Tag: Italy

Italy to Ban Indoor Vaping

Image: metamorworks | Adobe Stock
Italy’s health minister, Orazio Schillaci, announced new measures against tobacco to prevent smoking and achieve a “tobacco-free generation,” reports Euractiv.
“Measures will have to be taken to guarantee all citizens maximum protection of their health, a fundamental right of the individual and an interest of the community,” said Schillaci.
Smoking rooms indoors will be banned, and the ban on smoking in open-air places in the presence of minors and pregnant women will be extended.
E-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products will also be included in the ban, taking into account “the constantly increasing diffusion of new products on the market and the growing evidence on their possible harmful effects on health.” Plans to extend the cigarette advertising ban to new nicotine-containing products are also in place.
“This process aims to allow the different multiple interests related to tobacco products, involving economic ministries, not to override health protection,” Schillaci said.
January 19, 2023
BAT Announces Innovation Hub in Italy

Photo: BAT
BAT will be opening an innovation hub in Trieste, Italy. The company will invest €500 million ($582.2 million) over the next five years in the project.
Covering an area of 20,000 square meters, the hub will host a manufacturing site for BAT’s “new category” products, a digital boutique, an innovation lab and a center of excellence for digital transformation and digital marketing. It will be dedicated to research, development and production of reduced-risk product lines.
The building will be constructed to minimize its environmental impact with the objective of being carbon neutral, with a particular focus on energy efficiency and the use of renewable sources. The facility will also produce energy using a photovoltaic system that converts light into electricity using semiconducting materials.
BAT expects to develop multiple production lines at the facility for the export of reduced-risk products, including Vuse (vapor), Velo (modern oral) and Glo (tobacco-heating products).

The innovation hub will play a key role in our ‘A Better Tomorrow’ transformation as we strive to reduce the health impact of our business.
Kingsley Wheaton, chief marketing officer, BAT
“The innovation hub in Trieste will play a key role in our ‘A Better Tomorrow’ transformation as we strive to reduce the health impact of our business,” said BAT Chief Marketing Officer Kingsley Wheaton in a statement. “Our goal is to create new products, backed by science, that provide adult smokers with enjoyable, less risky alternatives.”
“We are proud to announce the opening of our A Better Tomorrow Innovation Hub, a fundamental part of our transformation goals to reduce the health impact of our business,” said Roberta Palazzetti, president and CEO of BAT Italy and area director for southern Europe. “As a leading center for innovation, Trieste in Italy has been chosen as the home of the project, which demonstrates the capabilities of our country.”
Construction of the structure will begin in mid-November, with the first module scheduled to be completed and activated in May.
September 29, 2021
Roccatti Embarks on ‘Ride for Vape’

Photo: IEVA
Umberto Roccatti, president of the National Association of Electronic Smoke Manufacturers (ANAFE) in Italy and vice president of the Independent European Vape Alliance (IEVA), is biking 700 km to protest a planned vapor tax hike in Italy.
Italian vapor taxes are set to increase from Jan. 1, 2022. “The gradual increase, every year for three years, of the taxation on electronic cigarettes is pure absurdity that risks bringing to its knees a sector already severely affected by the pandemic and which today counts about 45,000 employees,” said Rocatti in a statement.
The new tax regime, he added, will not only cripple a supply chain comprising small and medium enterprises but also encourage black market sales. According to Rocatti, the tax hikes would make some vapor products more expensive than some cigarette brands, encouraging vapers to return to smoking.
Rocatti’s “Ride4Vape” left Bolzano Sept. 20 and will pass through Abano Terme, Santarcangelo di Romagna and Sangemini before finishing in Rome. Along the way, Roccatti will explain on Facebook the disastrous effects of the fiscal policy call on lawmakers to reverse their plan.
“What the whole sector hopes for is a revision of the current tax burden—which turns out to be particularly excessive,” says Roccatti. “Moreover, it should be noted that the revenue—referred to the first months when the tax came into force before it was suspended by the new government—was not what was expected but quite the opposite, thus confirming the fact that raising taxes, especially in the midst of a pandemic, does not contribute positively to state revenues. We therefore ask for stability and fiscal balance on a sector which already underwent four tax increases in the last six years.”
September 20, 2021
Italy Scrutinizes BAT Social Media Activities

