The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has changed its rules so that health claims are no longer banned from advertisements for electronic cigarettes.
In a note posted on its website, the ASA said that the change had been made by the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP and BCAP) following an extensive consultation.
The change was welcomed by Dan Marchant, board member of the UK Vaping Industry Association and MD of VapeClub, who said that Public Health England had been clear that vaping was at least 95 percent less harmful than smoking.
And he said that vaping’s potential to help smokers quit had been backed by public health groups from the Royal College of Physicians to Cancer Research.
“But despite this support, it has previously not been possible for us to spread the positive news to consumers, and the public perception of vaping has suffered as a result,” he said.
“Although some questions remain about how the new rules will be applied to particular products and businesses, it is right that advertising rules are now starting to catch up so we can share factual information with smokers about this potentially life changing alternative.
“Only by building confidence in the health benefits of vaping will it be possible to convince every smoker that switching to vaping could positively change their lives.
“However, it also remains the case that the ability of the industry to advertise its products is still constricted by the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive which only allows advertising in very limited forums with no apparent consistency.
“The UK’s exit from the EU provides an ideal opportunity to amend these rules to further bring advertising regulations into line with vaping’s recognised public health potential.”
CAP and BCAP’s evaluation of the responses to its consultation is here.
CAP and BCAP’s regulatory statement is here.
Category: Regulation
E-cig ad rules changed
Menthol under threat
The US Food and Drug Administration plans to propose a ban on menthol cigarettes this week as part of its aggressive campaign against flavored electronic cigarettes and some tobacco products, according to a story by Sheila Kaplan for the New York Times, quoting agency officials.
However, Kaplan said the proposal would have to go through the FDA’s ‘regulatory maze’, and that it could be several years before such a restriction took effect, especially if the major tobacco companies contested the agency’s authority to do so.
None of the major tobacco companies were ready to comment on the possibility of barring menthol cigarettes.
Such a move has been long-awaited by some public health advocates, who have been especially concerned about the high percentage of African-Americans who become addicted to menthol cigarettes.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner, would not comment publicly on the proposal on Friday [when Kaplan’s piece was published]. But he was quoted as having said in a recent interview that the FDA was revisiting the issue, one that had been weighed by previous administrations. “It was a mistake for the agency to back away on menthol,” he said.
Canada has already imposed a ban on menthol cigarettes, and the EU’s ban is set to go into effect in 2020. Earlier this year, San Francisco passed a prohibition against the sales of menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes.
Kaplan said that the menthol proposal was just one of several initiatives the FDA planned to announce sometime this week, which would include a ban on sales of most flavored e-cigarettes, except menthol and mint, at retail stores and gas stations across the country.
The products, which include such flavors as chicken-and-waffles and mango, would be mainly relegated to sales online, at sites where the agency hopes to impose strict age verification to ensure that minors cannot buy them.Smoking bans extended
Thailand’s Public Health Ministry is due to enforce tobacco-smoking bans in or at 81 newly-listed public places, including airport terminals, ATMs and hotel lobbies, according to a November 6 story in The Bangkok Post.
Separate smoking areas will be allowed in some places.
The list was published in the Royal Gazette, which indicated the bans would be enforced in 90 days.
New no-smoking zones include hospitals, clinics, schools, nurseries, homes for the elderly, health and massage parlors, libraries, learning centers, gymnasiums, swimming pools, ATMs, public toilets, grocery shops, theaters, game shops, drug stores, meeting venues, shopping centers, government offices and organizations, zoos, amusement and water parks, laundry shops, bus stops, piers, taxi and van stands, and public areas of airports, hotels and condominium buildings.
Areas within a five-meter radius of the entrances and exits of such places will also be no-smoking zones.
However, the ministry will allow universities, government offices, state enterprises and airports to have separate smoking areas.FDA extends deadline
The US Food and Drug Administration is extending its ingredient-listing compliance deadline for some companies operating in areas where there have been recent natural disasters.
In a note issued through its Center for Tobacco Products, the FDA said it was aware that small-scale tobacco product manufacturers and importers in areas declared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to have been impacted by recent natural disasters were dealing with extraordinary circumstances.
And it said they might need additional time to meet the ingredient listing requirements of Section 904(a)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
‘As a result, FDA is extending the compliance deadline for the ingredient listing requirements to May 8, 2019, for small-scale tobacco product manufacturers and importers of deemed products on the market as of August 8, 2016, in the areas affected by these recent natural disasters,’ the FDA said.
Businesses with questions about the new compliance deadline were advised to contact the FDA at SmallBiz.Tobacco@fda.hhs.gov or 1.877.287.1373.
However, the FDA added that, for small-scale tobacco product manufacturers and importers of deemed products on the market as of August 8, 2016, not affected by recent natural disasters, the compliance date remained November 8, 2018.
Further details and a complete list of the affected areas is available here.Seeking common ground
The US Food and Drug Administration has been told that it should refrain from a crackdown across the vaping category but act decisively against its ‘bad actors’.
