Tag: European Union

Juul Labs to Exit South Korea, Five EU Markets
Juul Labs said today it would end operations in South Korea, a year after it entered the market. The company states the cause was its inability to gain market share amid government health warnings.
In a statement, Juul Labs stated that since the beginning of the year it was working through a restructuring process aimed a re-establishing a viable business in South Korea by significantly reducing costs and making changes to its products.
“However, these innovations will not be available as anticipated,” the statement said. “As a result, we intend to cease our operations in South Korea.”
In October last year, South Korea’s health ministry advised people to stop vaping because of growing health concerns, especially after a case of pneumonia was reported in a 30-year-old e-cigarette user that month, according to Reuters news article.
The announcement prompted convenience store chains and duty free shops to suspend the sale of flavored liquid e-cigarettes, including those made by Juul Labs.
In December, South Korean health authorities said they had found vitamin E acetate, which may be linked to lung illnesses, in some liquid e-cigarette products made by Juul Labs, but the company denied using the material, according to Reuters.
Juul Labs launched a product portfolio that was specifically developed for the Korean market in May 2019, but “our performance has not met expectations in terms of meeting the needs of our Korean adult smokers to successfully transition from combustible cigarettes,” according to the statement. “We have learned through this process and are focused on innovating our product portfolio.”
Juul Labs is also reportedly ready to withdraw from a handful of EU markets as well, claiming the regulatory environment has become overly hostile to the device.
According to BuzzFeed News, Juul will soon remove its products from shelves in Austria, Belgium, Portugal, France, and Spain.
The news outlet reports the European Union’s strict requirement that e-cigs contain no more than 20 milligrams of nicotine makes it difficult for Juul to do business there.
Austria, Belgium, and Portugal are very small markets for Juul, but the leading e-cig manufacturer generates significant sales from France and Spain. It will exit France by the end of the year, but withdraw from the other countries in July, paring its presence in global markets to a narrow selection that includes Germany, Italy, Russia, and the U.K.
May 6, 2020
A Pointless Exercise

The EU’s upcoming ban on menthol cigarettes serves no purpose.
By George Gay
According to Hannah Devlin, science correspondent of The Guardian, astronomers are to sweep the entire sky for signs of extraterrestrial life for the first time, using 28 giant radio telescopes in an unprecedented hunt for alien civilizations (Feb. 15, 2020, page 3). Toward the end of her piece, Devlin quotes the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking as having warned against attempting alien contact, suggesting the outcome for humans would not necessarily be good. But she quotes, too, Andrew Siemion, the director of the Berkeley Seti center, as saying that he thought such contact should be attempted, and adding that, “I think without a doubt, we would.”
I think both comments are right up to a point. It is unarguable that the outcome of such contact would not necessarily be good for humans, but history has taught us that, whatever the risk, scientists somewhere would not hold back from making the attempt. Scientific knowledge is no bar to stupidity.
I cannot think in terms of light years, so I find it impossible to imagine making contact with life forms in other galaxies. But I do find it instructive, often in what turns out to be a cautionary way, to consider what extraterrestrials might make of us earthlings if, because of their super-advanced technology, they could view us in real time through a telescope. What might they say to one another, I wonder? “Hey, come and look at these jerks! Their environment is going down the toilet, and what are they doing? They’re worrying about menthol cigarettes! These are supposed to be intelligent beings! Let’s not go there.”
I think that the EU is a great experiment in international cooperation, and I am sad—and if I were younger I would be angry—that the U.K. is leaving it, but ridiculous legislation such as its ban on the production and sale of menthol cigarettes sometimes makes it difficult for people such as me to defend the institution against its detractors. In the great scheme of things, what is the point of banning menthol cigarettes?

