The global market is seeing rapid growth. That growth is continue for the next several years according to industry market reports. The legal marijuana market size is expected to reach $73.6 billion by 2027, according to a new report published by Grand View Research.
It is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 18.1 percent during the forecast period, the report states. Increasing legalization of cannabis for medical as well as adult-use is expected to promote the positive growth.
“On the basis of type, the medical segment held the leading revenue share of 71.0 percent in 2019, owing to the growing adoption of cannabis as a pharmaceutical product for treating severe medical conditions, such as cancer, arthritis, and Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease among other neurological conditions,” the report states. “Moreover, increasing need for pain management therapies along with growing disease burden of chronic pain among elders is expected to boost the product demand.”
The report states that the legal marijuana flower (buds) segment accounted for the largest market share in terms of revenue and was valued at $9.1 billion in 2019, because of the products growing availability.
“Buds are primary plant products and are readily available without any processing, which makes them relatively affordable for low-income patients. Moreover, the rapid onset of action of smoking buds compared to other types is anticipated to further fuel the segment growth,” the report states. “Based on medical applications, the chronic pain segment dominated the legal marijuana market in 2019 owing to presence of a large patient pool. On the other hand, mental disorder application is expected to witness the fastest growth over the forecast period owing to the growing number of patients suffering from mental disorders, such as anxiety disorder, depressions, and Alzheimer’s disease.”
Vapor sales are slumping during the Covid-19 crisis, while combustible cigarette sales continue to perform better than expected, according to two industry analysts.
Overall sales volume for traditional cigarettes was down just 0.2 percent for the four-week period that ended July 11, according to the latest Nielsen survey of convenience stores.
By comparison, the sales volume was down 7.2 percent in the four-week period that ended in Aug. 10, 2019, writes Richard Craver in an article for the Winston-Salem Journal.
Meanwhile, sales of electronic cigarettes — down 13.2 percent for the four-week period — have continued to slump five months after the Food and Drug Administration implemented its latest round of heightened regulations on the products.
The FDA regulations have depressed the demand for closed-pod cartridges that provide the nicotine, with No. 2-selling Vuse of R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. being the lone exception, according to the article.
The ability of traditional cigarette to flatten its sales decline year-over-year represents “a very dramatic change in the market and coincides with the concerted attacks on vaping over the past year,” said David Sweanor, an adjunct law professor at the University of Ottawa and the author of several e-cigarette studies. “It is deeply ironic that the credit for the recovery of the cigarette business from a near-death experience a little over a year ago can be credited to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Michael Bloomberg and the others who pushed an abstinence-only agenda on nicotine. By undermining the low risk alternatives to cigarettes they protected the cigarette business.”
The biggest factor in the most recent report was the list price hike by the major three U.S. tobacco manufacturers in June.
Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog reported that Philip Morris USA raised its list price by 11 cents a pack for Marlboro, including Marlboro HeatSticks, and eight other brands. It is typical that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and ITG Brands LLC raise their prices by a similar amount.
The list price is what wholesalers pay manufacturers for their products. The increase typically is passed on to customers at retail, the article states. The manufacturers also raised by 8 cents a pack the list prices of their traditional cigarettes on Feb. 23.
During 2019, the manufacturers raised their prices by 9 cents to 11 cents a pack in April, 6 cents in June and 8 cents in October. Traditional cigarettes had $60.05 billion in sales at convenience stores over the past 52 weeks, representing 80 percent of all U.S. tobacco sales, according to the Nielsen report.
Moist snuff and chewing tobacco were at $7.51 billion and 10 percent, while electronic cigarettes were at $3.8 billion and 5 percent, and cigars at $3.59 billion and 5 percent.
Overall e-cigarette sales-volume growth has declined steadily since Nielsen’s Aug. 10, 2019, report, when it was up 60.2 percent year over year.
The latest FDA restrictions on the sector debuted Feb. 6. The FDA raised the legal smoking age from 18 to 21 on Dec. 20. Those restrictions foremost required manufacturers of cartridge-based e-cigarettes, such as Juul Labs Inc., R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., NJoy and Fontem Ventures, to stop making, distributing and selling “unauthorized flavorings” by Feb. 6, or risk enforcement actions.
The menthol and tobacco flavors still allowed for cartridge e-cigarette flavorings are the same as those that are legal in traditional cigarettes, the article states.
Juul’s four-week dollar sales have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 31.7 percent decline for the latest report. By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 62.9 percent in the latest report and NJoy down 14.2 percent.
