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July, 2016:

Concerns over survey on benefits of e-cigs

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/07/26/ecigs-helps-vapers-to-quit-smoking-survey-shows/

Experts have expressed their concerns over a recent survey on the implied benefits of e-cigs or vaping.

A researcher said 95% of Malaysian vapers surveyed have either quit, or cut down on smoking, while more than 80% of them reported improved health.

“More than two-thirds stopped smoking altogether.

“Among the 27% that didn’t quit, the average consumption of cigarettes dropped from 19 to four cigarettes per day,” Greek cardiologist Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, a researcher at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center and University of Patras, told The Star.

Over the 7,000 adult vapers – 97% of them males – participated in the online survey. The average age of the respondents was 30.

Universiti Malaya nicotine addiction specialist Assoc Prof Dr Amer Siddiq Amer Nordin voiced his concern that a single survey conducted on mainly Internet users was inadequate to change the understanding on the dangers or benefits of e-cigs.

“Let’s see the ongoing national study findings and compare with Dr Farsalinos’ data.

“If e-cigs are found to be a useful quit-smoking agent in future, it should be regulated as a medicinal device.

“Still, abstinence is the best way to quit,” he said, adding that nicotine was under the Poison Act and its distribution should be controlled.

Over 5,500 ex-smokers and more than 1,500 smokers, who are also vapers, were asked about their experiences with e-cigs and the results were consistent with those in the US and Europe.

Prof Datuk Dr Abdul Razak Muttalif, chairman of the Health Ministry’s technical committee on e-cigs and shisha, said the long-term effect of e-cigs was still unknown.

“As doctors, we’re very careful,” said Dr Abdul Razak, who is also a senior consultant chest physician at the KL Hospital Institute of Respiratory Medicine.

He warned that e-cigs had long-term effects and could lead to other addictions.

The committee had recommended that e-cigs be strictly regulated as a pharmaceutical product in Malaysia.

Describing the move as a “big step backwards”, Dr Farsalinos said whether e-cigs were a pharmaceutical, tobacco or consumer product, was dealt with in Europe three years ago.

“E-cigs are not medicinal so that argument was thrown out.

“The EU (European Union) regulates it under the Tobacco Products Directive but there’s a separate category for e-cigs where it’s treated as a consumer product,” he said.

He added that e-cigs should be regulated as a consumer product but with restrictions like banning its sale to minors.

Calling for a ban on e-cigs, Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) said instead of helping smokers to quit, e-cigs are causing them to spend more on a new habit.

CAP education officer N.V. Subbarow said many vapers were still smoking. “Worse, teachers and parents are at a loss because kids who have never smoked are vaping now.”

Motivating smokers at outdoor public smoking hotspots to have a quit attempt with a nicotine replacement therapy sample

Download (PDF, 1004KB)

Raising tobacco sales age to 21 is best way to prevent lifelong addiction

Report: Increasing age would cut off supply to high-school students

https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/07/26/tobacco-21/

Raising the national minimum age to buy cigarettes to 21 would save lives by preventing adolescents from ever taking up smoking, a new report suggests.

The minimum age to buy tobacco products in most of the country is 18.

In their analysis, Ohio State University public health experts detail how raising the minimum tobacco sales age would be effective in improving health and note the economic consequences to retailers would be minimal.

If the age were raised nationally, those U.S. residents born between 2000 and 2019 would experience 223,000 fewer premature deaths, 50,000 fewer lung cancer deaths and 4.2 million fewer years of life lost, according to a 2015 Institute of Medicine report cited in the Ohio State white paper. The IOM, the health arm of the National Academies of Science, is an independent organization that works to provide advice to decision makers and the public.

“The key point is that if people get through adolescence without smoking, it is highly unlikely they will ever start,” said Micah Berman, assistant professor of public health and law at Ohio State. “The flip side of that is if they do start smoking in adolescence, everything we have learned about teen brain development shows that it will be much harder for them to quit later.”The IOM report also estimated that raising the smoking age would, by 2100, result in 285,000 fewer pre-term births, 438,000 fewer low-birth-weight babies and 4,300 fewer sudden, unexplained deaths in infancy.

