Blog - Tobacco Reporter

Illegal Factory Raided in Bulgaria

Bulgarian authorities uncovered a large illegal cigarette factory near Sofia, reports the Bulgarian News Agency.

The facility, which produced fake versions of well-known cigarette brands, was capable of producing some 2,400-2,800 cigarettes per minute. The police also found some 20 tons of processed tobacco, designated to be packaged and branded as cigarettes.

Pre-trial proceedings have been initiated and a witness has been questioned. The operation was conducted under the Customs Agency’s direct supervision.

October 2, 2024

Lithuania Takes Aim at Cigarette Balloons

Lithuania may permit its border guards to shoot down balloons carrying contraband from Belarus or Russia when they cross the border, reports The Baltic Times.

“In my opinion, border guards should have the right to shoot them down in the air,” Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told reporters on Sept. 30.

The minister’s comments came after a balloon, suspected to have come from Belarus and carrying smuggled cigarettes, fell within Vilnius Airport’s airfield on Sept. 28.

Rustamas Liubajevas, the commander of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service (SBGS), said that border guards have neither the necessary weapons nor the legal authority to shoot down objects that illegally cross the Lithuanian border by air.

He explained that border guards use assault rifles, which do not have the technical capability to shoot down higher-flying objects.

The SBGS has recorded around 250 incidents involving such balloons in the past month.

Poland too has recorded increased attempts to smuggle cigarettes into its territory by air.

October 2, 2024

Battery Law Forces IQOS from Kiwi Store Shelves

Philip Morris International pulled its IQOS tobacco heating device from New Zealand store shelves after a new law took effect requiring vaping devices to have removable batteries, reports RNZ. Tobacco heating products (THPs) are classified as e-cigarettes in New Zealand.

RNZ says it has seen PMI emails sent to suppliers saying IOQS is “unavailable for purchase due to a regulatory change on 1 October 2024 affecting vaping devices.” In a statement, the multinational said it always complies with all necessary regulations, including on electronic devices.

IQOS consumables, known as Heatsticks, remain available for sale in New Zealand.

The news follows controversy about Associate Health Minister Casey Costello’s July announcement of a 50 percent cut to THP excise taxes—a move that critics say benefits only PMI, which is the sole supplier of the products in New Zealand.

Costello argues the tax cut will encourage smokers to switch to THPs, which are believed to be less harmful than combustible cigarettes. Costello’s plan is to have more than 7,000 people switch to THPs, which she sees as a tool to achieve New Zealand’s smoking reduction targets.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has backed Costello, telling RNZ the excise tax cut plan was a 12 month trial to “see how it goes” with HTPs lowering smoking rates.

Health advocates have accused the ruling coalition of caving to pressure from tobacco lobbyists. In late 2023, the government scrapped the country’s controversial generational tobacco ban, which would have prohibited tobacco products for people born after 2009.

In a briefing published Jan. 31 by the Public Health Communications Center, three University of Otago public health academics highlight links between government members of parliament and the tobacco industry.

October 2, 2024

FDA clears RespiRx IND

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for Qnovia’s RespiRx nicotine inhaler (QN-01).

According to Qnovia, the RespiRx is the first truly inhalable nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to assist smokers attempting to quit smoking.

The company will initiate a Phase 1, randomized, crossover, open-label trial to determine the pharmacokinetics, safety and tolerability following self-administration of nicotine-containing products in up to 24 healthy adult subjects who currently smoke combustible cigarettes.

“The FDA clearance of our IND application for QN-01 marks a significant achievement for Qnovia as we transition to a clinical-stage therapeutics company,” said Qnovia CEO Brian Quigley in a statement.

