In launching last week in Switzerland Logic Pro, a nicotine-containing electronic cigarette, Japan Tobacco International became the first international company to introduce such an e-cigarette, according to a note posted on the company’s website.
The launch was said to have followed the Federal Administrative Court’s decision on April 24 to lift Switzerland’s ban on the sale of e-cigarettes containing nicotine.
‘Logic Pro comes one year after the success of PLOOM TECH, its [JTI’s] tobacco-infused vapor product that heats tobacco at very low temperatures without combustion,’ the company said.
‘With Logic Pro, JTI widens its reduced risk products portfolio in Switzerland to satisfy consumer demand for e-cigarettes.
‘Logic Pro is a closed-tank electronic vapor device which heats a nicotine-containing liquid to produce an inhalable vapor. Its replaceable capsules come in five flavors – regular, menthol, cherry, berry mint and vanilla – and two different strengths. E-liquids for Logic Pro capsules are made in Europe in line with strict international quality standards, and use food flavoring agents, pharmacopeial nicotine, propylene glycol, and vegetable glycerin. All of this comes together in one sleek, convenient and satisfying vape.’
“Vapers today are looking for a superior and easy vaping experience,” said John Aurlund, JTI’s GM in Switzerland. “Thanks to the combination of its Europe-made e-liquid and first-class hardware, Logic PRO gives users a quality vapor with an enjoyable taste. With Logic, already the number one e-cigarette in several European countries, we can now meet a growing consumer need in Switzerland. We’re happy the new regulatory environment allows for more consumer choice in the country.”
Logic is an American brand of electronic cigarettes acquired by JTI in 2015.
The company said that it was a leading brand in major e-cigarette markets. It was the number one e-vapor brand in Ireland and the number one closed-tank e-vapor device in France, Italy and the UK.
‘In the UK, Logic Pro was voted the 2018 E-Cigarette of the Year, recognizing JTI’s dedication to the consumer,’ JTI said. ‘Already the number three global leader in the e-cigarette category, Logic is currently sold in 11 major e-cigarette markets.’
JTI said that Logic would be made available across Switzerland in independent trade and kiosk stores. The device would retail for CHF19,90, with refill packs of three capsules available for CHF5,90.
Category: People
Law change logical
Fictional deliveries
The European Commission has said that it is aware of the limitations of currently available methods for the measurement of cigarette deliveries of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide.
It said that this issue was carefully considered during the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and that it was concluded there was insufficient evidence that would support the revision of the existing provisions.
The Commission was responding to a question that was based on a study by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The RIVM researchers found that the amount of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide delivered was at least twice as high as manufacturers claimed it was.
The Commission said the results presented recently by the RIVM were in line with the measurements conducted by Hammond et al. in 2006, which indicated that ‘none of the smoking regimens currently in use adequately “represent” human smoking behaviour and none are significantly associated with measures of nicotine uptake among human participants’.
‘As the Commission pointed out in its replies to written questions E-003557/2017 and E-001317/2018, Article 4(3) of TPD empowers the Commission to adopt delegated acts to adapt the measurement methods, based on scientific and technical developments or internationally agreed standards,’ the Commission said. ‘The Commission will report on the application of the TPD by 2021.’Shifting out of tobacco
About 15 percent of the land previously under tobacco in India has been switched to growing other crops during the past three years, according to a story in the Times of India.
This switch has been brought about as a result of the Government’s crop diversification program (CDP).
The Times reported that tobacco was grown on about 450,000 ha in 15 states – about 0.3 percent of the country’s arable land – and that the agriculture ministry had reported that 67,000 ha had been switched to pulses and vegetables.
The Times, citing the ministry, reported that the switch out of tobacco had occurred in nine states and had been ‘led’ by Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are the states that produce flue-cured tobacco for export. Between them, according to the Times report, they produce just over 70 percent of India’s tobacco.
The ministry said that tobacco was a remunerative crop with a low incidence of pests and disease, and that it was therefore a preferred crop. However, growers had been motivated to make the switch with campaigns highlighting the harmful effects of tobacco and by convincing them of the long-term benefits of alternative crops.
According to the Rajahmundry-based Central Tobacco Research Institute, studies have shown that no single crop is as remunerative as tobacco is. However, it says that a remunerative cropping system rather than a sole crop can be a viable alternative to a sole tobacco crop.Time is a great stealer
According to a Zimbabwe Herald story dated July 26, the country’s flue-cured-tobacco growers have delivered a record crop of 239.8 million kg.
And, with sales due to end tomorrow, one other record could be set: the longest period in which prices have not increased.