Photo: Panuwat D
The Italian Competition Authority has launched an inquiry into BAT’s social media activities, reports Market Watch.
According to the regulator, three Italian influencers who had a commercial agreement with BAT Italia posted content related to BAT’s Glo Hyper tobacco-heating device without disclaiming the promotional nature of the posts.
The antitrust section of Italy’s financial crime investigation unit reportedly carried out an inspection at BAT’s offices on May 27.
June 2, 2021
Farm worker abuse alleged
British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands and Philip Morris International are buying leaf tobacco that could have been picked by exploited African migrants working in Italy, according to a story by Luca Muzi and Lorenzo Tondo for The Guardian.
Workers, including ‘children’, reportedly said they were forced to work up to 12 hours a day without contracts or sufficient health and safety equipment in Campania, a region that produces more than a third of Italy’s tobacco.
The Guardian investigation, which spanned three years, found that some workers from Africa were paid about €3 an hour, about half the amount paid to other workers, who were mostly Albanians, Romanians and Italians.
Tammaro Della Corte, leader of the General Confederation of the Italian Workers labor union in Caserta, was quoted as saying: “Unfortunately, the reality of the work conditions in the agricultural sector in the province of Caserta, including the tobacco industry, is marked by a deep labor exploitation, low wages, illegal contracts and an impressive presence of the caporalato [illegal hiring], including extortion and blackmailing of the workers.”
According to an internal report by the farmers’ organisation ONT Italia, seen by The Guardian and confirmed by a document from the European Leaf Tobacco Interbranch, BAT, Imperial and PMI bought three-fifths of Italian tobacco in 2017. PMI alone bought 21,000 tons of the 50,000 tons harvested that year.
The Guardian quoted these companies as saying they bought tobacco from suppliers who operated under a strict code of conduct to ensure fair treatment of workers. PMI reportedly said it had not come across any abuse, while BAT and Imperial said they would investigate any complaints brought to their attention.
June 3, 2019
New take on old problem
Italy is mulling a ban on tobacco smoking in private automobiles, according to a Xinhua News Agency story.
The country already bans smoking in vehicles for hire, such as taxis, and in private vehicles when a pregnant woman or a person under the age of 12 is present.
But people are divided on the latest measure to be proposed.
Advocates of the ban claim it would help avoid health problems related to smoking, while also decreasing traffic risks associated with drivers being distracted while smoking.
Fabio Galli, a road- and traffic-issues analyst with the consumer organization Codacons, was said to have told Xinhua that the issue presented a new take on a very old problem, which is how to balance the rights of an individual’s freedom to make personal choices and the desire to make changes that benefit the public at large.
Galli said the proposal was in the “earliest stages” of passage, and that it had several apparent flaws. “The first question I have is how it would be enforced,” Galli said. “There’s also the question of whether this is the kind of issue where the government should be involved.”
Oliviero Fiorini, a political affairs consultant with ABS Securities, said a law limiting smoking in vehicles would probably be treated as government overreach if questioned by courts. “We see a few examples of the government trying to incentivize a kind of moral code,” he said in an interview.
Fiorini said that if the goal was to reduce smoking, it would be more efficient to raise taxes on cigarettes or to outlaw them altogether. If the goal was to remove distractions from drivers, then rules should be introduced also in respect of mobile-phone use in vehicles.
February 18, 2019
Reducing harm with e-cigs
Electronic cigarette use may reverse some of the harm resulting from tobacco smoking in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a PR Newswire story – relayed by the TMA – based on a study published in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease by Dr. Riccardo Polosa, MD, PhD, the director of the Institute for Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology at the University of Catania, Italy.
The study found too that e-cigarette use may improve COPD outcomes over the long term.
The researchers evaluated changes in objective and subjective respiratory parameters among 44 COPD patients and compared those who stopped smoking or substantially reduced it by switching to e-cigarette use with COPD patients who were smokers not using e-cigarettes at the time of the study.
They found that after three years, the group’s patients significantly reduced their smoking, and had reduced respiratory infections and COPD exacerbations. Their respiratory physiology was not worsened by e-cigarette use and their overall health status and physical activity improved consistently.
Improved outcomes were even seen among dual users.
Co-researcher Dr. Caruso said, “the finding that COPD exacerbations were halved in patients who stopped or considerably reduced their smoking habit following switching to ECs was an important finding that confirms the potential for harm reversal of these products”.
August 29, 2018
Vaper group formed in Italy
