Category: Harm Reduction

  • Few state quit-aids

    Few state quit-aids

    With no funding for 2017-18, the West Virginia Division of Tobacco Prevention is to sack all but one of the people currently working in its eight-person office, according to an AP State & Local story relayed by the TMA.

    The Division’s director Jim Kerrigan will then be its only employee.

    Kerrigan said that he wanted to keep two programs going: Quitline, a tobacco-cessation hotline; and RAZE, an anti-tobacco education program aimed at teenagers.

    The division is currently operating on state funds carried over from the previous budget year, and on federal grants.

    Juliana Frederick Curry of the American Cancer Society described the cuts as “disheartening” because the state had the highest youth smoking rate and the second-highest adult smoking rate in the US.

  • Making smokers receptive

    Making smokers receptive

    New research suggests that smokers who undergo a CT (computed tomography) scan of their lungs are more likely to quit than are those who don’t undergo such a process, according to a story by Rod Minchin published by independent.co.uk.

    Scientists said the findings of a study – looking at the effect of CT screening on smokers at high-risk of developing lung cancer – was at odds with the belief that a negative screening result offered a ‘licence to smoke’.

    They suggested that engaging with lung screening could provide smokers with an opportunity to access smoking cessation support at a time when they were likely to be more receptive to offers of help.

    “Our trial shows that CT lung cancer screening offers a teachable moment for smoking cessation among high-risk groups in the UK,” Dr. Kate Brain, of Cardiff University, was quoted as saying.

    “We now need evidence about the best ways of integrating lung cancer screening with stop-smoking support, so that services are designed to deliver the maximum health benefits for current and future generations.”

    The trial, led by researchers at Cardiff University working with the University of Liverpool, King’s College London and Queen Mary University, London, involved 4,055 participants aged 50 to 75.

    Minchin’s story, which includes information about how the research was conducted, is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/smokers-ct-scan-lungs-quitting-more-likely-tobacco-cigarettes-cardiff-university-dr-kate-brain-a7857691.html.

  • PLOOM in Switzerland

    PLOOM in Switzerland

    Japan Tobacco International on Friday launched PLOOM TECH in Switzerland, the first launch of its tobacco vapor product outside Japan.

    In a press note issued on its website, JTI said PLOOM TECH would be available nationwide in more than 1,500 stores.

    It said also that the newly-launched tobacco-vapor product was the first of its kind to be sold in Switzerland. ‘With its state of the art technology, PLOOM TECH enables consumers to enjoy tobacco with “no smoke, smoke smell or ash” by indirectly heating tobacco through a vapor,’ the note said.

    “We are very excited to be the first country outside Japan to introduce PLOOM TECH,” John Aurlund, JTI’s Switzerland general manager, was quoted as saying. “It is quite fitting that a technologically advanced product like PLOOM TECH begins its international adventure here in Switzerland, a country renowned for quality, precision and innovation.”

    JTI said that PLOOM TECH created a tobacco-enriched vapor using a hybrid technology that heated a non-nicotine liquid that was passed through a capsule containing granulated tobacco. ‘In doing so, the tobacco is heated at around 30 degrees Celsius,’ the note said. ‘No combustion is created throughout the process and recent studies show an approximately 99 percent reduction in levels of measured constituents compared to cigarette smoke. This means that PLOOM TECH has strong potential to be a reduced risk product, while retaining all the joys and pleasures of tobacco including its authentic flavor.’

    “The technology behind PLOOM TECH provides a real potential to reduce the health risks compared to smoking, while maintaining a true tobacco taste,” said Yasuhiro Nakajima, JTI’s vice president of Emerging Products. “Its innovative technology combines the best of both tobacco and e-cigarettes, adding an entirely new concept to our ever-growing portfolio in emerging products. We look forward to introducing it to Europe, one of the largest vaping markets in the world.”

    PLOOM TECH is said to create no mess and to require no cleaning. ‘Other unique attributes include the ability to use the device over several separate occasions without having to dispose of the tobacco capsule,’ the note said. ‘It is also exceptionally light and comes with a long-lasting battery which runs through an entire refill pack before recharging is required.

    ‘PLOOM TECH is available across Switzerland in Coop Pronto and in other selected Coop and Kiosk stores. It comes in a combo kit, containing the device and a refill pack of Winston tobacco capsules, at a total price of CHF25. A refill pack, available in “balanced” or “cool purple”, sells at CHF7.50.’

