Organigram Holdings Inc. has extended its relationship with British American Tobacco. The move boosts the Canadian cannabis producer’s financial strength and positioning it to expand globally.
Organigram said in a statement that BAT is investing a further $90.5 million in the business, building on an initial $160 million injection back in 2021.
Organigram said the investment will allow it to extend its footprint beyond Canada, and also strengthen its financial position for long-term, sustainable growth, according to media reports.
“This investment bolsters an already strong balance sheet and solidifies our position as a leading cannabis company,” said Beena Goldenberg, chief executive of Organigram.
The firm said the deal enables it to invest in growing the topline of its core business, while optimizing operations to deliver on cost-saving efficiencies, thus accelerating earnings growth.
Organigram will use the majority of the investment to create a strategic investment pool, named Jupiter.
Jupiter will target investments in emerging cannabis opportunities that will enable Organigram to apply its industry-leading capabilities to new markets, it said.
The European Union’s Subcommittee on Public Health (SANT) has endorsed the potential role of vaping in supporting smoking cessation.
Parliament’s report on non-communicable diseases acknowledges that vaping is a way for smokers to quit smoking combustible cigarettes gradually. However, the SANT’s recommendation to ban vaping in some public areas has sparked debate and concern.
Michael Landl, director of the World Vapers’ Alliance, said Parliament’s recognition that vaping can help smokers quit is a step in the right direction.
“With the well-documented success of vaping as a smoking cessation aid, it’s crucial for the EU to fully embrace this tool within its strategy to reduce smoking-related illnesses,” he said. “Vaping not only offers a way out for smokers but is instrumental in achieving public health goals.”
Despite this recognition, the report’s proposal to extend smoking bans to vaping is seen as problematic, according to Landl.
“Treating vaping the same as smoking in public spaces sends the wrong message to smokers who want to quit. There is no evidence of harm from secondhand vaping,” Landl said. “The Subcommittee must reconsider the broader impact, including the risk of former smokers relapsing. A more thoughtful regulatory approach based on common sense is imperative to ensure that vaping remains a viable option for those committed to quitting cigarettes.”
The global vaping and e-cigarette market was valued at $24.19 billion in 2021. That number is projected to reach $93.94 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 16.27 percent from 2022 to 2030, according to Straits Research.
In a recent report for market participants in the vaping industry, the demand for diversely flavored products represents a “lucrative opportunity.” Similarly, technological developments in the industry are anticipated to contribute to the sector’s growth.
“The vaping industry has established numerous organizations to oppose anti-vaping legislation and to regulate the sector for monitoring and promoting the development of the e-cigarette and vaping markets, which are anticipated to boost the smokeless cigarettes market’s key trends and opportunities during the period 2022-2030,” a release states. “In recent years, regional government bans on the sale of vaping products and e-liquids in countries such as the United States and India have hindered the expansion of the smokeless cigarette sector.”
The Asia-Pacific market size for e-cigarettes is predicted to expand at a CAGR of 16.2 percent between 2022 and 2030. The report states it is anticipated that the presence of established product manufacturers in China and the rising demographic advantage for retailers would contribute to expanding the vaping industry in the region.
The European vaping industry is anticipated to expand significantly during the forecast period. “E-cigarettes and vaping products from companies such as BAT’s Vype and Imperial Brands Blu have been certified by European health regulators as a healthier alternative to tobacco smoking, which is expected to promote the growth of the smokeless cigarettes industry in Europe,” the report states.
A Louisiana state court has put the brakes on the state’s release of its official vaping and e-cigarette registry. However, Alabama’s registry, which has been active since spring 2022, may offer some insight into what products Louisiana will allow on the market.
Passed earlier this year, Louisiana’s new law bans retailers from selling vape products not listed on a state-approved registry, known as the V.A.P.E. Directory. To receive authorization, products need a marketing order from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or must meet one of several narrow exceptions, which favor products that have been on the market since at least 2016.
It’s still unclear which products will be listed in the directory, but Louisiana’s new law mirrors one that’s already in effect in Alabama, which has been keeping a similar list of pre-approved vaping and e-cigarette products, called the Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems Products Directory, for over a year.
There are 1,602 vaping, e-cigarette, and alternative nicotine products listed in Alabama’s directory, meaning that many products can still be legally sold in the state, according to NOLA.com. On it are several kinds of JUUL products, various flavors of ZYN nicotine Pouches, Vuse, NJOY and BIDI Stick products.
Missing from the list are several massively popular disposable vapes, including Elf Bars, Puff Bars and EscoBars.
Click the green box at the top right corner of the homepage that says “MyAlabamaTaxes.”
Scroll to the “Businesses” section, and click “View or upload a report.”
Under “Tobacco Reports,” click “ENDS Product Directory.”
Click the green “Search” button for every product in Alabama’s directory. Or toggle the “Manufacturer” or “Product” buttons and then search for the products you’re interested in.
If the product you search for does not appear on the list, it is not authorized for sale in Alabama and likely will not be authorized for sale in Louisiana, according to sources.
Hemp is cannabis, and it should be subject to reasonable regulations of quality, safety and youth access.
By Rod Kight
The hemp industry is subject to numerous regulations. Aside from hemp production, which is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) either directly or via USDA-required approval of state hemp plans, every state in the country has laws regarding hemp. Most states also regulate hemp products. Some states, such as California, Colorado and Oregon (to name a few), have very detailed hemp regulations that are much more stringent than federal regulations for their similar noncannabis product categories (i.e., foods, dietary supplements, etc.).
Other states, including but not limited to Florida, Tennessee and Texas, have detailed but less stringent regulations. Several states regulate hemp more generally, including Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana and Washington. To be clear, I am not making value judgments about any of these states’ regulatory schemes nor am I being comprehensive. The point I am making is that hemp and hemp products are subject to regulations of some sort, often stringent regulations, on a state-by-state level.
A hemp company that distributes products nationally, or even regionally, must deal with many compliance hurdles, including state laws that directly contradict other state’s laws, labeling requirements that are well beyond any labeling requirements under federal law, analytical testing, permitting, advertising, and age restrictions. Additionally, more and more states are imposing hemp-specific taxes. On top of this web of sometimes conflicting regulations, law enforcement is often behind the curve, and lawful hemp operators constantly live in fear of an unfounded, but stressful and expensive, raid of their businesses.
Additionally, the claim that hemp is “merely” regulated at the state level undercuts all the arguments regarding regulation promulgated by the marijuana industry since marijuana is federally illegal and is thus solely regulated by the states. This is particularly true since at the federal level, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the USDA and the Federal Trade Commission (not to mention the Drug Enforcement Administration) have all flexed their regulatory muscles at the hemp industry during its decade-long evolution. In short, the claim that the hemp industry is “unregulated” is simply false. Most of my time is spent advising clients on how to stay compliant with the patchwork of state and federal regulations governing the hemp industry.
Rod Kight
The hemp industry desires reasonable federal regulations
The hemp industry is often portrayed as populated by greedy “cowboys” who despise regulation and will do anything they can to sell contaminated bathtub gin products to unassuming consumers and to minors. In the popular trope, the hemp industry abhors and shuns regulations. This view is entirely unfounded. In nearly a decade of representing hemp companies, I have been fortunate to represent many of the largest and most well-known ones in the world. I have also enjoyed representing hundreds of small, mostly unknown hemp companies founded and operated by regular people who are following their dream of owning a business and expanding cannabis access to their fellow Americans.
Additionally, I have been privileged to represent and interact with many hemp associations and attorneys who represent hemp companies throughout the U.S. The common denominator of all of these people and companies is a desire to be subject to a single set of reasonable regulations. I am not aware of a single client of mine, or any other hemp executive, who does not agree with the statement, “The hemp industry should be subject to reasonable regulations regarding safety and access by minors.” Sure, cowboys exist in every industry, including the marijuana industry, but in the legitimate hemp industry, everyone is like-minded on this point.
What are “reasonable regulations”? First, and just like any other consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, the hemp CPG sector should be subject to regulations regarding the quality and purity of its products. Moreover, marketing and labeling of hemp products should be uniform and provide the consumer with sufficient information about a product to make an informed decision about whether to purchase it and how to consume it. These types of regulations already exist for foods, dietary supplements and “vice” products, such as alcohol and tobacco. The hemp industry wants to be treated the same way with respect to quality control and marketing—no more, no less.
