The beatdown of vapor products goes on as Connecticut’s largest city is now looking to ban flavored vaping and other tobacco products. City lawmakers announced the intent to ban flavors at a press conference last week.
In addition, state Sen. Marilyn Moore said she will address new legislation before the Connecticut General Assembly’s Public Health Committee, on which she serves, to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes.
If passed, Bridgeport would join more than 100 cities in the nation and two states that have enacted bans on flavored tobacco products, which the group said have been proven to be more attractive to children.
Earlier this year, Connecticut lawmakers announced they wanted more vapor industry legislation.
Some Loveland City Council members deliberated on a proposed ban on flavored vaping and other tobacco product sales in private text messages, possibly violating Colorado state law, a Dec. 8 text message thread shows.
Credit: Pixabay
Steve Zansberg, a Denver attorney and president of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, called the thread an “extremely clear-cut” violation of state rules.
The Loveland Reporter-Herald obtained the messages from Mayor Jacki Marsh after the paper received a confidential tip. All nine council members and City Manager Steve Adams were included in the thread, though not all council members participated.
Time stamps on the text thread show that 13 of the messages were exchanged by councilors during their regular meeting that evening, which was held virtually and dealt mostly with the proposed ban and the problem of youth vaping.
In the text conversation, council members Kathi Wright, Steve Olson, Don Overcash and John Fogle deliberated on how they would respond to calls for a ban on selling the products.
“Looks like another special meeting this month,” Wright said at 9:17 p.m., reviving a thread that Adams began earlier in the day to let councilors know about a scheduling change.
“yup. but don’t cave,” Overcash replied.
After Olson asked whether Wright was interested in “working with business to find a win win solution,” Wright said she “still believe(d) we have another step, talking with local business.”
In its initial public stock offering, Supreme, a maker of fast-moving consumer goods such as vaping brand 88Vape, announced the pricing for its initial public offering in London, joining a rush to market early in the new year.
Credit: 88Vape
Supreme is listing on AIM and expects to start trading today.
Supreme said it has placed 5.0 million shares at 134 pence each to raise GBP67.5 million. Of this, GBP60.0 million is for selling shareholders, and GBP7.5 million from new shares for the company, which it said will be used to pay off debt, according to Alliance News. The selling shareholders include Sandy Chadha, the founder and chief executive officer, who will retain a 56.8 percent stake, leaving a 43 percent free float.
Supreme will have a GBP156.1 million market capitalisation at its IPO price. Supreme’s IPO is part of a flurry of new listing activity in London early in the 2021. These have been headlined by large-size floats by bootmaker Dr Martens and card seller Moonpig. Also planning IPOs are miner Cornish Metals Inc, investment fund Cordiant Digital Infrastructure Ltd, and life sciences company 4basebio UK Societas.
Not yet confirmed for London, but potentially biggest by far, is food delivery firm Deliveroo, which is expected to have a market cap of more than $7 billion. Deliveroo also is considering a New York listing, according to media reports.
Supreme supplies products across five target categories: batteries, lighting, vaping, sports nutrition & wellness, and branded household consumer goods. In addition to brands it owns, such as 88Vape, Supreme licenses major battery brands Duracell, Energizer and Eveready. Its customers include Fraser Group PLC’s Sports Direct, motor supplies chain Halfords Group PLC, and grocers Asda and Iceland.
Supreme recording adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of GBP16.2 million on revenue of GBP92.3 million in the financial year that ended March 31 last year. In the six months to September 30 last year, Ebitda was GBP8.4 million on revenue of GBP56.3 million.
The company said it plans to pay dividends at a rate of 50 percent of net profit. “I am deeply proud of the business we have developed and believe our flotation on AIM will provide Supreme with the tools with which to capitalise on a number of exciting growth opportunities,” said CEO Chadha. “We have created a profitable business of significant scale, underpinned by a platform which provides a seamless route to market for a number of leading brands and product categories.”
The owner of the Kool cigarette brand sued the maker of Bloom cannabis e-cigarettes in Los Angeles federal court for allegedly infringing the brand’s trademark, according to Bloomberglaw.com.
Credit: Bloom
Bloom’s logo uses interlocking “O” letters that confusingly resemble ITG Brands LLC’s famous Kool logo, according to ITG’s complaint. The suit was filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
ITG says Capna Intellectual, which owns the Bloom brand, has applied for federal trademarks covering Bloom for e-cigarettes and oral vaporizers. ITG says it sent Capna a cease-and-desist letter in December.
The complaint says the Bloom marks are intended to trade off of Kool’s well-known branding.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should encourage harm reduction products and help smokers give up cigarettes, according to Markus Lindblad, head of external affairs at the Haypp Group, the parent company of NicoKick, which describes itself as the world’s largest American e-commerce company in the smokeless industry.
In a letter to Acting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Janet Woodcock, Lindblad encouraged her to prioritize the goal she helped set at the FDA in previous years to enable greater use of healthier harm reduction products and help smokers quit combustible products.
