Category: People

Teen use ‘unintended’
Juul co-founder James Monsees testified before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee last week and said his company never intended its electronic cigarettes to be adopted by underage teenagers.
“Juul Labs isn’t big tobacco,” Monsees told the House subcommittee, adding that “combating underage use” is the company’s highest priority.
The two hearings convened last week after launching an investigation last month into Juul’s marketing, technology and business practices.
During his testimony, Monsees reiterated past steps taken by Juul, including shutting down its Facebook and Instagram pages and pulling several of its flavored pods out of retail stores to keep Juul out of the hands of teens. Monsees said he understands the negative scrutiny of his company, but assured lawmakers Juul’s aim is to “eliminate cigarettes for good.”
July 29, 2019
Sicignano steps down
Henry Sicignano III has resigned as president and CEO of 22nd Century Group for personal reasons. He will continue to serve the company on a consultancy basis.
Michael Zercher, 22nd Century’s chief operating officer, will oversee the company’s operations as the board of directors looks for a new president and CEO.
“The board is thankful for Henry’s years of service and leadership, and we wish him and his family the very best,” said James W. Cornell, director and chairman of the board of 22nd Century Group. “He has made tremendous contributions to our company, and we are grateful that we can retain his deep expertise and knowledge on a consulting basis for the next several years as the company moves into what we believe is an exciting phase of growth.”
“It has been an enormous privilege to lead 22nd Century through a period of profound change. I am proud to have worked with such a talented team that has made important and growing contributions to improving public health,” said Sicignano. “I look forward to continuing to support the company’s efforts, in a consultative capacity, as 22nd Century works to realize the promise that our very low nicotine technology represents.”
22nd Century recently submitted a premarket tobacco application and modified risk tobacco product application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking authorization to commercialize its proprietary very low nicotine cigarettes. It also strives to become a leader in hemp/cannabis.

July 28, 2019
Farm worker abuse alleged
British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands and Philip Morris International are buying leaf tobacco that could have been picked by exploited African migrants working in Italy, according to a story by Luca Muzi and Lorenzo Tondo for The Guardian.
Workers, including ‘children’, reportedly said they were forced to work up to 12 hours a day without contracts or sufficient health and safety equipment in Campania, a region that produces more than a third of Italy’s tobacco.
The Guardian investigation, which spanned three years, found that some workers from Africa were paid about €3 an hour, about half the amount paid to other workers, who were mostly Albanians, Romanians and Italians.
Tammaro Della Corte, leader of the General Confederation of the Italian Workers labor union in Caserta, was quoted as saying: “Unfortunately, the reality of the work conditions in the agricultural sector in the province of Caserta, including the tobacco industry, is marked by a deep labor exploitation, low wages, illegal contracts and an impressive presence of the caporalato [illegal hiring], including extortion and blackmailing of the workers.”
According to an internal report by the farmers’ organisation ONT Italia, seen by The Guardian and confirmed by a document from the European Leaf Tobacco Interbranch, BAT, Imperial and PMI bought three-fifths of Italian tobacco in 2017. PMI alone bought 21,000 tons of the 50,000 tons harvested that year.
The Guardian quoted these companies as saying they bought tobacco from suppliers who operated under a strict code of conduct to ensure fair treatment of workers. PMI reportedly said it had not come across any abuse, while BAT and Imperial said they would investigate any complaints brought to their attention.
June 3, 2019
Smoking rate falling slowly
The incidence of smoking has been declining on the Chinese mainland, but more tobacco-control efforts are needed, according to a story by Wang Xiaodong in the China Daily citing the findings of a survey published on Thursday.
Last year, 26.6 percent of the mainland’s population 15 years of age or older were smokers, according to the survey, which was conducted by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) between July and December.
A similar survey conducted by the CDCP in 2014 and 2015 showed 27.7 percent of this age group smoked.
The survey reportedly found that there was increasing public support for tobacco control efforts. More than 90 percent of those surveyed said they supported a total ban on ‘tobacco in the workplace’, and more than 95 percent said they supported banning smoking in hospitals, in middle and primary schools, and on public transport. Nearly 80 percent said they hoped to see a ‘ban on tobacco’ in restaurants.
But the survey found too that adult smokers ‘generally lack the willingness to quit’, with 16 percent planning to quit within the year.
Zhi Xiuyi, vice-president of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control, said China faced severe challenges in protecting people from the effects of tobacco use, despite the progress made.