While cigarette smoking has declined among U.S. youth, overall use of tobacco (including e-cigarettes and cigars) has increased or remained stable. Nearly all adult smokers began by the age of 18 – almost no one starts after 21, the experts point out in their argument for changing the law nationally.If current trends continue, 5.6 million young people alive today will die prematurely from tobacco use, the Ohio State report says.

Nicotine’s effect on brain development leads adolescents to heavier daily tobacco use, a stronger nicotine addiction and more trouble with quitting later in life. At least 176 municipalities in 11 states have adopted a policy of restricting tobacco sales to those over 21, as have the entire states of California and Hawaii.

Berman co-authored the paper, published by Ohio State’s College of Public Health, with Rob Crane, clinical associate professor of family medicine; Natalie Hemmerich, an attorney and postdoctoral fellow in public health; and Thomas Geist, regional director of the Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation.The Ohio State researchers cite dozens of studies to support their conclusions. For example, previous research has suggested:

Raising the minimum sales age to 21 puts legal purchasers outside the social circle of most high-school students. Most people supplying cigarettes to teens are 18 to 20, and many of them are still in high school.
Raising the legal drinking age to 21 reduced alcohol use, daily drinking and binge drinking by more than a third among high-school seniors.
Raising the legal smoking age can reduce racial and ethnic disparities because nonwhite young adults are more likely than whites to start smoking after turning 18.

In 2005, Needham, Massachusetts, became the first U.S. city to increase its tobacco sales age to 21 – a case study that offers useful data as other cities consider the same change. After the law passed, tobacco use among high-school students dropped almost in half – and also decreased significantly faster in Needham than in the 16 surrounding communities that sold cigarettes to 18-year-olds.

“The Needham example is powerful,” said Berman, who consulted with New York City officials before they adopted a minimum tobacco sales age of 21 in the city in 2013.

Because sales to people under age 21 account for only 2 percent of total cigarette sales, the economic impact to retailers would be minimal, the authors noted.

“The percentage of cigarettes sold to people who are underage or even people who are 18, 19 and 20 is pretty small. But smoking at those ages sets them up for lifelong addiction,” Berman said.

The tobacco industry is sure to dislike this national movement because it knows that recruiting new “replacement smokers” is key to its survival, the authors wrote. In Ohio, the tobacco industry spends more than $1 million every day marketing its products. Meanwhile, Ohio spends less than nearly any other state on the delivery of messages that counter tobacco advertising.

Adult smokers have nothing to fear if the minimum sales age changes, said Berman, also a researcher in Ohio State’s Center of Excellence in Regulatory Tobacco Science.

“This has no impact on anyone who’s over the age of 21,” he said. “It’s really about preventing the next generation from starting to smoke.”

Contact: Micah Berman, 614-688-1438; mberman@cph.osu.edu

Written by Misti Crane, 614-292-5220; Crane.1@osu.edu

Global E Cigarettes & Vapourizer Market 2015 is estimated to grow USD 28.57 billion by 2022

Global [E Cigarettes & Vapourizer] is estimated $7.47 billion in 2015.
Global [E Cigarettes & Vapourizer] is growing at a CAGR of 21.1% During forecast period 2015 to 2022.
Global [E Cigarettes & Vapourizer] is expected to reach value $28.57 billion till year 2022.

http://patriarc.com/2016/07/26/global-e-cigarettes-vapourizer-market-2015-is-estimated-to-grow-usd-28-57-billion-by-2022-industry-research-forecast/116350

Report Segmented based on: Composition, Products, Component, Distribution Channel, Regions.
Global [E Cigarettes & Vapourizer] geographically segmented into: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Rest of the World.
North America is expected to witness highest growth rate over the forecast period.

Key players in [E Cigarettes & Vapourizer] are Japan Tobacco, Inc., British American Tobacco Plc (Bat), Cloudcig, Steamlite, First Union, International Vapor Group, Inc., Marlboro, Lorillard, Inc., Pacific Smoke International, Smokefree, Victory Electronic Cigarettes Corporation, Puff Ecig, Bull Smoke, Feellife Bioscience International Co. Ltd, Fontem Ventures, Philip Morris International, Inc., Ballantyne Brands, Altria Group, Inc., Reynolds American Inc., Llc and Nice Vapor.