“Our U.S. clinical development plan is derisked by the positive first-in-human data we generated last year in support of advancing QN-01 in the United Kingdom where we demonstrated pulmonary delivery and a superior pharmacokinetic profile for the RespiRx when compared to existing nicotine replacement therapies,”

“The next step for our U.S. program is to initiate a randomized Phase 1 trial that evaluates QN-01 compared to the Nicotrol Inhaler and combustible cigarettes in a head-to-head comparison. We remain on track to dose our first patient in the fourth quarter of 2024 and in parallel will be advancing to a pivotal clinical trial in the U.K. to support an MAA submission [Marketing Authorization Application] to the MHRA [ Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency] in 2026.”

Qnovia’s proprietary drug/device combination already demonstrated dose-dependent pharmacokinetics, pulmonary delivery and was well tolerated in a first-in-human study conducted to support advancing QN-01 in the U.K., according to the company.

“There have been no treatment options for smoking cessation approved in the U.S. in over 20 years. As a result, attempting to quit ‘cold turkey’ remains the most popular method of quitting smoking,” said Mitch Zeller, Qnovia’s policy and regulatory strategy advisor.

“There is an extraordinary public health need for truly innovative products to help health-concerned smokers stop using cigarettes. Any effort to reduce the death and disease caused by tobacco use must include new and better tools in the treatment toolkit,” Zeller added.

October 1, 2024

Global Synergy

Stuart Buchanan discusses KT International’s partnership with KT&G.

By Marissa Dean

As the tobacco industry changes and evolves, companies are adapting in different ways. Recently, KT International (KTI) and KT&G entered into a manufacturing license agreement, allowing KTI to manufacture and distribute KT&G’s products in Europe.

KT&G is a leading tobacco manufacturer in South Korea and the fifth largest in the world by sales volume, with an annual sales revenue of approximately KRW6 trillion ($4.5 billion). KTI, established in 2008, has built its reputation as one of Europe’s fastest-growing independent tobacco companies. The company has also earned recognition for its strong and credible footprint across Europe along with world-class production facilities within the European Union.

The agreement between the two companies was signed on Oct. 20, 2023. Under the terms of the deal, KTI received exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute KT&G’s products within the EU region for three years. The two companies have agreed to a market entry plan aimed at expanding into strategic markets within the Western European region, with a specific focus on KT&G’s Esse products. Esse, a flagship brand of KT&G, is renowned for its premium quality and holds the distinction of being the world’s bestselling super-slim cigarette brand. While the two companies will initially focus on Esse products, the product range expansion will be discussed and announced in due course.

Tobacco Reporter recently discussed the arrangement with Stuart Buchanan, chief commercial officer of KTI.

Tobacco Reporter: Your company, KTI, entered into a partnership agreement with KT&G, one of the world’s largest cigarette producers. Why was KTI chosen as a partner of KT&G?

Stuart Buchanan: After three years of collaborative efforts leading to the signing of this agreement, we have developed a strong cultural fit between our two companies in terms of people and commercial objectives. We expect the synergy between our complementary brand portfolios to strengthen the market position of both companies. A significant amount of time has been taken to structure a competitive business model and to develop an innovative and consumer-relevant product portfolio that is consistent to the global objectives and standards of KT&G.

What necessitated this synergy?

The KT&G partnership is certainly our most significant and strategic partnership; however, we have other partnerships with large global players, and in most cases, these synergistic partnerships have developed through taking time upfront to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This in itself is a process as it takes time to develop trust and a collaborative working environment that is open and transparent, particularly in cases where we are competitors in other parts of the world.

Why do you think more global players are forming partnerships with KTI?

When we started our international expansion, we were an unknown company, and we found it very difficult to find importers and distributors in strategic markets. From the outset in our first three proper international markets, Spain, France and the Czech Republic, we committed to working with credible world-class importers and giving them the level of service they would expect from a major multinational. By maintaining our business standards and building our corporate reputation, we now work with some of the world’s best partners, like KT&G, and new business is self-generating as we are the first point of call for credible, reliable partners.

Our corporate reputation extends beyond just how we operate externally in our markets but also how we operate internally through things like properly vetting our supplier base, health and safety for our employees and most recently our environmental and sustainability strategy where we have installed a 5 MW photovoltaic solar park to be sustainably self-sufficient for over 40 percent of our energy needs.