Second, access to hemp products by minors should be restricted. There is a lot of focus on “intoxicating” versus “nonintoxicating” products, however, classifying hemp products based on the potential for intoxication is a fool’s errand. Rather, all hemp products, with perhaps the exception of CBD isolate topicals, should be subject to age-gating, with the proviso that a minor’s parent or guardian can purchase a hemp product for the minor’s use and also provide authorization to third parties regarding its use by the minor.
I recognize that this proposal will annoy many people, but it is simple and avoids messy distinctions that are difficult to articulate and mostly unfounded in science, tricky regulations and an overall regulatory structure that will be resource intensive and, frankly, unnecessary. Distributors should be required to age-gate, but minors who need hemp cannabinoids should be able to access them with parental/guardian consent. I will also say that there are other ways to restrict access by minors and that my proposal is up for negotiation. Remember, however, that the point of this article is not to propose a detailed regulatory regime. Rather, it is to make it clear that the hemp industry agrees with age-gating and regulations regarding safety and quality.
A short note about convenience stores
Finally, I’d like to make a side comment about the sale of hemp products in convenience stores. I frequently hear the claim that “hemp products are sold in convenience stores” used as an argument about how bad and unregulated the hemp industry is. This is a red herring. Of all the possible distribution outlets for hemp products, convenience stores are among the best. Convenience stores have for decades been selling highly regulated products, such as alcohol and tobacco, that are subject to strict age-gating.
To be clear, I am in favor of all sorts of properly regulated distribution outlets for hemp products, from e-commerce sites to boutique hemp wellness centers. However, to claim that the hemp industry is somehow bad and unregulated because its products are sold at convenience stores, which are highly regulated and frequently subject to agency audits, licenses, high fines and even criminal action if certain products are sold to minors, is ridiculous. The “convenience store” argument against hemp should die because it is totally unfounded.
Conclusion
The hemp industry has been the subject of a smear campaign based on unfounded allegations that it is unregulated and that it opposes regulations. Both claims are untrue. The hemp industry is highly regulated by both federal and state laws. Additionally, the hemp industry favors reasonable regulations regarding product safety, consumer safety and access by minors. Reasonable people can differ on how these types of regulations should be written, but they are necessary and welcomed by the hemp industry.
Finally, the particular distribution outlet for hemp products is immaterial provided that hemp products are properly and uniformly regulated for quality and safety and that access by minors is restricted. To claim that an industry is unregulated and illegitimate because its products are sold at convenience stores, which happen to be some of the most regulated distribution outlets in the U.S., is a ridiculous argument that needs to be put to rest.
Hemp is cannabis, and cannabis should be subject to reasonable regulations regarding quality, safety and access by minors so that all consenting adults can have the access they need and that all Americans who desire to operate a legally compliant hemp business can take part in the burgeoning cannabis industry.
Rod Kightis an international cannabis lawyer. He represents businesses throughout the cannabis industry.
Tobacco harm reduction (THR) took center stage during this year’s GTNF conference in Seoul.
By VV staff
Nearly 300 delegates from around the world gathered in Seoul for the annual Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) from Sept. 19 – 21. The delegates encompassed a variety of backgrounds including public health professionals, consumer advocates, financial analysts, and prominent regulators such as Brian King, the director of the Center for Tobacco Products at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This year’s theme was “Change the Conversation, Change the Outcome” which promoted the open exchange of information and ideas between public health experts, government representatives, the industry and investors.
Attendees of GTNF discussed several issues currently confronting the nicotine industry, with a special focus on lessening the harms brought on by tobacco use. Behind the success of the GTNF is a strong belief that deepening the conversation about tobacco, nicotine and public health can lead to more informed views and decisions by all stakeholders. Previous events took place in Washington DC (2022 and 2019), London (2018); New York (2017); Brussels (2016); Bologna (2015); West Virginia (2014); Cape Town (2013); Antwerp (2012); Bangalore (2010); and Rio de Janeiro (2008). The following stories are a small selection of the keynote speakers and panels presented during the GTNF 2023 event.
Keynote: Eve Wang, executive director of Smoore International and vice president of Shenzhen Smoore Technology Co.
The vaping industry is young at only 20 years old. However, Eve Wang, executive director of Smoore International and vice president of Smoore Technology, said the industry isn’t going to get much older if it doesn’t find a way to balance innovation and social responsibility. Wang should know. She has been in the industry for more than 17 years.
“We are at a very critical path for the vapor industry,” she said. The vapor industry has grown rapidly over the past 20 years, with large growth in the first 10 years followed by the past 10 years seeing more regulation in markets like the U.S., Europe and China as products have evolved to be more compact and portable, usability has improved with technology evolution, open systems have evolved to pod mods and disposables have grown in variability.
Wang cited Frost and Sullivan data from March of this year, which showed that as of last year, the vapor industry made up a $52 billion dollar market, nearly double what it was in 2018. “There is no doubt the market is fast growing with huge potential,” she said.
With large growth comes media attention, as Wang noted, highlighting headlines that called for bans and restrictions, overwhelmingly regarding disposables.
She then posed the question “What can we do for sustainable growth?” She broke this up into two categories that Smoore uses to address this issue: consumer experience and environmental impact, what she called “vaping efficiency.”
“Vaping is not perfect,” she said. “It’s far from being perfect. Yes, it’s new, it’s complex.”
To address this, Wang explained that Smoore looks at it as two major aspects—atomization efficiency and power efficiency, and each aspect has a different approach. Without going into minute detail, she described atomization efficiency as improving the utilization of e-liquid and power efficiency as increasing energy density and reducing battery size.
“Do we have answers to all the challenges?” she asked. “I’m afraid it’s too early to tell. And if I may be the real Eve, I would say, no, we don’t have the answers.” She urged the industry to keep innovating and for every player to take their responsibility seriously.
“As long as the conversation goes on, we are confident that together we can make the best outcome. It could be this year; it could be next year; it could be in the next five years.”
Keynote: Brian King, Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products
GTNF 2023
When Brian King speaks, people come to listen. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) director’s keynote address was easily the most attended session of GTNF 2023. King’s speech served as an overview of the current state of the CTP and an outline of the center’s main priorities over the next few years.
King said that the CTP has made considerable progress in reducing combustible cigarette smoking in the United States, which he contends as one of the most remarkable public health achievements of the past century. He hopes that those declines continue, given that “we do know” that combustible smoking is responsible for the overwhelming burden of death from using combustible tobacco.
Tobacco use continues to cost the U.S. government a considerable amount of money—to the tune of $600 billion per year from both direct healthcare costs and lost productivity, according to King. He said there are important human health benefits as well as financial benefits for regulators to continue to focus on reducing combustible use in the United States. As a part of this focus, the CTP is continuing to make inroads when it comes to premarket tobacco production application review.
“As folks are aware, we do have a new director of our office of science who has jumped in headfirst to continue to fiercely lead our 550-plus scientists on application review …. We have processed 99 percent of those and continue to finalize the remaining 1 percent. I’m hopeful that in the coming months and years, we will get back to what was intended to be a premarket approval process,” said King. “In the meantime, we have authorized 23 e-cigarettes, all tobacco flavored. So, it is possible. We have had successful authorizations. But again, I can’t reinforce enough the importance of providing that sound and robust science to inform on potential authorization.
“And it is possible, as you can see. There will be more authorizations in the future, but it’s important that we have that science to support those decisions. As I noted earlier, we also continue to fold in the nontobacco nicotine work into our broader portfolio around regulation. We did receive a million applications, which I don’t think anyone anticipated. I will say that we are making great numbers. We are 99.9 percent through with the review of those. I will say that 100 percent is very imminent.”
King said that when it comes to products that are illegally on the market (having received a marketing authorization and are not currently under review by the CTP), the CTP is mindful of the importance in exercising all authorities that it has to ensure that people are complying with the law. He said that the FDA has given retailers the information they need to comply with the law through a list of authorized products (the 23 products that have been authorized for sale). The CTP also continues to ramp up efforts in terms of training, education and outreach across the supply chain, particularly to retailers.