The Herald reported that growers had been paid $700.9 million for their 239.9 million kg, which puts the average price at US$2.92 per kg.
That’s a lower average price than was paid in 1996, US$2.94.
Contracted growers fared better than did those who sold at auction. The former were paid US$603.9 million for delivering 204.5 million kg of tobacco, for an average price of US$2.95 per kg.
The latter, meanwhile, were paid US$97.0 million for delivering 35.3 million kg, for an average price of US$2.75 per kg, which means that they were paid 6.5 percent less for their tobacco than was the average grower of 1996.US public misinformed
The US public has become mostly unaware that smokeless tobacco is much less harmful than cigarettes, according to a story by David J. Hill for the University of Buffalo.
In 1986, Hill said, the US government passed legislation requiring a series of warnings for smokeless tobacco products, one of which advised “This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes”.
That warning, however, obscured an important distinction – that cigarettes were much more harmful to health than were smokeless tobacco products.
And over the 30-plus years since, the US public had mostly been unaware that smokeless tobacco use is much less harmful than smoking cigarettes, Hill said, quoting one of the nation’s leading tobacco policy experts writing in a paper published recently in Harm Reduction Journal.
“It is important to distinguish between evidence that a product is ‘not safe’ and evidence that a product is ‘not safer’ than cigarettes or ‘just as harmful’ as cigarettes,” said the paper’s author Lynn Kozlowski, professor of community health and health behavior in the University at Buffalo’s School of Public Health and Health Professions.
“The process at the time of the establishment of official smokeless tobacco warnings in the 1980s paid no attention to this distinction,” Kozlowski adds. “The American public has become mostly unaware that smokeless tobacco is much less harmful than cigarettes.”
Kozlowski was quoted as saying that as long as cigarettes remained legal in the US, US consumers should be provided with proper information on the relative risks of tobacco/nicotine products that are ‘less lethal’ or otherwise less harmful than cigarettes. In addition, consumers should receive information on the ways in which a product causes harm, he said, adding that none should be viewed as harmless.Counterfeit combat
A French member of the European Parliament has asked the Commission how it intends to involve consumers in the fight against counterfeiting.
In a preamble to three questions, Jérôme Lavrilleux said that a study by the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) had found that counterfeiting costs the European economy almost €60 billion.
‘The EUIPO estimates that counterfeit products account for up to five percent of the EU’s imports, valued at €85 billion per annum,’ said Lavrilleux.
‘In addition, measures against imports of such products seem feeble in relation to the amounts of money and quantities of goods involved.
‘According to Commission figures, customs services intercepted 41 million items of counterfeit goods in 2016. The total value of the equivalent genuine products would have been in the region of €672 million.
‘This poses a serious threat to IPR-intensive sectors, which account for 42 percent of European GDP and 28 percent of employment in the European Union. Nearly 434,000 jobs are directly threatened.’
Lavrilleux asked:
‘How will the Commission step up measures to combat counterfeit products at EU and member state levels?
‘Does the Commission intend to strengthen the regulatory framework and harmonise national legislation so that they become stronger deterrents?
‘How will the Commission make consumers more aware and involve them more in combating counterfeiting?’
Lavrilleux’s questions are due to be answered by the Commission in writing.Nothing new there then
With the Australian federal and Victorian state elections in sight, this week a coalition of twenty-four public health and medical organisations have called for the virtual elimination of tobacco smoking by 2025, according to a story by Terry Barnes on spectator.com.au.
Barnes, who is a fellow of the UK Institute of Economic Affairs, with a special interest in ‘nanny state regulation’, was scathing about the strategy outlined for achieving this goal, particularly the absence of any mention of the use of modern, reduced-risk products.
He said that all that was on offer to achieve the ‘do-good’ manifesto’s aims were five ideas that amounted to more of the same of the past four decades.
‘There is no recognition in this election-motivated manifesto that there are new technological weapons capable of disrupting the traditional cigarette and tobacco market, helping smokers to reduce or quit, and of leading to the sorts of real reductions in the number of lives to smoking the Pooh-Bah bullies dream of but, because of their arrogant bone-headedness, can never achieve,’ Barnes said.Harm reduction glows anew
British American Tobacco Korea on Monday launched in South Korea its second-generation tobacco-heating device, glo, according to a story on pulsenews.co.kr.
At the launch, BAT Korea said consumers would be able to buy the new edition of glo from July 30 at the brand’s flagship store, nationwide from convenience stores and via the official web site.
The second-generation glo device, which is being launched about a year after the previous model was launched, will be priced at 90,000 won.
BAT Korea said that the upgraded version of glo came with enhanced function and design. The all-in-one device was simple to operate, the company said, because users did not need a separate charging device.