A new consumer advocacy group has been launched in Italy to represent the country’s electronic-cigarette users, according to a story by Fergus Mason for vapingpost.com.
The Associazione Nazionale per i Vapers Uniti (ANPVU – National Association of United Vapers) says its primary objective is to promote harm reduction by example, through introducing smokers to the new generation of safer nicotine products.
Mason said that Italy already had several pro-vaping organisations, such as the Italian Federation of Electronic Cigarette Manufacturers (SVAPO) and the Association of Independent Retailers (Anide), but that up to now there hadn’t been a group focused on vapers.
While manufacturers and retailers shared an interest in keeping a range of vapor products available, their goals didn’t always coincide with those of vapers.
The launch of ANPVU therefore gave vapers a much-needed opportunity to influence the debate.
Italy is said to have some of the most hostile anti-vaping policies in the EU.
Mason’s story, which includes a list of the new association’s goals, is at: https://www.vapingpost.com/2018/01/22/anpvu-launches-to-give-italian-vapers-a-consumer-led-voice/.
January 25, 2018
Coesia acquires Molins
The Coesia Group, which includes G.D, Sasib and Flexlink, said today it had completed the acquisition of the Molins Instrumentation and Tobacco Machinery business.
The acquisition was foreshadowed on June 8.
‘The Instrumentation and Tobacco Machinery division, with 2016 revenues of approximately GB£40 million, is a global player in the design, development and manufacturing of secondary tobacco processing machinery, under the brand name Molins, as well as a leading player in process and quality control instruments and analytical smoke constituent capture machinery, under the brand name Cerulean,’ Coesia said in a press note.
“With the acquisition of Molins and Cerulean, Coesia will strengthen its leadership in the tobacco machinery industry and enhance its portfolio and product offering in the packaging and instrumentation markets” Angelos Papadimitriou, the Coesia Group’s CEO was quoted as saying.
‘Coesia is a group of innovation-based industrial and packaging solutions companies operating globally, headquartered in Bologna, Italy, fully owned by Isabella Seràgnoli,’ the note said. ‘The Group has 89 operating units (52 of which with production facilities) in 32 countries, a turnover in 2016 of €1,457 million and over 6,000 employees.’
August 4, 2017
Huge investment in HEETS
Philip Morris International said yesterday it planned to invest about €500 million of additional funds in expanding capacity at its smoke-free product manufacturing facility at Crespellano, Bologna, Italy.
The facility at Crespellano was PMI’s first dedicated manufacturing facility for large-scale production of HEETS, the tobacco units used with the electronic tobacco heating device IQOS.
Completed in September 2016, the facility currently employed more than 600 people with a high level of technical expertise in areas such as mechanical engineering, electronics and chemistry, PMI said in a note posted on its website.
The expansion, which was expected to be completed by the end of 2018, formed part of the company’s plans to have a total annual installed capacity of about 100 billion heated tobacco units by the end of next year.
“Last week, we announced our second greenfield facility in Dresden [Germany],” Frederic de Wilde, president of PMI’s EU region, was quoted as saying. “The expansion of our first one, in Crespellano, shows the momentum of our efforts to turn PMI’s vision for a smoke-free future into a reality as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, Michele Cattoni, PMI’s vice president of Technology & Operations RRPs, said the opening of the Crespellano plant had represented a historic milestone in PMI’s commitment to replace cigarettes with better alternatives to the benefit of smokers, public health and society at large. “We are now rapidly expanding our capacity to manufacture smoke-free products in order to meet growing demand from adult smokers,” she said.
‘IQOS and HEETS were first made available for adult smokers in Milan in November 2014,’ the PMI note said. ‘IQOS is currently available nationwide in Italy, and in key cities or nationwide in more than 25 markets around the world. More than two million people have already given up smoking and switched to IQOS.
‘The expansion of the Bologna facility follows the announcement earlier this month that PMI will invest approximately US$320 million in a HEETS production facility in Dresden, Germany, adding to the previously announced investments in the conversion of cigarette manufacturing facilities in Greece, Romania and Russia to HEETS production.
‘IQOS is one of four scientifically substantiated smoke-free product platforms that PMI is developing to address adult smoker demand for better alternatives to cigarettes. Since 2008, PMI has hired more than 400 scientists and experts and invested over US$3 billion in research, product development and scientific substantiation for smoke-free products. The company openly shares its scientific methodologies and findings for independent third-party review and verification, and has published its research in over 200 articles and book chapters since 2011. Results of scientific research conducted by PMI to date indicate that switching completely to IQOS is likely to reduce the risk of harm compared to cigarette smoking, and is a better choice for those who would otherwise continue to smoke.’
June 27, 2017