“We also continue to do surveillance inspection investigations. This is something that occurs on a daily basis. We have arrangements with all 50 states and territories to continue to do investigations. We have issued many warning letters for flavored disposable e-cigarettes, which we know are particularly popular for youth,” said King. “There’s been a variety of blitzes that have occurred monthly throughout the summer. I will say there are more to come. We are going to continue to conduct those blitzes and making sure that we are routinely monitoring, particularly with a focus on those products that we know have high youth appeal.
“On balance, we are also continuing to do work around issuing import alerts. I was a little tickled by all the attention that the import alert on Elf Bar got. That’s nothing new, folks. We’ve been doing that for many years. It was suggested it was something seismographic, but we’ve been doing import alerts for quite some time. And we do use those as, again, another tool in our toolkit to make sure that we are addressing not only the products that are already in the country but preventing illegal products from entering the country.”
As of Sept. 31, the FDA has issued over 1,200 warning letters for online investigations. For manufacturers, the CTP has sent more than 800 warning letters, with more than 750 letters for e-cigarettes. Beginning earlier this year, the FDA also issued the first civil money penalties against manufacturers for violations for illegal e-cigarette sales. He said civil money penalties will remain a part of the CTP’s tools to combat illicit sales.
“We also issued the first six injunctions in coordination with the Department of Justice. I got a lot of flak for that as well about enlisting the Department of Justice. And I will remind folks that the FDA doesn’t have an independent litigation authority. If folks do not comply with the law, we will escalate further as has been evidenced by these actions, which again are going to be part of our broader portfolio moving forward,” said King. “Everyone is going to be held accountable across the supply chain. We do want to make sure that we address the bad actors in a meaningful way. We also continue to pursue no tobacco sale orders among retailers as well. This has traditionally been issued for underage sales. But again, we’re committed to using the full scope of our authorities granted through Congress.”
King added that education is also a priority for the CTP. The center is ramping up efforts to address misinformation in the continuum of risk for nicotine products. He mentioned that he recently wrote a commentary where he highlighted the importance of opportunities and considerations for addressing misperceptions in nicotine. “There is science that exists in that there are misperceptions around the continuum of risk and also nicotine. And so, we do have opportunities that are present, but we have to follow the data-driven pandemic-based approach,” he explained. “That said, I’m putting my money where my mouth is …. We’re working with the National Institutes of Health for a funding opportunity to get more data on public health communication messaging about the continuum of risk.
“And as noted in that funding announcement, we’re looking for data both for the target population, which is called smokers, but also unintended populations, particularly youth. This is several million dollars on an annual basis, and we look forward to that kickstarting and getting data to inform our work.”
King said the CTP will also continue to gather input from the industry and the public. The CTP is creating a new office within the Office of the Center Director and is looking to hire a new director for Policy and Partnerships. “That posting is public,” he said. “And I’m looking forward to seeing those who have applied and getting someone in that seat to meaningfully oversee the product regulation portfolio across the center, particularly as we get that strategic plan in place.”
During the closing of his address, King said that he continues to be big on communication and stakeholder engagement. He expects to provide the industry with more opportunities for communication with the CTP. “I know that you’ll see in the future an evolution of our messaging. Both through our press releases, our social media and our [overall] messaging to make sure that we are clearer, simpler and more digestible,” he said. “I’ve been a bureaucrat for many years, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t communicate effectively with the general public. I think we can do better. I know we can do better.”
Panel: Innovating Products for the Future
GTNF 2023
Discussing the future of innovation in nicotine products is complicated. The industry is innovating at lightning speed, especially in batteries and atomization. However, manufacturers don’t often want to discuss innovations in progress because competition in the next-generation nicotine-delivery segment is fierce. It’s not uncommon for a company to launch a new innovative design only to see its IP stolen and used in counterfeit products.
During the panel “Innovating Products for the Future,” moderator Eve Wang, executive director of Smoore International and vice president of Shenzhen Smoore Technology Co., questioned five industry experts about how they imagine the future of the vaping industry. The participants agreed that innovation would continue boosting the harm reduction potential of next-generation nicotine-delivery products. Surprisingly, they all willingly shared interesting insights into new product innovation.
Tao Cui, director of innovation, strategy and compliance at Innokin Technology, said that future vaping products will likely be more individualized, more efficient and more intelligent. He also said that products will continue to become less harmful. He said the heating element is especially an area that will see more innovation.
“In a perfect scenario, you can control the temperature as low as possible and also precisely control it. And, if you have a much, much less harmful substance, we combine both together, then we have a less harmful product,” he said. “In the future, I would say the products will be more individualized because no one product fits 1 billion people. In the future, your product may adapt to your habits. The product may know if you need more [puffs] in the morning, in the afternoon, today or tomorrow.”
Cui outlined some potential solutions for sustainability-related issues, including the use of research and development. He proposed that countries that have successfully controlled youth usage could offer insight; they could accomplish this by better regulating flavor names and packaging.
James Kuang, chief scientist and head of the Life Science Institute at ICCPP, parent to Voopoo vaping products, stated that the innovation of products is needed to balance user experience, harm reduction and environmental protection. “Yes, we should develop some [better batteries] and [e-liquid bases] for that. “We talk about the effective battery …. Can we do something for our environment by developing different [e-liquids]? I say if we can develop some new type of [e-liquid base] … for example, can we use some nature-sourced alcohol? …. Another solution, I think, is a water-based solution. In my opinion, a water-based [solution] may be the best product for the future.”
Fadi Maayta, president and co-founder of Alternative Nicotine Delivery Solutions (ANDS), stated that the next stage of innovation should be aimed at protecting consumers—especially nonsmokers and ex-smokers—and youth. He noted that it was the responsibility of the industry to ensure it was on the right path to responsible growth. He said that artificial intelligence (AI) could play for both the industry and regulators by helping to better analyze data concerning consumers and product use.
“I know many companies that invested in applications to link [AI] to the device to tell the consumer how many puffs they took, what’s the health risk. All these apps failed. I don’t see consumers really using it, to be realistic,” said Maayta. “It will help consumers to get more data. It will help companies and factories [know where] to locate and know how to get the right product for the consumers through using that engine but also externally for the regulators and policymakers to get data about these products. It might help in tracking as well, track and trace for the product.”
When it comes to eco-friendly products, Maayta claimed that a rational vision of environmental sustainability involves four distinct pillars. The first pillar is the product. Manufacturers should use the right elements … cardboard, biodegradable silicon and biodegradable plastics. The second pillar is showing that your claims of eco-friendliness are provable—that they can be substantiated.
“If you want to claim that your product is recoverable and recyclable, and your product can be recycled to 99 percent, whatever—you [had] better be careful. You are in a very controversial industry, and every word will be tracked,” he said. “You better [be able] to substantiate every word, every percentage, everything you say about the recyclability and the probability of the product.”
The third pillar is that if you market an eco-friendly product, you need to have a program to support recycling. The collection of these products is important. “Make it simple … because consumers need simplicity,” he said. “You used to have a cigarette and a lighter. That’s it. You are giving them an electronic device. They don’t want to have a headache there.”
The fourth element is regulation. Maayta said regulators should be involved in investing in approving sustainable products and possibly incentivizing recycling programs. He criticized manufacturers that aggressively market products that appeal to youth. He criticized regulators for not doing more to remove the “bad players” from the market because it’s leading to good manufacturers being replaced by the black market.
Cherry Pan, managing director of consumer and marketplace insights at Altria, said that as the industry moves toward more “eco-friendly” products, the term needs to be better defined. Pan said that the environment should be a concern for all manufacturers. She also suggested that manufacturers could play a more innovative role in the design of eco-friendly products.
“First, how to define eco-friendly … that means you’re 100 percent recycled or 50 percent recycled or 30 percent? …. Or does it mean that we use vaping products that are less harmful than cigarettes? This also means it’s eco-friendly,” Pan explained. “We will make about 150 to 200 new products every year [not necessarily that make it to market] with our army engineers. We have about 150 engineers. So we also must make products which we [consider] eco-friendly because we can recycle it, maybe 70 [percent] to 80 percent. We use some degradable materials. The percentage we use is higher [than many other products]. We want to make removable batteries.”