This is probably also our biggest learning; in building our corporate reputation by doing things properly from how we manage our business partners, our brand and product development, our people development, through to our investment strategy, sometimes takes longer, but the payback is significantly higher.

What is most important in your business? What is the strategic potential of your company and the key to your success?

First and foremost, our people. In both our production and commercial business units, we have prided ourselves on building a world-class organization with locally developed talent.

Operating across 70 countries, our commercial teams have developed not only the commercial acumen to compete with the world’s best, but we have embedded a culture where we understand and respect cultural differences. This applies not only to the professionalism with which our teams engage with many different countries and cultures but also in how we deploy our brand portfolio by being flexible to the consumer needs of different markets and consumer segments.

Secondly, our production capabilities. We have one of the world’s most modern factories and service these 70 countries from one factory. We are one of the few global companies across any category that services their total demand from one production facility. Whilst creating a highly complex production environment, it provides for global brand consistency and quality standards and a single point of business contact, which is seen as a significant benefit to our partners.

This is particularly relevant to European partnerships as we have a core production strength in being able to operate across this highly complex environment with multiple EU-driven product registration processes. This applies not only to physical production but also to logistics, product development, commercial contracts and market implementation.

What is your outlook for the future of the tobacco industry?

As a company, we fully respect and support sensible regulation for what is an adult category of choice. We do, however, recognize the role and growth of next-generation products (NGPs) and reduced-risk products and believe these will continue to become an integral part of a broadening category. We also support the recent moves across Europe to regulate these products along similar lines to traditional tobacco with regards to excise, legal age and product registration as it will provide higher levels of consumer protection against cheap, low-quality imports, particularly in the disposable vaping category.

Now that, in general, across Europe there is a much clearer regulatory outlook, we have recently launched our own NGP range under our brand in Spain and Bulgaria and aim to follow across major European markets, including Germany, the U.K., France, Czech and Italy, where we have a strong presence in our traditional cigarette brands.

Looking at the longer term horizon on the future of the category, I personally believe a natural consumer-driven balance will develop between cigars, pipe tobacco, rolling products, traditional cigarettes and NGPs, where each will have a place in the consumer repertoire.

How is KTI adapting to changing markets and consumer needs?

Tobacco and nicotine alternatives are a highly regulated category, and as such, it is difficult to provide the same level of consumer interaction as other categories, and to a large extent, price and brand value provide the key consumer drivers. That being said, in our traditional business, we have always believed in providing different and innovative formats that go beyond the traditional brand, price, value equation in driving purchase. It is one of the key reasons for our growth.

Does KTI have any plans to expand into reduced-risk products or other types of tobacco products aside from cigarettes and traditional leaf tobacco?

2023 saw the launch of our LIV brand, which is our noncombustible brand. We have launched a range of travel-friendly nicotine pouches as our first step into the noncombustible category.

Marissa Dean joined Tobacco Reporter in the summer of 2018 as a copy editor. Since that time, she has taken on additional responsibilities, including feature writing. Her skills span the publishing industry from layout and design to copy editing to content creation.

October 1, 2024

In the Shadow of War

With normal supplies cut off due to the Hamas-Israel conflict, cigarettes are selling for $30 per stick in Gaza.

TR Staff Report

Israel’s market has seen an upswing in cigarette consumption as war-related stress and anxiety take a toll on the population, especially on soldiers and their families. In the meantime, on the other side of the barricades, traders are selling cigarettes at some of the world’s highest prices, according to observers.

Import dynamics and tax receipts are two key indicators describing the state of play in the Israeli cigarette market.

In 2022, tobacco companies paid NIS7.5 billion ($2 billion) to the national treasury, according to the Tax Authority. Import volume was consistent throughout most of 2023, until October, when it jumped by 21.5 percent, the official data indicated.