  • HEETS capacity building

    HEETS capacity building

    Philip Morris International said today that it was planning to invest about €490 million in transforming its cigarette production factory in Otopeni, near Bucharest, Romania, into a high-tech facility for manufacturing HEETS, the tobacco units used with the electronic tobacco heating device IQOS.

    ‘The conversion of the factory into a HEETS production facility has already commenced and is expected to be completed and fully operational by 2020, the company said in a note posted on its website.

    ‘The investment will create about 300 additional jobs for highly-skilled employees at the Romanian facility, which currently employs approximately 600 people.’

    Romania will join a growing list of countries where PMI manufactures heated tobacco units for IQOS.

    ‘Earlier this month, PMI announced plans to install two new high-tech production lines in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to produce HEETS,’ the note said.

    ‘In June, PMI announced it would expand capacity at the company’s heated tobacco unit manufacturing facility in Bologna, Italy and also announced plans to build a new facility for HEETS in Dresden, Germany. In addition, PMI will also convert its cigarette factories in Greece and Russia and by the end of 2018, PMI plans to have a total annual installed capacity of approximately 100 billion heated tobacco units.’

    IQOS and HEETS have been available in Bucharest since November 2015 and in 16 cities throughout Romania from the beginning of this year.

    IQOS is said to be available in key cities in more than 27 markets and is expected to be available in 30-35 markets, either key cities or nationwide, by the end of 2017, as capacity permits.

    “Our investment in Romania further demonstrates our commitment to a future in which smoke-free products ultimately replace cigarettes,” said André Calantzopoulos, PMI’s CEO. “We are encouraged by the 2.9 million smokers around the world who have already given up smoking and switched to IQOS. We expect this momentum to continue and the conversion of the Romanian facility will help us to meet the growing demand from adult smokers for better alternatives to cigarettes.”

    IQOS is one of what PMI refers to as four scientifically substantiated smoke-free product platforms that it is developing ‘to address adult smoker demand for better alternatives to cigarettes’.

    ‘Since 2008, PMI has hired more than 400 scientists and experts and invested over US$3 billion in research, product development and scientific substantiation for smoke-free products,’ the note said. ‘The company openly shares its scientific methodologies and findings for independent third-party review and verification, and has published its research in over 200 articles and book chapters since 2011. Results of scientific research conducted by PMI to date indicate that IQOS is likely to reduce the risk of harm compared to cigarette smoking, and is a better choice for those who would otherwise continue to smoke.’

  • Setback for vapor products

    Setback for vapor products

    In a 93-page ruling, US district judge Amy Berman Jackson has upheld the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to regulate vapor devices and cigars in the way that cigarettes are regulated, according to a story in the Washington Post relayed by the TMA.

    Jackson concluded the agency had “acted within the scope of its statutory authority”.

    She rejected arguments by Nicopure Labs and the Right to be Smoke-Free Coalition, which includes the American Vaping Association, vapor companies and trade groups, that said the FDA’s creation of the Deeming Rules exceeded its authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

    Under the FDA rule, she said, vapor manufacturers “are now required to tell the 30 million people who use the devices what is actually in the liquid being vaporized and inhaled”.

    “We are still reviewing judge Jackson’s opinion,” said Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association. “The legal and legislative processes are both long roads with plenty of bumps along the way. The fight to save vaping is far from over.”

    Attorney Azim Chowdhury, representing the Right to be Smoke-Free Coalition, said in a tweet that they were considering appeal options.

  • Psychiatrists say lift e-ban

    Psychiatrists say lift e-ban

    Australia’s psychiatrists are urging the government to lift its ban on nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes, saying their mentally ill patients, many of whom are heavy smokers, could ‘significantly benefit’ from the devices, according to a story by Esther Han for the Sydney Morning Herald.

    In a submission to the federal government’s e-cigarette inquiry, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) said the mentally ill were more likely to smoke than were those who were not mentally ill, and that they were more likely than were other smokers to be heavy smokers, which meant their life expectancy was 20 years less than that of the general population.

    ‘E-cigarettes … provide a safer way to deliver nicotine to those who are unable to stop smoking, thereby minimising the harms associated with smoking tobacco and reducing some of the health disparities,’ the submission said.

    ‘The RANZCP therefore supports a cautious approach that takes into account …the significant health benefits which these products present.’

