Category: Regulation

Companies to Post ‘Corrective Statements’

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Tobacco companies will have to start displaying signs with “corrective” statements about the health effects and addictive nature of cigarettes at U.S. points of sale in the second half of 2023, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), reports Fox News. A court order requiring the statements will take effect July 1, 2023, after which tobacco companies will have three months to start posting the statements for 21 months in English and Spanish.
The order “resolves the government’s long-running civil racketeering lawsuit against the largest United States cigarette companies,” according to the DOJ. The racketeering lawsuit was filed in 1999 and ended in 2005; however, the DOJ said the new court order is the last of several corrective remedies related to that case.
Altria Group, Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and four cigarette brands owned by ITG Brands are subject to the order. An estimated 200,000 of 300,000 retail stores in the U.S. that sell cigarettes have agreements with the tobacco companies. The order requires the companies to amend their agreements, requiring corrective statements to be placed at the stores on color signs that are eye-catching. Messaging will include adverse health effects of smoking, the addictive nature of nicotine and adverse health effects of secondhand smoke, among others.
“Justice Department attorneys have worked diligently for over 20 years to hold accountable the tobacco companies that defrauded consumers about the health risks of smoking,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. “Today’s resolution implements the last remedy of this litigation to ensure that consumers know the true dangers of the smoking products they may consider purchasing.”
“This is an important moment in the history of cancer control in the United States,” said William Klein, associate director of the National Cancer Institute’s behavioral research program. “Smoking causes about 30 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States, and therefore, the court-ordered corrective statements appearing at the point of cigarette sale will help support our mission to reduce the burden of cancer. We are grateful to our colleagues at the Department of Justice for having completed this significant work.”
December 7, 2022
FDA Urged to Expand Menthol Ban

Image: Tobacco Reporter archive
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should extend the ban on menthol cigarettes to other products, like pipe tobacco and cigarette tubes, according to researchers at the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies and Ohio State University, reports EurekAlert!.
“Tobacco companies have rebranded their roll-your-own cigarette tobacco as pipe tobacco to avoid taxes and rebranded flavored cigarettes as flavored cigars to skirt a federal ban,” said Andrea Villanti, deputy director of the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies and co-principal investigator of a study published in Tobacco Control discussing the addiction potential of menthol cigarette alternatives. “We have already seen companies advertising pipe tobacco and cigarette tubes alongside cigarettes and filtered cigars. The products we tested in our study are likely to be products that tobacco companies will promote following a ban on menthol cigarettes.”
Research showed that mentholated pipe tobacco and tubes in a roll-your-own cigarette were the most appealing substitutes for menthol cigarettes and resulted in the highest number of indicators for future nicotine addiction. The proposed menthol ban does not include these products, however.
“The present findings suggest that components of menthol roll-your-own products, including menthol rolling papers, cigarette tubes and pipe tobacco, should be included in the menthol cigarette and flavored cigar product standards,” said Theodore Wagener, director of the Center for Tobacco Research at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center—Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute and corresponding author of the study. “Their absence from this restriction will result in a critical loophole that is already being exploited by the tobacco industry and has the potential to lessen the potential public health benefits of the proposed menthol ban.”
December 7, 2022
New Zealand Pulls More Than 300 Vape Products

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More than 300 vaping products have been pulled off of New Zealand shelves, reports 1news.
New Zealand’s Vaping Regulatory Authority (VRA) has looked at over 8,000 products on store shelves that had been notified to its register.
“For the majority of the products reviewed, no issues have been found, but in some cases, information provided by the manufacturer or importer indicated that they could include prohibited ingredients or they could have nicotine salt levels that exceed the legal limit,” says VRA manager Matthew Burgess.
“Following the review, companies have withdrawn notifications for 340 vaping products, meaning they can no longer be legally sold in New Zealand. We will be publishing a list of products that are no longer notified on the Ministry of Health website shortly.”
Up to 1,800 other vaping products could still be taken off shelves. The authority is working with companies that make or sell them and has given them until next week to provide more information.
December 2, 2022
Macau Bans Vaping

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Macau’s ban on vaping, passed in August 2022, is effective Dec. 5, according to Macau Business. The new law prohibits all activities associated with production, selling, distribution, import and export of e-cigarettes.
Private entities caught violating the law, which criminalizes users and carriers of electronic cigarettes, could face a fine between MOP20,000 ($2,505) and MOP200,000, according to health authorities.
The ban is intended to prevent youth vaping.
December 1, 2022
Netherlands Flavor Ban Effective Next Year

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The Netherlands will ban all e-cigarette flavors except tobacco effective Oct. 1, 2023, reports NL Times, citing a government amendment to the Staatscourant. The ban extends to pre-filled e-cigarettes and disposable vapes as well.
The ban was announced in 2020, and will also include banning packaging that depicts anything other than tobacco and restricting rules for naming products.
The RIVM, a public health institute, created a list of 16 ingredients that manufacturers can use to make tobacco flavors.
December 1, 2022
FDA Updates Reynolds MRTP

Courtesy: US FDA
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has added the redacted “September 14, 2020 Amendment: Timing to Respond to September 1, 2020, FDA Deficiency Letter” to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company’s modified-risk tobacco product (MRTP) applications.
On Dec. 18, 2017, the FDA filed for substantive scientific review of six MRTP applications from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for the following smokeless tobacco products: Camel Snus Frost, Camel Snus Frost Large, Camel Snus Mellow, Camel Snus Mint, Camel Snus Robust and Camel Snus Winterchill.
On Oct. 25, 2022, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company requested to withdraw these applications from FDA review.
December 1, 2022
Excise Duties, Tobacco Purchasing Age Raised