A senior official in the customs brokerage industry, speaking to a local publication Finance Walla, suggested that the war could potentially contribute an additional NIS500 million to the national budget, thanks to the increased cigarette sales.

Tobacco consumption in Israel has long been the subject of increased attention and strong concerns among government officials and anti-smoking organizations.

According to a 2021 report by the Taub Center for Social Policy, nearly 20 percent of Israeli adults consume tobacco, which is higher than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. A quarter of men and 15 percent of women smoke, with rates higher among Arabs than among Jews.

The Israeli Health Ministry estimated that tobacco consumption in the country declined between 1998 and 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a slight increase in cigarette consumption, though the impact seems to be incomparable to that of the Gaza war.

Hedva Elmackias, deputy director of finance and marketing operations at the Taub Center, told Tobacco Reporter that no up-to-date information was available to judge how the Gaza war impacted the tobacco market in Israel.

However, the Gaza war has brought tobacco sales in the country to heights not seen for a long time. The link is obvious: People smoke more to combat stress and anxiety.

“The situation is obviously incredibly distressing,” Yahel Silberberg Vulej, a spokesman for Philip Morris International, told Tobacco Reporter, declining to discuss what impact the war produced on the company’s business in the country. “Throughout this situation, our priority has been to look after our people, ensuring our colleagues and their families are safe,” he added only.

Nevertheless, the impact of the war on Israeli tobacco sales is undeniable.

“A great deal of money has entered our business since the beginning of the war, millions of additional shekels,” What Alon, the owner of a cigarettes and smoking products distributor, told Finance Walla.

In physical terms, cigarette sales in Israel jumped to nearly 400 million packs against 352 million packs in the previous year, the official statistical data indicated. This is equal to 8 billion cigarettes.

While the surge in tobacco industry taxes may seem beneficial in the short term, economists caution that the long-term implications of the current trend in the Israeli tobacco market demand urgent attention and action from the authorities and social organizations.

The Abrahamson Network of addiction treatment centers allows every regular soldier to receive free smoking cessation treatments at any of its eight locations in Israel.

“This is a volunteer program in which all 50 of the company’s employees, therapists, service and support staff, nutrition consultants and Abrahamson’s operations and logistics team participate,” said Ehud Abrahamson, the company chief.

The World’s Most Expensive Cigarettes

Meanwhile, in Gaza, cigarettes are selling for record prices.

According to the Progressive Survey of Chronic Diseases conducted by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in 2022, the percentage of smokers in Palestine is the highest in the Middle East, reaching about 34 percent.

The survey results indicate that 55.1 percent of males and 12.1 percent of females are smokers, and more than a third of smokers are young people aged between 18 and 29.

While reliable data on the impact of the war on tobacco consumption in Palestine is scarce, local resident Ayad Thabet told Al Akhbar that the percentage of smokers has surged since the conflict began, painting a stark picture of the situation.

This happened even though a single cigarette can sell for $30 in the Gaza market, as estimated by the local press.

Currently, the Gaza tobacco market is primarily composed of poor-quality cigarettes of unknown origin smuggled from Egypt. Cigarettes of international brands can be rarely met here since the conflict started. The market is also highly speculative.

A local cigarette seller told Al Akhbar: “A few days before Hamas agreed to the Egyptian truce proposal, the price of a cigarette was NIS30 [$8], and minutes after Hamas agreed, its price dropped to NIS20, and after Israel and Netanyahu in their stubbornness rejected the truce, its price jumped to NIS100.”

Speaking about cigarette consumption, however, he argued that it went down dramatically due to a lack of supply and because people had no money to spare. He estimated that before the war, he used to sell 40 packs of cigarettes per day, but now he is lucky to sell two packs.

Cigarettes have become like a new gold in Gaza, a U.N. official described the present market situation to The Wall Street Journal.

Juliette Tourwa, director of communications for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, told Tobacco Reporter that the organization doesn’t have reliable information about the state of the tobacco market in the Gaza Strip.