    The submission marks the first time a specialist medical college or major health group has broken ranks with Australia’s medical fraternity, which largely wants the ban on nicotine-containing e-cigarettes maintained because, they say, the safety of these devices and their efficacy as quitting aids are unclear.

    It is legal to buy ‘vaping’ devices, but it is unlawful to sell, possess or use nicotine-containing ones because the chemical is classified as a poison.

    This year the Therapeutic Goods Administration rejected an application to exempt the drug from the dangerous poisons list.

    Professor David Castle, RANZCP board member, said the current restrictions on tobacco were not helping people with mental illness and e-cigarettes needed to be made available, albeit with caveats.

    Seventy per cent of people with schizophrenia and 61 percent of people with bipolar disorder are smokers, compared to 16 percent of those without mental health problems, studies show.

  • PMI’s volume down sharply

    PMI’s volume down sharply

    Philip Morris International’s cigarette shipment volume during the second quarter to the end of June, at 193,540 million, was down by 7.5 per cent on that of the second quarter of 2016, 209,289 million.

    Volume increased by 1.4 percent to 21,553 million in its Latin America and Canada region, but it fell in each of its other three regions: by 1.3 percent to 49,758 million in the EU; by 5.7 percent to 64,414 in its Eastern Europe and Middle East (EEMA) region; and by 16.6 percent to 57,815 million in its Asia region.

    Cigarette shipments of Marlboro were down by 1.8 percent to 68,830 million, while those of L&M where down by 4.8 percent to 23,369 million. Cigarette shipments of Chesterfield rose by 17.7 percent to 13,652 million; those of Parliament fell by 6.2 percent to 11,169 million; those of Bond Street fell by 9.5 percent to 10,278 million; those of Philip Morris increased by 42.4 percent to 12,688 million; and those of Lark fell by 24.5 percent to 5,688 million.

    The 2017 second-quarter declines were offset to some extent by an increase in sales of heated tobacco units from 1,157 million during the second quarter of 2016 to 6,350 during the second quarter of 2017. Sales of heated tobacco units were increased in all regions: in the EU from 31 million to 392 million; in the EEMA from eight million to 229 million; in the Asia region from 1,118 million to 5,726 million; and in the Latin America and Canada region from zero to three million.

    Taken together, cigarette and heated tobacco unit volume during the second quarter, at 199,890 million, was down by 5.0 percent on that of the second quarter of 2016, 210,446 million.

    PMI reported that its total shipment volume of cigarettes and heated tobacco units during the six months to the end of June, at 377,877 million, was down by 7.1 percent on that of the six months to the end of June 2016, 406,940 million. The decline, excluding net estimated inventory movements, was put at 6.3 percent. It was said to have been principally due to the company’s performance in Asia, notably in Indonesia, but also in Pakistan and the Philippines, reflecting ongoing declines of primarily low-margin cigarette volumes; and due to its performance in the EEMA.

    Meanwhile, PMI’s cigarette volume during the six months to the end of June, at 367,092 million, was down by 9.4 percent on that of the six months to the end of June 2016, 405,330 million. This fall was said to have been due to: its performance in the EU, principally in Italy and Spain, partly offset by that in Poland; in the EEMA region, reflecting declines across the region, notably in Russia and Ukraine; in the Asia region, principally in Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and the Philippines; and in the Latin America & Canada region, principally in Argentina, Brazil and Canada.  However, the decline in cigarette shipment volume was partly offset by a higher heated tobacco unit shipment volume up from 1.6 billion units during the first six months of 2016 to 10.8 billion units during the first six month of this year, driven by its performance in Japan.

    Reported diluted earnings per share during the second quarter, at $1.14, were down by 0.9 percent on those of the second quarter of 2016, $1.15, while adjusted dilute earnings per share, at $1.14, were down by 0.9 percent.

    Reported net revenues were up by 1.5 percent to $19.3 billion while net revenues, excluding excise taxes, of $6.9 billion, were up by 4.0 percent.

    “Our quarterly results were robust with, as expected, sequential improvement in our volume performance, as well as strong currency-neutral net revenue growth of seven percent versus last year,” said CEO André Calantzopoulos.

    “IQOS, our flagship smoke-free alternative, continues to perform exceptionally well, supported by further recent successful market launches, notably in Korea. In the quarter, shipments of Marlboro HeatSticks represented over 40 percent of our total shipments in Japan, where we recorded a national share of 10 percent.

    “To date, more than 2.9 million adult consumers have already stopped smoking and switched to IQOS.”