Ryan Selby, CEO of Generative AI Solutions and executive chairman at The Modern Nicotine Co., said that innovation will not bring about a one-size-fits-all solution for consumers. It’s going to take a comprehensive approach to create choices for consumers through innovation. However, he doesn’t know what the next best thing is.
“I do think we need to keep our eyes on the future and look at there’s some big changes coming down in terms of the virtual and augmented reality experiences,” Selby said. “In the oral space, looking at opportunities for creating more personal nicotine experiences that have a lower [third-party] impact as well as lower the impact on the environment.”
Selby also said that AI could be beneficial in providing consumer insight and in helping find innovative ways to restrict youth access. He said AI can aid the nicotine industry by helping to reduce harm by analyzing data. Regulators may even be better able to understand the consumer experience.
“I think this is a tremendous opportunity for AI in this space to help feed in massive amounts of data set and tease out some of these interactions between devices … looking at opportunities for combining substances and devices in a way that can reduce the harms associated with [use],” said Selby. “I think there is tremendous promise with large data sets and the ability of AI to tease out some hidden secrets in there that can help us to continue moving in the right direction.”
Panel: Talking Nicotine: Perception vs. Reality
GTNF 2023
From a public health perspective, the misperceptions and misunderstandings surrounding nicotine are incredibly frustrating, according to David Sweanor, adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa, who moderated the GTNF panel on the public perception of nicotine. Science has proven that it is the delivery system [combustible cigarettes], not the nicotine itself, that causes the deadly diseases suffered by cigarette smokers.
Sweanor said Sweden was an excellent example of a country where the use of different delivery systems, such as snus, led to massive decreases in the number of combustible cigarette smokers. Sweanor said it would be a major benefit to public health if the industry would or even could do more to educate consumers, public health groups and legislators about the facts. He emphasized that people can only make as good a decision as the information available to them allows.
“We already knew from the work of Michael Russell that people smoked to get nicotine, but they died from the smoke. Nicotine wasn’t the problem. It was the delivery system that was the problem,” Sweanor explained. “We’ve known that for 50 years. And we’ve seen examples from places like Sweden where people can move to an alternative product and have disease rates that are massively lower than what you see elsewhere. In fact, looking at the long-term users of a product called snus, it is very hard to find anything to distinguish their disease risks from those people who don’t use any tobacco or nicotine product at all.”
The first speaker was Carolyn Beaumont, a general practitioner, educator and founder of SmokerHealth Telehealth and Medical Nicotine Scripts who for the last three years has been prescribing vaping products to cigarette smokers in Australia. She said that there is an outpouring of need and frustration and even fear from the many smokers that she works with. Under Australia’s strict vaping rules, vaping products are only allowed through prescription, and there are only a few products legally allowed to be prescribed. She presented several quotes from former smokers showing how vaping had changed their lives for the better.
“They really want their stories to be heard …. Smokers want to be heard—not judged—supported, and advocated for. And as I said before, they’re also very fearful that if they can’t get their vape, they will return to smoking, and that seems true as well,” said Beaumont. “I guess for those of you who are not sure how successful vaping is in [supporting] smoking cessation, it’s very effective.”
There were several quotes presented, including one from a patient who said there was a history of cancer in their family. “I am very reluctant to take up smoking again. I haven’t touched a cigarette in close to three years now, and I feel wonderful,” the patient stated, according to Beaumont. “My sense of taste and my smell has returned. Fitness has improved. So, I thank you for the service you provide for us ex-smokers to be able to vape instead of [smoking] those dirty cigarettes.”
The next speaker, Delon Human, president of Health Diplomats, a healthcare advocacy group, said that misperceptions surrounding nicotine were causing people to die. “At the heart of nicotine misperception lies an issue that we are wasting unnecessary lives,” Human told attendees. “We are allowing the misperception of nicotine to lead to disease. And that is a time that we absolutely have to take hold of the stakeholders, who can change those perceptions.”
He also stated that the World Health Organization’s failure to differentiate between tobacco and nicotine, combustibles and noncombustibles, has caused the spread of misinformation among the organization and government and nongovernment organizations it influences. “If you read WHO documentation …. On the one hand, nicotine is part of the WHO list of essential medicines. Nicotine as part of nicotine-replacement therapy as prescribed by physicians and health professionals for smoking cessation,” said Human. “And on the other hand, there’s an all-out war on nicotine. What has happened over the years, over the last 50 years, is that the so-called war on tobacco has changed into the war on nicotine.”
Human also noted that there is a serious amount of misperception surrounding nicotine among physicians and consumers. He mentioned a recent study from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World that found that on average, nearly 77 percent of doctors mistakenly believe nicotine causes lung cancer, and 78 percent believe it causes atherosclerosis. While on average 87 percent of doctors at least moderately agree that helping patients quit smoking is a priority, lack of training and nicotine knowledge adversely impacts quitting and harm reduction advice, according to the study.
“It found that 58 percent of those respondents thought that [nicotine] caused cardiovascular or heart disease, which again shows you that the level of misconception is not only dangerous, it’s sick …. It’s 2023 and so simple of a situation, but suddenly physicians have a complete misconception of what nicotine is,” he said. “In our own study in 5 countries, we [found that among] GPs [general practitioners], there was a persistent belief that nicotine is the most awful aspect of smoking. Nicotine causes cancer, and nicotine causes heart and lung disease.”
Human pointed out the positive outcomes of correcting misconceptions about nicotine, including improved health for smokers and lower smoking rates. He proposed that medical professionals should receive new training on the effects of nicotine and the advantages of tobacco harm reduction. Human said that companies should also refrain from marketing to youth and keep up with the research and development of new reduced-harm products.
“In terms of physicians, what can they do for misperceptions to be corrected? No. 1, training needs to be updated to the 21st century. Doctors need to know that nicotine does not cause cancer. It’s a crime for doctors to think that nicotine causes cancer or heart disease or lung disease in a way that they perceive it now, so correct the training,” he said. “No. 2, make sure that doctors understand what harm reduction is. Harm reduction is really part of everyday medical life. That’s what we do in medical practice. You’re trying to reduce the harm.”
Hiroya Kumamaru, cardiovascular surgeon and vice director of AOI International Hospital in Japan, said that in his country, there is also a wide misperception among physicians that nicotine is harmful. He argued that the industry needs to think about how best to educate regulators on understanding the effects of nicotine and the risks of different delivery systems. “Many, many … GPs are thinking that nicotine is quite harmful itself [in Japan], and we have to educate them somehow. Thinking about how we can [address] this issue, I tried to have a small meeting in the Swedish embassy about four years ago to educate not only physicians but also media and governmental officers to understand the concept of harm reduction in tobacco, in smoking,” explained Kumamaru. “But it was still difficult because some of the physicians, even [ones that] were working in a university hospital or working in the Ministry of Health, were saying that smoking is a sin …. They didn’t care about the difference [between] vapor and cigarette smoking. Because they say nicotine drug dependency is a very bad agent. We have to think once more to educate these people to understand.”
Kumamaru said Japan has seen a historic decline in the number of combustible smokers because of the rise of heated-tobacco products. He said more than half of the combustible market has disappeared in just a few years. He also agreed that the industry could accomplish more if more were done to battle misinformation.
“We’re still stuck with this problem of it. People and regulators can only make as good a decision as the information available to them allows us. And people believe that using nicotine is about sin rather than about health. If people don’t understand that [combustible cigarettes, not] nicotine causes cancer, what can you do? …. Millions of Americans who are able to move between the [various harm reduction] products never had the information that one product is very likely to kill you and [that] the alternative product is massively less hazardous.”
Mohamadi Sarkar, a fellow of scientific strategy and analysis and regulatory affairs at Altria Client Services, told attendees that the science on nicotine is not new. He said that even though many mistakenly believe that vaping is just as dangerous or even more so than smoking combustible cigarettes, there is a plethora of evidence to show that vaping contains fewer harmful chemicals than cigarette smoke.