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Confusion still reigns over e-cigs

http://news.asiaone.com/news/world/confusion-still-reigns-over-e-cigs

The European Union and US are huge e-cig markets with regulatory models in place. With Malaysia expected to table it’s vape laws soon, Sunday Star headed to Warsaw, Poland, for the recent Global Forum on Nicotine 2016, to see what’s happening globally.

IN May, e-cigarettes and other nicotine vapour products in the European Union (EU) were placed under the regulation of its Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).

In the United States, the “deeming” rule kicks in next month, meaning that e-cigs and vaping will be “deemed” to come under the aegis of the strict Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 (TCA).

Both these decisions have been challenged by vapers, manufacturers and NGOs that feel the regulations will stifle growth of a product that they claim is less harmful to health than regular cigarettes and that could help smokers give up the much more destructive habit.

However, the TPD and TCA don’t seem to take this into consideration and treat e-cigs and vaping the same way they treat regular cigarettes.

We spoke to industry reps and NGOs at the Global Forum on Nicotine 2016 held in Warsaw recently to survey their opinions on the regulations.

Britain

The TPD is meant to harmonise the market but there’s disharmony in its implementation and enforcement, says Gerry Stimson, emeritus professor Imperial College London, forum coordinator and formerly part of Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence working group that prepared guidelines on tobacco harm reduction.

According to Stimson, each EU member nation must still pass its own legislation to adopt the TPD.

Britain is doing the barest minimum but Poland and Spain are adding a ban on online and cross-border sales.

“That will kill e-cigs because everybody buys things on the Internet these days,” he sighs.

He expects the TPD to result in an e-cig industry dominated by large companies, with vapers seeing fewer products and less information in the market.

“The US ‘deeming rule’ is a magnification of the TPD’s problems. Looking at what we have now, perhaps Malaysia can come up with a better model for Asia to follow,” he says.

ECigIntelligence.com, the Britain-based independent resource that tracks regulations and market information for the e-cig sector, agrees that the TPD is not being implemented or enforced consistently. Barnaby Page, its editorial director, discusses the impact of some of the regulations at the forum.

“The TPD lists e-liquid ingredients that aren’t allowed so manufacturers follow the same standards across Europe. Then you get to Germany, and the list is more extensive with lots of small print.”

And while the under-18 sales ban is widely accepted, the approach to online sales differs among EU members, Page points out: member states can either ban, permit or only allow online sales within their respective borders.

Advertising on TV and radio and in print and online are outlawed but in-store and outdoor advertising (like billboards), are allowed. But, as with online sales, there is a mosaic of approaches across the continent, says Page: some countries, like Slovenia, allow outdoor but not in-store advertising while it is the reverse in Austria.

Furthermore, “E-cig taxation isn’t mandated by the TPD but there’s a huge variation in rates in the countries that impose a tax. In Serbia, the tax is €0.03/ml (S$0.04) while it is nearly €0.40/ml in Italy,” he says.

While the TPD recognises that non-nicotine products are not the same as nicotine, many countries still equate vaping with smoking.

Poland

According to Dr Miroslaw Dworniczak, Poland is among Europe’s top three e-cig markets, thanks to the lack of regulation.

The former scientist and lecturer at the Department of Chemistry, Adam Mickiewicz University, was a smoker for 35 years before he started Poland’s first vaping blog six years ago.

The Polish Government, he says, already has a draft legislation that will be implemented soon that goes even further than the TPD restrictions.

He worries particularly that a ban on online sales will deny those in smaller cities and the villages access to e-cigs. An online ban will halve the number of vapers, he predicts.

Poland, he says, is aiming to be a nicotine-free country by 2030 but for now e-cigs can be sold everywhere and to everyone, including minors.

“But soon, e-liquids and every e-cig component, like the battery and atomiser, must be registered.

“Product approval will take at least six months but e-cigs evolve rapidly. By the time retailers can sell the product, something new would have come along,” he says.

