Category: Regulation

  • Regulatory board closing

    Regulatory board closing

    Turkey’s Tobacco, Tobacco Products and Alcoholic Beverages Market Regulation Board (TAPDK) is being closed, according to a story in The Hurriyet Daily News.

    The closure follows the introduction by the government of a number of key revisions to its economic management strategy that has involved, in part, the shutting of regulatory and supervisory bodies that had overseen the tobacco and sugar industries.

    The changes were announced in an emergency decree published in the Official Gazette on December 24.

    TAPDK had responsibility for the registration, authorization and regulatory systems in respect of tobacco, tobacco products, alcohol and liquor.

    It was responsible for issuing regulations aimed at avoiding medical and social harms associated with tobacco and alcohol consumption.

    And it was responsible for the implementation of guidelines aimed at the enforcement of laws.

    TAPDK’s duties have been transferred to the Health Ministry and the Food, Agriculture and Livestock Ministry.

  • Small retailers cry foul

    Small retailers cry foul

    More than 1,000 tobacco retailers yesterday protested outside the Union Health Ministry in Delhi, India, demanding a reduction in the size of cigarette-pack graphic health warnings, New Delhi Television has reported.

    According to the retailers, protesting under the banner of Akhil Bharatiya Pan Vikreta Sangh (ABPVS), which represents about 7,500,000 retailers across India, the smuggling of tobacco products has increased in the country since the graphic warnings became mandatory.

    Smuggled cigarettes carried no warnings, giving the impression that they were less risky than were tax-paid products.

    The protest came days after the Karnataka High Court struck down the Cigarette and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Amendment Rules, 2014, which had enlarged the warnings to 85 percent of the principal area of packages of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

    The court, however, rejected the challenge made to the rules laid down in 2008. The 2008 rules, which had required 40-percent warnings, would remain in force until the union government framed fresh rules or amended the 2008 rules.

    The government is expected to appeal against the decision.

    The president of the ABPVS, Ram Ashrey Mishra, said the anti-tobacco policy was being driven by vested interests promoted by various NGOs that were receiving huge sums of money from international players and that were hand-in-glove with large retailers.

    They had been targeting small retailers to prevent them selling other, non-tobacco items, pushing customers to their large shops and closing out all the sources of income of small retailers.

    The report said the Union Health Ministry, on September 22, sent an advisory to the Rajasthan government that sought to prevent shops selling tobacco products from selling other products such as candy, chips, biscuits and soft drinks: ‘products essentially meant for children’.

  • What smoking bans?

    What smoking bans?

    A prisoner has lost his attempt to enforce the smoking ban in English and Welsh jails after the supreme court ruled that crown premises are effectively exempt from the enforcement of health regulations, according to a story in The Guardian.

    The unanimous judgment from the UK’s highest court will prevent the inmate from calling the National Health Service’s smoke-free compliance line to report breaches of the ban.

    Lady Hale, the president of the supreme court, said she was driven with “considerable reluctance” to conclude that when parliament passed the 2006 Health Act, prohibiting smoking in offices, bars and enclosed areas, it did not mean to extend it to government or crown sites.

    Sean Humber, head of the prison law team at the law firm Leigh Day who represented the inmate, said: “Why shouldn’t those living, working or visiting government properties be subject to the same laws, and indeed benefit from the same legal protections, as the rest of us?

    “This judgment has far wider implications than simply the issue of smoking in prisons. It confirms that thousands of government properties, including, for example, courts and jobcentres, are not covered by the provisions of the Health Act prohibiting smoking in enclosed places. While many of these buildings even have signs saying it is against the law to smoke in them, these turn out to be incorrect.”

    The Guardian’s story is at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/19/jails-exempt-smoking-ban-uk-supreme-court-rules.

  • Banning vaping at home

    Banning vaping at home

    The rules governing public housing in the US are changing – to the detriment of smokers and vapers, according to a story by Lindsay Tuman for WRDW News 12, Augusta, Georgia.

    The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has declared that all public housing has to be smoke- and vapor-free.

    So the consumption of cigarettes, hookah tobacco and even electronic cigarettes will no longer be allowed in units – homes – or within 25 feet of the property.

    The new rules are being brought in so as to reduce the cost of building maintenance and the risk of fires, and to assuage health concerns.

    If people break the rules they can be fined and, ultimately, they could lose their lease.

    The housing authority where Tuman spoke with an ex-smoker resident, is said to be giving people plenty of time and resources to quit.