“To achieve the government target of bringing down the percentage of adult smokers to 20 percent by 2030, we have a lot of work to do,” he said.
Wang reported that the biggest obstacle to tobacco control in China was the powerful tobacco industry, which was one of the biggest tax contributors to the government.
June 3, 2019
PMI providing relief
Philip Morris International said today that it will provide the Swiss Red Cross with $400,000 to support the relief efforts in Mozambique following Cyclone Idai.
‘In the aftermath of one of the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa, and the Southern Hemisphere as whole, two million people have been left affected, and thousands are in immediate need of emergency shelter, food, water, and medical assistance,’ PMI said in a note posted on its website.
‘Beyond this, the funds will also support people’s livelihoods in the months ahead, as needs will increase for those who have lost their crops and property.’
“We are deeply saddened by the impact of Cyclone Idai,” said Nicolas Denis, vice president leaf at PMI. “The devastation is massive, and the local communities are going through a very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone affected. We are working with the Swiss Red Cross to contribute to the relief efforts and support the country as it rebuilds.”
PMI said that it did not have any operations in Mozambique, but that it sourced a significant amount of tobacco from the country.
‘Tobacco is an important crop there, representing a significant contribution to the economy,’ it said. ‘According to our farm monitoring data, the livelihoods of some 600,000 people—farmers, their families and tobacco workers—are dependent directly on tobacco.’
March 29, 2019
Where smoking isn’t an issue
For the past forty years, no resident in the village of Skotino in the Hersonissos municipality of Heraklion, Crete, has taken a puff on a cigarette, according to a story by Tasos Kokkinidis for The Greek Reporter.
Skotino is described as picturesque and a paradise for non-smokers in a country where smoking is prevalent.
Reportedly, none of the village’s approximately 70 residents remembers how or why Skotino became tobacco-smoking free, but somehow its smoke-free status became part of an unwritten law unique to Greece.
It is known, however, that the villagers’ decision to embrace a healthier way of life wasn’t based on an anti-smoking campaign imposed from outside or on any legal prohibition.
“There has been no smoking in this village since the 1970s,” Zaharias Moudatsakis – presumably a resident – reportedly told the local news site Cretapost. “This has passed on to our children, with the result that even the younger generation does not have this bad habit.”
The residents of Skotino are proud of their successful resistance to smoking but they are perplexed as to why there aren’t many more people who follow their lead.
“I am very curious to know why people smoke,” said local resident Vasilis Zervakis. “We know how harmful is smoking … Here in Skotino, we prefer to drink a raki or a wine rather than light up a cigarette.”
Cigarettes are not sold in the village, and even most visitors respect Skotino’s unwritten law.
March 29, 2019
Boys and girls will be …
Twenty-one percent of Swiss boys and thirteen percent of girls aged 11-15 have tried electronic cigarettes at least once, according to a story at swissinfo.ch reporting on a survey of addiction among schoolchildren.
The findings were said to have alarmed the group Addiction Switzerland, which carried out the study of 11,000 children between the ages of 11 and 15.
“Vaping should not become normal consumer behavior among young people,” said Grégoire Vittoz, director of Addiction Switzerland, in a statement.
Swiss law is currently being adapted in relation to vapor products, but Addiction Switzerland has called also for such products to be priced beyond the means of schoolchildren, and for advertising restrictions.
The organization said that nicotine was addictive and could damage brain development in young people.
Overall, marginally fewer 11-15-year-olds said they had tried addictive substances than was the case during the previous survey in 2014.
In 2018, 10 percent of boys and eight percent of girls said they had smoked conventional cigarettes at least once a week, while in 2014 the respective figures were 12 percent and nine percent.
About 11 percent of boys and four percent of girls said that they had drunk alcohol at least once a week (10 percent and six percent in 2014).
The survey found also that 27 percent of boys and 17 percent of girls had used illegal cannabis at least once in their lives (30 percent and 19 percent in 2014). The figures for trying CBD (cannabidiol) products were nine percent and five percent for boys and girls.
The 2018 survey was part of an international Health Behavior in School-aged Children external link (HBSC) study carried out under the auspices of the World Health Organization external link, and was financed in Switzerland by the Federal Office of Public Health external link and cantons. It was the ninth time the HSBC study has been conducted in Switzerland.
March 29, 2019
Grower returns squeezed
Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB) has hiked weighing and auction floor charges, further eroding growers’ earnings, according to a story by Fidelity Mhlanga for Newsday.
