Category: Views

A Case for Consensus

Photo: pavelkant
A global alignment on health policy is necessary to make a smokeless world a reality.
By James Murphy
With renewed attention on smoking and vaping regulation around the world, now is the time for action that will realize global smoke-free ambitions and ensure cigarettes become a thing of the past.
Achieving this vision requires a global consensus on the most effective approach to create sustained and lasting changes to consumer behavior—tobacco harm reduction (THR).
THR is one the greatest public health opportunities today, representing a pathway for hundreds of millions of smokers who would not otherwise quit to transition from combustible tobacco products to smokeless alternatives.
Countries that have recognized the opportunity THR presents, and which have adopted supportive policies, have seen striking success in reducing their smoking rates. The U.S., U.K. and Japan are all currently witnessing their lowest smoking rates on record while Sweden is on track to declare themselves smoke-free this year—defined as having less than 5 percent daily smokers in the population—16 years ahead of the 2040 EU target.
These remarkable transformations have been driven by widespread THR acceptance from policymakers, regulators, health officials and consumers in these markets, enabling and encouraging smokers to migrate from combustible tobacco products such as cigarettes to vapor, oral nicotine pouches, snus and heated-tobacco or herbal products.
The widespread accessibility of smokeless products is essential for the success of THR. However, at present, this is being hamstrung by many countries limiting access to these alternative tobacco and nicotine products. For example, 60 percent of the world’s population live in just 15 countries. Of these, only about 40 percent permit the sale of smokeless products, leaving millions who would otherwise continue to smoke without the option to switch to such alternatives.
In order to fully realize the public health potential of THR and significantly reduce the more than 8 million deaths attributed to smoking cigarettes each year, regulators around the world should embrace evidence-based science to drive positive public health outcomes. This means implementing a supportive regulatory framework that encourages adult smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke to switch while also protecting consumers with stringent safety standards and preventing underage use.
In addition, the global success of THR depends on governments and regulators correcting persistent misperceptions of smokeless products compared to cigarettes.
A University College London-led study published earlier this year highlighted that most smokers in England wrongly believe vaping is at “least as harmful as smoking,” with 57 percent of respondents saying they thought vaping was “equally” or “more harmful.” This echoes trends reported in the U.S., with research showing that perceptions of e-cigarettes as more harmful than cigarettes doubled year on year between 2018 and 2020. Not only are these misperceptions flawed, but they also have significant implications for public health by actively discouraging smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke from making the switch to smokeless products.
Greater efforts are needed to counter these misperceptions—something that BAT is trying to tackle. As the world’s largest vapor company and a leader in smokeless products, BAT is committed to producing innovative products backed by world-class science and industry-leading product safety and quality standards. BAT’s THR approach is based on the growing body of research and weight of evidence approach that substantiates its belief of the reduced-risk profile of these products compared to cigarettes, which have been accepted by many international public health bodies. BAT publishes its science research to increase understanding of THR and raise awareness with stakeholders.
Indeed, the industry developing and producing these products has a critical role to play. But to achieve the conditions required to make a success of THR, an inclusive, open and honest dialogue with all stakeholders is required. That includes policymakers, regulators and the healthcare and medical communities. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case, with the industry all too often excluded.
We have an opportunity to usher in a new smokeless world, grounded in scientific research and a firm commitment to public health. The solutions are available today. All that is required is for the relevant stakeholders to actively work together to prioritize THR and the well-being of millions of people worldwide.
James Murphy is the director of research and science at BAT.

May 30, 2024
Unforeseen Costs

Image: Alexandr Byerdugin
How the Florida e-cigarette registry will harm nonvapers
By Peter Clark
This year, many U.S. states have considered imposing heavy-handed registries that aim to ban most vaping products sold today. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis wisely refused to follow along with other states. However, his solution—a sort of reverse registry that gives Florida’s attorney general the authority to ban specific products—will create more problems than it solves.
It’s understandable how many nonvapers would see this law as being reasonable. But there are many unforeseen costs that they will need to bear.
This law focuses on the dangers of vaping devices attractive to children, but there are many drawbacks to nonvapers. These include state resources wasted on ligation, unfair benefits to tobacco companies and healthcare costs of smokers imposed on all Floridians.
HB1007 will run into legal trouble if not correctly applied. Multiple factors need to be satisfied for a vaping product to be restricted. If Attorney General Moody erroneously finds a vaping device to be illegal, this opens Florida up to lawsuits.
This impacts Floridians since it costs tax dollars and ties up the court system. The Florida court system is already stressed. Between March 2022–2023, Florida led the country in the number of lawsuits filed.
Plus, the courts would require additional tax revenue to adjudicate the influx of claims. Fiscal year 2023 already saw a 7.2 percent increase in the budget over 2022. That budget has soared to $114.7 billion for fiscal 2024–2025.
The government should have a compelling interest in restricting sales of e-cigarettes. The public health justification is flimsy at best.
Teen vaping is on the decline. It isn’t flavored products that entice kids to start vaping. They vape to rebel and to reduce stress, using nicotine to self-medicate. Targeting flavored electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDs) based on a myth theorizing why kids start vaping will jeopardize the health of adult vapers, leaving us with an ineffective policy that burns tax dollars and overloads the courts.
HB1007 also advantages the tobacco companies. The influx of non-FDA-approved e-cigarettes has severely eaten into the market share of big tobacco. Analysts suggest the only way to remedy slumping cigarette sales would be to “clamp down on disposable e-cig growth.” The CEO of Altria has even described the market as being “overrun” by these devices.
Barring vapes that lack FDA approval benefits tobacco companies in two ways. For one, most of the products granted premarket approval were Big Tobacco-owned. In 2022, all the e-cigarettes greenlighted by the FDA were sold by R.J. Reynolds, Altria, and JTI. By the attorney general blocking Big Tobacco’s competition, they can regain some of the sales lost to popular single-use devices like Elfbar.
Even Florida voters who don’t vape should be concerned about this outcome. Upholding this law gives precedence to similar approval processes for other products. The legislature could pass additional laws to ban the sale of dietary supplements and even food deemed to be harmful. Much like the choice to vape, adults should have the right to evaluate the harm in what they choose to consume for themselves.
Florida restricting single-use ENDs would impose higher healthcare costs on Floridians. A study found that only 12.9 percent of vapers polled would abstain from nicotine if their preferred e-cigarette was banned, leaving many e-cigarette users going back to tobacco. The total healthcare cost to Florida from smoking is $10.04 billion, an annual tax burden of $854 per household. These figures do not include the impact of secondhand smoke or the $21.1 billion in lost productivity.
If a policy doesn’t directly impact you, it is easy to be apathetic. Banning popular vaping products hurts more than e-cigarette users. It wastes resources, gives tobacco companies an unfair advantage and costs Florida billions in healthcare costs. Even if you have never picked up a cigarette or vape, this law will still negatively impact you.
Peter Clark is a fellow with the World Vapers’ Alliance. You can follow him on X at @blog_logic.