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Turkmenistan has raised the excise duty rates for production and import of alcohol and the import of tobacco products, reports Interfax. The legal purchasing age for tobacco products was also raised from 18 years old to 21 years old.
Excise on imported tobacco products will rise from 93 percent to 116 percent effective Jan. 1, 2023. Excise on strong alcoholic beverages produced in the country will increase from 53 percent to 61 percent; beer produced in the country will see an increase from 26 percent to 30 percent; and imported beer will increase from 80 percent to 92 percent.
The purchase age increase is effective immediately.
December 1, 2022
Ireland Approves E-Cigarette Rules
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Ireland Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and Minister for Public Health Frank Feighan received government approval to introduce additional restrictions on the sale and advertising of nicotine inhaling products such as e-cigarettes, according to Gov.ie.
Under the new proposals, the sale of e-cigarettes and related vaping products will be prohibited from self-service vending machines, from temporary or mobile premises and at places or events for children. In addition, advertisements for e-cigarettes will be prohibited on public transport, in cinemas and near schools.
“These measures are designed to protect our children and young people from starting to vape,” said Donnelly. “We recognize that nicotine is a highly addictive drug, and we are acting today to make these products less accessible to our young people and to remove the advertising for these products from our children’s everyday lives.”
The proposals will be incorporated into the Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill, which is currently being drafted. The bill is expected to be finalized and published by year end. The legislation will be designed to regulate any product that can be used for the consumption of nicotine-containing vapor or any component of that product.
The bill already contains measures to ban the sale of nicotine inhaling products to those under the age of 18 and to introduce a licensing system for the retail sale of tobacco products and nicotine inhaling products. Other measures contained in the bill include:
prohibiting the sale of tobacco products and nicotine inhaling products by persons under 18 years of age;
prohibiting the sale of tobacco products from self-service vending machines, from temporary or mobile units and at events or locations for children;
introducing minimum suspension periods for retailers convicted of offenses; and
introducing fixed penalty notices for offenses.
Feighan welcomed the government’s approval of the measures.
“Tobacco smoking continues to kill approximately 4,500 people in our country each year,” he said. “We recognize that nicotine inhaling products are used by some adult smokers to assist them to quit tobacco smoking. However, we are clear that these products are of no benefit to our children and young people or to nonsmokers, and that is why we are taking this action today.”
November 28, 2022
Commission to Propose EU-Wide Vaping Levy

Photo: Sergii Figurnyi
The European Commission (EC) wants to increase the minimum excise duty on cigarettes to €3.60 ($3.77) from €1.80 per pack of 20 and introduce a bloc-wide vaping levy, reports the Financial Times, citing a draft EC document.
If enacted, the legislation would double cigarette excise duties in EU member states with low cigarette taxes. In some eastern European nations, cigarette packs currently sell for under €3. Excise duties on cigarettes would also increase considerably in countries such as Austria and Luxembourg where prices are low relative to income. The tax rise on cigarettes is expected to generate an extra €9.3 billion for EU member states.
The update to the 2011 EU tobacco taxation directive will also bring the taxation of electronic nicotine-delivery systems into line with cigarettes. Stronger vaping products would have an excise duty of at least 40 percent applied to them while lower strength vapes will face a 20 percent duty. Heated-tobacco products will also be hit by 55 percent duty, or a tax rate of €91 per 1,000 items sold.
Rob Branston, senior lecturer in business economics and a member of the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group, told the Financial Times that the tax regime update was “long overdue” to increase prices in countries where cigarettes were “too cheap” and to catch up with inflation.
But Peter van der Mark, secretary-general of the European Smoking Tobacco Association, warned that a sudden steep increase in tax rates would likely boost illicit tobacco sales.
Dustin Dahlmann, president of the Independent European Vape Alliance, said that imposing taxes on novel tobacco products could lead to “the much less harmful alternatives” to smoking being “taxed far too heavily in many countries.”
The proposal will have to be agreed on by all EU member states before it is enshrined in law. BAT stressed that the EC draft proposal was “the beginning of a long legislative process.”
November 28, 2022
Snowplus Obtains China Production License
China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration has granted Snowplus Tech a production license that allows the company to produce 80 million pods annually. In a press note, the company said it will now take on the “challenge and responsibility to help lead the development of a healthy and sustainable vaping industry.”
While the U.S. government has strict regulations for vaping products, there has been a rise in fake or counterfeits of popular brands in the country, which has led to an increase in incidents relating to poorly manufactured variations, according to Snowplus. This, the company says, highlights the importance of using a reputable, tested and certified vape product.
Snowplus stresses that its products are designed in-house, developed by experts in specialist R&D centers and manufactured in one of the largest, most advanced e-cigarette facilities in the world.
Established in January 2019 and backed by investors such as Zhen fund and Sequoia, Snowplus has more than 60 criteria for testing to ensure product safety and quality. With three CNAS certified research laboratories, its safety protocols are recognized and interoperable by 65 institutions in 50 countries, according to the company.
“There is an increasing trend for cheap counterfeit vapes on the market, which we find deeply concerning,” said Derek Li, Snowplus co-founder and head of overseas markets. “That is why we have invested heavily in product research to create products that enhance the vaping experience while ensuring it is as safe as possible.”
Snowplus has invested over $2 million in quality and safety research, and to help prevent e-liquid from leaking out of products, it conducts impact tests in variable temperature, humidity and pressure conditions, according to the company. In addition, Snowplus’ batteries pass two tests before assembly to “guarantee that devices can operate in different environments,” the firm wrote in its press release.
November 16, 2022