“We often hear that ‘Well, these products have not been on the market long enough, so there is no long-term epidemiology.’ We don’t need it. What we do know is that cigarettes have 70,000 chemicals. Seventy of them are carcinogens and linear, cardiovascular and respiratory toxins,” he explained. “On the other hand, smoke-free products like e-vapor or [heated-tobacco products] are nicotine-positive and have far fewer chemicals.”
In the end, all the speakers agreed that the industry could do more to battle the misinformation surrounding reduced-risk products. The vaping industry needs a unified voice. “We need unified goals for all the stakeholders to communicate …. We know that education works. Education has changed perceptions,” said Sarkar. “We need immediate action.”
Panel: Reasonable Responsibility
GTNF 2023
Youth use is everyone’s responsibility. It’s also the name of the GTNF panel that focused on how to balance preventing youth use with helping combustible cigarette smokers move toward less risky nicotine products. The panel’s moderator, Stacy Ehrlich, partner at Kleinfeld Kaplan and Becker, encouraged panelists to debate whether abstinence is a realistic or appropriate goal when attempting to combat youth use.
“Hopefully, speakers will address that and whether and how to communicate with youth and children about relative risks and progress. I think an interesting question is: Are youth an unintended population for these communications?” said Ehrlich, referring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s acknowledgment that e-cigarettes are less harmful than combustible cigarettes. “Should we be communicating with underage individuals about consumer risk?”
All the panelists were given the opportunity to make a short presentation. Jasjit Ahluwalia, professor of behavioral and social sciences and professor of medicine at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at the Brown University School of Public Health and Alpert School of Medicine, said that tobacco addiction is a pediatric disease and noted that many diseases resulting from tobacco use were effectively human caused, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as 95 percent of cases were the result of tobacco use.
He also stated that youth use of tobacco and nicotine was unethical as young people are uninformed consumers. However, he noted that communicating risk to this group was complicated. He said that tobacco prevention campaigns are key.
“This is something that we know [is] important to effectively educate youth,” said Ahluwalia. “I’m mindful of the importance of the issue of spillover … this is, again, a careful area where I think it’s important that we’re mindful of what the impact is on the intended population and mitigating risk for the unintended population, which in this case, I believe is adult smokers that you want to make sure that they’re not scared away from using an e-cigarette that could potentially be beneficial for them to transition completely from combustibles.”
Ahluwalia also highlighted the vast amount of misinformation that had been communicated through anti-vaping/smoking campaigns, noting the role of the media in misrepresenting the science behind vaping products. He stated that the industry needed to focus on innovating safer and better products. He also called for the FDA to approve new smoking cessation medications. Lastly, Ahluwalia stated that a goal of zero youth use was unrealistic and unreasonable.
Brian King, director of the FDA Center for Tobacco Products, explained that youth prevention continued to be a critical part of the FDA’s portfolio since nine out of 10 adult smokers started smoking below the age of 18. He noted that the youth were using a variety of different products, with the use of e-cigarettes being particularly prominent.
“Youth prevention is a key component of FDA’s portfolio … we do see kids using a variety of different products. But right now, the focus is primarily on e-cigarettes,” explained King. “We’ve seen an evolution within even that product class as well, which I think is important for us to consider as we talk about what the inherent risks of these products are, particularly when it comes to dependency. That said, although we’ve seen declines in e-cigarette use, which again, we’ve noticed, is a good thing, among the kids who are currently using e-cigarettes, we’re seeing increased signs of dependency.”
King said the FDA is held by the standard of being “appropriate for the protection of public health.” This is not like the other centers at the FDA, such as the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), which has a “safe and effective standard.” In therapeutics, the CDER wants products to be safe for people to use but also effective at treating the ailment.
“When it comes to tobacco products, the U.S. Congress has given us appropriate for the protection of public health, where we have to weigh the benefits and the risks. That said, the risks are typically focused on youth initiation. And we have made decisions based on that,” King told attendees. “The primary reason you’re seeing a variety of negative actions that have been taken on e-cigarettes is because of the prominent youth use of these products. It certainly is possible to mitigate that risk. For example, we know that youth have very little [interest in] tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, which are the products that have been authorized to date because that benefit of adults has been able to outweigh the risk of kids.”
Colin Mendelsohn, general practitioner and founding chair of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association, said that current vaping policy is largely driven by fears over youth vaping. The scientific evidence of vaping is being overlooked. He stated that children should not vape or smoke; however, he acknowledged, it is inevitable that some will. Mendelsohn argued that most youth vaping was experimental, with frequent vaping being rare.
“I think policy around e-cigarettes is largely driven by youth [and] flavor. And I think it should be driven by the evidence, not by emotion and moral values,” he said. “What I’m going to talk about is actual evidence, or at least the best evidence we have today. Kids shouldn’t vape or smoke. They shouldn’t be using alcohol or useless drugs. Of course, they do lots of things they shouldn’t do.”
Mendelsohn said his research showed that only 3 percent of children who had vaped were frequent vapers, with half of those also being smokers. This evidence, he said, showed that vaping was not a gateway to smoking. He said that the opposite was true, and vaping was diverting kids away from smoking combustible cigarettes.
“I think we all agree that vaping is not a significant gateway to smoking. If there were a significant gateway, we would expect to see smoking rates going up. And of course, they’re going in the opposite direction. In the U.S., when vapes became popular, smoking rates continued to decline. In fact, they declined faster than they ever had compared to the historical period before 2013 since vaping became available.”
Stefanie Miller, vice president of external engagement at Juul Labs, said one of the reasons why she wanted to join Juul Labs is that she gets to say that Juul has a problem with youth use. “We don’t need to skirt around that. So I’m going to talk to you about what this company has done to successfully deal with youth using the product,” she said. “We took what we consider a three-pillar approach … it has been a productive initiative that we’ve taken …. It’s limiting underage appeal, restricting underage access and enforcing against third parties, enforcing against illicit products.”
Miller said Juul Labs is also using technology and innovation to help in the company’s fight against youth use. However, Juul Labs is also looking at how initiatives that are put in place to prevent youth use impact adults making the switch from combustible cigarettes. “We’re also considering what these interventions would do to make it potentially more difficult for an adult smoker to have access to a less harmful product, which is not the goal of our company,” said Miller. “We’re trying to walk this really careful line, both from the innovation but also the point-of-sale intervention along these three lines.”
Many of the questions coming from the audience were directed at King concerning the FDA premarket tobacco product authorization process. For example, Fadi Maayta, the CEO and co-founder of Alternative Nicotine Delivery Solutions (ANDS), a Dubai-based vaping product manufacturer, asked King to explain why the agency does not do more to incentivize law-abiding players. The FDA’s current penalty framework, he argued, penalizes good and bad players alike.
King said he understood Maayta’s frustration. There are numerous good players in the vaping industry that don’t have the issues of youth uptake, he acknowledged. The reality, however, is that the U.S. Congress wrote the Tobacco Control Act and prescribed very specific processes that the agency is required to do by law, said King.
“That said, the intent is not to penalize everyone … but we do have to follow the law in terms of implementing the regulations that have been required by us. And that includes a premarket tobacco product process and a rigorous scientific assessment …. We also have to enforce the law, and we are a free market paradigm. So there’s no safe harbor. If you don’t have authorization, your product is subject to enforcement compliance,” explained King. “That said, are there opportunities to streamline those processes? Absolutely. And that’s what we’re looking at. There are efficiencies that I think we can gain by looking at our processes to make it more streamlined moving forward.”
Panel: Research and Innovation Update
GTNF 2023
Regulations in the nicotine industry should change as products become more innovative and less harmful. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen in many markets. During a panel discussion updating attendees on research and innovation, moderator Mohammed Agrabawi, senior director of corporate affairs and communications at ANDS, discussed approaches in the Middle East where governments have imposed high taxes on vaping products.
“I want to take you to the reality where I come from, from the Middle East, where most of the countries are imposing taxes that are 100 percent and 200 percent on vaping products. You can buy a pack of cigarettes [for one-fifth the cost of a disposable vape] …. Don’t you think that governments are part of suppressing innovation and investment in that part because of fiscal and regulatory frameworks?” Agrabawi asked. “Yes, absolutely. And the reason for this is clear. One of the things that Sweden did really, really well is price taxes on a continuum of risk. The lower the risk, the lower the tax.”