May 23, 2024
No Sweet Spot

Image: Erik
The battle against youth vaping will not be won by a flavor ban.
By Robert Burton
Banning flavors is not the answer to curbing youth vaping. As history tells us, prohibition drives the black market and in this case also risks jeopardizing the transition journey of millions of adult smokers that rely on flavored vapes to quit, posing an obstacle to ending the smoking epidemic. A sensitive topic in a hugely sensitive and emotive sector, the solution may be more nuanced; flavors that are particularly appealing to children—such as confectionary flavors—should be restricted, together with improved enforcement of existing regulations that prevent those under 18 having access to vaping products.
The public consultation on youth vaping launched by the U.K. government eight weeks ago as part of its ambition to create a “smoke-free generation” closed this week, marking another step forward in the science and policy development of harm reduction and reduced-risk products. We at Plxsur, the world’s largest independent group of vaping companies, welcomed the opportunity to voice our views to help shape the future of vaping and save the lives of those impacted by smoking.
Our proposal reflects our commitment to preventing youth access, offering clear-cut recommendations and considerations in line with our own practices.
Flavors should be described factually, and the use of images, illustrations or cartoons on packaging that appeal to children or those under the age of 18 should be restricted. The use of confectionary, candy-related terms or fictional characters to describe flavors ought to be prohibited. In the same vein, it’s important that restrictions on flavors and packaging not limit the ability for vaping businesses to communicate on the packaging of vapes as long as this does not include imagery that appeals to those under the age of 18.
Responsibility Flows Both Ways
There needs to be stronger focus on proper enforcement of regulation and education of retailers and, subsequently, consumers. Examples of this include enforcing age verification for online sales, educating shopkeepers or vape education programs in stores. Fixed penalty notices can be an effective tool as well, in addition to which all shops selling vapes should require a license. Those shops should be monitored, and if they breach the law, they should be banned from selling tobacco products and vapes, losing their license altogether. This will ensure that the penalty is sufficient enough to act as a deterrent, increasing the effectiveness of the regulation.
Enforcement of age restrictions at sale points that prohibit access to under 18s is the single most effective way to prevent youth vaping—particularly when combined with appropriate restrictions on marketing and packaging.
Vapes are a powerful tool for smokers who wish to move to potentially safer alternatives. Restricting flavors has the potential to harm the route for the millions wanting to make the transition. According to Public Health England, vapes are 95 percent less harmful to health than normal cigarettes, and studies indicate that restricting flavors can ultimately harm smokers trying to quit. It is statistically proven in many studies and more recently in research by The Truth Initiative, America’s largest nonprofit public health organization, that flavor bans push vapers toward the black market, which poses a bigger threat given lack of regulation on ingredients.
At Plxsur, we are driven by a clear purpose—to empower adult smokers to make positive choices and make the transition to reduced-risk alternatives. As part of this, we know that adult smokers can enjoy flavors—and that flavors may be one of many factors that support smokers to move completely to vaping. Banning flavors may appear to be an “easy win,” but Plxsur believes that the way to drive real change is by improved enforcement of existing regulation, which includes age restrictions at sale points and responsible marketing and packaging rules.
Robert Burton is group scientific and regulatory director at Plxsur.

