Category: Harm Reduction

Extra bans proposed
The Nigerian government is considering taking further steps to deter tobacco consumption, according to a story in The Sun.
The federal government was said to have expressed concern at what it sees as the high rate of tobacco consumption in the country.
About 5.6 percent of the population, comprising four million men and 500,000 women, consume about 20 billion cigarettes annually. Another 6.4 million people are said to be exposed to tobacco smoke.
In revealing these figures recently, the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, outlined preventive measures that should be taken to reduce smoking.
These were said to include prohibiting smoking among people under 18 years of age, and banning smoking in parks, markets, restaurants and other public places.
Other suggested measures included a ban on the sale of cigarettes as single sticks, and restricting the sale of smokeless tobacco to packs with a minimum of 30 g.
Under the proposals, it would be illegal to sell or distribute tobacco products through the mail, the Internet or other online devices.
Adewole called on the security agencies and the Nigeria Customs Service to impose ‘stringent conditions’ on tobacco companies and sellers to discourage smoking in the country.
August 18, 2017
Warning on Thailand
A UK travel agent is urging others to tell their customers not to vape in Thailand where they could face up to 10 years in prison for doing so, according to a story by Ravneet Ahluwalia for the independent.co.uk.
Pat Waterton, manager at Langley Travel, was quoted as saying that she had been unaware of Thailand’s ban on the possession of vaping devices until her nephew was forced to pay £125 as an on-the-spot fine after being threatened with jail for possessing an e-cigarette in Bangkok.
“If I’m selling Thailand I will definitely mention it now,” said Waterton. “All agents should. Thailand is very popular so we should make sure we are telling people about things that could ruin a holiday.”
Ahluwalia wrote that in November 2014, Thailand had approved legislation outlawing the import of e-cigarettes into the country. This had since been expanded to the export as well as the sale of e-smoking devices and equipment.
Although it was common to see people vaping in Thailand, offenders were technically breaking the law as possession was illegal, said Ahluwalia.
On its website, the UK Foreign Office advises travellers not to take vaporisers such as e-cigarettes or refills into Thailand.
‘These items are likely to be confiscated and you could be fined or sent to prison for up to 10 years if convicted,’ the Foreign Office says.
‘The sale or supply of e-cigarettes and similar devices is also banned and you could face a heavy fine or up to five years imprisonment if found guilty. Several British Nationals have been arrested for possession of vaporisers and e-cigarettes.’
August 17, 2017
Running out of steam
The number of smokers in Australia has increased for the first time since anti-smoking campaigns were ramped up a generation ago, casting doubt on the effectiveness of cigarette tax increases, according to a story by Adam Creighton for The Australian.
Creighton quoted Dr. Colin Mendelsohn, an expert in public health at the University of New South Wales, as saying that an unexpected standstill in the national smoking rate since 2013 combined with a rapid population growth had pushed up the number of regular smokers by more than 21,000 to 2.4 million.
Mendelsohn said Australia’s “punitive and coercive” policies to curb smoking had “run out of steam”.
“For the first time ever, there has been no statistically significant reduction in the smoking rate, and an increase in the number of smokers in Australia,” he reportedly told The Australian, noting the nation’s smoking rate was now higher than the US’ smoking rate for the first time in a decade. “This is despite plain packaging and the most expensive cigarette prices in the world.”
Mendelsohn said plain packaging and tax increases had worked better for younger smokers than for older smokers, noting regular smoking rates for 12-to-17-year-olds had halved to 1.5 percent during the past three years. “But we’re left with established, older smokers who can’t or won’t quit. The strategy of higher prices isn’t working for them,” he said.
A standard pack of Marlboro cigarettes averages $25.10 in Australia according to price comparison website Numbeo, compared with $14.80 in Britain, $8.50 in the US and $1.90 in Indonesia.
There was a law of diminishing returns associated with price increases, said Mendelsohn, and a lot of smokers were digging their heels in. High prices were fuelling a black market.
Meanwhile, Dr. Alex Wodak, director of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, endorsed Mendelsohn’s analysis and concerns. “Australia is doing everything right in terms of tobacco control, but one key difference with the UK and USA, where smoking rates have dropped, is our hostility to e-cigarettes,” he said.
Creighton’s story is at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/more-smokers-lighting-up-despite-everincreasing-taxes/newsstory/190014e7306548c49fc372dabb5a0555.
August 15, 2017
Boost for ban challenge
The Swedish government has chosen not to provide written observations to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in relation to a case being brought to overturn the EU ban on the sale of snus outside Sweden, according to a press note issued on Monday jointly by the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO) and the NNA Sweden.