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Background
Well, before I attempt to answer that question, a couple of notes about what the ban entails and how it came about. The production and sale of menthol cigarettes and cigarettes with capsule-containing filters are to be banned within the EU from May 20, 2020, as is the sale of roll-your-own (RYO) tobaccos sold with mentholated filter tips and/or papers. However, RYO tobacco and “accessories,” such as mentholated filter tips and papers, may all be sold separately.
This regulation has been a long time coming. Its origins go back to a December 2012 proposal by the European Commission to update the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and, a year later, to the EU Parliament’s support for stiffening the rules against tobacco and related products, and, de facto, against committed tobacco users. Early in 2014, the TPD2 was approved by the Parliament and adopted by the EU Council; and it entered into force in May of that year. Aspects of TPD2 were challenged, but it was declared valid by the European Court of Justice in May 2016. Most of the provisions of TPD2, including a ban on the sale of cigarettes with characterizing flavors except menthol, came into effect in May 2017, following a year’s sell-through period. There is no sell-through period in respect of menthol cigarettes.
Now, let’s return to the question above: what is the point of the ban? Well, according to some commentators, it is aimed at reducing smoking; but this must be hokum. Trying to reduce smoking by banning the sale of menthol cigarettes is like trying to reduce alcohol consumption by banning the sale of wine with characterizing flavors other than grape—such as peach wine.
Meanwhile, the EU put forward as part of its justification for the ban what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had concluded in 2013: that menthol cigarettes pose a public health risk above that seen with nonmenthol cigarettes. It also quoted the FDA as saying that menthol use is likely associated with increased smoking initiation by youth and young adults; that menthol in cigarettes is likely associated with greater addiction; and that menthol smokers are less likely to successfully quit smoking than their nonmenthol-smoking counterparts.
Of course, the EU did not point out that the FDA was so concerned about menthol cigarettes in 2013 that it did nothing about them.
Reading the above, I was amused by the way the FDA, this self-styled bastion of rigorous science, apparently throws the word “likely” about as if it were confetti at a wedding. And I found myself not convinced by what seemed to me to be some muddled thinking. If the FDA thinks it’s necessary to say that it’s possible “to successfully [my emphasis] quit smoking,” rather than “to quit smoking,” I take it that it believes also that it is possible to unsuccessfully quit smoking. But whereas you might make an unsuccessful attempt to quit smoking, you cannot unsuccessfully quit smoking—not in this galaxy.
I have trouble also with the concept of “greater addiction.” The word “addiction” has become so malleable in the minds of a lot of people that it is now like mental chewing gum. No more than I can imagine a million light years, can I imagine how degrees of addiction would be measured in a scientifically rigorous manner.

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Other risks
The EU aligns with the FDA also on smoking initiation among young people. One of the EU’s original justifications for the ban cited scientific studies that have shown that flavors such as menthol facilitate inhalation and may play a role in smoking initiation. I would have thought scientific studies that purport to show that something may be the case should be binned, but, having said that, I am ready to believe that it is possible that menthol does aid smoking uptake by the young. However, there are laws to prevent the sale of all types of cigarettes to these people, and it seems unbalanced to spoil the enjoyment only of adult smokers of menthol cigarettes because the authorities in the EU’s member states are failing to enforce laws that apply to all cigarettes, especially given the fragility of the scientific studies referred to above.
After all, the EU seems not to take issue with another product that has been linked with cancer and that young people consume—the younger ones at the behest of adults. In fact, according to the headline above another story that appeared in the same newspaper as Devlin’s report, the EU has been under attack for spending more than €200 million ($225.78 million) on the promotion of meat. As writer Daniel Boffey points out in his piece, “Scientists have provided evidence of a link between cancer and diets involving pork, beef and lamb products.”
And how those extraterrestrials must be laughing. Boffey points out too that the livestock sector is responsible for about 14.5 percent of human-derived greenhouse gas emissions. How can it be in the interests of young people for the EU to spend millions of euro promoting something that is linked with cancer and that is helping to flush the environment down the toilet? It is young people, not older adults, who are going to have to settle, at best, for a life squatting on the toilet’s event horizon.