December 8, 2023
Into perspective: The perils of secondhand smoke

Photo: Bunyos | Dreamstime
The perils of secondhand smoke pale in comparison to some of the other risks people are regularly exposed to.
By George Gay
In many countries, debates have broken out as Covid-19-necessitated lockdowns have been followed by the easing of restrictions on where people may go and on what they may do and with whom they may associate once they get there. These debates have taken different forms, but perhaps the most usual concerns the relative risks and benefits associated with people returning to lives that are post-Covid normal or acting more cautiously. Those supporting the former course of action argue that we need to get economies moving again even though doing so has the potential to reignite the spread of the disease to some unknown extent. Those who support the latter course believe that it is better to leave restrictions in place for an as-yet unspecified time and thereby reduce the threat of a second wave of the disease even though this would increase the economic hit to some unknown level.
As far as I can see, there is no right or wrong side to this debate, partly because the health and economy of a nation are intertwined in complex ways. It is simply to be hoped, therefore, that those charged with making decisions associated with this issue are reasonably competent and take a broadly utilitarian stance aimed at doing whatever they believe will be of benefit to the greatest number of people or, at the very least, doing whatever they believe will cause the least harm.
Difficulty accessing risk
I must say that I have little confidence that our leaders will act in this way. The trouble is, we don’t seem to be good at assessing risk, especially multiple risks, either at an individual or societal level, and if we’re not good at assessing risk, what hope is there that we can effectively reduce harm?
According to a story in the Shropshire Star, in May, conservative Member of Parliament Mark Pritchard wrote to the U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock calling for an expansion of tobacco smoke-free areas outside pubs, cafes and restaurants should outdoor seating areas at such venues be allowed to reopen after the Covid-19 lockdown. He said that while he was not against smoking and while there should be dedicated areas for smokers and nonsmokers, he believed the new arrangements were needed to “protect” nonsmokers. “This is about nonsmoking customers being able to sit outside cafes and pubs without having to run the gauntlet of secondary smoke from smokers, especially the elderly and families with young children,” he was quoted as saying. “Why should nonsmokers be forced to breathe in other people’s smoke because Covid-19 forces more people to eat outside?”
I’m certain that, on reading the newspaper’s report, a lot of people would have believed that Pritchard had a point, but in saying what he said, he indirectly referred to a whole host of risks while focusing on only one. And, to my way of thinking, he didn’t focus on the main risk.
Let’s put what he said in a different way. He was apparently happy for adults in England (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, which together with England make up the U.K., have operated with varying degrees of independence in respect of the Covid-19 crisis), where the government’s reaction to the Covid crisis has been chaotic and where even as I write this at the end of July, the situation remains on a knife-edge—to be allowed to go into pubs where there are other people, possibly people infected with Covid-19, which can kill you within days or weeks. He was happy for them to be able to buy alcoholic—read toxic—drinks and take them outside to consume them even though these adults might be in charge of children, and the consumption of alcohol is known to impair decisionmaking processes. He was happy, too, that the adults should be allowed to return to the pub’s interior on multiple occasions, no doubt each time becoming less risk-averse, less conscious of the need for social distancing thereby increasing the risk of Covid-19 transmission. And he was happy that all this activity was to have taken place perhaps—certainly in the case of street cafes—against a background of passing vehicles belching out their toxic fumes. But he was not happy for a little secondhand tobacco smoke to be added to this toxic, risky mix.
Pritchard seemed happy, too, that these families should be able to eat at these pubs, cafes and restaurants, many of which, we are told by the government, offer high-sugar, high-fat menus and the attendant risk of obesity, which, because it is now seen as a high-risk factor in respect of Covid-19, is once again becoming a source of major concern for the government.
Relative risks
Even given that my rendering of the street scene outside these pubs, cafes and restaurants is partisan, you surely have to wonder why the risk associated with secondhand smoke was singled out from all these other risks. One thing we know is that it had nothing to do with the level of risk. The consumption of alcohol, the effects of outdoor pollution on the body and being obese each carry a higher health risk than does breathing secondhand smoke, and Covid-19’s risk seems set soon to overtake that of secondhand smoke.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) figures on annual premature deaths worldwide, secondhand smoke accounts for 1.2 million such deaths, obesity accounts for 2.8 million, alcohol for 3 million and outdoor pollution for 4.2 million. And on July 27, the WHO, in announcing that more than 640,000 deaths from Covid-19 had been reported to it, added that the pandemic was continuing to accelerate. Given that, according to the WHO, the total number of cases had roughly doubled in the six weeks to July 27, Covid-19 looked set to leave secondhand smoke in its wake.
And yet, it is secondhand smoke that is in the firing line here. One of the reasons, of course, is that secondhand smoke, unlike alcohol, is highly visible and has an easily recognizable smell that many nonsmokers don’t like. At the same time, many people seem to like the smell of cooking food and, especially, frying fat, and since the smell of traffic fumes is ubiquitous in cities, pollution has become just part of the background.
Another reason is that governments and other organizations are forever warning of the dangers of secondhand smoke whereas the consumption of alcohol, even with all its attendant negative social attributes (it’s worth checking out what a lot of women have had to put up with during lockdown, often after their partners have been drinking), is seen as a bit of a lark: perhaps a bit naughty but something to make the party go well. A lot of people, including, significantly, many politicians, use alcohol as their crutch in social situations. I think it was Ernest Hemingway who said that he drank to make other people seem more interesting.
And, of course, it goes without saying that governments simply have no answers to pollution and its close relation, environmental breakdown, because they lack the imagination necessary or because they are in hock, one way or another, to the companies that largely cause the pollution.
Refocusing our efforts
To my way of thinking, the above suggests that if harm in general is to be reduced, we in the tobacco industry need to refocus our efforts.
Despite the fact that the industry has a pariah status, it has, in recent years, thought long and hard about harm reduction as it applies to tobacco. In particular, the idea of a continuum of risk of tobacco and nicotine products has been extremely helpful in making a lot of creative people think about how it is possible to reduce the harm caused by the consumption of these legal but addictive products. And these people have come up with and are continuing to come up with an array of innovative, lower-risk products. Unfortunately, however, the idea of a continuum of risk has not changed enough minds, and a lot of people—many with influence and power—have simply dug in their heels and said that the only sensible place for people to place themselves on this continuum is at the nonconsumption end.
Could it be that in suggesting the existence of a continuum of risk that includes only tobacco and nicotine products, we have, inadvertently, suggested that if people don’t use such products, they can live healthy, risk-free lives? Certainly, what Pritchard reportedly had to say would suggest that this is the case. And given this, is it perhaps time that we expanded our continuum of risk to include other products, such as alcohol, other activities, such as driving, and other circumstances, such as poverty, to indicate that quitting tobacco does not render one risk-free?
In his statement, Pritchard played the “children” card, which is typical when people aim at tobacco, but again he seemed, whether consciously or unconsciously, to be selective in what he said. He omitted to point out that he is a member of the party of government that, since 2010, has seen 600,000 additional children fall into poverty. If we want to reduce the harm caused to children, rather than protecting them from a whiff of tobacco smoke, we should stop supporting systems that promote the emergence of zoonotic diseases, stop families from falling into poverty, stop the consumption of alcohol by abusive parents and stop feeding children high-sugar, high-fat diets. Especially, we should stop living polluting lifestyles so that we can bequeath to children an environment that still supports life.
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.

