Uncategorized - Tobacco Reporter

Tobacco Boosts Murphy USA’s First Quarter Results

Murphy USA’s Q1 2024 results were below expectations due to various headwinds, but President and CEO Andrew Clyde highlighted the positive performance in tobacco and fuel during Thursday’s earnings call.

The convenience store chain’s net income and adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2024 were lower compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

Murphy’s net income for the first quarter of 2024 was $66 million, which is a decrease from $106.3 million for the same quarter in the previous year, according to media reports.

Clyde said on the call that unique factors that distinguished the first quarter of 2024 from the same quarter the year before included product prices being up 50 cents compared to 8 cents in the prior year and an increase in severe weather events.

Severe weather, especially on the Atlantic coast, drove customers to trade down for value and stock up on tobacco and fuel.

May 4, 2024

Sales Dip at Scandinavian Tobacco

Scandinavian Tobacco Group reported net sales of DKK1.95 billion ($281.97 million) for the first quarter of 2024, down 1 percent from the comparable 2023 period. Organically, net sales decreased 2 percent.

Organic net sales growth in the company’s handmade cigars and next-generation oral product categories was offset by decline in machine-rolled cigars and smoking tobacco. The EBITDA margin was impacted by declining volumes in a seasonally small quarter, mix changes and investments in growth, according to the company.

The group expects to deliver organic net sales growth and a material improvement in the EBITDA-margin in the second quarter, and maintains its full-year guidance.

“Despite a slow start to the year and the first quarter profitability being impacted by mix, cost inflation and investments in growth, we maintain our expectations for the full year,” said CEO Niels Frederiksen in a statement.

“Entering the second quarter, we expect the net sales development to improve and we expect to see a more normalized mix, which will impact profitability and cash-flows positively. In the quarter we have continued to execute our strategy with the opening of three Macanudo concepts stores and investments in our growth initiatives. Our growth enablers constituted around 11 percent of net sales in the quarter.”

May 3, 2024

PMI Beats Estimates on Robust Smoke-Free Products Demand

Philip Morris International reported net revenues of $8.8 billion in the first quarter of 2024, up 9.7 percent on a reported basis over the comparable 2023 period. Gross profit grew 12.4 percent to $5.6 billion while operating income was $3 billion, reflecting an 11.5 increase over the 2023 quarter.

Growth was driven by strong demand for heated-tobacco products and Zyn nicotine pouches. Shipments of heat-not-burn products jumped 20.9 percent to 33.13 billion units from the comparable 2023 quarter.

Sales of oral smoke-free products increased 35.8 percent to 4.2 billion units. In the United States, shipments of Zyn nicotine pouches jumped nearly 80 percent versus the prior year to reach 131.6 million cans. The company now commands 74 percent of the category in the U.S.

PMI’s combustible cigarette shipments contracted by 0.4 percent from the 2023 quarter to 143.19 billion sticks.

The smoke-free business now accounts for 39 percent of PMI’s net revenues.

“The strength of our first-quarter results with excellent top-line growth and significant margin expansion gives us the confidence to raise our 2024 currency-neutral guidance,” said PMI CEO Jacek Olczak in a statement.

“Strong smoke-free momentum continues with rapid underlying volume progression and accelerating organic net revenue and gross profit growth, fueled by the operating leverage of IQOS and the best-in-class economics of Zyn.

“We are executing efficiently and effectively in a dynamic operating environment of geopolitical and economic tensions that accentuate currency volatility. We are doing our utmost to mitigate these challenges and deliver robust growth and value creation.”

April 23, 2024

Pakistan Advised to Reject 10-Stick Packs

Health advocates are urging the government of Pakistan to reject an application by Pakistan Tobacco Co. (PTC) for permission to pack cigarettes in cartons of 10 sticks, reports The Nation.

According to Malik Imran Ahmed, country head of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, 10-stick packs would undermine efforts to discourage smoking among young people and other at-risk demographics.

To deter consumption by minors and other at-risk groups, Pakistan law requires tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in packs of at least 20 cigarettes. Sales of individual sticks are permitted, however.

The rule is placing at risk a large order for PTC to deliver $20.5 million worth of cigarettes to Sudan by mid-May. The contract requires PTC to supply the cigarettes in packs of 10 sticks each. Sudan does not have minimum stick laws, according to PTC officials.

PTC has requested the government to amend the rules and limit the 10-pack selling restriction to domestic consumption, according to Tribune.