Jeff Stier, senior fellow at the Consumer Choice Center, offered this advice as the FDA prepares its new action plan on electronic cigarettes.
Stier put forward some ‘simple steps’ for the FDA to follow if it wanted to adhere to common ground.
“We should all be able to agree that e-cigarettes are not entirely safe and should not be used by kids,” said Stier.
“At the same time, as Public Health England has been saying for more than three years, e-cigarettes are around 95 percent less harmful than combustible cigarettes and can help smokers quit. To maximize protection to Americans of all ages, the FDA must finally formulate sensible, science-based policies to achieve two key goals:- “Prevent youth from initiating the use of any nicotine-containing product, including e-cigarettes.
- “Foster switching by adult smokers who have been unable to quit by other means.”
Stier said the FDA was threatening that, because of ‘news reports,’ public opinion and data about youth use that the agency hadn’t released, it might soon remove many e-cigarettes from the market, including most flavors, as well as the pods they come in, until a manufacturer applies for and receives approval for each product.
The agency was warning also that it might ban sales everywhere except in vape shops.
“But it’s not too late,” said Stier. “In its new plan, the FDA should implement the legitimate common ground by taking the following three steps:
1: “Focus on the bad-actors. The FDA should act swiftly and forcefully, as it has the authority to do, against any retailer caught selling an e-cigarette to a minor.
2: “The FDA must work constructively with the industry it regulates.
3: “Make good on the promise to change misconceptions about nicotine, which, while addictive, is not the major cause of tobacco-related disease.”
Stier then moved on to what he believed the FDA should not do:
1: “Remove e-cigarettes from all stores except vape shops.
2: “Allow either side to erode common ground. Just as the FDA shouldn’t be lenient with those who sell or give e-cigarettes to kids, it shouldn’t allow false assertions about the risks of e-cigarettes to stand unchallenged.
3: “Fall prey to the notion that the FDA has in its power the ability to prevent every last youth from ever trying an e-cigarette.”
Stier said that when it gave the FDA authority to regulate recreational lower-risk nicotine products, Congress believed the FDA could be sophisticated enough to prevent youth use while helping adults quit smoking.
“Sadly, to date, the FDA has accomplished little on either front,” he said. “These failures don’t justify a misplaced ‘crackdown’ on e-cigarettes. They require an intensive focus on stopping the bad actors.
“If the FDA doesn’t get it right – this month – President Trump should ask, in an exit interview, why FDA leadership couldn’t achieve a central promise of the administration: improving our lives not with more regulation, but with less of it, wisely implemented.”Smoke-hos banned
Employees of a Scottish council have been banned from tobacco smoking during the working day, according to a story in The Scotsman.
Dundee City Council said its revised smoking policy would encourage staff to quit and reduce the number of adult ‘role models’ seen with cigarettes in public.
However, The Scotsman said it was unclear how the policy would work in practice given the council had been unable to answer questions about what would constitute a breach of the rules.
And the trade union, Unison, which represents council staff, said it had not agreed to the policy.
A Dundee City Council spokeswoman said the council had revised its smoking policy because it was working to protect the health of employees and promote positive health messages across the wider community, in line with an agreed Our People Strategy and health and wellbeing framework.
A key part of that approach involves discouraging children and young people from taking up smoking. “One way to assist that is to reduce the number of adult ‘role models’ who can be seen smoking,” she was quoted as saying.
The council said the policy mirrored recent changes brought into effect by other councils and by NHS [National Health Service] Tayside.
It said there had been ‘detailed discussion’ with trade unions.
But a spokesman for Unison said it had not been consulted fully.
“There are clear aspects of this policy we could not agree to,” he said.
“We are usually very supportive of anti-smoking policies. However, people who do smoke need to be able to take breaks and get support from their employer to help them give up.”Working on discrimination
A request by a health organization in Japan that its job openings in nursing and related occupations were specified as being limited to non-smokers has been declined by a local public employment agency after it deemed smoking ‘a matter of personal choice,’ according to a Mainichi Daily News story. The original, Japanese-language story was written by Yoshihiko Saito.
The Chiba Foundation for Health Promotion & Disease Prevention, which is based in Chiba Prefecture’s Mihama Ward, east of Tokyo, expressed disappointment at the job center’s refusal because, it said, the request ‘was for the promotion of health’.
Meanwhile, the Hello Work employment office countered that ‘individuals should be selected based on their skills and competency’.
The foundation, which conducts medical examinations, has made public on its website since last year its policy of limiting job opportunities to non-smokers as part of its efforts to curb smoking.
However, an official at the employment office said that smoking was a personal choice and that it was not possible publicly to announce such requirements.
The official said the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare sought a “fair selection process” based on individuals’ skills and competency.
“We wanted to open the door to as many applicants as possible,” the official said.
Professor Hiroshi Yamato at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, who studies measures to prevent smoking, said the employment office had made a mistake in its decision. “Patients face the possibility of suffering from second-hand smoke if people who smoke are hired,” said Yamato. “It’s essential for such health industries to hire only non-smokers.”
