Author: GTNF Trust Staff

British American Tobacco said today that the second and third manufacturing facilities at its Sacheon factory had been completed.

The factory has been expanded to support the sales growth of BAT’s tobacco heating product (THP), glo, and with the intention of South Korea becoming a key export hub for the company in Asia.

Part of the new facilities will be used to manufacture the Neostiks tobacco sticks that are heated in BAT’s glo device to create a vapor that is said to provide a consumer experience similar to that of cigarette smoke but with reduced risk potential.

With the completion of the new facilities, BAT Korea has become the only cigarette manufacturer with a manufacturing factory in Korea equipped with facilities to produce tobacco sticks.

BAT Korea started construction of the Sacheon factory’s second and third manufacturing facilities, which are costing about 200 billion won, in June 2016.

It has hired more than 200 employees from the Sacheon region.

Through this expansion, the factory is expected to be able to produce about 40 billion combustible cigarettes a year. It is said to be ‘moving towards becoming the export hub for BAT in Asia, leading both the global and local cigarette and THP markets’.

The factory almost doubled the proportion of its exports between 2015 and 2017, and BAT Korea is looking to expand the number of its export markets, which currently stand at 13.

Export volumes to Japan are expected to increase as the factory takes up exclusive responsibility for the production in Asia of Neostiks.

Glo, which was launched in Sendai, Japan, in December, is said to have captured a regional market share of more than seven percent.

BAT Japan is expanding sales of glo to other places in Japan, including Tokyo, Osaka and Miyagi, and, by the end of the year, intends to go nation-wide with the product.

Meanwhile, BAT Korea is preparing for the launch of glo during the second half of this year.

“BAT Korea’s Sacheon factory is expected to not only take up the role of an export hub of Asia but also a global manufacturing hub of specially designed tobacco Neostiks made exclusively for our THP device glo,” BAT Korea’s CEO Tony Hayward was quoted as saying

“The BAT Group has high expectations for the expansion of the Sacheon factory, which is already assessed to be one of the best facilities among the group’s manufacturing plants. BAT Korea is committed to launching glo in Korea and offering ‘made in Korea’ products to local adult smokers interested in THPs.”

Essentra’s Scientific Services facility in the U.K. has been approved as a provider of Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) testing.

The Jarrow-based laboratory is among 14 other facilities that have been commissioned by government agencies for the annual testing of all vapor brands to the EU TPD’s requirements.

The EU TPD, which became applicable to member states on 20 May 2016, governs the manufacture, presentation, sale and advertising of tobacco and related products (including vapor). It states that nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide yields must be tested in independent and ISO-recognized laboratories.

“We are delighted to be named as one of the EU’s approved labs for TPD testing, and I am proud of the significant work the team has undertaken which has contributed to this appointment,” said Mike Taylor, Essentra’s director of scientific development.

Recent growth has seen the laboratory expand as a commercial venture testing combustible products, ignition propensity, tobacco, and vaping products for manufacturers around the globe.

Internal company support continues, with the laboratory additionally using its extensive scientific experience to provide analysis and technical knowledge to Essentra’s e-cigarette offering, where manufacturing has recently been relocated to the company’s site in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.

Those caught smoking or vaping in parks in the Malaysian state of Selangor face a maximum fine of RM10,000 or up to two years’ imprisonment, according to a story in The Star.

The punishments will be meted out under the Control of Tobacco Product (Amendment) Regulations 2017, which came into force yesterday.

Selangor Health director Datuk Dr. Zailan Adnan said that enforcement would be carried out in stages.

“To gazette a park as a non-smoking area is a separate process, we need to know how big the park is and where the boundaries are,” Zailan said.

“We also need to start soft enforcement, to educate and inform the public.”

Besides parks, other gazetted non-smoking zones include shopping complexes, air-conditioned premises, government premises, hospitals and gas filling stations.

The bans are said to be in line with Malaysia’s aim to be a smoke-free nation by 2045.

Meanwhile, the Star said that, in the state of Perak, ‘those who light up at public and state parks face a RM5,000 fine’.

The Perak Health Committee chairman Datuk Dr. Mah Hang Soon said the ban on smoking would be enforced in part with spot checks, because ‘the element of surprise was key in deterring smokers from puffing away with no regard for the new law’.

Vapers should give some thought to snus, because the fight for snus is the fight for vaping, according to the director of scientific communications at the Consumer Advocates for Smoke Free Alternatives Association (CASAA), Dr. Brian Carter.

Writing on the CASAA website after attending the first-ever snus convention in the US, at St. Louis, Missouri, Carter said that snus was low risk for much the same reason electronic cigarettes were low risk: its consumption involved no combustion.

‘Winning the public’s hearts and minds for one is a win for both,’ he wrote.

‘Vapers may grumble about the powerful forces that lie about and seek to destroy the products we credit with saving our lives, but the snus world has been dealing with this for the past several decades. Make no mistake, the playbook that’s been used in an attempt to destroy smokeless tobacco is the very same one being used on e-cigarettes today.