The Ministry of Health has referred the matter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to seek its input on the matter in light of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

In 2019, PTC also lost an export order due to a lack of clarity on 10-pack cigarette manufacturing. At that time, the Ministry of Commerce gave the go-ahead for exports, but the Ministry of Health objected.

PTC has been exporting cigarettes since 2019 and has earned $156 million from that business to date. In 2023, the company paid PKR148 billion ($531.35 million) in taxes, making it the country’s second-largest taxpayer after Pakistan State Oil.

April 22, 2024

BAT to Make Smokeless Products in Hungary

BAT will establish a HUF60 billion ($162.12 billion) factory for smokeless products in Pecs, Hungary, creating 450 new jobs, reports Hungary Today.

BAT already employs almost 1,000 people. According to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto, the project will contribute to the success of two important Hungarian economic policy objectives—to boost exports and protect the environment. The Pecs factory is carbon neutral and will export more than 80 percent of its products, the minister noted.

The project will also help develop Hungary’s southwestern region, which traditionally has received fewer investments than its western counterparts.

Usman Zahur, BAT’s regional director for Central Europe, pointed out that the Pecs unit could become a major manufacturing center for smokeless alternatives, building on more than 30 years of cooperation with Hungary.

“This significant investment is an important step toward a smoke-free world, offering smokers better alternatives to cigarettes,” he was quoted as saying. “The investment further reinforces Hungary’s strategic importance in our long-term plans to have 50 percent of our revenues from new category products by 2035. Our manufacturing capabilities, highlighted by the Pecs center, are key to achieving this goal.”

April 22, 2024

Mariana Islands Fails to Adopt Tobacco Report

The Senate of the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth of the United States, has failed to adopt its committee report that recommends the passage of its version of a House of Representatives bill.

That bill aims to increase government revenue by amending the definition of cigarettes to ensure that all tobacco products are properly taxed.

Four senators voted “yes,” and four senators voted “no” to a motion to adopt the report of the Committee on Fiscal Affairs, but Senate president Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero announced that the report would not be adopted and would no longer exist, according to local media.

DeLeon Guerrero, Senate vice president Sen. Donald M. Manglona, Sens. Paul A. Manglona, and Celina R. Babauta voted for the committee report’s adoption.

House Bill No. 23-7 proposes to amend the definition of “cigarette” to include any product that resembles similarities to cigarettes based on its appearance, weight, usage, and packaging, such as “little cigars”, “filtered cigars”, or “roll-your-own.”

April 14, 2024

Maine Lawmakers Change Tobacco Bill to Save Shop

The Maine House of Representatives passed LD 2157, sponsored by Rep. Matt Moonen of Portland. The bill would prohibit tobacco sales within 300 feet of schools, in an effort to prevent tobacco and nicotine addiction among children.

“At 300 feet, this would affect one existing business,” Moonen said on the House floor Tuesday night. “That business is in my district, this business sells tobacco within 26 feet of my school, and I would like that to stop.”

That business is Fresh Approach, located in Portland’s West End. It’s right across the street from the Reiche Elementary School, according to media reports.

“I’ve been here for 30 years, and in 30 years, I’ve yet to have a fourth grader come in here and try to buy a pack of cigarettes,” Chet Knights, owner of Fresh Approach, said. “It’s just kind of silly.”

He says Fresh Approach is primarily a neighborhood grocery store, but some people come in to grab a sandwich and a pack of cigarettes. If he is prohibited from selling tobacco, those customers will go elsewhere.

“When the construction guys come along, and they want to get a sandwich, a soda, and a pack of Marlboros, and they can’t get a pack of Marlboros, you’re gonna go down the street to the store with the big fancy signs,” Knights said, explaining that he does not advertise for tobacco products at his store. “For me, that business is just gone.”

On Friday, the Maine state Senate amended that bill, so stores could not obtain a tobacco license within 300 feet of schools, but they could renew a tobacco license if they already had one. This essentially grandfathers Fresh Approach in and allows them to continue to sell tobacco products.

The bill now goes back to the House.

April 14, 2024

EU Lifts Limits on Cross-Border Cigarette Purchases

European Union countries lifted the limit on cigarette purchases from other member states on March 29, in line with EU requirement, reports The Connexion.

Previously, the limit was one carton (200 cigarettes or 10 packs) per person. It will now be up to member states’ customs officers to determine if the quantity of cigarettes brought in are for personal use or are contraband.