January 26, 2021
Riding The High Horse–The Problem with Moral Crusades

Photo: Chon Kit Leong | Dreamstime.com
The problem with moral crusades
By George Gay
In his foreword to a new report, Smokefree Ideology, the director of Forest, Simon Clark, says that tobacco smoking cessation has become a moral crusade. This comment pulled me up sharply because, given that Forest is a pro-smoker group, it seems to imply, among other things, that moral crusades in general are wrong-headed. But can what is “moral” be “wrong-headed”? Does morality now exist simply in the mind of the individual as an ethical code formed of little more than personal preferences, so that what is moral to me might not be to you, at least as things stand today? I know that in an increasingly secular world we, as individuals, are said to have been left standing, confused, on the cliff edge of morality with nobody but ourselves to show the way ahead, but surely there is still some joint enterprise we can agree on as representing morality. Or is there?
Anyway, let me leave that thought for the time being and concentrate on the report, which is based on a study of the current tobacco-smoking policies of local authorities in Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and which is subtitled, “How local authorities are waging war on choice and personal freedom.” It was commissioned, funded and published by Forest, which describes itself as a voice and friend of the smoker and which is supported by British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco and Gallaher (a member of the Japan Tobacco group of companies); and it was written by Josie Appleton, whose biography describes her, in part, as director of the Manifesto Club civil liberties group and author of Officious – Rise of the Busybody State.
I certainly agree with Appleton—assuming I have correctly interpreted what she has written—that tobacco smokers are often treated appallingly, and I support their right to indulge in what is a legal habit without being subjected to petty restrictions that perform no useful function and often appear to be fig leaves for helping various authorities cover failures to take meaningful actions in other, more difficult areas. Take, for instance, a policy that has been much in the news lately whereby tobacco smoking would be banned or further restricted at pavement cafes. Given that, according to the World Health Organization figures on annual premature deaths worldwide, secondhand smoke accounts for 1.2 million while outdoor pollution accounts for 4.2 million, it would seem that tobacco smoking is being targeted because it is easy and cheap to “denormalize” smokers but devilishly difficult and expensive to tackle pollution.
It is difficult to understand how many of the restrictions that Appleton details can be seen as being put in place to protect the health of nonsmokers or even smokers, and, given that it is not the responsibility of local authorities, or any other authority, otherwise to police the activities of people engaging in legal activities, the actions of these authorities have to be seen as being based on something other than their obligations. But does that something amount to a moral crusade, or is there something else going on here, at least in respect of some restrictions?
There might be, and I think it is beholden for us to look as closely as we can at these issues. For instance, much is made in the report about restrictions on tobacco smoking in public parks and other outdoor spaces, and it is certainly my opinion that it is ludicrous to believe that a whiff of secondhand smoke is going to harm a nonsmoker walking in a park or that a glimpse of a smoker indulging her habit is going to have nonsmokers or ex-smokers walking zombie-like to their nearest tobacco retailer. But there could be another explanation for what these authorities are doing. They could be banning tobacco smoking in parks because the cost of picking up and disposing properly the butts carelessly discarded by smokers impacts health budgets. It cannot be ruled out, especially since local authorities in Britain have been starved of cash by successive national governments obsessed with centralizing control.
It is certainly important to ask whether what is being done will make the public significantly safer—safer to a point that justifies restrictions on their liberties or at least on the liberties of some. But getting this balance right is devilishly difficult. For instance, up to a point, libertarians are correct to say that people should be allowed to wallow in fatty, sugary foods, alcohol and gambling—all legal activities—if that is how they want to spend their money and time, but they are correct only in so far that these people live in isolation with only their ethical codes for company. Once they start operating within societies, their partners, children, neighbors and the public should be allowed to have a say at least. Specifically, in societies that claim to have the interests of children at the top of their priorities at all times, it would be odd if parents didn’t come under some sort of pressure not to expose their offspring to such things as fat- and sugar-laden foods that, I am told, condemn them to a shortened lifetime of obesity and ill health. And perhaps, by the same token, parents are almost bound to come under some level of pressure to stop smoking tobacco around children.
How democratic?
One of Appleton’s major beefs—it is the first of her “key points”—is that there is a new wave of restrictions on tobacco smoking being introduced not through parliamentary legislation but through local authority policies, “many of which are not subjected to democratic scrutiny.” And this is where she and I fall out of step.
Let’s firstly consider how democratic is the national government in the U.K., and the first thing to note is that it is hugely London-centric. Also, it is possible for a political party in the U.K. to win an 80-seat majority in the 650-seat House of Commons, the lower house, with less than 40 percent of the popular vote. Looking at the current parliament, the Conservative Party (the current ruling party) has one seat for every 38,000 votes it won whereas the Green Party attracted 866,000 votes and won one seat.
There is no obligation for a Member of Parliament to live in the constituency that she nominally represents, though this is becoming increasingly unimportant as more and more power is being handed over to unelected “advisors,” some of whom, believe me, you wouldn’t want to give house room to.
At the same time, the public has more or less no say in who sits in the House of Lords, our grossly obese upper house, whose membership has swelled to about 830 people, appointed through old-boy, Buggins’ turn and nepotistic networks aimed at stuffing this house not with those most able but with a majority of lackeys of whichever is the party forming the current government. Twenty-six bishops of the Church of England sit in the upper house by dint simply of their being bishops.
It is difficult to make a direct comparison between the democratic credentials of the national government and those of local authorities because, to my knowledge, the latter embrace at least seven different types of authorities. But the list of councils in the annex of the report seems to indicate that most of the authorities studied (283 out of 372 responded to Freedom of Information requests) were borough or equivalent authorities, and I can report that the councilors representing my borough council are, almost by definition, part of the community they represent and are readily available. I can walk to my local town hall in 10 minutes.
So, to my way of thinking, the democratic deficit lies at the national level not at the local level. And it is surely from the national level where smokers’ main problems arise: grossly unfair levels of taxes, public tobacco smoking bans and standardized packaging, which, Forest says, attempts to infantilize smokers.
Careful what you wish for
Of course, you have to be careful in wishing for “democracy.” Surveys in various countries often find that, say, 85 percent of people are in favor of a proposed restriction on tobacco smoking while 15 percent are against. And, of course, if you look up the nonsmoker/smoker split in the population, it’s 85/15. In fact, the proportion of people who support such restrictions is often higher than the proportion of nonsmokers in the population because some smokers have become convinced that their habit is so disgusting that they deserve to be persecuted. And this sort of democracy, the tyranny of the majority, will no doubt come into play as local authorities use such figures to justify introducing no-tobacco-smoking policies in public housing. And once they are introduced, the ideology of the market economy will take over and ensure that all such housing eventually becomes tobacco-smoke-free because it won’t be worth the trouble of catering to the 15 percent.
As I understand it, the report is aimed at encouraging local authorities to think twice before they bring in unnecessary rules on tobacco smoking that merely interfere in the personal lives and habits of employees and authority residents. But will it achieve this? I somehow doubt it. Given the report’s provenance, I would imagine that those in charge at the various authorities will feel free to dismiss it as a moral crusade. And we all know what happens when opposing moral crusades collide.
My crusade
Which brings us back to the murky world of morality and takes us to an issue concerning the aging of my brain. You see, believe it or not, I started out meaning to write a story on organic tobacco and somehow got diverted.
As I have done annually at this time of year for a number of years now, I recently sent out emails to companies who had previously shown interest in organic tobacco, inviting them to take part in a story on this style of leaf. This year, some companies didn’t reply, some replied but said they were no longer involved in organic tobacco while only one replied positively. It has been my observation that interest in organic tobacco has been decreasing now for a number of years, and I have to ask myself why this might be. After all, we are living an environmental nightmare that we are not going to wake up from unless—and here comes my moral crusade—we start taking positive action, such as stopping spraying unnecessary chemicals onto crops, including tobacco crops.
Cigarette manufacturers have been good at addressing environmental issues in respect of their manufacturing facilities, but this is partly because these companies are profit driven and they can see the cost advantage in, for instance, cutting down on the power that they use. Having said that, I am certain they would be willing to embrace organic tobacco more widely than presently even if there were a cost increase, but there would have to be some sort of incentive. For instance, they would need to be able to write on packs that the cigarettes inside contained organic tobacco, with the rider that this did not make them less risky than other cigarettes. But there’s the rub.
A moral crusade seems to have been mounted against such statements being made because, it is claimed, smokers and nonsmokers alike would be led to believe that such cigarettes were less risky than other cigarettes. Come on. Let’s get real. This is a moral crusade that will result in no benefit to smokers and that will mean that the rest of us will not be able to enjoy the benefit of a major crop being produced in a way that will provide relief for the environment. It makes no sense at all. It is wrong-headed.

