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January, 2017:

Opinion: Raise age to legally buy tobacco to 25 years old

Jan 13th, 2017
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http://vancouversun.com/opinion/opinion-raise-age-to-legally-buy-tobacco-to-25

National non-smoking week will be observed the week of Jan. 17 with one of the stated goals being a smoke-free Canadian society. The toll of nicotine addiction continues to be significant. The annual death toll is staggering — about 6,000 British Columbians, about 40,000 Canadians and worldwide about six million. The Conference Board of Canada estimates the annual economic costs of smoking in Canada to be $11.4 billion.

Significant progress has been made in reducing the percentage of smokers, however, progress has stalled and has even reversed for 19 to 25 year olds. And yes, this is an addiction that targets our youth with 99 per cent of smokers starting to smoke before age 25, 90 per cent before age 19. Government regulations have assisted but more needs to be done.

Government should cease providing financial support to an industry that markets the glamour of smoking. In B.C. alone, the entertainment industry is provided with about $500 million in tax breaks while it continues to push the coolness of smoking to youth. Only entertainment that is free of smoking images should qualify for tax breaks.

Retailer compliance requires significant improvement. Health Canada reports that 28 per cent of minors buy tobacco directly from retailers. Fraser Health spends about $265,000 annually on compliance audits — clearly this is insufficient funding. However, why are health-care dollars spent on retailer compliance? Shouldn’t retailers, who profit from tobacco sales, pay for compliance audits? An annual retailer licence fee of $1,000 would generate about $6 million annually to fund increased compliance audits. Further, the government should implement a moratorium on new licences until retailers can demonstrate 100-per-cent compliance.

Many health consequences of tobacco aren’t well understood by the public. For example, research has found that nicotine primes the developing brain of youth for addiction to other illicit substances. A 2012 U.S. study found that 87.9 per cent of 18 to 34 year olds who had ever used cocaine had smoked cigarettes before using cocaine.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a Sept. 4, 2014, study, by Dr. Eric Kandel and Dr. Denise Kandel. They found that “nicotine acts as a gateway drug on the brain, and this effect is likely to occur whether the exposure is from smoking tobacco, passive tobacco smoke or e-cigarettes. More effective prevention programs need to be developed for all products that contain nicotine, especially those targeting young people. Our data suggests that effective interventions would not only prevent smoking and its negative health consequences, but also decrease the risk of progressing to illicit drug use and addiction.” Given the recent spike in drug-overdose deaths, protecting our youth from nicotine addiction has increased urgency.

So what is the medically appropriate age to legally buy tobacco if we want to achieve a smoke-free society? Quite simply it’s 25. The empirical evidence is clear, only one per cent of smokers start smoking after age 25. Why the dramatic drop-off at that age? Dr. Frances Jensen answers that question in her book, “The Teenage Brain” — the rational part of young brains isn’t fully developed until age 25 or so — a conclusion supported by other researchers. And for those minors who are unable to purchase directly from retailers, their source of tobacco are friends who are old enough to buy tobacco (and in most cases are under age 25).

The evidence is clear, the war on tobacco isn’t yet won.

Art Van Pelt is a former food-retailing executive and the founder of Susan’s Battle, a family advocacy group seeking government action to better protect youth from nicotine addiction. A teenage smoker, Susan smoked for 20 years. At the time of her lung-cancer diagnosis Susan had been smoke-free for 23 years. Susan passed away seven weeks after her initial diagnosis of Stage 4, non-small-cell lung cancer at age 58. Former smokers never reduce their risk of lung cancer to that of a never smoker.

RCPE Letter on Graphic Tobacco Pack Warnings in Hong Kong

Jan 13th, 2017
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Tobacco control measures found to be cost-effective, says WHO report

Jan 13th, 2017
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A report (link is external) from the National Cancer Institute in the US and the World Health Organisation has found that tobacco control measures are highly cost-effective, but under-used in some countries.

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer-news/news-report/2017-01-13-tobacco-control-measures-found-to-be-cost-effective-says-who-report

The report also states that tobacco control doesn’t harm economies, and reduces the impact smoking has on poorer communities.

“Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death in the world” – George Butterworth, Cancer Research UK

Tobacco control measures include tax increases, bans on advertising, including health warnings on packages, policies to restrict where people can smoke and programmes to help them quit.

“This valuable report highlights the substantial financial cost of tobacco,” said George Butterworth, tobacco policy manager at Cancer Research UK. “It’s good to see that the most cost effective measures – tobacco tax and price increases – are being called for as part of comprehensive tobacco control strategies.”

Smoking accounts for 1 in 4 UK cancer deaths and nearly 1 in 5 of all cancer cases.