While customs authorities said the change would make it easier to combat cigarette smuggling, tobacconists in high-tax countries said it would present them with unfair competition from lower-tax jurisdictions.

In February, French tobacconists and newsagents protested against the planned changes, saying they would cost them business. Cigarettes in neighboring Spain, for example, sell for only half the price of those in France due to lower tax rates.

Anti-tobacco activists have also criticized the new rules, describing them as “a win for the tobacco lobby.”

Bertrand Dautzenberg, president of the Paris Sans Tabac association, complained that Europe was prioritizing market freedoms over health.

He said that lifting the limit was encouraging consumers buy their cigarettes in a country where they are cheaper. The message, said Dautzenberg, is that “You can now get lung cancer or a heart attack for €7 ($7.54) a day instead of €12.”

Dautzenberg said that the definition of “personal use” was now too loose because there is no official limit.

Previously, the EU directive had stated that member states could not set a limit under 800 cigarettes per person.

Some are now calling for prices to be standardized across the EU.

April 3, 2024

Not For The Birds

The impact of the 5th Circuit’s recent ruling against the FDA on tobacco harm reduction

By Cheryl K. Olson

“Over several years, the Food and Drug Administration sent manufacturers of flavored e-cigarette products on a wild goose chase.” So reads the first line in this long-awaited Jan. 3 en banc decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. We can infer that the judges’ sympathies do not lie with the FDA.

The entire decision makes for entertaining and informative reading. In exhaustive detail, the court covers the history of the 2009 Tobacco Control Act and the evolution of the FDA’s approach to premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs). It then states: “Never in this long, winding and byzantine regulatory process of meetings, PowerPoint decks, proposed rules, comment periods, guidance documents and enforcement priorities did FDA ever say that it was contemplating an across-the-board ban on flavored products.”

In short, the court ruled against the FDA and its reasons for rejecting the flavored e-liquids of Wages and White Lion Investments (dba Triton Distribution).

“These judges confirmed what so many nicotine product manufacturers have been saying: ‘We’re not being treated fairly,’” says Willie McKinney of McKinney Regulatory Science Advisors. “The FDA has been moving the target and putting people out of business.”

For those of us driven to help people find lifesaving alternatives to cigarettes, what does this 10-6 legal decision mean? Does the FDA have to do anything different?

What happens next on the legal side? Might this go to the Supreme Court? Most importantly, what can we do during this period of ongoing uncertainty?

Below, legal and regulatory experts share their impressions and best guesses.

‘Surprise Switcheroo’

If you thought the 5th Circuit had ruled on this case already, you’re correct. That court has had three bites at this apple. Here’s a rapid refresher.

As required, Triton submitted PMTAs for its existing products to the FDA before the September 2020 deadline. When the FDA issued marketing denial orders (MDOs), Triton petitioned the 5th Circuit for review. In October 2021, a three-judge panel unanimously granted a stay. This was the famous “surprise switcheroo” ruling.

In July 2022, a separate panel, not unanimous, upheld the FDA’s rejectionof Triton. In January 2023, to resolve differences in rulings by this and other courts, the en banc 5th Circuit (all the judges together) agreed to hear the case.

What led up to this? “The FDA in 2021 came up with this new standard for flavored ENDS [electronic nicotine-delivery systems] that effectively had two components,” says Bryan M. Haynes, a partner at the Troutman Pepper law firm. For one, contrary to previous guidance, the FDA now required expensive studies: randomized controlled trials or longitudinal cohort studies.

“Two, what was even more surprising: The outcome of those studies had to show that the flavored ENDS had reduced smoking at a greater rate than a tobacco[-flavored] variant,” adds Haynes. “There was nothing like that in any FDA guidance.”

Unsurprisingly, multiple companies sued. All of the cases had effectively the same issue: Was it appropriate for the FDA to do this?

Some courts of appeal had sided with the FDA, showing what Haynes called extreme deference to the FDA’s decision-making. “The 5th Circuit is the first one to substantively, quite emphatically, rule that FDA’s standard was unlawful for a variety of reasons.”

A 2022 decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of Bidi Vapor and five other companies ruled that the FDA’s behavior was arbitrary and capricious. However, Haynes notes, “This ruling focused on a fairly narrow issue: The FDA had suggested that companies show that their marketing plans would deter youth use, and then refused to consider those plans.”

By contrast, “The en banc decision in Wages and White Lion was much broader. It attacked head-on FDA’s so-called ‘fatal flaw’ standard requiring comparative smoking cessation or reduction.”