Poland’s largest e-cig supplier was bought over by a big tobacco company last year. And he foresees smaller shops being swallowed up soon when the regulations cause costs to soar.

Vapers there are trying to call for a public hearing to amend the draft legislation before it becomes law.

“The law should be as short as possible but the EU loves long legislations. The TPD should only have a ban for minors, a requirement for e-liquid analyses and proper labelling. Enough,” he argues.

Greece

The TPD isn’t ideal nor is the EU ready to regulate the industry but at least there’s something in place, observes Dr Farsalinos with a shrug.

“The transition period for implementation of the TPD is until November. But there’s still no submission system for product analysis and testing reports.

And there are some unnecessary restrictions that have nothing to do with quality or safety.”

Like Dr Dworniczak, he feels the six-month waiting period before a product can be released into the market is too long. Two to three weeks, he argues, is sufficient.

While he agrees that the TPD will slow down product innovation, the researcher at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center and University of Patras in Greece doesn’t think hefty cost complaints are justified.

“Yes, it costs money to implement but so does every other regulation. Companies should invest in the safety and quality of what they put out.”

Dr Farsalinos believes the TPD is much more sustainable and realistic than US regulations.

The problem, he explains, is the use of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA) to govern e-cigs in the United States. This is because the TCA focuses mainly on preventing new tobacco products from being developed and marketed.

“When you apply a law like that to e-cigs, it’s effectively a ban on vaping. That’s why everyone’s taking the government to court.”

United States

Patricia I. Kovacevic is the general counsel and chief compliance officer of an American e-liquid and vaping device manufacturer; she also sits on the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum advisory board and the Vapour Technology Association board.

Generally, she says, the TCA gives the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate tobacco products. Through the “deeming rule”, however, the FDA has extended that authority to include things not derived from tobacco – like e-cig devices and non-nicotine e-liquids – because of the way they might be used with nicotine.

Since the FDA’s deeming rule was published in May, “All e-cigs and vaping products in the US are categorised as new tobacco products so pre-market applications for every items – including e-cig parts like coils and mouth pieces – must be filed with the FDA.

“It’s not realistic. Many will go out of business as innovation comes to a screeching halt,” she says, adding that other deeming rule requirements include filing product health effect reports, having nicotine and tobacco warning labels, as well as bans on sampling and modified exposure claims.

The deeming rule will come into force next month but the requirements will be implemented in stages.

The biggest problem, she feels, is the lack of product standards and good manufacturing practices.

“The FDA’s concern isn’t to make safer products for consumers but rather to take most products off the market,” she feels.

At least five lawsuits challenging the deeming rule have been filed in the United States, she says.

“The courts can either rule that no changes be made, set aside the deeming rule and force the FDA to go back to the drawing board, or set aside parts of the deeming rule or of the TCA.

“The cases could even end up in the Supreme Court on appeal.”

Dismissing the use of the EU’s TPD and America’s TCA to regulate e-cigs as “rubbish”, Clive Bates says they have resulted in an outcome that’s “worse than doing nothing”. He is the director of Counterfactual Consulting, a Britain-based public interest consultancy and advocacy practice.

As an example, he questions the sales ban to those under 18: This, he feels, is a political rather than a public health benefit decision because studies show that smoking has declined at a slower rate in states that ban e-cig sales to those under 18.

That, he says, is an example of an unintended consequence of a well-meaning policy.

Stressing that regulations must benefit consumers, he insists that the main objective of any government must be to reduce disease and promote informed choices.

Regulators must be rigorous about unintended consequences of policy interventions, he warns.

“So before you intervene, make sure you’re not making things worse.”

 

Japan Tobacco faces stiff challenge in trying to light up sales for discount brand

http://www.journalnow.com/business/business_news/local/japan-tobacco-faces-stiff-challenge-in-trying-to-light-up/article_b7e50712-471d-5066-bf6e-84ab3f5e47c6.html

The U.S. subsidiary of Japan Tobacco International is aiming to add more toes to its footprint through testing the parent company’s global discount cigarette brand in the Triad and Carolinas.