For Agrabawi, this clearly demonstrated that government regulation can suppress innovation.
Also on the panel, Tim Andrews, director of Consumer Issues at Americans for Tax Reform and the Tholos Foundation, cited several historic examples of innovation being demonized that would later go on to save lives—he suggested next-generation nicotine products are another example of this. He also stressed the need to better communicate the scientific research on nicotine products and their benefits.
Andrews believes there are better ways to deal with the uptick in youth vaping. “There’s an old saying that goes, ‘Children see and children do,’” he said. “A simple switch or a simple button to activate this product will not prevent [youth use].” Andrews suggested that youth prevention can’t just be simple, such as technology requiring a user to push a button three times. And future solutions will probably incorporate AI or Bluetooth. However, an immediate impact could be made if more was done to fight the black market.
“I would say that unethical retailers … they sell illicit products, and they sell to minors as well. So illicit vaping is a gateway to smoking and vaping rather than legal companies. And if we look into the illicit market, they don’t check IDs, they don’t use [legitimate sales] practices because they’re an illicit company,” explained Andrews. “If you shut down all of the legal products and move it to the black market, it’s going to be worse because we’re unregulated; we don’t know what’s in there; they’re going to sell to kids. You don’t have any safeguards.”
Kang Yu, head of the Research Institute at Hangsen International Group, outlined how her employer has been establishing a framework of harm reduction that will help test new products and produce safer ones. She delivered a comprehensive presentation outlining Hangsen’s strategic evolution within the realms of scientific research and innovation. Yu underscored the organization’s steadfast dedication to enhancing consumer safety by elaborating on their initiatives pertaining to harm reduction.
Yu pointed out that the industry is still young and has a promising future. Yu also commented on the potential of nicotine salts. She emphasized that nicotine salts are a critical component of e-liquid formulations and have a decisive impact on product taste and feel.
“Pure and high-quality nicotine salts can significantly enhance the overall sensory experience, providing consumers with a superior user experience. While benzoate salts have gained popularity in the market, they have limitations in reproducing certain specific taste profiles, such as sour fruits, non-sour fruits, toasted and tobacco flavors,” she said. “Other acids that can be used for salt formation, such as acetoacetate, lactic acid and citric acid, offer unique and rich flavor characteristics once they form salts. For example, acetoacetate can enhance the authenticity of fruit flavors.”
Shawn Long, president of the Zinwi Research Institute, Yunnan, and director of Zinwi Tobacco, said his company has been focused on reducing the harm of their e-liquid products. He said the company has set up advanced safety assessments and a tobacco flavor evolution platform that allows conventional tobacco smokers to find an e-liquid flavor that mimics the brand of combustible cigarettes they are trying to transition away from.
A major reason that Zinwi’s e-liquid has an enhanced flavor profile is the company’s Atomization Technology Research Center, which has self-developed nicotine salts and the sweeteners used in the e-liquids to ensure the highest quality of those components of the e-liquid formula, according to Long. The company also requires each component of its e-liquids to have the highest levels of quality and purity.
Marlen Nazarov, chief technology officer at Alfabet Labs, identified two main challenges in the e-cigarette industry: sustainability and youth access to vapes. On youth access, he suggested the solution is to make the product look less attractive with minimalist packaging, minimal colors and no flavors. He also agreed that additional solutions to challenges with youth use will likely involve AI.
“Innovation should be directed toward the key challenges in the market. So basically, there is no one solution for everything. It’s a really big challenge,” said Nazarov. “For youth use, it’s two parts. The first part is to make the colors less attractive, use conservative packaging without any fruits, etc. For the devices, it’s the same, just a simple white or black device without any images.”
Rex Zhang, strategy director at Shenzhen Smoore Technology Co., discussed what he sees as the two main challenges to the vaping industry: user experience and sustainability. On youth vaping, he outlined how child protection must be more advanced to stop children from using vapes. Zhang detailed Smoore’s advancements in sustainability and vaping efficiency. The company, he said, had reduced the amount of lithium materials in its vaporizers and increased the lifespan of its products, thus fewer products will be discarded.
Zhang also added the drive behind Smoore’s innovations. “I think the solution of best fit for society is a balance solution between regulations and user experience,” he said. “Smoore’s mission ‘Atomization Makes Life Better’ aligns very well with this objective to continue to work on the R&D, improving it for bettering people’s life.”
Time has not been used effectively to lower smoking rates using proven THR policies.
By George Gay
No truer statement about tobacco harm reduction (THR) could ever have been made than this: “Too much time has been wasted.”
This blunt assessment was attributed to Jacek Olczak, CEO of Philip Morris International, in a September press note heading that had him challenge “governments across the globe to embrace smoke-free alternatives to end cigarettes faster.”
I take it that what Olczak was referring to is the time that has not been used by societies to good effect to bring down tobacco smoking rates using proven THR policies. But he might well have had in mind, too, the cumulative time cut from the lives of individuals said to have died “prematurely” from smoking-related diseases—diseases that could have been avoided by employing THR strategies.
The press note includes much that is interesting, but my eye was particularly drawn to a passage where it was said that, according to a new international survey conducted by independent research firm Povaddo for PMI, 82 percent of respondents agreed they would be somewhat or very angry, frustrated or upset to learn that a breakthrough that could help address a societal issue was not made available to the public due to government inaction.
Even very angry doesn’t cut it for me, partly because we are not talking only about government inaction but about government action in undermining such breakthroughs. Later in the press note, Sweden was said to have one of the lowest smoking rates in the developed world, at just 5.8 percent, largely due to the availability of snus, which Swedish men began switching to decades ago. “… The Swedish Snus Commission (SSC) estimates that more than 350,000 smoking-attributable deaths among men could have been avoided each year if the other EU countries had matched Sweden’s tobacco-related mortality rate,” the note said.
If the SSC is correct, and given that the EU has banned snus outside Sweden since 1992, we must reluctantly accept that about 10,500,000 men have, because of the action of the EU authorities in banning snus and then their subsequent, continuing inaction in not unbanning it, died prematurely in about a 30-year period.
OK, so 10,500,000 might be something of a stretch because the EU was smaller in 1992 than it is now, and I don’t know whether the 350,000 annual figure is an average or is based on a single year. But it is clear that we are talking about a big number and that no such number would have been allowed to have occurred in a 30-year war. A truce would have been called long ago and compromises made. But not in respect of the war on snus, and yet nobody will be called to account over what has occurred in the EU because of the ban on snus.
And the question arises as to whether such a calamity, such an outrage, would have been allowed to go almost unnoticed, unremarked in any other field. I think not, but I struggle to understand why this is the case, and the only reasons I have managed to come up with so far are that 1) smokers tend to be financially less well-off than the average person and to have little or no public voice or power, and 2) smokers have been deliberately denormalized by anti-tobacco activists. They have been placed beyond societal norms, so the problems they face are not regarded as being societal issues. People will not be very angry, or even upset, if governments don’t take the problems of smokers seriously.
These are not wholly convincing arguments, are they? And I must be concerned when I cannot even convince myself. I mean, individuals, companies, organizations and governments do worry about smokers, don’t they? At the first opportunity, everybody with the closest or flimsiest connection to tobacco or nicotine will lament that, according to the World Health Organization, 8 million smokers die prematurely each year because of their habit. Ask yourself how many times you have seen that statement written or heard it articulated.
PMI says it used WHO data, estimates and methodologies, along with third-party data, to calculate the potential public health impact of the world’s smokers switching from cigarettes to less harmful, smoke-free products.
“The hypothetical model shows that if smoke-free products are assumed to be 80 percent less risky than cigarettes and if people who currently smoke were to switch to them completely, then over their lifetime, there’s a potential for a tenfold reduction in smoking-attributable deaths compared with [those that would have occurred under] historical tobacco control measures alone,” the press note said.
This is impressive and worthy of note, but the problem here is that in using and, dare I say it, extolling the data and, especially, the methodologies of the WHO, PMI rather shoots itself in the foot.