But economist Takuro Morinaga, a regular smoker, said that the job center had acted appropriately. “Just as it’s wrong to discriminate against people because of their origin, it’s also not right to exclude individuals because they smoke,” Morinaga said.
Meanwhile, the employment security section of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said that requiring non-smokers for certain jobs ‘cannot categorically be considered discrimination, if there are rational reasons behind such moves’.
At Public Employment Security Offices across Japan, there had been at least 20 job postings for nurses, restaurant workers, and other occupations that specifically required non-smokers.Inclusive report promised
The EU Commission has said that it will take into account all relevant information as it prepares for the submission in 2021 of its implementation report on the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).
It was responding to an Irish member of the EU Parliament who had asked if the Commission would be taking account the contents of a UK parliamentary report and a letter signed by four academics – both of which had come out in favor of vaping – when the Commission produced its implementation report on the TPD.
In a preamble to his questions, Luke Ming Flanagan asked, with reference to the Commission’s statement that it continuously monitored developments, whether it was aware of the recent all-party UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report that was published on August 17 and that came out strongly in favor of vaping.
He asked also; was the Commission aware of the submission to the World Health Organization of a letter signed by four top academics, again outlining, in great detail, the case in favor of vaping.
And he asked if the Commission could confirm that it would now take those reports into consideration in the implementation report it was required to submit in 2021, in line with Article 28(1) of the directive.
In reply the Commission said it had taken note of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report on E-cigarettes and was aware of the letter sent to the WHO by Dr. Abrams, Mr. Bates, Dr. Niaura and Mr. Sweanor on September 3, 2018.
‘The Commission will take all relevant reports and information into consideration for the upcoming implementation report that the Commission is required to submit in 2021, in line with Article 28(1) of the Tobacco Products Directive,’ it replied.The warning that burns
Canada could become the first country to require cigarette manufacturers to include on individual cigarettes warnings about the dangers of tobacco consumption, according to a story by Ryan Flanagan at ctvnews.ca.
The federal government has launched a consultation and one of the most significant ideas being floated in the consultation concerns a possible requirement for ‘smoking causes cancer’ or similar wording to be included on individual cigarettes. Currently, such warnings are required to be placed on or inside cigarette packs.
‘There is recent but limited research showing that health warnings placed directly on a product, such as cigarettes, could be effective in making the product less appealing to users,’ a government consultation document reads.
Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst for the Canadian Cancer Society, described the proposal as a ‘logical next step’ for health warning requirements.
‘It’s an incredibly cost-effective way to reach every smoker every day with the health message,’ he reportedly told ctvnews.ca.
But Cunningham sees the proposal as having a benefit also for law enforcement. He said it would make it easier for police to detect illicitly-produced cigarettes.
Other ideas under consideration include adding brighter colors and eye-catching cartoons to existing warning labels and ensuring the various warnings on each package follow the same theme and deliver the same message.
Labels might also become mandatory for tobacco products that do not currently carry them, including water pipe tobacco and heated tobacco products.Future looks plain
Singapore is planning to impose plain – standardized – packaging on all tobacco products, according to a Channel NewsAsia story citing an announcement by the Ministry of Health (MOH).
The MOH said the proposed measures would apply to all tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, bidis, ang hoon (loose tobacco leaves) and other roll-your-own tobacco products.
The ministry intends to table the necessary amendments to current laws early next year.
If enacted, the new measures are expected to take effect from 2020.
A transition period, starting when manufacturers must begin producing standardized packs and ending when retailers must be selling only products in standardized packs, will be provided to allow a sell-through of old stock and to ease the implementation burden on the tobacco industry, the MOH said.
‘Tobacco use is a major cause of ill-health and death in Singapore,’ the MOH said in a press note.
‘More than 2,000 Singaporeans die prematurely from smoking-related diseases annually.
‘Daily smoking prevalence amongst Singaporeans has been fluctuating since 2004, with no clear pattern of sustained decline.’
Under the proposal, all logos, all colors but one, brand images and promotional information would be removed from the tobacco-product packs.
Packs would have to use a standard color in a matt finish.
Brand names and product names would be allowed, but only in a standard color and font.
‘Tobacco products must also display mandatory graphic health warning covering at least 75 percent of the packet’s surface, up from the current 50 percent,’ the NewsAsia story reported.
Much of this was foreshadowed earlier this year when the MOH said it would be conducting a public consultation on its Standardized Packaging Proposal from February 5 to March 16.
In its statement, the ministry said Singapore’s smoking rate had fallen from 23 percent to 19 percent between 1977 and 1984, and then to 12.6 percent in 2004.
But it said the rate of decline had slowed in recent years.
‘The smoking rates have been fluctuating between 12 percent and 14 percent in the last 10 years, with no clear pattern of continuous decline,” said the ministry.
‘A particular concern is the fact that there remains a sizable proportion of men (more than one in 5) who smoke daily.’
The ministry said that it was the government’s preliminary assessment that the implementation of the Standardized Packaging Proposal would, with other existing and future tobacco control measures, ‘constitute a significant step towards Singapore becoming a tobacco-free society’.