LD by L. Ducat comes in red, blue, green and silver packs in up to 10 styles. Its $2.81 price per pack is between 60 to 80 cents lower than the top discount brands of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (Pall Mall) and Philip Morris USA (L&M).

LD packs have been available on a limited basis since March, including at Hanes Mart Discount Tobacco at 370 E. Hanes Mill Road in Winston-Salem.

JTI describes LD as “a brand with reliable quality at an everyday price. It’s the No. 1 international value cigarette brand in the world.”

“It offers a competitive price and a high-quality product, giving a better choice to adult smokers.”

The marketing and selling of LD, which originated in Russia, represents a full-circle U.S. branding initiative by JTI.

The subsidiary was formed in 1999 as part of Japan Tobacco Group’s $8 billion purchase of the non-U.S. rights to Reynolds’ cigarette brands, including Camel and Winston.

JTI’s other U.S. brands are discounts Wave and Wings. Altogether, JTI has a 0.34 percent U.S. market share.

By comparison, Pall Mall has the No. 4 overall brand at 7.8 percent market share.

There also are a number of second- and third-tier manufacturers, whether branded or private label, that have focused on the discount market as many smokers sought — and stuck with — a lower-cost option during the economic downturn that began in fall 2008.

When asked why it is marketing and selling LD in just the Carolinas, JTI said that “with a deep tobacco history, the Carolinas are the ideal place to introduce LD by L. Ducat.”

“After evaluating LD by L. Ducat’s success in North and South Carolina, JTI USA will look into launching the brand nationwide,” possibly as early as 2017, the company said.

Competitor to Pall Mall

Sales of LD have been limited primarily because many convenience stores and tobacco shops participate in the Reynolds every-day-low-price program.

The program is a voluntary retailer contract that provides pricing discounts to retailers of up to $4 a carton, or 40 cents a pack, off Reynolds’ best-selling brands.

In order to get the discount, retailers must agree that Pall Mall will be the lowest-priced cigarette in their stores. The current participation rate is 60 percent.

Bonnie Herzog, a Wells Fargo Securities analyst, projects Reynolds could reach 75 percent participation now that it had tied access to Newport, the top-selling menthol brand, to the program.

Jacob McConnico, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., said the manufacturer is aware of the LD entrance into the Carolinas.

“We are confident in Pall Mall’s competitive position that offers adult smokers the value proposition of long-lasting taste and premium quality tobacco at an attractive price,” McConnico said.

Pat Shehan, owner and operator of the Tarheel Tobacco retail chain, said he does not carry LD because of his participation in the Reynolds program.

“Their representatives called on me a couple of weeks ago and said they were having moderate success,” Shehan said.

“I think it will do well in non-EDLP stores, in part because they have hired former Commonwealth Brands sales representatives, so they have the retail and wholesale contacts to make it easier to gain distribution.”

Market share goals?

JTI did not provide a response when asked about its U.S. market share goals.

It entered the U.S. electronic cigarette sector in 2015 when it bought Logic Technology Development LLC. At last count, Logic was fourth in market share at 14.4 percent.

By comparison, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.’s Vuse is the top-selling e-cig at 35.7 percent.

Japan Tobacco’s interest in the U.S. market may be bigger than just introducing LD.

There have been analyst and media reports since November that Imperial Brands Plc may be up for sale, with British American Tobacco Ltd. the potential top suitor in a deal possibly worth $67 billion.

Imperial spent $7.1 billion in 2015 to buy four U.S. traditional cigarette brands (Kool, Maverick, Salem and Winston) and blu eCigs from Reynolds American Inc. and Lorillard Inc.

In the deal, Imperial’s ITG Brands LLC subsidiary acquired the bulk of Lorillard’s operations, including a Greensboro workforce of about 1,700 and about 2,900 overall.

ITG announced April 22 plans to eliminate 375 production jobs in Greensboro — about one-third of the production workforce — in preparation for the June 24 end of a reciprocal manufacturing agreement with Reynolds.

“We’ve long believed there would be further consolidation in the global tobacco industry with the four leading players reduced to three,” Herzog said. “A deal is very probable, and the most likely scenario is that BAT acquires Imperial.”