But it isn’t really about the young, is it? How can we have the temerity to maintain, against all the evidence, that we want to protect young people? And I’m not talking only of governments here, I’m calling out ordinary people. One example. In my country, the U.K., voters have recently given a huge parliamentary majority to a party that, during the past 10 years, has overseen a big increase in child poverty and that will almost certainly cause more such poverty during the next five years—a party led by a person who many commentators say is unable or unwilling to account for how many children he has. Elsewhere, the abuse of children in the U.K. is accepted to the point that those in authority often look the other way, and it is even “celebrated” in one of our poetic forms, the limerick. I don’t know what became of the young chaplain from Kings, but some of the leaders of his church sit, by right, in our second chamber, the House of Lords; I presume, to provide us with spiritual guidance. This is way beyond irony.
I would not argue that the EU should concentrate on nothing but the environment. But it should certainly take off the table any nonessentials and put all available hands to the environment pump. The climate crisis is not a future event. It is already upon us.
By comparison, the menthol-cigarette ban is pure faff. I presume that it has been devised by people who haven’t moved against gooseberry and elderflower wine because most of them consume alcohol. They want to put a stop to a pleasure that they cannot understand. You can see this in the rules about roll-your-own tobacco. Allowing the sale of menthol papers and tips as separate items but not in conjunction with tobacco seems to be aimed at inconveniencing smokers. The EU’s bureaucrats should be put to work on critical projects. Announcing the European Green Deal is all well and good but, from what I read, making it work is going to be a huge challenge. The carbon scammers will already be jostling for position.

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Accommodation
Inevitably, products have been appearing on the market aimed at helping menthol-cigarette smokers through the difficult time being ushered in by the May 20 ban. One, a menthol-infusion card that smokers can slip into a pack of regular cigarettes or fine-cut, is particularly clever, mimicking as it does the RYO accessory exemption, and thereby presumably staying well within the spirit and the letter of the law. Ironically, menthol smokers might end up preferring this system because they can tailor their preferred menthol level by adjusting the length of time they leave the cards in the pack. And of course, menthol smokers can help themselves after May 20 by putting regular cigarettes, together with some menthol crystals bought from their local pharmacies, into a sealed jar and leaving them there for a time based on their preferred menthol strength.
Despite the fact that I see the menthol cigarette ban as being unnecessary and unfair, discriminating against and collectively punishing a minority group of smokers, you have to accept that what is done is done and try to make the most of it. I suppose you have to hope that those menthol-cigarette smokers in the EU who do not want to take advantage of the new DIY methods react by quitting or switching to menthol vaping.
But it’s those extraterrestrials who will have the last laugh. They will hardly be able to contain themselves as more EU energy is expended on TPD3 while the environment tips over the event horizon to the strains of “Goodnight Irene.”
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.

March 31, 2020
When better isn’t best
The next EU Commission will propose strengthening tobacco regulations, based on a report ‘showing how the Tobacco Product Directive (TPD) works in practice’, according to a story by Sarantis Michalopoulos for Euractiv.com quoting the EU Commissioner responsible for health, Vytenis Andriukaitis.
The report was not specified, but, in line with Article 28(1) of the TPD, the Commission is required to submit in 2021 a report on the TPD.
“We have two issues: one is to collect information about electronic cigarettes but also different novel tobacco products,” Andriukaitis was quoted as saying. “They will have a lot of work to do. They need to show how the TPD works in reality and explore possibilities to improve it.”
The EU official, who recently announced he would run for Lithuania’s presidency, was said to have lashed out at the tobacco industry saying that it had not realised the damage it had caused.
Andriukaitis said tobacco was an “accidental product” in Europe as no one on the continent smoked before Columbus brought it here.
He said nicotine posed a completely different issue compared to that posed by alcohol. He conceded that alcohol consumption needed to be controlled but seemed to defend it on the grounds that alcohol had had ‘10,000 years of culture in the continent’.