“For over a decade, PMI has championed a smoke-free future,” Olczak is quoted as saying. “Having invested more than $10.5 billion to scientifically research, develop and commercialize smoke-free products—which today account for more than a third of our total net revenues—we are living this future. Yet, inexplicably, there are countries stuck in the past where smokers can easily access cigarettes—the most harmful form of nicotine consumption—but not the better option of smoke-free alternatives.”
This situation is not universally inexplicable. Imagine for a minute that you are the health minister in a country whose economy does not allow major investments to be made in nation-specific health research. When the WHO comes knocking and tells you that your country has a smoking problem that is draining its finances and that THR is not the way to address it, what are you going to do?
You might notice that PMI is advocating THR, but you also notice that it is relying on WHO data and methodologies. That is, the methodologies are the same, the only difference is the interpretation of the data, so who are you going to believe, the international health organization or the international tobacco/nicotine company? It’s a no-contest.
I don’t want to seem to be an anti-expert or a conspiracy theorist, but I believe that we need to rely less on numbers, which are impersonal and which can be, intentionally or not, highly misleading, and more on values when it comes to addressing the problems caused by smoking. There is certainly something wrong with the ways that health data are manipulated by some, and the situation is getting worse by the day. Let me provide a current example from the U.K.
The ruling Conservative Party, nervous of a general election due next year, is reverting to type and aligning with a former prime minister’s reported policy of cutting the “green crap,” supposedly to help it appeal to its older voter base. And as part of this strategy, some are opposing certain policies aimed at cutting outdoor pollution by pointing out that the word ‘pollution’ has appeared only once as a cause of death on a death certificate.
I cannot say whether this is correct, but it wouldn’t surprise me because it could be argued that, for instance, people don’t die of heart attacks caused only by the inhalation and ingestion of pollutants, which is perhaps one factor—one major factor—among others that might include lifestyle choices.
But in conceding this, I must ask myself why people are so ready to attribute deaths to smoking. By the same reasoning, I take it, people don’t die of heart attacks caused only by the inhalation of tobacco smoke, which will be one factor—one major factor—among others that might include lifestyle choices and pollution.
Of course, we know the answer to this. It’s because of the way the system is set up to focus on smoking but not on pollution. There are certain diseases that are defined as smoking-related, and if a smoker dies of one of these, her death is recorded as having been caused by smoking.
The fact that these diseases could also be defined as pollution-related diseases seems to be glossed over. To get an idea of the contribution of pollution to disease and deaths, it is necessary to listen to the information provided by people such as the U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, who is not afraid to speak out.
Interestingly, Sept. 7 was International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies, and if you look at the U.N. website, you will see that air pollution is described as a twofold problem:
“Health impact: Tiny, invisible particles of pollution penetrate deep into our lungs, bloodstream and bodies. These pollutants are responsible for about one-third of deaths from stroke, chronic respiratory disease and lung cancer as well as one quarter of deaths from heart attack. Ground-level ozone, produced from the interaction of many different pollutants in sunlight, is also a cause of asthma and chronic respiratory illnesses.”
“Climate impact: Short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) are among those pollutants most linked with both health effects and near-term warming of the planet. They persist in the atmosphere for as little as a few days or up to a few decades, so reducing them can have … almost immediate health and climate benefits for those living in places where levels fall.”
It is good to see this emphasized because air pollution, which is generally invisible and is visited upon everyone, even those, such as children, who don’t cause it directly, is a more insidious risk factor than tobacco smoke, which is visible and largely affects only those who consume it. In fact, my newspaper this morning, Sept. 21, has a heading: “Almost all Europeans breathing toxic air.”
Clearly, the figures of one instance of pollution being recorded on a death certificate and 8 million smoking-related deaths annually are both misleading, but they are allowed to guide us because they point us in the direction that we have already determined we want to go. They provide the comfort of confirmation bias. But what we should be doing is determining that direction based on values, not suspect figures, even though such a quest might lead us into difficult places.
And one of those places is, of course, environmental pollution, which, in my opinion, is still not taken seriously enough by the vaping industry, especially when it comes to disposables. I fail to understand how we might be able to justify the proliferation of disposables on the grounds of values.
How can we justify disposables when, clearly, the conversion of all smokers to the consumption of disposable vapes would not be something we could defend—would not, if you like, be something we would wish to become a universal law unless we are seeking to accelerate the end of humanity. And neither can they be justified on the grounds of the good of most people.
In fact, up to a point, I think the same might be said for nondisposable vapes, and so perhaps the time has come for THR advocates to start winding back on vaping devices and concentrating more on products such as snus and nicotine pouches, which are much easier to justify on the grounds of nicotine-user health, the environment and society at large.
A lot of people, including, probably, most of the readers of this magazine, will not agree with this, and they may well be right in not doing so. But I think it is important to have these discussions. THR fails, in my view, if it does not comprise a progressive signpost.
I said at the start of this piece that, in my opinion, Olczak had made what is possibly the truest statement about THR in saying that too much time had been wasted. But he said something even more important that I quoted above and part of which I shall repeat here: “… We are living this future ….”
He’s right: We need to look to the future, not the past, which can be a guide only for those reactionaries not wanting to face the future.
Tobacco companies often get blamed for things only because they are tobacco companies.
By George Gay
Wow! U.S. tobacco companies—just how bad are they? Well, I’ll give you an idea. I received in September an email with news of a study that “… shows food from tobacco-owned brands more ‘hyperpalatable’ than competitors’ food.” The study, by researchers at the University of Kansas, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction.
Addiction, tobacco companies, hyperpalatable—you get the drift.
Hyperpalatable food is apparently what most of us refer to—inconsiderately given the level of hunger in the world—as “junk food”: “… kind of salty, sweet and high-fat fare,” according to the email announcing the publication of the study, which quoted the lead author as saying, “… [h]yperpalatable foods can be irresistible and difficult to stop eating.” Hmm.
U.S. tobacco companies apparently invested heavily in the U.S. food industry during the 1980s, and the researchers found that “… between 1988 and 2001, tobacco-owned foods were 29 percent more likely to be classified as fat-and-sodium hyperpalatable and 80 percent more likely to be classified as carbohydrate-and-sodium hyperpalatable than foods that were not tobacco-owned.”
However, the tobacco companies apparently divested from the U.S. “food system” between the early to mid-2000s, so by now, you would have expected that junk food would be almost off the menu and U.S. citizens brimming with health and vitality. But not so fast! The Kansas University study found that the availability of fat-and-sodium hyperpalatable foods and carbohydrate-and-sodium hyperpalatable foods was still high in 2018, regardless of prior tobacco ownership, “showing these foods have become mainstays of the American diet.”
So, I suppose we must conclude that some food companies not associated with tobacco companies are equally as bad as those associated with tobacco companies when it comes to dishing out junk food? But no; in fact, the researchers have another suggestion to make: “… perhaps the shadow of Big Tobacco has remained,” they say.
Talk about giving a dog a bad name. This has nothing to do with a shadow; it has to do with something called competition. I really hate to state the obvious, but this is down to “market forces.” When one company puts on the market a product that is more useful, shinier or, yes, more palatable than that offered by other companies, its product sells well, and other companies notice this and, wanting to stay in business, start marketing similar products if they can (you won’t read marketing insights like this every day).
The “market” has some advantages and some disadvantages; the latter crop up, for instance, where a product is hyperpalatable to individuals while making public health officials hyperventilate. However, the tobacco industry did not invent the market.
Having said that, I would not seek to defend tobacco companies, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, in respect of all they have done, but to me, what is important is to look forward rather than backward and realize that many of them seem to have the potential and the willingness to address some of the harms they have caused in the past. It seems to me to be absurd not to take advantage of whatever expertise they can bring to the table.
But, clearly, not everybody thinks this way, and at this point, I would like to switch my attention to the U.K., where, also in September, the U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) announced that “the membership of [BAT], Imperial Brands, Japan Tobacco International and Philip Morris International has come to an end.”