‘This is why vapers should respect and seek alliance with our snus using brothers and sisters. Together, we just might form an unstoppable force that politicians will be forced to yield to.

‘History is replete with small events involving just a few people getting together and triggering massive changes in culture and politics. Something is brewing, something big, among the lovers of the most popular low-risk tobacco product…’

Carter’s piece is at: http://casaa.org/news/there-was-a-snus-convention-in-st-louis/.

Chemical analysis has revealed no detectable difference between the vapors produced by an electronic cigarette (Vype ePen) and a novel hybrid device containing tobacco (iFuse), according to a British American Tobacco press note.

‘Previous research revealed that the levels of nearly all tested toxicants in Vype ePen vapor are much lower than in cigarette smoke,’ the note said.

‘The Royal College of Physicians is among those who say that smokers should switch to e-cigarettes to reduce harm and help them quit smoking. However, some consumers say that they want more tobacco taste.’

To remedy this, researchers at BAT have created a hybrid device, iFuse, that combines the workings of an e-cigarette with a tobacco component. This device heats tobacco rather than burns it.

‘An e-liquid is heated and a vapor is produced that passes through a pod containing tobacco,’ said BAT. ‘Although the tobacco is only gently heated (around 35ºC) by the vapor, this is sufficient to release the tobacco flavour. Consumer testing revealed that this produces a great tasting vapor.

‘Analysing the general vapor composition using non-targeted chemical screening, the scientists could find no significant difference between the vapors generated by the novel hybrid tobacco product and the tobacco-free control product (Vype ePen).’

BAT said also that the iFuse vapor had been assessed for some known cigarette smoke toxicants and substances formed by electronic vaping products, and compared to the control Vype ePen, a reference cigarette (Kentucky 3R4F) and air blanks.

‘Of the 113 compounds tested, only 26 were quantified in the vapor from the hybrid tobacco product,’ the press note said. ‘The classes and levels of toxicants generated by the hybrid tobacco product were similar to those from the control e-cigarette, Vype ePen, and were 92 to >99 percent lower on a per-puff basis than those in smoke from the reference cigarette. Many of the analytes quantified in the hybrid tobacco product vapor were at levels comparable to those in air blanks.’

Dr. James Murphy, head of reduced risk substantiation at BAT was quoted as saying that, overall, the novel hybrid tobacco product provided a great tobacco flavor but maintained a toxicant profile similar to that of Vype ePen with significantly lower levels of some key toxicants compared to cigarette smoke.

The results were published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicity (DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2017.05.022)).

US-based Vapor Tobacco Manufacturing (VTM) is expanding its manufacturing capacity for its heat-not-burn products.

The company said the increase was necessary to keep up with demand following a year’s test marketing in Indiana of its patented 3T Organic products.

In a press note issued through PRNewswire, the company said that in April 2016 it had begun testing its new heat-not-burn products in Indiana.

After compiling a year’s worth of sales data and consumer comments, it added, it was “compelled” to increase its manufacturing capacity.

3T Organic’s rechargeable heat-not-burn product was said to have carved out a new category between traditional cigarettes and electronic products, offering a hybrid alternative.

The company said that 3T Organic used the nicotine and patented tobacco flavoring extracted from US-grown organic tobacco leaves, which were heated not burned, “unlocking the rich, true tobacco flavor that smokers desire, without burning tobacco.”

3T Organic was the first and only electronic-nicotine-delivery-system device with USDA certified organic ingredients.

It is said to be available in Red, Gold, and Menthol.

In his first remarks to staff at the US’ Food and Drug Administration, the new commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, signaled an openness to electronic cigarettes that might hint at a future weakening of the Obama-era rule that clamped down on the industry driving the development of these products, according to a story by Dan Diamond for Politico.

“We need to have the science base to explore the potential to move current smokers — unable or unwilling to quit — to less harmful products, if they can’t quit altogether,” Gottlieb was reported to have said on Monday.

Gottlieb did not mention electronic cigarettes directly, but his comments echoed proponents’ arguments that such products can be a stepdown from traditional tobacco cigarettes.

However, Diamond said that critics were saying that the reality was less rosy, without explaining why they thought this way.

The FDA announced last week that it was delaying aspects of a rule that aimed to regulate electronic cigarettes as traditional cigarettes.

New EU regulations governing vaping products sold in the UK are ‘stringent and ill-conceived, and should be reviewed and overhauled as part of the Brexit process for the good of the country’s public health’, according to the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA).

To ensure that the UK realised the massive potential health benefit of vaping for those seeking to stop or reduce smoking, and to save the government billions of pounds in National Health Service (NHS) costs, there was a need for an overhaul of Article 20 of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive, which come into force on May 20.

The UKVIA said that while it welcomed those aspects of the new EU regulations that provided certainty and clarity on quality and safety issues pertaining to vaping products, the provision of product information and the testing of products and their vapor emissions, it was questioning what it termed ‘the level of ill-conceived restrictions on nicotine strengths and e-liquid bottle sizes and advertising bans akin to those for cigarettes’.