Michalopoulos wrote that, ‘contrary to the EU executive and the World Health Organization’s strict approach, the tobacco industry claimed that vaping is a good way to replace smoking and eventually quit, and should, therefore, be encouraged’.
Andriukaitis, Michalopoulos wrote, insisted it was better to use smoking cessation aids such as Nicorette. But he added that if there was a real possibility to help heavy smokers kick the habit with the help of electronic cigarettes, then a specific methodology should be followed.
“If one uses electronic cigarettes as a method to stop smoking, it has to be managed by medical doctors and specialists, to be sold in pharmacies and not in supermarkets,” he said.
“But in reality, you see a different picture. The industry proposes dangerous products and they use different loopholes in the directive. And they use different advocates to say they are less harmful. Young adolescents who have never smoked before try to smoke electronic cigarettes. It’s ridiculous,” Andriukaitis said.
March 27, 2019
Andorra raises price issue
A French member of the EU Parliament has asked the Commission if the Association Agreement between the European Union and Andorra will enable tobacco-product prices to be aligned.
In a preamble to two questions, Philippe Juvin said that March 18, 2015, had seen the start of official negotiations between the EU on the one hand and Andorra, Monaco and San Marino on the other, with the aim of deepening their relations.
‘The resulting agreement will enable the three states and their economic operators to participate in the European internal market by removing the barriers currently hampering their trade,’ he said.
‘In the light of the Council Conclusions of 3 December 2018, the EU “is fully committed, and stands ready to work towards finalising the discussions on the framework of the Agreement by spring 2019”.
‘According to our information, the agreement currently being negotiated, as far as the Protocol on Andorra is concerned, will include elements aimed at resolving the issue of tobacco prices, which gives rise to a large amount of traffic at the borders.’
Juvin then asked:
‘Would the Commission kindly explain to us what the provision in the Protocol is which will enable this issue to be resolved?
‘Will this provision enable tobacco prices to be aligned?’
The Commission is due to answer the questions in writing.
March 26, 2019
Oral cancer on the rise
A Greek member of the EU Parliament has asked the Commission what it is doing to address an ‘alarming’ increase in cases of oral cancer, some of which are down to tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption.
In a preamble to two question, which are due to be answered by the Commission in writing, Lampros Fountoulis said the Piraeus Dentists’ Association had raised the alarm about the worrying increase in the incidence of oral cancer because ‘the number of cases has risen by 25 percent over the past 10 years and every year more than 300,000 new cases are reported worldwide’.
‘According to Mr Goutzanis [Lampros Goutzanis of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens], oral cancer is difficult to treat and, when diagnosed at an advanced stage, the outcome is usually fatal,’ Fountoulis said.
‘He goes on to point out that a large number of patients only consult doctors when the disease has reached an advanced stage, adding that, unfortunately, only 31 percent of oral tumors are diagnosed at an early stage.
‘At least three-quarters of cases of oral cancer could have been avoided if patients had stopped smoking and drinking alcohol; but other factors are also responsible for the increase in the incidence of oral cancers, namely solar radiation and HPV (human papillomavirus), which is sexually transmitted*.’
Fountoulis asked the Commission:
1) ‘Is it aware of the increase in cases of oral cancer in the EU?
2) ‘What steps will it take to address this phenomenon?’
*https://www.in.gr/2019/02/04/health/anisyxitiki-ayksisi-sta-krousmata-karkinou-tou-stomatos/?fbclid=IwAR3EE-_HL4mLT3DqfbL6wKcssZqz9hg5bw6sto78hovxhaRwbqeO14udWxY; and http://www.amna.gr/health/article/331248/Anisuchitiki-auxisi-parousiazoun-ta-krousmatakarkinou-tou-stomatos
March 13, 2019
Question of balance
A Greek member of the EU Parliament has said that the use of heat-not-burn (HNB) products should not be seen as safer than smoking or vaping.