  • Menthol bans spreading

    Menthol bans spreading

    US anti-smoking groups, frustrated by federal inaction on restricting menthol cigarettes, are taking matters into their own hands, according to a story by Paul Feldman for salon.com.

    In recent months, a number of cities are said to have passed laws limiting the availability of menthol cigarettes, which health advocates say have a particular appeal to those starting to smoke. One city voted this month to restrict sales to adult-only tobacco and liquor stores.

    “For a long time, everyone hoped that FDA [the Food and Drug Administration] would move forward,” Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, was quoted as saying. “As those hopes dissipated, there was a growing consensus that communities needed to act.”

    Feldman said that of at least a dozen cities and counties across the nation that had approved restrictions, San Francisco had been the most ambitious. In June, officials there had agreed on an outright sales ban that was supposed to have taken effect in April 2018. But a petition drive funded by R.J. Reynolds, producer of the top-selling menthol brand, Newport, had forced a June 2018 ballot measure on the proposed ban.

    If voters supported the ban, other cities might be emboldened to follow San Francisco’s lead. And with menthols accounting for about 30 percent of US cigarette sales, billions of dollars could be riding on the outcome.

    The battle stems from a 2009 law that authorized the FDA to regulate tobacco products. The law included a ban on candy, fruit and spice flavors in cigarettes, but Congress exempted menthol while directing the FDA to determine if it, too, should be restricted or banned. A 2013 FDA committee report found it was ‘likely that menthol cigarettes pose a public health risk above that seen with non-menthol cigarettes’.

    But the agency has restricted menthol in cigarettes.

    Feldman’s story is at: https://www.salon.com/2017/12/17/tired-of-waiting-for-the-feds-local-groups-target-menthol-cigarettes_partner/.

  • Japan’s vaping dilemma

    Japan’s vaping dilemma

    Japan’s national government and the Tokyo metropolitan government are at odds about how to treat heat-not-burn (HNB) products as they consider, ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, regulations on public-places smoking and vaping, according to a Mainichi Daily News story.

    HNB products are placed in the same category as combustible cigarettes under the Tobacco Business Act; so both were included in the original draft revision of the Health Promotion Act that the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) released in March.

    The health ministry has said that it would consider excluding HNB products from legal regulation, but only if their vapor was proven scientifically to be harmless.

    Given this, it is likely that HNB products will be treated in the same way as combustible cigarettes in the draft revision of the Health Promotion Act set to be submitted to the regular session of the Diet next year.

    Meanwhile, Tokyo is aiming to establish its own ordinance on tobacco-related products, and its draft ordinance released in September explicitly stated that HNB products would be subject to regulation.

    However, of the approximately 17,000 comments received from the public about the ordinance, about 2,000 called for HNB products to be excluded from the regulation, and a Tokyo government official has since expressed a more conciliatory stand than in September. “We are still undecided whether to rule out” HNB products from the restrictions, the official said.

    Philip Morris Japan says that, compared with combustible cigarettes, its IQOS HNB device reduces, on average, about 90 percent of the toxic substances generated.

    And Japan Tobacco says that HNB-device vapor does not affect the indoor environment, and that its risk should not be discussed in the same breath as that of combustible cigarettes.

    But the Japanese Respiratory Society released a comment in October saying that as long as there was a possibility that HNB products had a negative impact on health, the use of such products was not recommended.

    And Hiroshi Yamato, a professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, said, “It is a rule of public health to regulate something when in doubt, and unless there is proof that it is harmless”.

  • Huge warnings struck down

    Huge warnings struck down

    A court in India on Friday struck down regulations that have required tobacco companies to cover 85 percent of their packaging with graphic health warnings, according to stories in The Hindu Online, the Times of India and Reuters.

    The companies were said to have won an important but partial legal battle against the union government.

    The Hindu said that the Karnataka High Court on Friday had declared as unconstitutional the Cigarette and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Amendment Rules, 2014, which had enlarged the warnings to 85 percent of the principal area of packages of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

    The court, however, had rejected the challenge made to the rules laid down in 2008.

    The 2008 rules, which had required 40-percent warnings, would remain in force until the union government framed fresh rules or amended the 2008 rules.

    A special division bench comprising Justice B.S. Patil and Justice B.V. Nagarathna delivered the verdict on a batch of petitions filed by the Tobacco Institute of India and tobacco manufacturers before the high courts of Karnataka, Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay, Gujarat, and Rajasthan, challenging the 2014 rules. All these petitions were transferred by India’s Supreme Court to the Karnataka High Court.