“Our mission at NicoKick is to drive real change in the industry and encourage alternative nicotine enjoyment for adults seeking products other than inhalants,” Linblad wrote.
“We recognize that your focus is understandably on addressing the coronavirus pandemic, but we hope as you lead the Food and Drug Administration that you continue to prioritize tobacco harm reduction products that will produce better health outcomes for millions of American smokers. We can all agree any effort to transition from traditional tobacco products to those that reduce harm to the consumer should be supported and would be an important win for public health.”
SwissX Labs, a U.S.-based CBD company, has brought a lawsuit claiming that Juul Labs infringed on one of its patents. Filed in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, the suit alleges that Juulpods copy the use of a patented combined e-liquid and vaporization chamber (cartomizer) owned by SwissX.
Credit: Insurance Journal
Owned by billionaire Alki David, SwissX states in the suit that Juul Labs has known about U.S. Patent No. 9,351,522 (522 patent) since at least March 2018. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued the patent in 2016 to inventor Robert Safari, who assigned it SwissX.
After its issue on May 31, 2016, the 522 patent was was active until June 1, 2020. On June 2, 2020, “the enforceability of the 522 patent temporarily lapsed, due to an inadvertent failure to pay the maintenance fee,” according to the filing. On Dec. 21, 2020, SwissX filed a petition to reinstate the 522 patent at the USPTO. The Petition was granted, and SwissX paid the outstanding fee.
“Thus, on December 21, 2020, the [522 patent] was restored to full force and effect … SwissX is entitled to damages adequate to compensate it for all acts of infringement that occurred, or which may occur, at any point while the [522 patent] was or is in force,” the suit states.
Juul Labs has not publicly responded to the lawsuit. A judge recently dismissed an investor lawsuit against Juul Labs. However, the company still faces lawsuits from several states and school districts around the U.S.
Vapers say taste matters. According to a survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan, among 3,000 Chinese vapor consumers, taste was a key factor in choosing an e-cigarette. The top three indexes in flavor were the overall sensation of taste (66 percent), aroma (61 percent) and the amount of vapor (50 percent).
In late-December, FEELM, a heating technology brand, introduced the industry’s first Taste Evaluation Model. The model allows FEELM researchers the ability to describe the taste of atomization scientifically. Composed of four dimensions, flavor, strength, note and vapor, and 51 specific indexes, the model establishes a system to evaluate the human senses of mouth, tongue, nose and throat.
FEELM Taste Evaluation Model
Frank Han, CEO of FEELM, said the company’s devotion to continuously improving the taste of e-cigarettes originated from a client’s concern. “How’s the taste of California strawberries at 6am? What’s the difference between it and that of refrigerated ones?” he said the client asked. “Could FEELM ceramic coils bring back the taste of California strawberry at 6am with flavored e-liquid?”
Inspired by the client, FEELM team members conducted numerous studies with the goal of developing a scientific system to properly evaluate and provide the perfect flavor. “As you can imagine, analyzing and delivering such an abstract concept as taste will [take] anyone tons of effort,” Han said.
In order to help with challenging endeavor, FEELM’s parent company, Smoore Technology, set up several research institutes both in China and other locations around the world (Smoore does not produce any e-liquid). More than 700 Smoore technical experts that have received more than 2,000 international patents began building a world-leading atomization platform, according to the release. Now, over 75 percent of those researchers are focused on understanding and improving taste through atomization. Smoore also established relationships with other research institutions such as Tongji University, Tsinghua University and Princeton University.
FEELM CEO Frank Han
“This institute will focus on the background study and harm reduction from new perspectives such as bio-medicine and artificial intelligence,” the release states. “To further study the science behind atomization, FEELM has also established a professional taste evaluation team, and built a Taste Evaluation Lab complied with the national standard and could hold seven tasters at a time.”
The process for evaluating a flavor is precise. Before picking up a vaping device, each taster washes and sanitize their hands and then chews a slice of lemon or yellow peach to clean the palate. Testers than drink boiled water to freshen up the mouth and smell coffee beans, according to a FEELM representative.
Reporter in FEELM Taste Lab
“It is not until the light and the exhaust fan in the booth are turned on that the taster begins tasting. While tasting, a recorded form with all detailed criteria is prepared for scoring and taking notes,” the representative said. “Afterwards, the same vaping device will be handed over to chromatography, electron microscope as well as reliability labs to analyze its e-liquid ingredients, coil and safety … a diagnostic report will be produced based on both human and machine criteria. FEELM is then able to figure out the deficiencies in the vaping experience and work out precise solutions.”
FEELM research lab
The FEELM Taste Scientific Institute is made up of more than 10 labs, including Cell Lab, Taste Evaluation Lab, Element Analysis Lab, Chromatography Lab, and Electron Microscope Lab. The company says its labs can produce 50 physical tests, more than 200 chemical tests, six microbiological test items, three genetic toxicology tests, three categories of clinical abuse tests, as well as three categories of human factor testing.