In a BAT acquisition scenario, Herzog said Imperial would let go of ITG Brands in a tax-free spin to shareholders and also divest brands in certain global markets to address antitrust concerns. Herzog said a potential spin transaction could command a valuation of up to $12 billion.

Internationally, Imperial is a distant fifth at 4.9 percent. China National Tobacco, which is privately held, owns 44.2 percent of the global market share, according to research firm Euromonitor. Among publicly traded companies, Imperial trails Philip Morris International (14.6 percent), BAT (10.7 percent) and Japan Tobacco (8.9 percent).

BAT likely would need to sell off ITG Brands to gain U.S. regulatory approval since it owns 42 percent of Reynolds.

Imperial’s U.S. market share jumped from 4 percent to 10 percent through the Reynolds-Lorillard deal, enabling ITG Brands to replace Lorillard as the smallest member of the Big 3 U.S. manufacturers.

However, since the close of the deal, ITG Brands’ market share has slipped to 7.7 percent, according to Herzog’s research. Imperial and ITG Brands said they are increasing Winston marketing to bolster U.S. sales.

Another, less likely, possibility is ITG Brands being bought by Liggett Vector, if it has the financial means to acquire a larger rival. Liggett has a 3 percent U.S. market share.

How Big Oil taught Big Tobacco to bend science

https://news.vice.com/article/hold-how-big-oil-taught-big-tobacco-to-bend-science

Over the past year, revelations about what the giants of the US petroleum industry knew decades ago about climate change have had a familiar ring to them.

Several observers picked up an echo of the same pattern that forced the American tobacco industry into a multi-billion-dollar court settlement in the 1990s: trying to cast doubt on the risks of the product, and denying publicly the hazards their own scientists told companies about privately.

Turns out there may be a reason for that.

Legal researchers have found stacks of documents they say demonstrate that as people started to worry about the toll cigarettes were taking on smokers, the cigarette makers turned to the same playbook the oil companies had written to head off worries about what the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels were doing to Earth’s atmosphere.

That was a surprise to Carroll Muffett, the head of the Center for International Environmental Law. It wasn’t news that the two industries had collaborated, but most people had assumed that the strategy had spread the other way—that Big Tobacco had pioneered the plan, and Big Oil had run with it later.

“It shocked us. Not once, but over and over again,” said Muffett, whose researchers have spent four years digging through corporate and university archives to assemble what they’re calling the “Smoke and Fumes” papers. “But, in retrospect, it shouldn’t have.”

Other researchers have pointed to connections between the oil and tobacco industries in the last decade. Gretchen Goldman, lead analyst at the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the new documents reinforce those other links, but with a twist.

“This sort of flips it on its head—that it was the oil industry playbook that tobacco took, and they arguably were less good at it than oil,” she said.

Muffett’s organization has spent four years digging into the oil industry’s early research into carbon emissions and climate change. This week saw the release of the third round of documents in the “Smoke and Fumes” project, which outlines what American petroleum companies knew about the dangers of carbon emissions long before climate change became the hot-button issue it is today.

Muffett said the two industries often acted as corporate frenemies, with embattled tobacco executives sometimes expressing jealousy of their petro-colleagues. At other times, they tried to shift responsibility for their products’ problems to one another.

“Over and over again we see this mutual finger-pointing that, because it increases uncertainty, redounds to the benefit of both industries,” Muffett said.

Tobacco companies like Philip Morris turned in the 1950s to oil giants like Shell and the corporate ancestors of today’s Exxon Mobil for help analyzing what was in cigarette smoke and tar, the documents show. Shell and Exxon also designed cigarette filters using petroleum-derived fibers, the documents show. The oil industry was also trying to fend off concerns about air pollution and the use of lead as a gasoline additive, a battle it finally lost in the 1970s.

Muffett said that technology-sharing relationship soon led to the industries sharing a PR strategy as well.

“The tobacco industry is the very poster child for a corporate cover-up, the very poster child for a corporate and industrywide conspiracy,” he added. “The relevance of these documents is they demonstrate the tobacco industry in turn was looking to and learning from oil.”