‘Calvinball’

Importantly, administrative agencies can’t make statements that people will rely on, then pull a surprise switcheroo. As this latest ruling says,“All that matters here is that the agency unquestionably changed its position and then pretended otherwise.”

“This court’s not going to let the FDA play Calvinball,” says Dave Dobbins, an independent consultant working with Altria and former chief operating officer of the Legacy Foundation/Truth Initiative. As described in the classic comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes,” that sport’s only rule is that the rules always change.

“You should have a priori rules that people can understand,” says Dobbins. He describes the FDA’s approach as, “We’ll authorize you if you have what we think is good science. And we’re not going to tell you what that is or which results would compel us to issue an authorization.”

Dobbins notes how drastically the FDA Center for Tobacco Products’ (CTP) approach differs from that of other regulators, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. “EPA has real interaction with companies. They have standards you can understand,” he says. “If you’re building a power plant, the EPA doesn’t say, ‘We don’t want it to pollute that much.’ Then show up and say you can’t use it after you’ve spent a bajillion dollars.”

In contrast to the PMTA process for new products, the CTP does have quantitative guidelines for its substantial equivalence approval pathway. Embarrassingly, the CTP does far better at approving sales of new cigarettes than of novel reduced-harm products. “Just 23 e-cigarettes have been authorized. And few are ones people actually use,” says Dobbins. “It’s nuts that it’s easier to authorize a cigarette.”

Topping off this unpredictable process is the CTP’s repeated failure to meet deadlines for product review. U.S. Senator Richard Durbin’s frustration is clear from the heading of his Jan. 16 letter to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf: “Another Durbin vaping letter for you to ignore.” He castigates the agency for being 28 months past the court-ordered deadline “to complete reviews of e-cigarettes with the largest market share and youth appeal.”

Where Next?

Might the Supreme Court weigh in? Haynes notes that the clear split among circuits, with the 5th and 11th evaluating the FDA’s actions differently from others, gives this case a good shot.

“That kind of situation is untenable for obvious reasons,” he says. “You shouldn’t have rules that fundamentally differ depending on where you are in the country.” He thinks the court might agree to hear the case this year, with a decision issued in 2025.

In the meantime, what to do if the FDA issues an MDO? For manufacturers who previously submitted PMTAs and meet guidelines for enforcement discretion, the path is now marked. Based on court precedents, Haynes says, “If a denied applicant could join forces with a retailer in the 5th Circuit who sells their products, they could get venue to challenge an MDO.”

Haynes sees no rapid end to the uncertainty. “I’m not so sure FDA is going to act on a lot of PMTAs, given the existing division between circuits.” He noted that the recent Smok decision did not involve a consumable product, only a device system. If the FDA continues to issue decisions based on the “fatal flaw” standard, “It’s highly likely the applicant goes to the 5th Circuit. If it’s on that narrow ground, the applicant is likely to find success.”

McKinney feels guardedly optimistic about the potential effects of the 5th Circuit decision. For clues to change, he suggests watching what the FDA does with products still in the review queue: those at the low end of the risk continuum, such as pouches and gums, that are not currently appealing to youth.

“If a lot of those products get refused-to-file or marketing denial orders, then nothing has changed at the agency,” he says. “If they start making it through, it suggests there are opportunities.”

To conserve resources, companies seeking to bring new reduced-risk nicotine products to the U.S. market might follow “a cautious, stepwise approach,” he advises. “Spend a little money to generate minimal data for an initial PMTA. But have plans and protocols on the shelf ready to execute” when greater clarity inevitably emerges and competition heats up.

What About APPH?

This frustration and confusion was not inevitable. The wording of the Tobacco Control Act provides a path for authorization of reduced-harm products that will be appropriate for the protection of public health (APPH). “It’s the agency’s obligation to give content to those words,” says Dobbins. “And they’ve never done it. And that is why this is off the rails. They’ve never given guidance on what APPH actually means to them.”

“If you look at the FDA’s recently issued five-year plan, there’s almost nothing said about encouraging innovation toward reduced-harm products,” says Agustin E. Rodriguez, a partner at Troutman Pepper. “There seems to be much more focus on outright quitting of products. I worry that this is unrealistic in terms of historical consumer approach to the tobacco and nicotine space.”

“There are a billion smokers worldwide,” Dobbins reminds us. “People want nicotine. Someone is going to deliver it.” Public health benefits from a regulated industry that works within the law to deliver the least harmful products possible.