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.

October 29, 2020
Scholars Argue Against Flavor Ban

Jeff Stier
The prohibition of the legal sale of flavored e-cigarettes to adults is unsupported by science, undermined by an analysis of the available data and lacks common sense, according to Jeff Stier, senior fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, and Henri Miller, senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute.
Writing on Pundicity, the scholars insist the promised benefits of any policy should be weighed against the known risks and possibility of unintended consequences.
Last February, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes to adults. The bill, sponsored by Representative Frank Pallone Jr., did not advance in the Senate but is likely to resurface in the next Congress, according to the Stier and Miller.
“Federal law already bans the sale of all e-cigarettes to anyone under 21, so the Pallone legislation would only change the legal status of the sale of flavored e-cigarettes to adults,” the authors wrote. “That would harm public health, because the data tell us that adult smokers can significantly reduce their health risks if they switch from smoking to vaping.”
Stier and Miller also refuted anti-flavor advocates’ concern about underage vaping. “Kids vape for lots of reasons, but the availability of flavors isn’t high among them,” they wrote.
September 16, 2020
Caught off-guard by Covid, the U.K. raises RYO taxes
Struggling to contain a crisis that it ignored for a month, the U.K. government raises the tax on roll-your-own cigarettes.
By George Gay

Photo: zikamatej from Pixabay
In its March budget, and in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, the U.K. government increased the duty on roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco by inflation plus 6 percent. I am told that anti-smoker campaigners had been calling for an increase of inflation plus 15 percent.
I find it difficult to understand how the government and campaigners can act in such an unfair, discriminatory and callous way, especially at this time. Smokers are largely made up of the financially less wellvoff, and many RYO consumers are smokers who cannot afford cigarettes. At the same time, a lot of RYO smokers are elderly, perhaps lonely. Are they to be allowed no solace as they are forced by government diktat into isolation because of the threat that they may contract Covid-19? Having been told for most of their lives—wrongly as it turns out—that smoking will kill them, are they in fact to be killed by a type of virus nobody bothered to warn them about—and without the comfort of a final rollie? Is it not possible for those with power and influence to forget their alcohol (no duty increase, of course), cocaine (illegal, so ditto) and other apparently more acceptable habits for a while and imagine themselves in the shoes of the less well off?
The U.K. government proved to be woefully unprepared to protect its people from the perfectly predictable arrival of a deadly coronavirus that those people, individually, have almost no protection against. But it stands ready to fight any 70-plus-year-old who chooses to indulge in the legal habit of smoking an RYO cigarette.
In one of his statements, the U.K.’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, widely viewed as a libertarian, suggested that one of the reasons why the government was taking a “gently, gently” approach to curbing people’s ability to fraternize during the coronavirus crisis was that the U.K. was a bastion of liberty. Given that smoking tobacco, a legal product, is banned from public places in the U.K., the argument seemed to be that people should, in the name of liberty, be allowed to gather together to spread the deadly virus, which kills within weeks, whereas smokers should not be allowed to gather together because of the miniscule threat that secondhand smoke will kill a bystander within 40 years or so. Of course, as the “science changed,” (you couldn’t make this up) he was soon in full retreat from his defense of liberty and moving to his more usual stance of taking liberties.
The argument seemed to be that people should, in the name of liberty, be allowed to gather together to spread the deadly virus, which kills within weeks, whereas smokers should not be allowed to gather together because of the miniscule threat that secondhand smoke will kill a bystander within 40 years or so.
But one can expect no more. The government, run apparently by a bunch of self-styled weirdos and misfits and bent on undervaluing the country’s experienced, serious-minded and formerly internationally respected civil servants, found itself way out of its depth as it reaped the whirlwind of 10 years of austerity and the onward march of Covid-19 through a nation it had torn apart over Brexit. Covid-19, marching in lockstep with an economic meltdown and a financial panic, emerged on the back of the free market and proved unmoved by the prime minister’s only weapons: bluster and a pantomime-like imitation of Winston Churchill that surely would not earn him an Equity card.
The government couldn’t and, as I write, still cannot provide an efficient or anything like adequate testing regime for the virus. Indeed, a new cabinet, seemingly made up mainly of poodles and patsies who a few months earlier had bleated for the cameras how the government was going to build 40 new hospitals, couldn’t, even by the end of March, provide face masks for all frontline medical staff.
And this, of course, was the reason for the huge increase in RYO tax. It wasn’t about forcing RYO smokers to quit their habit (they are addicted, after all). It was about the government casting about among the financially poor to find the funds necessary to face up to the crisis that it appeared to have largely ignored for a month.
The government’s duty increases on tobacco products will, of course, have greatly pleased the World Health Organization (WHO), which advocates taxing poor smokers heavily (for their own good, of course), but the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak went down less well with the WHO, which at times seemed nonplussed by the government’s approach, or lack of it. Still, what can the WHO expect? The U.K. is a fully paid-up member of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, but there is, of course, no Framework Convention on Coronavirus Prevention and Control.
Prevention. Now there’s a thing. What are the chances that, with the world’s health defenses not reserved for tobacco all pointing at Covid-19, anyone is watching our backs for the arrival of the next deadly coronavirus? Not great, I would suggest. And it will arrive as sure as night follows day unless things change and prevention is pushed to the fore. We know what some of the main risk factors in respect of such viruses are, so even if we cannot prevent their outbreak, we can greatly reduce their likelihood. But we won’t; the free market, marching in lockstep with inept leaders around the world, will see to that.
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.

June 4, 2020
Rehumanize Yourself – The WHO’s Backward Priorities
In the fights against smoking, the World Health Organization appears to measure success in bureaucratic rather than human terms.
By George Gay