Cigarettes are smuggled to the Gaza Strip primarily from Egypt, sometimes even in the humanitarian aid trucks. Some reports indicate that the flow of contraband cigarettes has somewhat narrowed since the Israeli army attacked Rafah in early May.

Reselling cigarettes has become an extremely perilous profession in the Gaza Strip, as sellers are frequently targeted by desperate consumers.

Khaled Omar, another local resident, told Al Akhbar that when it comes to the tobacco market, “Gaza is like another planet” as the price per pack of cigarettes of international brands can reach $600 per pack. He assumes there is no place in the world where the price would be that high.

Omar also blames unscrupulous sellers for the market manipulation, assuming that they “are waging war against Palestinians, just like the Israel Army.”

Revival of the Illegal Segment

Not only did Gaza experience a jump in cigarette smuggling amid the ongoing war. The surge in tobacco sales in Israel, coupled with the general war-related turbulence, reportedly triggered a rise in cigarette smuggling to the country too.

In 2023, the Israeli Customs Service seized 36 containers filled with contraband cigarettes against only 17 in the previous year. Law enforcement agencies also warned at the airports and Israel’s land borders with Jordan and Egypt that the smuggling of cigarettes has become particularly frequent. In addition, thousands of packs of illegal cigarettes are regularly being seized at the seaports.

Smuggling cigarettes has become increasingly profitable among criminals in recent years due to the growing price differences between cigarettes in Israel, which are taxed at a high rate, and their prices in the neighboring countries, not only Jordan and Egypt but also European countries.

In 2024, the tobacco market is braced for another tax hike. The sales tax on cigarettes will rise from 270 percent and a price of NIS444.03 per thousand cigarettes to NIS850.62 per thousand cigarettes, to 270 percent and NIS 524.50 per thousand cigarettes, up to not less than NIS930 per thousand cigarettes.

The purchase tax on processed tobacco is also set to jump from 270 percent and NIS634.34 per kilogram to NIS1,215.18 per kilogram, to 270 percent and NIS749.29 per kilogram to NIS1,328.57 per kilogram.

In addition, the sales tax will be increased on other tobacco products, including tobacco-heating devices that use tobacco units and tobacco-heating devices that use tobacco. A tax of NIS113.39 per kilogram will be imposed on packages of loose tobacco for cigarettes.

At the end of 2023, cigarettes in Israel cost 80 percent to 100 percent more than in the neighboring Middle Eastern countries. The new tax increase should make the gap even wider.

A senior official at the Tax Authority told a local news outlet, Ynet, that law enforcement agencies are now bracing for a surge in the number of smuggling attempts, citing the existing price situation as the reason.

October 1, 2024

At the Crossroads, Again

There are still more unknowns than knowns about the shape of future European regulation for novel nicotine products.

By Barnaby Page

Europe’s relationship with novel nicotine products has always been a mixed one. On the one hand, the more extreme forms of hysteria about youth vaping or supposed health risks have been relatively absent from the European scene; the U.K. in particular has been regarded as perhaps the most pro-vaping major economy in the world. And regulation—in most countries, heavily shaped by the European Union’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD)—is in some respects light-touch.

Most notably, rather than following the U.S. model, which in theory requires marketing authorization by the Food and Drug Administration before products can be sold, the EU has eschewed the premarket approval approach and simply asks for products and businesses to be compliant with the TPD’s requirements.

But if Europe (which for the rest of this article mostly means the EU and its member states) has been looser in its regulatory approach than the U.S. in some ways, many of the requirements that it does make are quite onerous: the 20 mg per milliliter limit on nicotine strength, for example. It is also well known that the TPD as originally conceived was going to be far more restrictive and was only scaled back after pressure.

And there have been distinct signs lately of Europe becoming more cautious. Most flavors were banned EU-wide in heated-tobacco products; several countries have enacted, or will enact, disposable e-cigarette bans; the Netherlands, usually famed for its tolerance, is an example of a country that has started showing a lot of skepticism toward novel nicotine products; even in the U.K.—no longer an EU member—government support for tobacco harm reduction seems to be ebbing away a little, though it certainly hasn’t turned into outright opposition yet.