“This means that the UKVIA will no longer include any tobacco companies within its membership,” the announcement said. “Following a member-wide consultation, the association will not be accepting any new applications for membership by vaping businesses wholly/part-owned or acquired by tobacco companies in the future. As a result, it will not be accepting any tobacco company funding in the future.”
Two main reasons were given for the change. Firstly, there was said to be a misperception that the association was largely financially supported by tobacco firms, and even though funding from tobacco-owned vaping brands for the most recent membership year amounted to less than four percent, this misconception had given the impression in some quarters that the association was synonymous with combustible tobacco.
Secondly, the association says that it had underestimated the drag on engaging with some key stakeholders, particularly those in public health, that was caused by restrictions placed on tobacco companies.
In one respect, I don’t blame the UKVIA for what it has done because, I assume, it has decided that it can advance the cause of its members and tobacco harm reduction (THR) more effectively if it is not associated with tobacco companies. It would argue, no doubt, that it will help prolong the healthy lives of more current smokers if its untainted members go it alone.
But its stance does worry me because it seems to be giving in to, and aligning with, the irrational views of others. If we want to solve the problems caused by smoking, we, and “we” includes public health folk, need to be taking advice from anybody who can provide insights into smoking and quitting, and there can be little doubt that tobacco companies can provide such insights.
In fact, much against my better instinct, I shall provide a little history here. The first time I heard about the continuum of risk and THR was at a meeting called by one of the major tobacco manufacturers that has now been ejected from the UKVIA. And that meeting was called some years before the arrival on the scene of the electronic cigarettes now advocated by the association. It should be remembered that tobacco companies have been in the vanguard of some important initiatives when it comes to THR.
Given this, I believe that those THR stakeholders not part of the tobacco industry should not give in to intellectual cowardice. It is possible to listen to the ideas of tobacco companies and then reject them. There is no obligation. I do not accept as right everything that tobacco companies do, and I’m certain those companies would not endorse much of what I have to say.
It is also worthwhile mentioning something that might seem a little perverse: the fact that if it were not for smokers and the tobacco industry, the UKVIA and all its member companies would not exist. Nor would all the jobs in tobacco/nicotine public health and the universities where many people make a decent living out of researching often pointless aspects of tobacco and nicotine consumption to come up with excruciating ways of making life unpleasant for those who choose to smoke.
It used to be said of the tobacco industry that it needed to keep addicting new generations of people to tobacco products in order to keep its operations going. So, since we are told that most vapers are recruited from the ranks of smokers, the UKVIA, all its members, the numerous other vaping associations, public health officials, academics, researchers, those of us commenting on these matters in the media, etc., are all dependent on a “healthy” tobacco industry, something we need to keep in mind before we get too holier-than-thou—before we start tut-tutting about smokers over our gin and tonics at yet another THR conference.
Perhaps I’m being unfair, but I sometimes get the feeling that it is only smokers who live authentic lives aligned with their values while the rest of us have at least associate membership to the hypocrisy institute. There is an interesting piece posted by Clive Bates on his Counterfactual website in which he describes 10 ways in which tobacco control advocates have commandeered the methods of Big Tobacco.
I was particularly taken with his point six, “aggressive economic actors. Big Tobacco was an economic interest group threatened by evidence of the dangers of smoking tobacco,” Bates points out. “Tobacco control activism is an economic interest group threatened by evidence of the safety of smoke-free nicotine use,” he added. (I should point out that at the end of his piece, Bates says that his comments are aimed only at certain sections of tobacco control activism and that he acknowledges that many in this field are sincere in what they do.)
But let’s widen that idea out a little. To my way of thinking, the vaping industry has become a fairly aggressive economic actor while many people within the vaping community are involved in what I would describe as tobacco control activism, though it is difficult to be sure whether they would be seen as being on the acceptable side or the other.
Bates indicates that the World Health Organization is one of the agencies he sees as exhibiting the “awful attitudes and behaviors” of mainstream global tobacco control, so I would suggest that though it might be wrong to lump the vaping industry into the mainstream of tobacco control, it must be conceded that it seems ready to get into bed with the WHO when that agency’s questionable figures might help advance vaping’s cause.
Of course, it could be argued that marching to the tune of 8 million premature, smoking-related deaths a year is just fine when under the THR banner, but not when under the banner of quit-or-die, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. If you believe something is not right, you are not acting authentically to pretend it is right for what you might think is the right reason.
As Bates well catalogues, both Big Tobacco and Big [not his word] Tobacco Control have got things badly wrong at times. But is there a danger that Big Vaping is going down a similar route? Currently, a lot of noise is being made about calls for banning disposable vapes, and it is true that a lot of that noise is coming from people deliberately distorting the picture by linking what they say is a rise in vaping by young people with the arrival of disposable products.
Once again, the figures are highly questionable, and, in any case, vaping among young people is a policing issue, not a product issue; and from this point of view, it is right to challenge the conclusions being drawn.
But there is something else going on here that I don’t think reflects well on the vaping industry. In part, the calls for bans on disposables are about environmental issues, which cannot be dismissed. As far as I have seen, the industry defends its position opposing bans on disposables with four main arguments.
One argument has it that a ban will not work. The second says it is encouraging consumers to dispose of their used products at points from which they can be collected and disposed of properly. The third claims that it is improving its disposable products so that they are easier to dispose of in an environmentally friendly manner. And the fourth states that because disposable products require a lower initial outlay than nondisposable products, they help financially poorer smokers transition to a less risky product.
If I were somebody promoting bans on disposables, I would dismiss the first and second arguments as being: 1) something for the imposing authorities to worry about and 2) little more than wishful thinking. While accepting the possibility that the third might prove feasible, I would suggest that any ban could be reconsidered when an acceptable level of improvement had been reached.
And in respect of the fourth argument, I would suggest that the industry involves itself in a little introspection. Is its concern really about impoverished smokers or about sales and profits? Indeed, could it instead of selling disposables sell its nondisposables for less than is currently the case and accept that its profits will fall? In what other ways do the people working in the industry, and especially those at the top of industry, show concern for impoverished people? Do they, for instance, advocate the redistribution of wealth?
I think these questions and more are worth considering. Otherwise, in the future, it might be the case that somebody—possibly an alien visiting Earth after the demise of humanity—will revisit Bates’ piece and add point 11. Big Tobacco failed to deal with the environmental harms caused by its cigarettes. Big Tobacco Control failed effectively to oppose Big Tobacco’s environmental shortcomings. Big Vaping knowingly and wilfully contributed to the Earth’s environmental breakdown.
The law, which also approved increasing taxes on vaping products, requires retailers to register vape products with the Louisiana Alcohol and Tobacco Control in the V.A.P.E. Directory by Nov. 1.
Two state agency heads are listed as defendants in the lawsuit filed in East Baton Rouge Parish — ATC Commissioner Ernest Legier and Louisiana Department of Revenue Secretary Kevin Richard, according to media reports.
“The Louisiana Department of Revenue administers state tax laws as passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor,” said Richard in a statement Thursday. “Act 414 of the 2023 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature is no exception. The Department will respect the judicial process and will reevaluate collection efforts and enforcement once this matter is resolved.”
Italy’s Regional Administrative Court of Lazio (TAR) has ruled to suspend a decree that would make CBD oil a narcotic substance until January 16, 2024.
In early October, Business of Cannabis reported that the TAR of Lazio, the same regional court responsible for overturning a similar decree making hemp flower a narcotic in February, had suspended the decree until October 24.
This initial suspension has now been extended by nearly three months, with a new hearing to consider the decree’s merits to be held in mid-January following the submission of an appeal by the Ministry of Health.
According to the TAR of Lazio, there are no ‘established concrete dangers of inducing physical or mental dependence’ from CBD and there ‘does not appear to be, as things stand, any imminent risks for the protection of public health’.
It continued that this means “the conditions exist for suspending the contested measure, with the decision on the merits to be made shortly, due to the matter’s relevance, at the first public hearing available in the section’s calendar.”
The vaping industry is young at only 20 years old. However, Eve Wang, executive director of Smoore International and vice president of Smoore Technology, said the industry isn’t going to get much older if it doesn’t find a way to balance innovation and social responsibility. Wang should know. She has been in the industry for more than 17 years.