    The Times report said that some public health experts felt that the court’s decision might cause harm to India’s global image.

    According to Reuters, the government lawyer in the case, Krishna S. Dixit, confirmed the rules had been struck down but said he would appeal to the Supreme Court.

  • Tracking rules adopted

    Tracking rules adopted

    Rules governing the EU’s proposed tobacco-products tracking-and-tracing system have been adopted.

    A press note issued on Friday by DG Sante (the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety) said that the measures that needed to be enacted to put in place the EU-wide tracking-and-tracing system planned for under articles 15 and 16 of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive had been clarified in secondary legislation adopted by the Commission.

    ‘The implementing regulation on technical standards for the establishment and operation of a traceability system for tobacco products lays down rules that will ensure that all unit packets of tobacco products produced in, destined for or placed on the EU market will be marked with a unique identifier and their movements recorded throughout the supply chain (from the manufacturer to the last level before the retail outlet),’ the press note said.

    ‘It obliges each member state to appoint an entity (‘ID issuer’) responsible for generating and issuing the unique identifiers, and lays down clear rules to ensure that the traceability system remains fully independent, notably from the tobacco industry, and that functions are carried out impartially.

    ‘The implementing decision on technical standards for security features applied to tobacco products obliges EU countries to require security features, composed of at least five types of authentication elements (including overt, covert and semi-covert), to be applied to unit packets of tobacco products. One of these elements must be provided by an independent third-party provider.

    ‘Member States must ensure they have the necessary means to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the security features.’

    The press note went on to say that EU countries and ‘economic operators’ could now start preparatory work for the two systems of traceability and security features.

    ‘These should be in place by 20 May 2019 for cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco and by 24 May 2024 for all other tobacco products (such as cigars, cigarillos and smokeless tobacco products).

  • Teenagers are revolting

    Teenagers are revolting

    In the US, graphic anti-tobacco posters intended to deter young people from buying cigarettes might have the opposite effect, according to a HealthDay story citing new research.

    The research suggests that the strategy of hanging such posters in convenience stores could backfire, prompting some teenagers to light up.

    The HealthDay story described how the tobacco industry focused much of its promotional efforts on convenience stores, and how some states had tried to counter such promotions by requiring that these stores display graphic posters depicting the effects of smoking-related diseases.

    For the study, researchers from the Rand Corporation created a replica of a convenience store in which the tobacco wall or display included also a photograph of a diseased mouth and the words “Warning: Cigarettes cause cancer”.

    Four-hundred-and-forty-one adolescents 11 to 17 years of age were questioned about their views on smoking before and after they shopped in the fake store. About five percent of the participants had smoked before, and about 20 percent were considered at-risk for future cigarette smoking when the study began because they weren’t entirely against the habit.

    The study found that some of the young people were more tempted to smoke after shopping in the store, though this reaction was noted only among those who’d admitted originally that they thought about smoking – not those who’d been sure they would never light up.

    “Our findings are counterintuitive and suggest that some anti-smoking strategies may actually go too far,” said the study’s lead author, William Shadel, a senior behavioral scientist at Rand.

    Whatever the cause, “our findings do suggest that policymakers should be careful when considering graphic warning posters as part of anti-tobacco education in retail environments,” Shadel said.

    The Rand Corporation is a non-profit institution that works to help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis. It focuses on issues such as health, education and the environment.

    The HealthDay story is at: https://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/tobacco-and-kids-health-news-662/graphic-anti-smoking-ads-can-backfire-on-kids-729222.html.

  • Thai e-cig ban challenged

    Thai e-cig ban challenged

    A network of electronic-cigarette users yesterday pressed Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly to consider lifting the ban on the import, production, sale and possession of electronic cigarettes, according to a story in the Bangkok Post.

    The Commerce Ministry earlier this year banned e-cigarettes and related products.

    The chairman of the NLA’s commerce subcommittee, Siripol Yodmuangcharoen, who received the petition, said the group had backed its call for the ban to be reversed with information indicating that 160 countries allow the sale of e-cigarettes while only 15 countries ban them.

    The group had claimed also that the ban on imported e-cigarettes resulted in a substantial loss in import tax revenues.

    Siripol said the subcommittee would discuss the group’s demand.

    Meanwhile, Maris Karanyawat, the network’s representative, said the group had presented its petition to the NLA along with the signatures of more than 17,000 people in support of the right of more than 11 million cigarette smokers to gain access to e-cigarettes.

    The Post’s story is at: https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1378195/network-fired-up-over-electronic-cigarette-ban