“The human cost of the tobacco industry is enormous,” said Butterworth. “Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death in the world, killing almost 6 million people worldwide and 100,000 people in the UK each year.”

The report states that, while effective measures to reduce smoking rates are available, they don’t yet cover the vast majority of the world’s population. And where taxes are used, the money is rarely invested in health programmes.

The report also finds that people in poorer communities stand to benefit most from tobacco control measures, due to the proportion of income spent on tobacco and negative health effects it causes in these areas.

In the UK, a ban on smoking in public places as well as tobacco advertising restrictions, including picture warnings of health issues and standardised packaging, are all in place.

“Cancer Research UK’s ambition to see a Tobacco-Free country by 2035, where less than 5 per cent of adults smoke, is in line with the UK’s commitment to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,” Butterworth added.

But Stop Smoking Services across England are facing ongoing budget cuts after 6 in 10 local authorities were forced to reduce their funding in the last year.

Illegal trade, and the fact that 5 tobacco companies account for 85% of the global cigarette market, were both highlighted by the report as challenges for future control efforts.

The report also warns against relaxing the progress made across the world in controlling tobacco, and calls for continued research and use of evidence-based policies.

Dr Robert Croyle, Director of the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, said: “The global scale of suffering, death, and disease from tobacco use is staggering. Millions of early deaths can be prevented if nations adopt evidence-based tobacco control policies.”

Doctors help finance lawsuit against tobacco companies

Jan 12th, 2017
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Family doctors and medical specialists are lending financial support to the prosecution of four tobacco companies in what will be the first lawsuit of its kind in Europe, the Volkskrant writes.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/01/doctors-help-finance-lawsuit-against-tobacco-companies/

The Dutch Journal of Medicine NTvG , which has a membership of over 250 doctors, has decided to earmark ‘several hundreds of thousands of euros’ to support the case which is being brought by 1,300 (ex) smokers suffering from smoking-related illnesses.

According to Willem Mali, professor of radiology at UMC Utrecht, doctors should do more than simply supporting anti-smoking policies, writing reports and informing their patients about the consequences of smoking. ‘Doctors should become activists and really go for it,’ he told the paper.

The case is not about compensation but about prosecuting tobacco companies for ‘wilfully producing addictive cigarettes and prejudicing people’s health with premeditation’, the paper writes. Anti-smoking policy In the Netherlands 20,000 people die every year from smoking-related illnesses. A quarter of the population smokes.

In the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom the number is much lower, which Mali blames on the less than stringent anti-smoking policy in this country. NTvG editor Yolanda van der Graaf feels doctors have the knowledge and authority to persuade politicians to adopt more restrictive measures.

‘All we talk about now is new, more expensive medicines against lung cancer which help make care unaffordable and only prolong life by a couple of months. But if no one smoked we wouldn’t have to have this debate at all,’ Van der Graaf told the paper. The Dutch association of tobacco producers VNK commented that it ‘remains confident that the sale of a legal product will not be labelled as a crime.’

Traditional cigarette sales remain on decline in December

Jan 12th, 2017
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http://www.journalnow.com/business/business_news/local/traditional-cigarette-sales-remain-on-decline-in-december/article_58d80fb5-09f0-571c-8495-f306118d437e.html

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s gain in Newport sales and increased pricing were not enough to help the company defy an overall industry sales decline during December.

Reynolds experienced a 2.4 percent drop-off during a four-week period that ended Dec. 31, slightly above the industry’s 1.9 percent decrease, according to Nielsen data released this week.

The Big Three U.S. manufacturers — Reynolds, Philip Morris USA and ITG Brands LLC — all raised their list prices in November by 8 cents a pack. The list price is what wholesalers pay manufacturers for their products. The increases typically are passed on to customers.

Newport, the top-selling menthol cigarette and No. 2 cigarette overall, had a 0.2 percent drop during the period. Sales are up 0.8 percent year over year.

Reynolds spent $29.25 billion in June 2015 to buy Greensboro rival Lorillard Inc., essentially to acquire Newport.

Since the completion of the deal, Reynolds has increased sharply the amount of marketing for Newport. By comparison, Lorillard was content with a status-quo market share of about 12 percent.

Wells Fargo Securities analyst Bonnie Herzog projects Newport increasing its market share to at least 15 percent.

Herzog said she projected overall industry sales to have declined by 2.5 percent during 2016. Her forecast for 2017 is a decline of 3.4 percent.

Sales of Top 10 super-premium cigarette Natural American Spirit were up 12.1 percent over the four-week period.

By comparison, Camel, the No. 3 traditional cigarette brand, was down 4.2 percent. Pall Mall, the No. 4 brand, fell by 9.6 percent, as more smokers have more disposable income to spend on higher-priced options.

