head of programs, Daniel Pryor, also calls for “ineffectual warnings” on some vaping products to be replaced and argues that the U.K. should “robustly defend its approach to tobacco harm reduction” at the global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s COP9 and related World Health Organization meetings later this year.

This report is welcome as it shows the opportunities which are now available for the U.K. vaping sector in terms of increasing smoking cessation and promoting harm reduction.
John Dunne, director, gereral, UKVIA
Following the recent announcement of a trial of e-cigarette products taking place in five hospital A&E departments later this year, the sector anticipates an additional boost to the numbers of people switching to e-cigarettes and awaits the results of the trial with interest.
“This report is welcome as it shows the opportunities which are now available for the U.K. vaping sector in terms of increasing smoking cessation and promoting harm reduction, which is why the UKVIA called for vape retail outlets to be classified as ‘essential retail’ throughout the recent lockdowns,” said UKVIA Director General John Dunne.
“The Adam Smith Institute’s report builds on our own proposals, which we submitted to the government’s TRPR consultation. We support the report’s proposals on opposing ‘counterproductive regulations,’ which can harm efforts to get smokers to switch to safer alternatives.”
“The UKVIA is already working with international partners ahead of the crucial COP9 summit later this year. We will continue to represent the sector as a whole and highlight the consensus opinions of U.K. public health bodies on the safety and efficacy of e-cigarettes to policymakers. We will continue to encourage the government to allow ‘Global Britain’ to use its newly independent position to encourage the World Health Organization to adopt a more reasonable approach with regards to reduced-risk products.”
May 4, 2021
Vaping Group Supports Call to Defund WHO

John Dunne (Photo: UKVIA)
The U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) has joined the chorus of voices condemning the World Health Organization (WHO) for its urging of countries to take an aggressive anti-vaping stance ahead of a crucial health summit later this year.
According to leaked documents reported in the Daily Express, the WHO plans to use November’s COP9 summit in the Netherlands as a platform to tell leading international health figures that e-cigarettes are as dangerous as smoking tobacco.
The UKVIA joins the criticism of the WHO by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) Chair Mark Pawsey, MP, who has called into question why the U.K. government is continuing to fund the body to the tune of £340 million ($471.8 million) over the next four years.
The UKVIA notes that this action flies in the face of the scientific reality of vaping in the U.K., which has seen millions of people quit smoking in recent years. Research by British scientists has consistently shown vaping to be the most popular and successful aide to quitting smoking.
The Cochrane Review into e-cigarettes highlights that existing studies show that vaping is nearly 50 percent more effective in helping smokers quit cigarettes than other methods of smoking cessation, according to the UKVIA. The review found that as many as 11 percent of smokers using a nicotine e‐cigarette to stop smoking might successfully stop compared to only 6 percent of smokers using nicotine‐replacement therapy or nicotine‐free e‐cigarettes or 4 percent of people having no support or behavioral support only.
The vaping industry here in the U.K., together with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Vaping, is right to call out these baseless attacks on the sector.
John Dunne, director general, UKVIA
There are already 3.2 million adults in Great Britain who have made the switch from smoking. The vaping industry needs to be supported as a British success and able to assist the remaining 6.9 million adult smokers in the U.K., according to the UKVIA.
“The stance of the World Health Organization is extremely concerning,” said John Dunne, UKVIA director general, in a statement. “The vaping industry here in the U.K., together with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Vaping, is right to call out these baseless attacks on the sector. Vaping is a great British success story, enabling millions of people to switch from smoking.
“The APPG is also right to call for the U.K. government to reconsider the level of its funding to the World Health Organization in light of these reports. Thankfully, now that the U.K. has left the EU, it is no longer bound by the ridiculous, and quite frankly dangerous, WHO messaging urging the bloc to treat vaping in the same way as smoking.”
May 3, 2021
Critics: EU Committee Ignores Science
Photo: pavel_shishkin
The European Commission has missed an opportunity to bolster its Beating Cancer Plan and recognize the importance of vaping in reducing smoking-related diseases among Europeans, according to the Independent European Vape Alliance (IEVA).
A recent report from the Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) fails to compare the risks of electronic cigarette use with the risks of smoking, the IEVA noted in a statement. “Such an omission renders the report of little use to policymakers,” it wrote. “An assessment of the impact e-cigarettes have had on European public health must be informed by this evidence.”
Independent and publicly funded scientific research has shown that e-cigarette use is far less harmful than smoking, according to the IEVA.
“The SCHEER committee has failed to present scientific data on vaping in a comprehensive and balanced manner,” said Dustin Dahlmann, president of the IEVA. “The result is a report that is little more than a series of baseless predetermined assertions. Another opportunity to educate smokers willing to switch to less harmful alternatives has been wasted, and this alone has serious public health implications. We urge decision-makers in Brussels to integrate harm reduction in their overall strategy.”

Another opportunity to educate smokers willing to switch to less harmful alternatives has been wasted.
Dustin Dahlmann, president, IEVA
An earlier draft of this report was put to public consultation in September 2020 and was widely criticized. Yet, the final report reiterates the core findings of the initial draft.
A comprehensive critique of this draft was published in the peer-reviewed Harm Reduction Journal. The authors assert that “the opinion’s conclusions are not adequately backed up by scientific evidence and did not discuss the potential health benefits of using alternative combustion-free nicotine-containing products as [a] substitute for tobacco cigarettes.”
The Harm Reduction Journal report recommends seven crucial areas that the committee should have considered to address this significant deficit, but SCHEER has decided not to do so. These were:
The potential health benefits of ENDS substitution for cigarette smoking;
Alternative hypotheses and contradictory studies on the gateway effect;
Its assessment of cardiovascular risk;
The measurements of frequency of use;
Non-nicotine use;
The role of flavors; and
A fulsome discussion of cessation.
Earlier this week, the World Vaper Alliance expressed similar concerns about the SHEER report.
May 3, 2021