“If FDA believes that what they’re doing will be upheld by the Supreme Court, they should be anxious to get its imprimatur. If they are wrong, they should be anxious to fix their processes, so they can administer the law in a way that will survive court review,” Dobbins concludes.

Cheryl K. Olson is a California-based public health researcher who specializes in behavioral health issues and consults on tobacco product behaviors via McKinney Regulatory Science Advisors. She spent 15 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School.

January 30, 2024

Give Them A Break

Smokers suffer a greater degree of ostracization than those engaging in other risky activities.

By George Gay

Although some people will probably complain that I am being irresponsible, I want to present a piece about tobacco smoking and smokers that puts them in a more favorable light than the one under which they usually appear—a piece that, especially, questions why combustible tobacco products and their consumers are treated as villains, justifiably subjected to massive sanctions, when other risky products and their consumers are not. After all, this is a tobacco magazine.

In recent times, the promoters of new generation devices have been allowed largely to shape the smoking debate by reconfiguring the narrative of tobacco control with the inclusion of substitute products. It has been a no-contest with, on one side of the debate, the almost voiceless smoker, and on the other, the highly vocal public health officials, tobacco harm reduction advocates and politicians, many of whom make a comfortable living around the dubious claim that tobacco smoking is the major cause of preventable diseases and death and endlessly squabbling about how to go about preventing these outcomes. This is all very well up to a point because most of these interventionists would claim to have the best of intentions, but it puts me in mind of what Mark Twain supposedly once said: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” So I shall.

But before doing so, I should make the point that I would discourage anybody from taking up cigarette smoking if they value their health. I should add, too, that I think it is perfectly legitimate for interventionists to try to encourage cigarette smokers to quit their habit, provided they treat smokers with respect—provided they treat smokers as ends in themselves, not as means to a profitable end. And provided they stick to the facts. They should not allow their mission to become tainted with, for instance, the automatic parroting of smoking myths and unproven and clearly questionable smoking statistics.

‘Preventable Deaths’

I have long been fascinated by the idea alluded to above of “preventable deaths,” which is often applied to deaths attributed to tobacco smoking, though it could be applied to any number of causes. Of course, death cannot be prevented once life has started. What is meant, I think, is that there is the potential for life to be prolonged by various interventions, including, but not confined to, giving up smoking and other risky habits and activities. But the question that is rarely asked concerns whether prolonging life is a good thing, and the reason it is not asked, I suspect, is that, generally, those who promote prolonging lives through such interventions as quitting smoking live much more comfortably than those who smoke. Why wouldn’t these smokers want to live longer, the interventionists might ask? To which I would reply: Use your imagination, or reference Thomas Hobbes.

Let’s take that a little further by asking why smokers would not heed the seemingly sensible advice of the interventionists and give up their risky habit. Well, one reason, I suspect, is that having been lied to continuously, smokers do not necessarily trust what the interventionists have to say. One clear example of this continuing deceit is the way in which interventionists claim to be attacking tobacco smoking on behalf of “children,” a word that is usually not clearly defined. Of course, at best, these interventionists are trying to protect the adults that children become, not the children. Although the interventionists try to lay at the door of smoking responsibility for damage done to children, that responsibility lies elsewhere—often where the interventionists, in this case mainly politicians, find it inconvenient to intervene. If the protection of children is paramount, why is tobacco smoking, which I imagine has caused the death of a small number of children, singled out when the death toll among young people is down mostly to infectious diseases in the case of the very young, and mostly to violence, including road traffic accidents, in the case of older young people?

One of the most spiteful regulations pointlessly controls the delivery levels of cigarettes, which means that the smoker is presented with a degraded product while tobacco manufacturers are presented with a potential for increased profits.

George Gay, European Editor, Tobacco Reporter

One of Many Risky Activities

Tobacco smoking and smokers seem to be the subject of discrimination here, presumably because smoking is a minority activity while driving is close to being ubiquitous in many parts of the world. In general, the interventionists are happy to show how keen they are to protect children by coming down heavily on smoking and smokers, something that will have no effect, but are less keen in respect of taking the necessary actions in respect of driving and drivers. Such hypocrisy is even further to the front when it comes to attitudes toward smoking and drinking. Smoking, like drinking, might lead to your death, but of the two, only drinking is likely to lead to your death at a young age, and only drinking is likely to seriously disrupt your life in the interim. According to a Dec. 30 story in The Guardian, alcohol is reckoned to play a part in “about 39 percent of all violent crime in the U.K.” This was a story whose focus was a recent rise in “offenders” being fitted with “sobriety tags” that can tell probation officers if the offenders have been drinking, potentially landing them back in jail.