As I get older, I have a growing problem whereby my thought processes move into circular orbits around my head. For instance, I have been reading the 2019 World Health Organization’s (WHO) tobacco report and, while you might expect it to contain much food for thought, just about the only question that is doing the rounds in my mind is: Why does the report contain so many pictures of children (and to be clear, I’m talking about preteen children)? There are so many such pictures that I gave up counting less than halfway through the 200-page online version of the WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic 2019, by which time I had totted up 50 smiling children.
Don’t get me wrong, such pictures, with their air of joy and hope, can brighten the darkest days even for an old cynic. But there is a time and a place, and I thought that mixing such pictures with tobacco was a no-no, unless overwhelming evidence could be presented to support the idea that such juxtapositions would have a significant positive outcome for children in general.
So, perhaps I wouldn’t have questioned the placement of the pictures if the underlying theme of the report had been the prevention of smoking initiation among children, but it wasn’t, and the use of the pictures seemed gratuitous. The theme was “offer help to quit tobacco use,” a seemingly tortuous effort to justify the ‘O’ in ‘MPOWER,’ which was said in a foreword by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to encompass six measures to help implement the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) using “effective interventions that are proven to reduce demand for tobacco.”
To my mind, this foreword is a strange piece in which “success” seems to be measured in bureaucratic terms—in respect of how many countries have been encouraged to implement MPOWER measures—rather than in human terms—the number of people who quit smoking, which doesn’t get a mention.
It seems a strange thing to say, but the FCTC doesn’t seem to do humanity. Rather than try to get to the bottom of why people smoke and help address the issues they have, it encourages governments to threaten them with graphic images of diseases and tax them until they bleed through the eyes. It seems not to be on the side of the smoker but on the side of some greater calling. It seems to be on the side of tobacco manufacturers, through its Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco, and on the side of governments and their revenues, which many spend not on programs to prevent tobacco initiation among smiling children but on armaments, some of which end up blowing the limbs off those children. I suppose you can’t smoke if you don’t have any fingers.
As usual, the United Nations is protecting us from things we can protect ourselves from, but leaving us exposed to those that we cannot
The closest the director general comes to talking about getting smokers to quit their habit is when he suggests that due in part to countries implementing MPOWER measures, “many tobacco users now want to quit, and we know how to help them.” To my mind, the lack of urgency and ambition in this statement beggars belief. But then I guess it’s easy to get used to failure. Part of the summary of the report has this to say: “Unfortunately, only 13 new countries have started providing comprehensive cessation programs since 2007. There are now 23 countries protected by this measure, up from 10 countries in 2007.” At this point, you start to wonder whether the children are pictured because this report is meant to be read by them—or, more likely, only by the very youngest among them. After all, I assume that adults and most children would not need to be told that if a number has increased from 13 to 23, the original number was 10.
The forewords by Michael R. Bloomberg, WHO global ambassador for noncommunicable diseases and injuries and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, head of the WHO FCTC Secretariat, also seem to measure success in getting countries to implement FCTC policies, and the nearest they get to talking about the numbers of people who have quit—or who would have quit if only—is when the latter says, “If tobacco cessation measures had been adopted at the highest level of achievement in 14 countries between 2007 and 2014, 1.5 million lives could have been saved.” I’m sure that if they could speak, those 1.5 million people would want to thank da Costa e Silva for her encouraging words.
The three forewords run to about 1,750 words, and, despite the number of pictures of children in the report, the word “children” occurs only once in those forewords when da Costa e Silva claims the tobacco industry doesn’t want anything to change, but “for the sake of public health, and in the interests of our children and future generations, things must change.”
Ah, change; it’s all very well, but you do have to be careful what you wish for. In his foreword, Bloomberg highlights some of the WHO’s most important gains, one of which has occurred in Brazil, which “is now the second country [after Turkey] … that has passed all MPOWER policies at the highest level.” It’s true. Policies in Brazil do seem to have changed to ensure that fewer of its children will die of tobacco-related diseases, but mainly, I would suggest, because they will firstly fall victim to the effects of climate change-induced environmental disasters, in which, in fairness, many other countries will be complicit.
As usual, the United Nations is protecting us from things we can protect ourselves from, but leaving us exposed to those that we cannot: climate change, environmental breakdown, pollution, poverty, globalized viruses and those endless bombs sold, according to the logic of the market economy, to any lunatic group with the money to buy them. There is little sense that we should be in preventative rather than reactive mode. When I see the pictures of the WHO’s smiling children, I cannot get out of my mind the faces of children I see in my newspaper: terrified, dirty faces above malnourished, shabbily clothed bodies wandering among rubble-strewn streets a million miles and years from a school, an inspiring teacher and the prospects of a better life. But at least they’re too poor to be using tobacco.