Marlboro, the top-selling traditional cigarette brand, was off 2.4 percent. Its market share is at 46.8 percent.

Herzog said ITG Brands’ cigarette sales have stabilized in recent months, down 1.1 percent over the four-week period.

ITG’s market share was 7.5 percent, down from 10 percent in June 2015 when it acquired three Reynolds brands (Kool, Salem, Winston) and one Lorillard brand (Maverick) brand as part of parent company Imperial Brands Plc’s $7.1 billion purchase from Reynolds.

“Overall, Imperial continues to underperform the industry,” Herzog said.

Turning to sales of electronic cigarettes, Herzog said e-cig and vaporizer sales exceeded $4 billion in 2016. She is projecting growth of another $400 million in 2017.

Nielsen data tracks the e-cig mass channel and convenience store marketplace. Vaporizers, which typically are lower in price, are sold mostly in tobacco and vapor shops where Nielsen has limited tracking.

Tobacco products introduced into the marketplace after Feb. 15, 2007 — including almost every e-cig and vaporizer — have to retroactively go through additional Food and Drug Administration requirements to prove they don’t cause public harm. That includes providing more detail on liquid nicotine ingredients and manufacturing details.

Some smaller e-cig manufacturers have either gone out of business since the FDA regulations debuted Aug. 8, or are selling off inventory in anticipation of shutting down.

“Our outlook for 2017 is more cautious for the total vapor category given stifled innovation due to FDA regulations, as well as expected increased competition from iQOS given its superior heat-not-burn technology,” Herzog said.

In December, Philip Morris International has entered the FDA regulatory gauntlet to have its electronically heated cigarette, branded as Marlboro HeatStick, reviewed as a potential reduced-risk product.

“We continue to expect iQOS to be commercialized in the second half of 2017,” Herzog said. Reynolds recently completed a test market in Japan for Core, its latest heat-not-burn version.

Herzog said the top market share of R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.’s Vuse brand dropped from 35.7 percent to 33.6 percent.

Blu eCigs, sold by ITG Brands, remained second at 17.4 percent, while the MarkTen XL product of Altria Group Inc. was third at 15.7 percent.

Leading U.S. websites stay in front despite slowing of traffic

Jan 12th, 2017
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Convenience and lower prices make the internet one of the most important distribution channels for e-cigarettes in the U.S., according to a new ECigIntelligence market report which estimates that the country has 180 vendors selling vaping products online.

Most traffic is concentrated among the top online vendors, although their web rankings declined during 2016.

Most of the leading websites receive more than half their visits from the U.S., although traffic from countries such as the UK, Canada and Turkey is increasing.

The leading source of visits is organic search, primarily from Google, followed by direct traffic – consumers who go directly to the vendor’s website. The impact of other channels such as email or social media is very low, according to ECigIntelligence data.

The study reveals that most of the leading online distributors in the U.S. have multi-brand websites, and the presence of corporate websites with single-brand is very low.

The report reveals a large variation in pricing between the leading websites. On the other hand, there is little average difference between prices among the top ten ranked online retailers and the next ten.

What This Means: Despite a downward trend in web ranking and visitor numbers for the leading online brands, the internet still provided one of the most important distribution channels for e-cig products in the U.S. in 2016, with about 15% of vapers regularly making their purchases online. The percentage is higher among hobbyists, of whom approximately 50% prefer to buy online.

The most popular vendors don’t necessarily have the cheapest products available – and though the leading websites’ statistics appears to have declined, they still account for the lion’s share of the traffic. There is no necessary correlation, however, between website visits or engagement and revenues.

– David Palacios ECigIntelligence staff

Minister Litzman, The Tobacco Companies And Cash Envelopes Episode 2

Jan 12th, 2017
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http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/511229/minister-litzman-the-tobacco-companies-and-cash-envelopes-episode-2.html

On Tuesday 12 Teves, YWN-ISRAEL reported on a Channel 2 sting investigation in which persons affiliated with the Hamodia newspaper, which is tied to Health Minister Litzman, accepted cash to arrange meetings with the minister via is closest confidants. The report also shows how members of the senior ministry staff, physicians, were willing to turn a blind eye to importing electronic cigarettes, which reports show are harmful to the tzibur’s health, all to accommodate the e-cigarette company representatives, who were distributing cash envelopes.

As explained in the first report, the undercover reporters established a fictitious company, SEC (Smoke Electric Cigarettes) and approached ‘macherim’ in Hamodia, primarily Yaakov Reinitz, who in exchange for cash, arranged meetings with senior ministry officials and with Minister Litzman himself. The first meeting was arranged during Chanukah, less than two weeks before they first met with officials in the Hamodia office in Jerusalem. The SEC representatives were seeking approval from the Health Ministry, or at least to refrain from interfering with importing their e-cigarettes to Israel.