Is it surprising, therefore, that drinking causes a greater societal burden and, therefore, a greater economic burden on the U.K. than smoking? And yet it is only smokers who are penalized to any extent, even though whatever health issues smoking causes are largely confined to the smoker while those caused by drivers and drinkers reach out to embrace their victims. There are no graphic health warnings on cars or bottles of wine, at least in England, where I live, and people are not forced to buy a car or a bottle of wine without seeing it first, from behind closed doors, as is the case with cigarettes.

And it is not as if the authorities are unaware that these differing attitudes to smoking and drinking are not justifiable. According to another Dec. 30 story in The Guardian, in France, Olivier Cottencin, the head of the national body of university professors in addiction studies who coordinated a recent letter calling on the French state to promote a month of abstinence from alcohol, said it was surprising that the government backed a tobacco-free month every November, but not an alcohol-free month. Later in the story, it was said that a government-backed campaign in January 2023 had shown people clinking their glasses and saying, “sante” followed by the question, “Isn’t it a bit absurd to wish someone good health with alcohol?”

It is also interesting to compare the different treatments meted out to the products consumed and used by smokers, drinkers and drivers. The manufacturers of cars and alcohol are allowed to change and glamorize their products to make them more appealing and to advertise their new products. But, in many parts of the world, tobacco manufacturers have been forced to make cigarettes as unappealing as is possible through regulations aimed at limiting ingredients and controlling almost all aspects of packaging. And it goes without saying that tobacco cannot be advertised. One of the most spiteful regulations in force in some places pointlessly controls the delivery levels of cigarettes, which, the regulators must know, means that the smoker is presented with a degraded product while tobacco manufacturers, whom the regulators profess to hold in contempt, are presented with a potential for increased profits.

Yes, even tobacco manufacturers receive a better deal than smokers, especially when it comes to financial incentives and disincentives. It is often said that smokers tend to be some of the most financially impoverished within societies because they smoke. This must be one of the most absurd ideas ever to come out of the mouths of the interventionists, and there have been some corkers. Are these people saying quitting smoking is guaranteed to lift a person out of poverty? Surely not. Many smokers in the U.K. have been dealt an almost unplayable hand that has meant they have been born into financially struggling families, been allowed, as children, to go undernourished by an uncaring government, been poorly educated and therefore been unable to find well-paying work. And, just to rub it in, those who have been dealt a better hand call constantly for the price of cigarettes, though not that of alcohol, to be increased. In his Nov. 22, 2023, Autumn Statement, the U.K. Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, who was not born into poverty and who was privately educated, increased the duty on hand-rolling tobacco by 12 percent with immediate effect while freezing the duty on alcohol until August this year. Hand-rolling tobacco is generally consumed by the most impoverished smokers while alcohol is supped by relatively well-off politicians, their advisers and guests at bars within the parliamentary estate.

While smoking being seen as a root cause of poverty is absurd, another idea put forward by interventionists must take the cake: the denormalization of smoking. The upshot of this is that, by default, drinking alcohol, which can quickly lead to people losing mental and physical faculties, is regarded as normal while smoking, which does not cause such upset, is not regarded as normal. So the person walking down the street after smoking a cigarette is regarded as having indulged in an activity that is not normal while the person with a few drinks inside him, clothing disheveled, staggering down the same street, unable to articulate the few thoughts in his head and in danger of stepping into the path of a moving vehicle, is seen as having partaken in a normal activity. To whom does this make sense?

Surely, the time is well overdue to give smokers, and I am talking about committed smokers, a break in the form of a better deal. They should not be given a special deal, just a deal that echoes the one drinkers are given in most parts of the world. Especially, smokers should be able to buy at reasonable prices a wide range of products from a wide range of manufacturers, big and small, that are not intentionally degraded and to enjoy them while receiving only the same level of warnings as are directed at drinkers.

I know it is unfashionable to think this way, but it is possible that some tobacco smokers have done a risk/benefit assessment of their habit, factoring in the pollution that will anyway surround them, and decided that they want to continue to smoke. This must be especially true in the case of pipe and cigar smokers. And it is further possible that some of these smokers have done an environmental audit and decided that, for the sake of future generations, they will continue to smoke rather than switch to vapes.

George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.