Success in South America
This is not to say that children should not be protected from tobacco and any other products deemed to be suitable only for adults. And Brazil has seemingly done a good job in bringing in measures said by the WHO to encourage people not to start smoking or to quit if they have already done so, starting, according to the WHO report, from 1981 when the Ministry of Health set up the Commission for the Study of the Consequences of Tobacco. In 1999, Brazil also set up the National Commission on Tobacco Control to support the country’s role in negotiating the FCTC, which it signed in 2003 and ratified in 2005. And in 2018, Brazil also ratified the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products.
Since 1989, Brazil has taken increasingly stringent steps against tobacco advertising and promotion and introduced bans on smoking in enclosed public places. The country has introduced increasingly graphic health warnings on tobacco packs and integrated cessation treatments into its public health system. And, of course, it has increased tobacco taxes, which, as of 2018, were said to represent 82.97 percent of the retail price of the most popular brand.
One of the more amazing—and rounded, it has to be said—figures to come out of Brazil’s efforts appears outside the special section on the country where, it is said, “when Brazil became the first large country to include its national quit line number in graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging, the quit line received unprecedented call volumes—reaching up to 6 million calls in the first year, and more than all other quit lines globally at that time.” Given that we live in a time of fake news, I should point out that “up to 6 million” could legitimately mean one. Just saying.
Whether due to these measures wholly or in part, adult smoking prevalence in Brazil was said by WHO to have declined from 35 percent in 1989 to 18.5 percent in 2008, the year the MPOWER measures were introduced, and to 14.7 percent in 2013. Adult cigarette smoking was said to have decreased in capital cities from 15.6 percent in 2007 to 10.1 percent in 2017.
But the smiling children didn’t do so well. “Despite declining smoking rates among adults, smoking prevalence among youth remains stable at around five percent, with 19 percent of boys and 17 percent of girls experimenting with smoking during their school years, according to PENSE [National Adolescent School-based Health Survey] 2015,” the report said.
Rather than try to get to the bottom of why people smoke and help address the issues they have, the FCTC encourages governments to threaten them with graphic images of diseases and tax them until they bleed through the eyes.
Brazil is not the only country of South America featured prominently in the report. There is a piece on Colombia that describes how, from 2016 to 2017, tobacco taxes there have been increased hugely. But again, success is measured not against how many people quit smoking because of these increases but on the grounds that civil society groups were able to counteract the tobacco industry’s argument that tax increases would create an unmanageable surge in illicit trade and because Colombia managed “the highest level of achievement under the raise taxes on tobacco MPOWER measure.”
There was also a piece on Ecuador that focused on its integration of tobacco cessation strategies into its health system. But here, at least, we get a glimpse of what should be the focus of the WHO’s efforts: people quitting smoking. “From mid-March to mid-November 2018, 3,916 tobacco users were identified and given advice on quitting,” the report said. “Among the 2,069 patients who completed a follow-up at four months, the seven-day self-reported abstinence rate was 57.2 percent, and of the 968 who completed a six-month follow-up assessment, the self-reported abstinence rate was 48.9 percent.” So, my interpretation of these interventions suggests that just over 470 people are believed to have not smoked for a while. What can you possibly say? It’s a start?
Of course, it is impossible not to set Brazil’s success against the fact that the country is the biggest exporter of leaf tobacco. While Brazil is praised by the WHO for its MPOWERing, it is a major contributor to fueling what the WHO characterizes as the “global tobacco epidemic.” And this raises a number of questions.
Older readers will remember the arguments put forward in the past that EU farm subsidies should not go to supporting leaf tobacco growing, some of which had merit. But some cleaved to the ludicrous claim that if you stopped leaf production in the EU, you would stop smoking there, seemingly forgetting that the EU was a relatively small player in tobacco production and a major leaf importer. Brazil is not the EU, however. If Brazil stopped leaf production overnight, it would MPOWER the WHO’s activities like nothing else. And, of course, it would impoverish a lot of people, especially those in Brazil.
I would not advise such a course of action. As one reformed supporter of globalization once said, the basic responsibility of governments is to maximize the welfare of its citizens not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good.
But what is the WHO’s view? In its eyes, is impoverishment an acceptable side effect of curing the tobacco epidemic? Of course, I cannot know the answer to that question, but something tells me that it would be “yes.” If you look closely at the children whose pictures were chosen for publication by the WHO, most of them seem to be living in or close to poverty. I can assume only that, from the lofty heights of Geneva, Switzerland, poverty seems quite quaint.
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.