Set against this background, there is concern that the next version of the TPD may make major changes to the EU’s regulatory framework for novel tobacco products, reflecting conservative positions.

So far, nothing is known for sure about the actual content of the next TPD or about any updates to the lesser-known Tobacco Advertising Directive and Tobacco Excise Directive—though a European Commission spokesperson did confirm to Tamarind Intelligence, late last year, that vaping would be a focus of the TPD. The commission’s job with the TPD is essentially to formulate the legislation, which representatives from all the EU member states, in the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, then vote on.

However, looking at what is already happening across Europe gives some indicators of what’s possible—action against disposable vapes in France and Belgium, for example, or against flavored products in Finland and Hungary. Though it’s true that EU policy certainly does not derive directly from localized policy in member states, there are trends visible that are bound to be reflected in Brussels. It’s also worth noting that the much-anticipated swing to the populist right in the most recent European elections failed to fully materialize, which may well mean that the EU will continue to favor tight, precise regulation and not care too much whether it is seen as “business-friendly.”

First, disposable bans: There have been debates or even legislation in most major European countries over banning disposables, partly because of youth usage but also because of environmental impacts. Even if not all of these come to pass, the fact that an outright prohibition on disposable vapes is so widely seen as a reasonable, proportionate regulatory response—not an unrealistic or extremist one—must make an EU-wide ban a possibility.

Second, flavors: There is a precedent for some kind of vape flavor ban in the existing EU ban on flavors in heated tobacco, and a number of EU health ministers have given such a measure their support. This would be a greater blow to the industry than a disposables ban, though a crucial question would be exactly what is outlawed and what is permitted.

The most draconian position would be a reduction of the market to tobacco and perhaps menthol/mint flavors. There could, however, be a middle ground with some other flavors allowed that still removed the more outre and (supposedly) youth-tempting ones from the market; there have also been suggestions that a ban on extreme flavor descriptions, rather than the actual flavors, could achieve the same end. So there are quite a lot of options on the table when it comes to regulation of flavors, and this is perhaps the area to watch most closely.

Other major areas likely to come under consideration include taxation, and an extension of the existing EU ban on snus (from which only Sweden is exempt) to tobacco-free nicotine pouches.

An equally big question, however, is when any of this will happen. The process of revising the TPD has been underway for more than two years now, suffering several delays and changes in its schedule.

For example, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG Sante) had originally promised to finalize its evaluation report on tobacco policy last year, but when the commission published its work program for 2024, it made no mention of revising tobacco policy. Therefore, it seems unlikely that there will be major announcements on the TPD or other Europe-wide tobacco regulation in 2024.

When it eventually does happen, it will be the culmination of a process that started more than two years ago, when the commission launched a call for evidence, which ran from May 2022 to June 2022. This was then followed by a public consultation from February 2023 to May 2023. Eventually, the results of these consultations should be taken into account by the commission when it drafts a directive to be discussed by the Parliament, but so far … nothing.

So it’s been a long period of near silence even though many expected action—and debate—much sooner. The delays may be partly down to divergence in member states’ positions on tobacco control—it’s going to be hard to come up with Europe-wide policies that at least partially satisfy enough member states and enough competing principles.

Although the European Commission will be the one to propose the new policies, it is the legislators in the Parliament (and the Council of the European Union, the other “house” of the European legislature) who ultimately vote for or against it. So, while the commission may well be likely to maintain a conservative or even quasi-prohibitionist stance, it’s very possible that Members of Parliament (MEPs) may disagree. Some MEPs who spoke with ECigIntelligence said that they were prepared to fight conservative approaches to novel nicotine products that may be counterproductive for harm reduction, and the influx of new MEPs after this year’s election adds a further level of uncertainty.