‘The IQOS device, which came out in 2014 and which heats solid tobacco, is no less harmful to cells than smoking and vaping, according to scientists, who said that a new study is a further indication that the new devices – which are now being used in 41 countries – are no safer,’ Lampros Fountoulis said as a preamble to two questions put to the Commission.
‘The scientists, who will continue their research into smoke heating appliances, emphasised that “it is already known that the failure of two types of lung cells can destroy the lung tissue and lead to fatal diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and pneumonia, and increase the risk of asthma, so these devices should not be considered a safer option*”.’
Fountoulis asked the Commission if it could say:
(1) ‘What steps will it take to establish homogeneous arrangements in member states?
(2) ‘How will it control tobacco products and other related products in order to protect public health, given that more and more young people are addicted to nicotine as a result of this trend?’
The Commission is due to answer in writing.
*https://www.in.gr/2019/02/11/health/body/oi-syskeyes-thermansis-kapnou-eksisou-epivlaveis-gia-ton-anthropo-kapnisma-kai-atmisma/?fbclid=IwAR1-VUiRQ2-ZIIDUQjYkzMc8c_S1nkuqC4CnU3reNKqpi8w31owvR5TIdv; and http://scinews.eu/ta-nea-tis-epistimis/1735-oi-syskeves-thermansis-kapnoy-eksisou-epivlaveis-gia-ton-anthropo-me-to-kapnisma-kai-to-atmisma.
March 12, 2019
Taxing question
A Portuguese member of the EU Parliament has asked the Commission for information on how minimum cigarette taxes are arrived at in member states.
In a preamble to his question, which will be answered in writing by the Commission, Miguel Viegas said Council Directive 2011/64/EU of 21 June 2011 on the structure and rates of excise duty applied to manufactured tobacco made it obligatory for all taxes on cigarettes to be based on a mixed system made up of two components: a proportional (ad valorem) duty, applied to the selling price, and a specific duty, which is defined as a fixed value paid per individual cigarette.
‘The Directive allows each country to introduce a minimum tax for each tobacco product category, thus preventing the placing on the market of very cheap brands,’ he said.
‘The formula used to calculate the minimum tax varies from country to country, whether in the base price for calculating this minimum tax threshold or the multiplier used. Of course, the choice of method strongly affects how the tax burden is spread between brands.’
Viegas asked:
‘Can the Commission provide a comparative study on the methodologies used in the member states to calculate the minimum tax, particularly with regard to the two main indicators, the most popular price category (MPPC) and the weighted average price (WAP), including the respective multiplier for each?’
March 8, 2019
Easy to lose track
The EU Commission said yesterday that the EU’s traceability system for tobacco products contains multiple safeguards, including independence requirements that ensure the system is controlled by member states and is independent of the tobacco industry.
The Commission was replying to questions posed by a French member of the EU Parliament who had claimed that the Commission’s tobacco-products tracking-and-tracing acts did not take into account the entry into force of the World Health Organization’s ‘Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products’.
In a preamble to two written questions, Michèle Rivasi said that parallel trade in tobacco resulted in increased smoking, particularly among adolescents, who were more sensitive to prices, and an annual tax loss for EU member states estimated at between €15 billion and €20 billion.
‘The World Health Organization (WHO) considers that the best way to put an end to this phenomenon is to apply its Protocol “to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products,” which was drawn up in 2012 and entered into force on 25 September 2018,’ she wrote.
‘To date, there are 48 parties to this international treaty, including the European Union, which ratified the WHO Protocol on 24 June 2016, following the vote of the European Parliament on 9 June 2016.
‘Article 8 of the Protocol requires, in particular, that a tracking and tracing system be set up for tobacco products which is strictly independent of tobacco manufacturers, who are suspected of fuelling parallel trade.