The case (Case C-151/17) is being brought by Swedish Match, and the NNA UK has joined as an intervener, based on arguments related to consumers’ human rights and the right to health.
‘All EU member states were asked by the ECJ to submit opinions on a legal challenge by July 7 as part of the court process,’ the note said.
‘In June 2017, … INNCO received reliable information that the Swedish government were planning to submit an opinion to the ECJ identical to their previous EU statements on the health risks and impacts of snus use.
‘Based on Sweden’s historical position this was likely to contain scientifically incorrect information, bias and out-dated references, which would have severely impacted on the judicial process of the court.
‘INNCO and one of their member organisations – New Nicotine Alliance Sweden – launched a joint initiative aimed at averting such misinformation on snus being sent to the ECJ by Sweden, believing their previous oblique submission to the ECJ to be in part responsible for the ban being upheld by the court in 2004.
‘Seventeen INNCO international member organisations wrote individual letters to the Swedish government, outlining their objections and concern were Sweden to choose, yet again, to submit an incomplete and misleading opinion on snus to the ECJ.’
The note said that snus had a 200-year history of use in Sweden without any verifiable evidence of serious adverse health effects. It remained the most widely-used and successful method of assisting smoking cessation.
Sweden now had the lowest smoking rate in Europe. Swedish government data had shown that the proportion of smokers among men aged between 30 and 44 fell to five percent in 2016.
‘Overall, just eight percent of Swedish men now smoke on a daily basis – itself a record-low percentage – compared with a European Union average of just over 25 percent,’ the note said.
‘There is broad academic consensus that Sweden’s success is directly attributable to the broad migration from traditional cigarettes to snus.
‘EU-wide adoption of snus may have contributed towards saving over 300,000 lives per year since 1992 according to a report published 2017.
‘The opportunity for tobacco harm reduction is unprecedented.
‘Sweden is the only EU country in which citizens have legal access to Snus (having gained an exemption as part of their entry to the EU in 1995). Consequently, it is the only country in the world with access to reliable historical data and observations on long term snus use.
‘Sweden’s evidence is therefore invaluable to the ECJ and public health regulators currently deprived of qualitative snus data, in the forthcoming re-examination of the current EU snus ban.
‘We believe that INNCO’s global civil society initiative has been instrumental in influencing the Swedish government’s decision to offer no comment.
‘In so doing, they have chosen to place the value of health and respect for human rights above ideology.’
‘The Swedish government might have chosen to replicate their previous incomplete, opaque submission confirming their well-documented intolerance of all nicotine use. Choosing silence over misinformation was a courageous move in the right direction towards acknowledging harm reduction and human rights.’
August 10, 2017
Vaping bans on way
Russia’s Health Ministry is preparing a bill that, if passed, would regulate vaping and hookah smoking in the country, according to a Pravda Online story.
The bill, which is set to be drafted by February, is expected to include a ban on vaping and hookah smoking in bars and restaurants throughout Russia.
Ministry officials were quoted as saying that the general idea behind the bill was that vaping should be regulated in the same way that tobacco smoking was regulated.
The officials said that, currently, a lot of adolescents used both hookahs and vaping devices, and that these products were not regulated.
Reportedly, the bill will limit the sale of hookah and vaping devices to people over the age of 18.
The story said – though it wasn’t clear whether this had come from the officials or not – that it was worthy of note that ‘US scientists found deadly toxins in vaping smoke, where the concentration of dangerous substances exceeds maximum permissible indicators’.
‘Those making up to 250 puffs per day with 3.8-4.8-volt devices, inhale acrolein, formaldehyde and diacetyl in above the mark quantities,’ the story said.
‘The concentration of harmful substances in the rooms where vaping is allowed exceeds admissible indicators as well.’
August 10, 2017
ENDS-game strategy
The US Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that it would pursue a strategic, new public health education campaign aimed at discouraging the use of electronic cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) by ‘kids’.
The agency said it planned to expand this fall its The Real Cost public education campaign to include messaging to teens about the dangers of using these products, while developing a full-scale campaign to launch in 2018.
‘These efforts are part of the agency’s new comprehensive plan for tobacco and nicotine regulation, as well as ongoing efforts to educate youth about, and protect them from, the dangers associated with using all tobacco products,’ it said in a note issued through the Center for Tobacco Products.
‘It is the first time the FDA will be utilizing public health education to specifically target youth use of e-cigarettes or other ENDS.
‘More than two million middle and high school students were current users of e-cigarettes and other ENDS in 2016.
‘Data also show about half of all middle and high school students who were current tobacco users also used two or more tobacco products last year.