Maybe, maybe not, said tobacco historian Louis Kyriakoudes, now director of the Albert Gore Research Center at Middle Tennessee State University. For instance, the tobacco industry knew before the 1950s that there were problems with its products, he said.

“This is an exciting line of research, and it’s an exciting arrow pointing us in a direction,” said Kyriakoudes, who testified in several of the lawsuits against the tobacco industry. But he said the question of who first wrote the playbook is less important than how the plays were run.

“These are common techniques that are being used by two powerful industries, and are continuing to be used by these industries even to this day”
“By the 1950s, it’s clear the both have a common origin in terms of strategy, setting a pattern of using science against the truth as opposed to using science to promote the truth,” Kyriakoudes said. “These are common techniques that are being used by two powerful industries, and are continuing to be used by these industries even to this day.”

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s leading trade association, did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did tobacco giant Philip Morris, whose executives feature prominently in the documents.

But ExxonMobil spokesman Alan Jeffers told VICE News via e-mail, “We reject long-discredited conspiracy theories that attempt to portray legitimate scientific observations and differences on policy approaches as climate denial. We rejected them when they were made a decade ago, and we reject them today.”

Prosecutors in at least 17 US states and territories are investigating whether ExxonMobil misled investors about climate change and its potential impact on the company’s bottom line. The company now says the risk is “clear and warrants action,” but has resisted shareholder efforts to asses just how risky it is.

The first “Smoke and Fumes” installment documented how leading researchers had verified the effects of carbon dioxide and other byproducts of burning oil, gas and coal on the atmosphere by the 1950s; the second, released in May, showed how the industry had explored technologies to reduce emissions in the 1960s—but ultimately decided to raise doubts about the science of climate change instead.

Goldman said the documents suggest that while Exxon “might have been one of the bigger actors” in that strategy, “it wasn’t the only actor in it.” And as with the tobacco industry, any future court cases could force oil companies to open up their own records.

“To me, what this does is sheds a much brighter light on that deep and long connection between the two industries, and shows it’s a little more organized and intentional than at least what I’d seen before,” she said.

Is TPP a public health threat?

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/society/160759/is-tpp-a-public-health-threat-.html

The Government should bar certain industries from exploiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) lest they damage public health, health activists warned recently.

The historic free trade agreement is set to create a freer flow of commerce and win-win trade among its members by establishing a level playing field for all parties and investors.

Yet it might challenge the Government to implement measures to protect the public health when some industries, like tobacco and alcohol, take advantage of the TPP to expand their businesses, said Mary Sunta, a senior policy consultant of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance.

She addressed the issue at a workshop on the impacts of TPP on public health held in Ha Noi yesterday.

“As far as I am concerned, there are seven chapters in the TPP vulnerable to any challengers of the tobacco industry,” Sunta said.

Those chapters include provisions regarding tariff removal, which could result in lower cigarette prices and a cigarette package without pictorial warnings.

“As a matter of fact, applying a higher tariff/tax on cigarettes and its selling prices is proven to be the most effective strategy to reduce the tobacco demand in the short-term,” Sunta said.

Statistics of the World Health Organisation (WHO) show that Viet Nam is ranked 15th in the world in terms of the number of smokers – about 40 per cent of men smoke.

About 72,800 people died of tobacco-caused diseases, equal to a loss of roughly US$78 million every year, according to the Tobacco Atlas.

TPP’s provisions are likely to cause a similar headache for the Government in another health-affected industry in Viet Nam that has shown remarkable growth in the last decade: the alcohol industry.

Member parties of the TPP committed to bring the tariffs of alcoholic beverages, from beer to wine and whiskies, down to zero over a 12-year span.

The TPP enactment is expected to open wide the door for foreign alcoholic beverage manufacturers, especially from the US, into the Vietnamese market, which has already been seeing a strong growth of demand averaging 10 per cent a year.