Moreover, positions on novel nicotine products cannot easily be predicted from political affiliation. Generally, the more right-wing a party is, the more easygoing toward novel nicotine products it tends to be (and this would in theory make the broadly rightward trend in politics a positive one for harm reduction’s proponents), but this is far from consistent and there are many exceptions (as indeed there are to that rightward trend).

For example, arguments prioritizing consumer education and freedom of choice over strict policies, historically usually attributed to right-wing parties, are often also shared by left-wing parties. The national origin of a politician may be just as significant as their nominal position on the left-right spectrum—a left-winger from a country with very strict regulation of tobacco products is often likely, we find, to be more sympathetic to that kind of legal regime than a left-winger from a country with a much lighter touch.

So there are plenty of unknowns, and of course the unusual position of the U.K.—the biggest market for novel nicotine products in Europe—is another one. When the last TPD appeared, the U.K. was still a member of the EU, and so it adopted the TPD’s measures into its own domestic legislation (as all EU member states must do with European directives). But it has since left the union, via Brexit. The current British government certainly seems to have a hardline attitude on disposables, but there are also indications that it remains supportive of harm reduction, so how aligned the U.K. will remain with the rest of the EU in the future is very much an open question. One distinct possibility is that even if Britain starts to tighten regulation on some aspects of novel nicotine products, it remains more liberal than an EU that gets even tougher.

Barnaby Page has been covering the tobacco harm reduction business as a journalist for more than 10 years as editorial director at Tamarind Intelligence, a pioneering data intelligence and strategic insight provider offering global market and regulatory data analysis for businesses operating in fast-growing industries. Tamarind currently covers the vapor sector with ECigIntelligence, other tobacco and nicotine alternatives with TobaccoIntelligence, and cannabis with CannIntelligence. This article also incorporates research from other Tamarind staffers.

October 1, 2024

Campaigners Slam Irish Tax Hike

Campaigners slammed the Irish government’s decision to increase the excise duty on a pack of 20 cigarettes by €1 ($1.11) starting Oct. 2.

The increase, which is double the usual increase of €0.50, will push the cost of a pack of 20 cigarettes in the most popular price category above €18, according to The Journal.

Simon Clark, director of the Freedom Organization for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (Forest), described the decision as “brutal” and said law-abiding smokers were being “discriminated” against.

“Smoking is a legitimate habit,” said Clark. “This brutal hike in the cost of cigarettes will drive more smokers to the black market and fuel illicit trade.

“Law-abiding consumers, many of whom are on low incomes, will be unfairly discriminated against, and some may be forced further into poverty.

“It’s hard to imagine a more punitive or counterproductive measure because the only people who will benefit are criminal gangs and illicit traders.”

In addition to the cigarette tax hike, Ireland plans to introduce a tax on e-cigarettes from the middle of next year. The excise will place a fee on e-liquid at a rate of €0.50 for every milliliter.

The average disposable e-cigarette has 2 mL of e-liquid and costs €8. The introduction of the new tax will increase the cost to €9.23.

Minister for Finance Jack Chambers said it was not possible to introduce the fee this year due to operational and administrative challenges.

Lobby group Respect Vapers has accused politicians of attempting to “raise funds on vapes rather than helping people use vapes to quit smoking.”

The group pointed to a recent report by Healthy Ireland that said 25 percent of smokers who quit had used vapes and other studies that show the number of smokers in Ireland has reduced drastically in recent years.

October 1, 2024

Indonesia Keeps Tax Rates

Indonesia’s finance ministry confirmed that the country’s tobacco excise rate will remain unchanged for 2025, reports Tempo.

“Pending the finalization of the 2025 State Budget, the government has decided to maintain the current policy,” said Askolani, director general of customs and excise at the finance ministry, during a press conference on Sept. 23.

According to Askolani, the government will continue to explore alternative policy options, including potential price adjustments at the industry level, to discourage smoking. Furthermore, the government will evaluate the price discrepancies between the three main cigarette categories—hand-rolled kreteks, machine-made kreteks and “white cigarettes”—which have contributed to downtrading.