The charge has been increased from US$4.50 per bale last season to US$7.70 per bale this season, much to the chagrin of growers who feel their earnings are being squeezed.
Mhlanga said that apart from the weighing and auction fees, other deductions incurred by farmers included a tobacco levy of 0.75 percent, TIMB stop order levies of 0.8 percent, and the Ministry of Agriculture levy of US$0.875c per kg.
An industry source told NewsDay that the move by the TIMB would affect the viability of tobacco growing, and added that pegging fees in US$ was in violation of Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019 that required ‘prices’ to be charged in RTGS dollars [Real Time Gross Transfer dollars made up of bond notes, bond coins and RTGS balances (electronic money)].
The sources said the TIMB had not consulted with stakeholders in coming up with a decision that ultimately affected growers’ livelihoods.
Contacted for a comment, TIMB spokesperson Isheunesu Moyo attributed the increase in auction fees to an upsurge in the cost structure at the auction floors. “As regulators we consider the viability of all stakeholders,” he said. “The cost structure of auction floors has gone up as a result of what we expect of them, such as those related to the new payment system, among others.”
At a time when the amount of tobacco that is sold via the auction floors is estimated at 20 percent, there is concern that the increase in charges could drive more growers to contract floors where charges remain low.
March 28, 2019
E-cigs to be legalized
The Seychelles is to legalize the use of electronic cigarettes with a new regulation that will place ‘alternative nicotine products’ (ANDs) under the country’s tobacco control law, following the approval of Cabinet Ministers, according to a Seychelles News Agency story.
Bharathi Viswanathan, program manager within the Prevention and Control of Cardiovascular Diseases unit at the Seychelles Hospital, was said to have told the news agency that currently all ANDs were banned in the Seychelles.
But the agency reported that, under the new regulation, ANDS would be classified as tobacco products so that nearly all provisions in the Seychelles tobacco control law would extend to their manufacture, distribution, sale and use.
ANDs were not on the market when the Seychelles’ first Tobacco Control Act was drafted in 2009, said Viswanathan; so amending the law would ensure that a ‘framework’ existed for consumers and sellers. Under the new regulation, sellers would need a license.
Viswanathan said that the only difference in treatment of traditional tobacco products and ANDs would be in respect of labeling. The warning labels would not be the same as those on cigarette packaging, but the details were still being worked out.
Presumably, ANDs warning labels will reflect the comparative risks because Viswanathan said that ANDs comprised a good option to help smokers who wanted to quit smoking.
“It is a good way to help smokers quit the habit and it is also less detrimental to health as it contains less nicotine and other harmful substances found in real cigarettes,” she said.
March 28, 2019
Gateway leads nowhere
The Philippines’s Department of Health (DOH) is stubbornly refusing to consider the growing body of evidence supporting electronic cigarettes as comprising a less harmful alternative to combustible cigarettes and an effective smoking cessation aid, according to an opinion piece by Mary Ann LL. Reyes published in The Philippine Star.
Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo was said recently to have reiterated the DOH’s warning that the use of e-cigarettes was not a good alternative to cigarette smoking and that, because e-cigarettes contained nicotine, the DOH was concerned that vapers would become addicted to nicotine and then become cigarette smokers.
Reyes said that Domingo’s statement was hardly surprising. The DOH followed the World Health Organization position that the only way to reduce smoking was for smokers to quit or die, and that anything less than an abstinence-only approach was unacceptable. Like the WHO, the DOH was highly skeptical of the potential for new technologies, such as e-cigarettes, to reduce smoking-related harms.
What was worrying, Reyes wrote, was the DOH’s stubborn refusal to consider the growing body of evidence supporting e-cigarettes as a less harmful alternative to conventional cigarettes and an effective smoking cessation aid.
February 27 had seen the publication by Public Health England of its latest evidence update summary on vaping.
One of the updated evidence review’s key findings immediately stood out because it ran completely counter to Domingo’s statement. E-cigarettes were not a gateway to smoking.
The evidence showed that e-cigarette use in the UK remained largely confined to those who already smoked or ex-smokers who had now quit using an e-cigarette, while quitting smoking remained the key motivation among adult vapers. The fear that the number of young people using e-cigarettes regularly would increase sharply was not happening in the UK. While experimentation was increasing, vaping among young people remained low at 1.7 percent and was mainly confined to those who already smoked.
March 28, 2019