  • WHO report published

    WHO report published

    The recently-appointed director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that governments around the world “must waste no time in incorporating all the provisions of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [FCTC] into their national tobacco control programs and policies”.

    “They must also clamp down on the illicit tobacco trade, which is exacerbating the global tobacco epidemic and its related health and socioeconomic consequences,” he said in a foreword to the latest WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, which was published yesterday. “Forty Parties are needed for the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, under the WHO FCTC, to come into force. Currently, only a few more Parties are needed for this important step to occur.”

    The protocol, which was promoted by the WHO’s previous director general and which was adopted in November 2012, still has not entered into force. At its heart, it calls for the establishment of a tobacco-products tracking-and-tracing system, but a search for ‘tracking and tracing’ in the 135-page report brought up only one oblique reference, in a passage on tax stamps.

    In a press note issued alongside the report, which is said to have been ‘made possible by funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies’, the WHO said its latest report had found that more countries had implemented tobacco control policies, ranging from graphic pack warnings and advertising bans to no-smoking areas, though it wasn’t clear what was meant by ‘more’. ‘About 4.7 billion people – 63 percent of the world’s population – are covered by at least one comprehensive tobacco control measure, which has quadrupled since 2007 when only one billion people and 15 percent of the world’s population were covered,’ the press note said. ‘Strategies to implement such policies have saved millions of people from early death.

    ‘However, the tobacco industry continues to hamper government efforts to fully implement life- and cost-saving interventions…’.

    The press note went on to say that FCTC strategies to support the implementation of tobacco-demand reduction-measures, such as the “MPOWER” measures, had, during the past decade, saved millions of people from early death and hundreds of billions of dollars. ‘MPOWER,’ the note said, ‘was established in 2008 to promote government action on six tobacco control strategies in-line with the WHO FCTC to:

    • monitor tobacco use and prevention policies;
    • protect people from tobacco smoke;
    • offer help to quit tobacco use;
    • warn people about the dangers of tobacco;
    • enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; [and]
    • raise taxes on tobacco.’

    The WHO press note is at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/tobacco-report/en/.

    The report is at: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/255874/1/9789241512824-eng.pdf.

  • Discussing vaping locally

    Discussing vaping locally

    The organisers of the Global Forum on Nicotine are due to stage later this year three local dialogues; one in Ireland and two in England.

    Earlier this year they held two dialogues in England and one in Scotland (https://gfn.net.co//dialogues-archive/2017-spring/videos).

    The organisers say that the headline topic for the new series of dialogues is ‘Understanding Vaping’, though in each location the topic will be approached from a different angle.

    The dialogues are to be held on:

    • October 24, at the O’Callaghan Davenport Hotel, 8-10 Merrion Street Lower, Dublin, Ireland;
    • October 31, in the Marketing Suite, the Guildhall, Basinghall Street, City of London, England; and
    • November 2, at Crook Hall & Gardens, Frankland Lane, Sidegate, Durham, England.

    All the events will start at 14.00 and end by 17.00.

    They are free to attend, though registration is required at: https://gfn.net.co/dialogues/register.

    Further information is available at: https://gfn.net.co/dialogues.

  • Change of tack

    A man described as ‘no friend of big tobacco’ has embarked on a mission to educate public health professionals and policy makers about the public health gains that might be realized through vapor products, according to a piece by Brian Fojtik, a senior fellow with Reason Foundation, published at huffingtonpost.com.

    The man in question, Iowa’s Attorney General Tom Miller, aims to encourage regulators toward an approach that would encourage those who can’t quit smoking or won’t quit smoking to switch to electronic cigarettes.

    Fojtik describes Miller as a nine-term Democrat who was one of the attorneys general that led the charge toward suing big tobacco companies that culminated in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, under which cigarette manufacturers have been forced to pay the states billions of dollars.

    He said it came as a surprise to some that the immediate past chairman of the anti-smoking Truth Initiative and the former head of the National Association of attorneys general had embarked on this new mission.

    ‘Miller has taken his message across the globe,’ Fojtik said

    ‘In a speech in London last year, Miller thanked British leaders for understanding the health benefits of transitioning smokers away from combustible cigarettes to much safer vapor products that contain no tobacco and produce no smoke.’

    But Miller was said to have expressed concerns about misleading messages coming from tobacco control groups and government agencies with whom he had worked side by side for decades.

    Fojtik’s piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/59694944e4b022bb9372b193.