‘This use by children and teens is especially concerning because of evidence that youth exposure to nicotine affects the developing brain and may rewire it to be more susceptible to nicotine addiction in the future.’
August 9, 2017
E-cig ban opposed
The Tobacco Institute of India (TII) has come out against a proposed ban on electronic cigarettes, according to an Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) report.
The Health Ministry of India is considering such a ban after an expert committee said that these devices had cancer-causing properties.
The TII says that a ban on e-cigarettes could increase the smuggling of these products, and that such an increase could have consequences for quality standards and the health of the people using them.
The IANS story quoted the TII as saying that 160 countries signed up to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, including the US, the UK, and EU member states, had not imposed a prohibition on electronic cigarettes.
And Canada and New Zealand, which had earlier prohibited such products, had reversed their decisions.
The TII said the prohibition of e-cigarettes would benefit illegal traders and promote foreign products owned by overseas entities.
August 8, 2017
Insurance “rip-off”
Insurance companies are still hitting electronic-cigarette users with a ‘smoker’s surcharge’ despite mounting reports that indicate vaping is far less dangerous than is smoking tobacco, according to a story by Russell Blackstock for The Sunday Post, Scotland.
Although recent government-backed studies have found that vaping e-cigarettes is 95 percent less harmful than smoking cigarettes, life insurers take the view that a puff on a cigarette is identical to a puff on a vaping device. And life insurance premiums are often twice as expensive for smokers as they are for non-smokers.
Linda Bauld, professor of health policy at Scotland’s Stirling University, believes that classing people who use e-cigarettes as being the same as smokers is “fundamentally wrong”.
“It is just not fair,” she reportedly told the Sunday Post. “As well as being financially punitive to people who vape, it can also send negative messages to those who want to stop smoking. It is not helpful.
“If vapers are regarded as being the same as tobacco smokers it could lead to an attitude of ‘why bother’ and before you know it they are back at the corner shop buying cigarettes.”
People who vape and don’t use combustible tobacco products should be treated the same as non-smokers by insurance companies, Bauld added.
It is estimated that about three million people in the UK are now using vaping devices.
Many don’t realise they will pay up to twice as much as non-smokers for life or critical illness insurances.
Meanwhile, Andy Morrison, Scottish lead advocate for the vaping organization the New Nicotine Alliance, said the practice by insurance companies was a “rip-off”.
“Vapers are being fleeced by insurance companies,” he said.
“It is ridiculous that insurers are still conflating combustible tobacco and vaping products despite all the evidence from bodies such as Public Health England that vaping is far less harmful than smoking.”
August 8, 2017
Ban shows double standards
Sri Lanka’s ban on chewing ‘smokeless tobacco’ has come under criticism by people who say that, in not banning smoking, the government is adopting double standards, according to a story by Chrishanthi Christopher for The Sunday Times.
The government recently banned smokeless tobacco through a gazette notice after it was approved in parliament in April 2017.
The notice banned the manufacture, sale and possession of all smokeless tobacco products, and mixtures that contain tobacco, including the betel quid, which has tobacco strips.
However, the growing, chewing and selling of betel leaves are not banned.
A recent World Health Organization survey was said to have shown that six percent of school children were chewing commercially-produced arecanut.
The chairman of the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol, Dr. Palitha Abeykoon, said the survey had shown that many of the school children were addicted to arecanut, which they kept under their tongues and used for the high it could produce.
The finding had necessitated the ban on smokeless tobacco products, he said.
The aim of the ban was reportedly not to deprive people of their traditional betel chewing habits but from using tobacco in the betel quid.
Chewing smokeless tobacco, unlike traditional betel chewing, was said to be ‘most dangerous and addictive, killing people within two years’.
The smokeless-tobacco products, which were said to contain a mixture of arecanut, tobacco, sweeteners and spices, were said to come from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Interestingly, the story said, these products were banned in the countries that exported them.
August 7, 2017
HNB market set to glow
British American Tobacco is to roll out its heat-not-burn tobacco device on South Korea’s market, where demand for such devices is increasing, according to a story in The Korea Herald.
BAT Korea is due to hold a press conference on Thursday to promote Glo and announce when the device will go on sale, company officials were quoted as saying on Sunday.
The company is hoping to boost sales, in part by satisfying what is unfulfilled demand.
The Times reported that Philip Morris International launched IQOS in early June but has not been able to keep up with demand.
BAT Korea has recently completed the construction of new facilities in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, where it produces the consumable element of the device, Neosticks. These are currently being exported to Japan but will soon be made available in Korea as well, officials said.
Meanwhile, KT&G is due to roll out its own heat-not-burn device.
August 7, 2017