It was also explained that Channel 2 has documented Litzman has met with heads of international tobacco companies, which he is prohibited from doing as per the FCTC (WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) Agreement that was signed by many countries, including Israel. If the Health Minister does meet with such persons, the public must be advised, which did not happen here.

Channel 2 also points out that Litzman, to the surprise of all, has been a lone vote objection to legislation to get tougher against the tobacco industry, hinting that he may have been bought out by persons representing the tobacco companies’ interests.

In the final chapter of the report, Reinitz is recorded telling SEC folks “I am sitting in the minister’s office and I am told representatives of Phillip Morris were already here and they are supposed to meet with the minister.

The SEC representatives (Channel 2 reporters) entered Litzman’s office with their hidden video cameras and met with the minister along with personal aide and confidant to the minister, Moti Bobchik and of course, Reinitz.

They get right to the point, telling Litzman they wish to import electronic cigarettes in the coming weeks and seek the ministry’s assistance, adding “we already met with Prof. Itamar Grutto who said ‘at the moment it cannot be authorized’, but added you, the minister has the ultimate say in the matter”.

Litzman explains the matter is still being debated and at first, the thought was to prohibit the e-cigarettes, then instruction the SEC officials to continue to remain in contact with Prof. Grutto. He added “Whatever Itamar decides is what will be. I am not getting involved with this. At present I am dealing with junk food, not this”.

It is pointed out during this tenure, Litzman has not moved ahead any legislation seeking to curtail smoking and tobacco. The minister has also blocked legislation that seeks to limit or prohibit electronic cigarettes. Litzman advises them to remain in touch with Reinitz, who will be updated by him. The meeting lasted for seven minutes, during which they learned Litzman has given Phillip Morris permission to go ahead advertising a new product.

In a subsequent call with Reinitz, he promises SEC officials “A client of mine will not be …… and they needn’t worry”.

Once again Litzman’s office insists it has no knowledge of anyone asking for money or persons paying to see him. He insists his office is open to all and accepting money for such meetings is illegal and unacceptable. Regarding electronic cigarettes, Litzman’s office reports it is working to advance bills seeking to limit them in Israel. However, the minister’s voting record and ministry actions in recent months tell a different story, that the minister is not working against tobacco companies. In addition, Phillip Morris has invested “billions” in a new electronic smoking product and appears to have received a green light in Israel.

 

Indonesia may ban cigarette advertisements from TV, radio

Jan 12th, 2017
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The government may completely ban tobacco companies from advertising their products on television and radio in the future, according to a tobacco watchdog.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/01/12/indonesia-may-ban-cigarette-advertisements-from-tv-radio.html

The National Commission on Tobacco Control (Komnas PT) said on Thursday that the latest draft of the broadcasting bill stipulated that the content of a broadcast advertisement was prohibited from promoting alcohol, cigarettes, and other addictive products. The bill is a revision of Law No. 32/2002 on broadcasting.

“The banning of [tobacco] advertisements, promotion and sponsorship in the bill is a policy by the House of Representative that is progressive and conforms to the Health Law and several Constitutional Court rulings,” Komnas PT law and advocate department member Muhamad Joni said.

Joni pointed out that the latest draft of the bill indicated the country was showing progress in tobacco control efforts as previous drafts did not contain such stipulations.

“The House has proven to be in favor of tobacco control and the public’s protection. Therefore, the bill must be secured in its deliberation process until it is passed,” Joni said. (dan)

Hong Kong Customs Enforcement Cases

Jan 11th, 2017
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Tobacco stats for Hong Kong years 2013-2016

Jan 11th, 2017
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Clear the Air herewith provides our readers with Tobacco stats for Hong Kong years 2013-2016

sticks

The figures tell us that the Hong Kong Government preventative health measures are blatantly NOT WORKING.

The sales of duty paid cigarettes continue to spiral instead of decreasing.

The Government takes over $6 billion in tobacco excise taxes then throws only crumbs to tobacco control and prevention resources – the $6bn remainder goes to pouring white elephant concrete.

The excise tax is manifestly insufficient for a 1st world country with such a high cost of living. Hong Kong needs to match Australia, New Zealand, UK , Ireland excise tax levels to have a preventative effect.

Hence tobacco remains affordable to youth here whilst Government apathy and lack of political will to act reign supreme. A form of misconduct in public office for their failure of duty of care to the people.

Meanwhile there is no apparent political will to force a legislative change to place the onus on landlords to prevent smoking in their licensed premises (whereas on the Mainland they have such laws).

As long as people can go out and smoke in places of entertainment with negligible chances of being caught, they will continue to do so.

Abysmal state of affairs. The highly paid incumbents would have been fired long ago in a business enterprise.

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