The device could be used up to 30 times on a full charge, it added.
BAT Korea has unveiled also neo, a new heated-tobacco consumable unit for the new device, which will replace Neostiks, the existing heated tobacco unit.
Pulse quoted an unnamed official of BAT Korea as saying the company would continue to provide more diverse and satisfying options to Korean smokers seeking potentially reduced-risk, alternative products.
Despite the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s health warning about vapor products, demand for smokeless tobacco devices has been growing.Time for urgent action
The US’ National Tobacco Reform Initiative (NTRI) is calling on the Food and Drug Administration actively and expeditiously to pursue the course of action the agency announced in July 2017 ‘with respect to its proposed tobacco and nicotine regulatory framework that would focus on nicotine and support innovations to promote tobacco harm reduction based on the continuum of risk for nicotine-containing products’.
On July 28, 2017, the NTRI said, the FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, and the director of the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products, Mitch Zeller, announced new policy directions on tobacco and nicotine that called for a ‘comprehensive regulatory plan’ that would accelerate efforts in winning the war against cigarette smoking.
In a letter to the commissioner on the one-year anniversary of his announcement, the public health leaders who are part of NTRI said that while they had seen progress during the past 50 plus years in respect of declining smoking prevalence, an estimated 32 million US adults still smoked cigarettes. ‘Cigarette smoking remains this nation’s leading cause of preventable disease and death, responsible for about 480,000 deaths each year and costing this country approximately $300 billion in health care costs and lost productivity,’ the NTRI said in a press note. ‘With so many lives on the line each year, there must be an urgency to take bold, visionary actions immediately to reduce the disease burden that smoking addiction inflicts on the health of Americans.
‘While the NTRI fully supports the FDA’s announced visionary initiatives, we are concerned that the FDA is/will become mired in overly bureaucratic processes that will delay taking necessary and obvious steps to protect the public’s health. While some attention is being focused on the priority to consider reducing nicotine levels in cigarettes, the other equally important priority to establish a more workable and flexible regulatory framework to regulate all tobacco and nicotine products based on their risks and relative risks (continuum of risk) is nowhere to be seen.’
“[I]f prudent product standards and reasonable guidelines for making truthful modified risk claims are not available before introducing a product standard for reducing nicotine’s addictiveness in combustible cigarettes, the opportunity to accelerate a mass-migration away from smoked tobacco products, relegating cigarettes to the ashtray of history, will be lost,” veteran tobacco and nicotine researcher and NTRI member, David B. Abrams, PhD, was quoted as saying. Abrams is a professor at the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, NYU College of Global Health, New York University.Anti-smuggling campaign
The UK’s Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association (TMA) has launched a nationwide campaign to help fight the illegal trade in tobacco products.
In a press note issued yesterday, the TMA said posters would be displayed on telephone boxes in 50 illicit-tobacco hot spots across the UK so those tempted to buy or sell cheap illicit tobacco were warned of the consequences.
The campaign encouraged those who were aware of illicit tobacco, but who didn’t buy or sell it, to report any suspicious activity to HM Revenue & Customs.
The campaign, the TMA said, would be waged also at the UK’s busiest port and various airports to remind people who bring tobacco back from abroad that it was illegal to sell it on without paying UK taxes.
‘The campaign has been developed following research which has found that many adult smokers are unaware of or simply disregard the law,’ the note said. ‘This campaign will therefore “nudge” smokers away from the illicit market by reminding them of what is legal and what is not and raise awareness of the HMRC illicit trade reporting hotline.’
Posters have been put up in 50 locations in Cardiff, Glasgow, Perth, Dundee, London and Manchester, while billboards are being displayed at Dover international sea port and at the airports of Glasgow, Glasgow Prestwick, East Midlands, Manchester, Cardiff and Belfast.
‘Illegal tobacco is a major social problem,’ said the note. ‘According to HMRC, it cost the government £2.5 billion in lost taxes in 2016-17 which in turn puts important public services at financial risk. Moreover, it brings crime into local communities, hurts small independent retailers and the profits from illegal tobacco have been known to finance terrorism and organised criminal gangs.
‘It has been estimated that the sale of illicit tobacco made criminals more than £1.5 billion and cost the small retail sector more than £1.7 billion in revenue.’
“The tobacco industry is committed to helping fight the illegal tobacco market which impacts communities, public services and small retailers,” said Giles Roca, director general of the TMA.
“The Government needs to commit greater resources to tackling illegal trade and needs to consider innovative solutions post-Brexit to halt the flow of cheap foreign tobacco into the country.”