Efforts to force higher price tags on the beverages to reduce the alcohol consumption are deemed difficult for the Vietnamese Government due to the tariff removal commitment in the TPP, while criticism from other states and alcohol manufacturers might hurt Viet Nam in implementing other measures, like limiting advertisement and stamping health warnings on the products. Those measures are likely to be categorised as technical barriers to trade.

Dispute settlement

The TPP includes a legal mechanism to settle disputes between foreign investors and their host country, called the ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement). Under the IDSD, foreign investors can legally challenge host state regulations outside that country’s courts.

The ISDS has been used several times since its introduction in international trade agreements, most notably by the tobacco industry.

Many countries like Thailand, Australia, Uruguay and Sri Lanka were sued by tobacco companies when they tried to pass a law on the cigarette packaging to raise public awareness of the dangers of smoking.

The ISDS is also available to claims by alcohol or asbestos producers.

“Asbestos was found to cause cancers since 2001. Any companies that import, distribute and use asbestos should be exempted from the IDSD provision,” said Tran Tuan from the Advocacy Network on Banning Asbestos Use in Viet Nam (VN-BAN).

Viet Nam is among the top 10 countries in the world using asbestos – a carcinogenic substance as categorised by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

The historic TPP was signed on February 4, 2016 in Auckland by 12 states including Viet Nam, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Chile, Peru, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and the United States, after seven years of negotiations.

The trade agreement is awaiting ratification by each of its member countries before entering into force. Viet Nam expects to ratify the agreement late this year.

Hong Kong Customs detects suspected case of smuggling illicit cigarettes at Lok Ma Chau Control Point

http://7thspace.com/headlines/529221/hong_kong_customs_detects_suspected_case_of_smuggling_illicit_cigarettes_at_lok_ma_chau_control_point.html

Hong Kong (HKSAR) – Hong Kong Customs detected a suspected case of smuggling illicit cigarettes at Lok Ma Chau Control Point on July 20. About 1.4 million sticks of suspected illicit cigarettes were seized and a man was arrested.

Customs officers intercepted an incoming lorry declared to contain electrical cords and chemical materials at Lok Ma Chau Control Point on July 20. After thorough inspection, Customs officers found about 1.4 million sticks of suspected illicit cigarettes mix-loaded with other goods in 14 carton boxes. The market value of the cigarettes was about $3.8 million with a duty potential of about $2.6 million.

The 53-year-old male driver was arrested and the lorry used for conveying the suspected illicit cigarettes was detained. The case is still under investigation.

A Customs spokesman said today (July 23), “Customs will continue to carry out stringent enforcement actions against the smuggling of illicit cigarettes at boundary control points.”

Under the Import and Export Ordinance, smuggling is a serious offence. The maximum penalty is a fine of $2 million and imprisonment for seven years.

Growth of tobacco biz good for shareholders: ITC chief

http://echoofindia.com/kolkata-growth-tobacco-biz-good-shareholders-itc-chief-112320

The growth of tobacco business of ITC was good for its shareholders and there was no point of de-growing it for the benefit of the non-tobacco verticals, ITC chairman Y C Deveshwar Friday said.

During the April-June quarter, ITC’s revenue from cigarettes increased 6.42 per cent to Rs 8,230.60 crore from Rs 7,733.43 crore in the year-ago period.

“Some shareholders are saying that growth of the tobacco business should be less while that of others (non-tobacco) should rise. That is not the objective”, Deveshwar said at the company’s AGM here.

Deveshwar, who will step down as executive chairman and preside over as non-executive chairman at the next AGM, said, “We are not competing within the company”.

“The growth of the tobacco business will be good for the shareholders of the company,” he said.

The tobacco business was increasingly coming under prohibition by various government regulations but continued to be the prime revenue driver of the company.

ITC was in a unique position to explore new opportunities in the area of perishables including fruits and vegetables, he said in the chairman’s speech.

In this regard, ITC was exploring the opportunity to invest in state-of-the-art cold chain top cover farm produce including fresh, frozen and dehydrated fruits and vegetables.

Also, there are plans to cultivate medicinal and aromatic plants, he said.

“The company’s traditional, new and developing enterprises will help in achieving the Rs 1 lakh crore FMCG goal by 2030,” he said. (PTI)