The association said it believed such ill-conceived regulation would impact the continuing growth of the vaping market, which was today worth more than half a billion pounds in consumer purchases – purchases that reflected the enormous demand from smokers for less harmful alternatives to smoking.

‘Vaping is currently enjoyed by some three million smokers in the UK, over half of whom now describe themselves as “former smokers”,’ a UKVIA press note said. ‘Based on the NHS’s valuation of £74,000 for every smoker that stops smoking,  a total saving of £111 billion for the nation’s coffers is already being realised.’

Charles Hamshaw-Thomas, a UKVIA board member (pictured), was quoted as saying that a huge potential public health prize could be lost if the UK government didn’t act swiftly. “We are very concerned about several of the new EU regulations which pay lip service to the potentially seismic public health opportunity which is widely recognised as being on offer,” he said. “Excessive restrictions, almost identical to those for tobacco products, make no sense if all smokers and the wider public are to be made aware that vaping is much more healthier than smoking.

“There is huge demand from smokers for less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. In August 2015, Public Health England reported that vaping is likely to be at least 95 percent less harmful than smoking; and since then a growing consensus has emerged in the public health community that vaping products are life changers. It’s critical therefore that the government, in the world of Brexit, ensures that the UK’s regulatory base and framework for vaping and reduced-risk nicotine products is fit for purpose and that the industry is incentivised to develop and promote new and ever better products so that a smoke free world becomes a reality.

“We are calling for Article 20  to be overhauled at the earliest possible opportunity in the Brexit process.”

Meanwhile health behaviourist, Peter Hajek, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, said that vaping would now be regulated much more strictly than conventional cigarettes were regulated. This would make it fiddly, less helpful for dependent smokers and more expensive. And it would discourage further product improvements. There was no logical justification for any of these measures.

“In a nutshell, the EU TPD protects cigarettes from their much less risky competitor and will be damaging to public health,” he said. “If there is any leeway to ignore or scrap this part of the Directive, now or in the future, it should be taken.”

The UKVIA press note said that many stop smoking services across the UK were beginning to declare themselves as ‘vape friendly’, by advocating vaping products as a quitting aid. But many feared the new rules would act as a barrier.

“We are concerned that aspects of the Tobacco Products Directive work against helping people stop smoking, by making life for vapers more difficult – sub-optimal strength nicotine, small bottles, small tanks – and by preventing positive messages being shared among those who have been frightened off vaping by a hostile propaganda war,” said Louise Ross, Stop Smoking Service Manager in Leicester.

Declining smoking rates in Europe mean less tax revenue for many fiscally strained governments, but trying to make up for these losses with a tax on electronic cigarettes would be a big mistake, according to piece by Alex Brill published on euractiv.com.

Brill is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank.

Following actions by some European nations, the European Commission was now contemplating the proper tax treatment of e-cigarettes and had just finalized a public consultation on the topic, he wrote.

Taxing e-cigarettes would have a negative effect on nascent, but important, public health gains for four reasons.

The first reason was that e-cigarettes posed a far lower risk to the health of users and non-users than did traditional tobacco cigarettes.

The second was that e-cigarettes were effective tools for helping smokers quit.

The third was that e-cigarette usage was still relatively low and a tax would discourage smokers from switching.

And the fourth was that taxing e-cigarettes had not proven to address budget woes.

Brill said that the good news was that the clinical evidence clearly indicated that e-cigarettes were less risky substitutes for conventional cigarettes.

‘Given that a core objective of the European Commission Tobacco Products Directive is to ensure “a high level of health protection for European citizens”, the proper tax to levy on e-cigarettes should be self-evident: none,’ he wrote.

The full euractiv.com version of Brill’s piece, which has been published also in media outside of Europe, is at: https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/opinion/dont-thwart-an-ally-in-the-war-on-tobacco/.

Despite opposition from Malaysia’s Health Ministry and anti-vaping advocates, the country is due soon to have a factory manufacturing vapor devices and nicotine-free e-liquids, according to a story in The New Straits Times.

Kilang Vape of Malaysia, which is in Nilai Utama Enterprise Park, Negri Sembilan, was supposed to be opened officially on May 12 but the launch failed to materialize.

Initially, the Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism (DTCC), Datuk Henry Sum Agong, was scheduled to open the factory, but the ministry decided against his becoming involved after heeding calls from non-governmental organizations and medical experts.

The DTCC minister, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin, in addressing the issue yesterday, acknowledged that he had received objection letters from several concerned groups about the opening of the factory.

But Hamzah conceded that the factory represented a business opportunity.

“There is nothing wrong for them to do business here,” he said. “We have laws and as per our regulations, one needs to have a license to operate in Malaysia. And they have got the license. Everything is in accordance to the law.”

But there was a sting in the tail of Hamzah’s statement.

“Whether they can sell the products in the country or not; that depends on the laws of the respective states,” he added.