As of Aug. 31, 2024, Indonesia has collected IDR138.4 trillion ($9.1 billion) in excise revenue, representing a year-on-year growth of 5 percent. This increase was fueled in part by increased production of hand-rolled kreteks and machine-made kreteks.

October 1, 2024

Paper Explores British Harm Reduction Success

The latest briefing paper from the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR), a project from public health agency Knowledge Action Change (KAC), focuses on the remarkable shift from smoking to vaping that has taken place in the United Kingdom in recent years.

“A smokefree UK? How research, policy and vapes have cut smoking rates” explores some of the reasons behind the U.K.’s rapid and growing embrace of vaping and provides a case study showcasing the potential of tobacco harm reduction through the adoption of safer nicotine products, following KAC’s recent briefing paper on the effect heated-tobacco products have had in Japan.

One of a number of positive country profiles set to feature in the fourth biennial Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction report, published later this year, this briefing paper shows the number of people who smoke has fallen by nearly 50 percent since the introduction of vapes nearly two decades ago (from 23.7 percent of adults in 2005 to 12.9 percent in 2022).

KAC’s newest publication also includes a significant forecast, based on the latest available data from the Office for National Statistics and Action on Smoking and Health, that reveals the number of adults who smoke will continue to fall to just over 10 percent in 2025. In contrast, the number of adults who vape will keep rising from the 11 percent recorded in 2024, meaning vaping will overtake smoking for the first time in the U.K. According to KAC, these changes provide further evidence that when consumers have access to safer nicotine products that are acceptable and readily available, they will make the decision to switch in ever-increasing numbers.

While this briefing paper, which will be available in 12 languages as well as English, tells a story of consumers leading the way by adopting a new technology in a bid to improve their health, it also showcases the impact that scientific research and proactive governments can have on public health policies, according to KAC.

The U.K. has played host to some significant milestones in the study of smoking and safer nicotine products. The link between smoking and cancer was first established in the U.K. in 1950 and these studies led to the publication of the Royal College of Physicians’ landmark report “Smoking and Health.” It was the first to widely publicize information about the negative effects of smoking on health, and it is considered to be a turning point in the history of public health in the U.K. Moving forward to 2015, the predecessor of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, Public Health England, published an independent evidence review that concluded nicotine vapes were around 95 percent less harmful than smoking. Now referenced around the world as the foremost example of the relative safety of vaping, this report concluded vapes had the potential to help people quit smoking.

Armed with such strong and reliable evidence supporting the role it could play in reducing smoking rates, successive U.K. governments have continued to endorse vaping. Not only are vapes easy to access for those aged over 18, the government and the National Health Service (NHS) have encouraged people to switch from smoking to vaping. One of the most radical ideas came in 2023 when the government announced that 1 million people who smoked would be encouraged to switch from cigarettes to vapes. As part of the “swap to stop” campaign, a world-first national scheme, around one-fifth of those who smoked would be provided with a vape starter kit, alongside behavioral support, to help them quit. For its part, the NHS provides a wealth of evidence-based advice to those who smoke about the relative safety of vapes compared to cigarettes, though it does emphasize that the full benefits of vaping are only achieved by those who manage to stop smoking cigarettes completely.

“In a similar vein to that seen in Japan, the fall in smoking rates in the United Kingdom reinforces just how rapidly situations can improve when people already consuming nicotine by smoking can access a safer alternative like vapes,” said KAC Director David MacKintosh in a statement.

“When vaping overtakes smoking next year in the U.K., it will not be simply the consequence of a consumer-led revolution, although this has been significant, it will also be the result of successive governments making pragmatic policy decisions based on the evidence in front of them. Maintaining a clear focus on reducing the use of combustible cigarettes provides an opportunity to achieve the ambitious 2030 ‘smoke-free’ target.”

October 1, 2024