‘At the beginning of 2018, the implementing and delegated acts on the traceability of tobacco products adopted by the European Commission entrusted several essential traceability-related tasks to cigarette manufacturers themselves.’
Rivasi then asked:
1. ‘Why do the Commission’s acts not take into account the entry into force of the WHO Protocol?
2. When will the Commission revise them?’
In reply, the Commission said that the traceability system for tobacco products contained multiple safeguards, including independence requirements that ensured that the system was controlled by the authorities of the member states and that it remained independent from the tobacco industry. ‘To that extent, Article 15 of Directive 2014/40/EU (on tobacco traceability), along with the relevant implementing and delegated legislation, is fully in line with the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s Protocol (notably Article 8), it said.
‘Article 35(9) of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/574 provides that the procedures governing the appointment of service providers and the monitoring of their compliance with the independence criteria set out in the secondary legislation will undergo a periodic review by the Commission. Conclusions of that review will form part of the report on the application of Directive 2014/40/EU provided for under Article 28 of that Directive. Following the publication of the report, the Commission may, if deemed necessary, table a proposal for amending respective legislation.’
March 7, 2019
Tobacco agreements helpful
EU member states appear to be keen to let run to their expiry dates the three remaining anti-fraud agreements signed with tobacco manufacturers and aimed at countering tobacco smuggling.
Toward the end of last year, a Croatian member of the EU Parliament had asked the Commission if it believed it was feasible to terminate by May agreements that it had made with tobacco manufacturers and that were aimed at countering the illegal trade in tobacco products.
In a preamble to two questions, Biljana Borzan said that, in 2016, Parliament had called on the Commission not to renew such an agreement with Philip Morris International.
‘Last April, it expressed the conviction that the agreements with the other tobacco companies should also be terminated and called on the Commission to present the feasibility of doing so by the end of the year,’ she said.
‘The Tobacco Products Directive introduced a traceability system for tobacco products, which will be operational on 20 May 2019, following the recent approval of the secondary legislation.
‘In addition, the WHO [World Health Organization] Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which was ratified by the EU in 2016, entered into force last September.
‘As Parliament made clear in 2016 and 2017, these agreements are becoming irrelevant and send a damaging and counterproductive message to third countries that the EU is engaging in inappropriate dealings with the tobacco industry.’
Borzan asked:
‘Does the Commission believe that it is feasible for the agreements with the tobacco companies to be terminated by 20 May 2019, as Parliament requested in its report?
‘When does the Commission expect to have a response ready for Parliament?’
In reply, the Commission said that the three remaining anti-fraud agreements to counter tobacco smuggling in the EU had been concluded between the EU, the member states as well as the respective tobacco manufacturers.
‘As member states are co-parties to the agreements, they would need to agree to shorten the duration of the agreements,’ the Commission said.
‘Following the European Parliament’s call on the Commission to study the feasibility of terminating the three agreements ahead of their original deadline, the Commission has launched a consultation procedure with all member states to seek their views. The Commission has now received replies from more than half of the member states. In all the answers received by the Commission, the member states expressed their preference to continue the existing agreements until their expiry date.
‘Several member states have underlined in this respect that, as the new traceability rules under the Tobacco Products Directive and the [WHO] Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Protocol will require some time in order to have a tangible impact on smuggling, the anti-fraud agreements in question can still be considered relevant.
‘The Commission will inform the European Parliament of the outcome of the consultation process and its conclusions in due course.’
March 6, 2019
Caught on camera
A study by researchers at the Limerick Institute of Technology, Ireland, has found that ‘diversity is ostensibly lacking’ in images used as part of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive, according to a story by Sarah Burns for The Irish Times.
Among 42 anti-smoking images used on cigarette packages and in campaigns, none ‘distinctly include’ members of a racial or ethnic minority, they found.
‘All visible models, or body parts of models, used in the campaigns are Caucasian,” the researchers concluded.
March 6, 2019