June 1, 2020
Opinion: Four-Month FDA Extension Not Sufficient

Photo: Nmedia | Dreamstime.com
Consumers are staying home and spending less as COVID-19 and social distancing mandates sweep across the globe. The extreme, necessary steps to control the spread of the virus have already taken an economic toll, and there certainly will be a long-term impact on individual businesses and workers. One industry, in particular, will likely fail without swift federal action: e-cigarettes, according to Michelle Minton with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Cigarettes may prove “pandemic-proof.” Since they are often sold at outlets deemed “essential” under the current lockdown, cigarettes continue to be available and big tobacco companies have so far remained financially unscathed. But the same is not true for their lower-risk competitors. Vape shops, which sell vapor products, like e-cigarettes, have not been universally recognized as essential businesses, so they have been forced to close.
To maximize ways to fight the virus, many states have pressed pause on certain rules and regulations (leading many to wonder if they were #NeverNeeded in the first place.) For example, Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed an order lifting the state ban on home alcohol delivery. This was a pragmatic move, as Reason’s Guy Bentley aptly put it. Vermont lawmakers understand that people still want to imbibe, and at-home delivery discourages unnecessary booze runs.
Yet that pragmatism hasn’t been extended to e-cigarettes, and Governor Scott’s online e-cigarette sales ban enacted last year remains in place. As a result, some adults now find themselves cut off from the products they rely on to stay smoke-free. Without swift federal action, they may be cut off permanently as vape shops go belly up, and many people will revert to smoking.
The last year has already been difficult for those who sell and enjoy vapor products. Even as the evidence that e-cigarettes are relatively harmless for adults and highly effective for smoking cessation has become clearer, calls to ban or restrict e-cigarettes have only grown louder. Groups that oppose nicotine use, no matter how safe, ramped up attacks, spending millions to promote the idea that e-cigarettes are no different than cigarettes and to foment panic over the non-existent “epidemic” of youth vaping.
Last summer, as scores of mostly young people fell ill with a mysterious lung ailment, anti-tobacco groups (with the aid of the CDC and news media) convinced people e-cigarettes were to blame, obfuscating the fact that the injuries were caused by black market THC vaping products, contaminated with vitamin E acetate (an oil that cannot be mixed into nicotine-containing e-cigarettes).
By exploiting fear and confusion, e-cigarette opponents amassed support among the public and lawmakers for restrictions on e-cigarettes. Cities and states instituted onerous new rules, including banning all e-cigarette sales (but not traditional cigarettes), prohibiting flavored e-cigarettes, restricting sales to in-person transactions, and criminalizing possession of certain e-cigarettes.
Some members of Congress tried to make these rules national, holding several hearings antagonistic toward vaping and considering a number of bills. Rep. Frank Pallone’s (D-NJ) bill, which bans all flavors except “tobacco,” prohibits online and mail-order sales and raises the national tobacco purchasing age limit to 21 (which it already is), passed the House. If enacted, it would make e-cigarettes less attractive, harder to get, and more expensive—leading some to label the bill a “win for cigarettes.”
E-cigarette supporters battled threats to products they believe saved their lives. But unless federal regulators take immediate action there will be no industry left to save: By May 12, 2020 all vapor products must either submit a pre-market tobacco application (PMTA) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval or exit the market. Filing a PMTA is an expensive and time-consuming task, which the FDA admitted would Eliminate 99 percent of the e-cigarette market. COVID-19 disruption could make that figure nearer to 100 percent.
Last week, the FDA submitted a request to delay the PMTA deadline by four months, but even if granted, this would merely push the inevitable end of the e-cigarette industry to September 2020. The FDA should go further: Make the process, which vapor industry experts estimate takes over 1,700 hours and millions of dollars, quicker and cheaper for small companies. Although Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced plans in January to create a “streamlined” avenue for small businesses, that has yet to materialize.
In the meantime, anti-nicotine advocates are still trying to spread misinformation, slip state-wide vaping bans around the normal legislative process, and, ludicrously, link COVID-19 deaths to e-cigarette use—for which there is zero evidence. Worse, some have even encouraged countries to reject critically needed medical equipment like ventilators if donated by Big Tobacco.
The outbreak of COVID-19 should elevate the value of harm reduction—the idea that you can’t entirely stop people from engaging in risky behavior, but you can reduce harm by encouraging them to do so in the least risky way possible. E-cigarettes are the best way we know so far to reduce the harms related to nicotine use. They are vastly safer than smoking and more popular than most other forms of tobacco cessation. Lawmakers should do everything in their power to keep e-cigarettes a viable option for smoking cessation.
April 9, 2020