“Besides scientific research, great taste cannot be separated from production. Smoore has established a rigorous production safety standard, which is even stricter than the TPD in the EU and AFNOR in France,” the representative said. The production protocols are also more stringent than what is required by the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) process for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), covering 50 individual tests.”
FEELM also developed the first fully automated pod production line in the vapor industry. Its production capacity is 6,000 pieces per hour, boosting efficiency five times over manual production. Automated production guarantees the stability and consistency of quality.
“Taste is a meaningful word,” said Han. “Great taste relies on the scientific system of fundamental research, the persistent improvement of product development and manufacturing, strict quality control, and a devoted focus towards science and ingenuity.”
Leadership for the city of Missoula, Montana Missoula’s have recommended that the city not enforce its ban against flavored vaping products until May. Enforcement was to begin Monday.
Credit: Nadine Shaabana
The decision comes after two Missoula vape shops and the Montana Smoke Free Association filed suit against Mayor John Engen, Missoula County health officer Ellen Leahy and the city of Missoula.
The lawsuit claims the city’s ordinance flies in the face of state law because the ban applies to adults as well as juveniles, according to NBC Montana. Engen told the Council he’d like to postpone that until May to see what the legislature might do and to prevent unnecessarily spending taxpayer money on litigation. No one objected.
The latest round of restrictions for the vaping industry by Nova Scotia’s government has caught the ire of the co-owner of a vape shop in Dartmouth. William MacEachern of the Cloud Factory Vape Shop is seeking an injunction against the eastern Canadian province’s newest restrictions on vaping, arguing they unfairly burden adults who are trying to kick a bad habit.
Credit: Fraser Institute
MacEachern launched a constitutional challenge against increased taxes on vaping products, a ban on flavored e-cigarettes and e-liquids, and a prohibition on sampling items in vaping shops, according to Global News. His lawyers say the case is about Nova Scotians’ access to a valuable harm reduction tool in the war against a “No. 1″ killer: cigarettes.
“In basically doubling the cost of our applicant’s vaping products, it greatly reduces their access,” said MacEachern’s lawyer, Sarah Emery. “We’re not arguing that he has an economic interest to cheap vape products as a recreational use, we’re arguing this is a matter of access and that goes to Section 7 rights to security of the person.”
Emery and her partners at Patterson law are seeking an immediate suspension of vaping rules that came into effect in 2020 — rules that earned the province a good deal of praise from Canadian health advocates when first announced in 2019.
In April 2020, Nova Scotia became the first Canadian province to ban the sale of flavored vape juices and e-cigarettes in an effort to reduce their appeal to youth. Higher taxes went into effect in September that year, bringing the rate to 50 cents per ml of e-liquid, and 20 percent of the retail price of all devices.
The Biden administration has announced a regulatory freeze on all new and pending rules introduced in the last part of the Trump administration. Included in the freeze are the new finalized rules for premarket tobacco product applications (PMTA) and substantial equivalence (SE) that were announced on Jan. 19, the last full day of the Trump administration.
The FDA’s CBD enforcement policy draft guidance, which had been under review at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since July, was also withdrawn.
Stakeholders and lawmakers have been anticipating the guidance for two years, since the 2018 Farm Bill gave FDA authority over hemp-derived CBD. Representatives from the U.S. Hemp Roundtable and the National Industrial Hemp Council, both of which met with OMB to discuss the draft guide in late July, say the lack of regulatory clarity from the FDA has led to uncertainty in the hemp and CBD industry.
The memo, issued by White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain, calls on the heads of executive departments and agencies to “propose or issue no rule in any manner – including by sending a rule to the Office of the Federal Register [OFR] – until a department or agency head appointed or designated by the president after noon on January 20, 2021, reviews and approves the rule.” Previous administrations, including those of Trump and Barack Obama, issued similar memos to stop last-minute actions by the outgoing administration.
What this means for the vapor industry is unclear. It does not change the rules concerning the Sept. 9 deadline to submit a PMTA to be eligible to stay on the market for year. Because the rule was not formally published in the Federal Register by the U.S. FDA before the end of Trump’s presidency, the Biden administration could move forward with the rule as is, make changes to the rule or scrap the rules entirely.
An editor’s note on the Federal Register website reads, ” The Food and Drug Administration withdrew this document while it was on public inspection. It will remain on public inspection until the close of business on January 27, 2021. A copy of the withdrawal request is available at the Office of the Federal Register.”
The White House memo also explains that it does not strictly apply to “rules” but also to “any substantive action by an agency (normally published in the Federal Register) that promulgates or is expected to lead to the promulgation of a final rule or regulation, including notices of inquiry, advance notices of proposed rulemaking, and any agency statement of general applicability and future effect that sets for a policy on a statutory, regulatory, or technical issue or an interpretation of a statutory or regulatory issue.”
Vapor Voice has reached out to the FDA for a response concerning the status of PMTAs for electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products.