Juul has a 57.6% market share, down from 58.9 percent in the previous report. Vuse is at 22 percent, up from 20.4 percent, while NJoy at 5 percent, down from 11.3 percent, and Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs at 2.7 percent, down from 3 percent.
Herzog said that NJoy “refutes Nielsen’s data and methodology,” according to the article.
Regulation of e-cigarettes and other smoke-free nicotine products became a major topic during the virtual Global Nicotine Forum 2020 (GFN 2020) this year as advocates seek a more promising solution for smokers to quit.
The forum, themed “Nicotine: Science, Ethics and Human Rights,” was held on June 11-12, saw 30 experts across the globe speak, all with one common goal; to provide a safe and transparent industry for both smokers and those planning to make the switch to alternative tobacco products.
Discussions started with how attacks on the THR (tobacco harm reduction) movement has been intensified with fake news, misleading studies and unethical media campaigns. All speakers agreed that action needed to be taken immediately before things worsen and that the technology needed to be regulated, not restricted or banned.
Adult consumers should have access to their choice of regulated devices and liquid as it can substantially reduce the risks suffered by smokers from the tar, which is the byproduct of smoke. The THR advocates also highlighted that consumers needed to be truthfully and wholly informed of the life-saving potential of vaping.
Credit: Tasnim Lokman
Anaesthesiologist Dr John Oyston spoke on the importance of a patient-centred approach where he spoke of patients who needed removal of their lungs or amputation of the leg due to their smoking habit.
He said that if these patients did not smoke or had stopped smoking at middle age, such procedures were unnecessary.
“I’ve seen the damage cigarettes do to the human body or to the human lives. I believe tobacco is the real pandemic,” he said.
“Even in this plagued year, tobacco is on track to kill five times as many people as Covid-19. E-cigarettes are far many times safer than combustible cigarettes and it makes no sense for us to allow people to continue smoking cigarettes.
“Banning e-cigarettes is an infringement to people’s right to choose a safer alternative and to make their own healthcare decisions.”
Oyston, who has nearly 40 years of medical practice under his belt, said e-cigarettes could save about six million lives in the United States and yet some people are trying to ban it and prevent them from being utilised.
“The global tobacco industry makes US$62 billion (RM264.1 billion) in profit and at the cost of 7 million deaths every year. They accept the death of half of their customers as sacrifice they have to pay in order to make money,” he said.
Conference director Professor Gerry Stinson said nicotine was among the top three most favourite drugs globally and calling the traditional cigarette “a dirty nicotine delivery system,” highlighting that it was the combustion that causes the problem.
Stinson, who is from Imperial College London and formerly part of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, stated that if the nicotine was separated from the cigarette itself, such as what vaping, snus and Heat-Not-Burn products, it gave smokers potential to switch away from smoking.
Dubbing these new technologies as a “free gift to public health,” Stinson, however, admitted that many smokers globally continued to be misled by major campaigns against THR.
Meanwhile, Professor David Sweanor echoed the same idea, saying that these new nicotine products had the potential for the biggest breakthrough in public health. He said advocates, experts and stakeholders needed to use the principles of reason, science and humanism to look at what is available and work out what could be done.
Stinson and Sweanor both touched on the role of taxation, stating that consumers would likely switch to vaping if it was cheaper and more accessible compared to the cigarette.
“Safer nicotine products have to be cheaper but there’s more we can do to make them accessible. No doubt countries will be concerned about the loss of tax revenue — but please think of this and how important it is.
“The opportunity we have is to fundamentally change the course of public health history, relegating cigarettes to history’s ashtray,” Sweanor said.
He also reiterated that separating nicotine from cigarette was safer and less harmful to body as it removed the deathly ingredient; tar. He quoted Michael Russel, “People smoke for the nicotine but die from the tar.”
The forum also agreed that regulation for the nicotine products was vital to avoid a repeat of the national outbreak of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (Evali) crisis that took over the United States last year.
Director of Pro-Vapeo Mexico Dr Roberto A Sussman said the certain parties had taken advantage of the Evali crisis to spread misinformation and fear on vaping which did not only affected the States but globally as well.
“This was seen in many polls. For example, 66 per cent of Americans thought incorrectly that Evali was caused by Juul (an e-cigarette brand) and other vaping devices.
“Unfortunately, only 28 per cent thought correctly that this surge of disease was caused by the illegal THC vape pens,” the physics lecturer at National University of Mexico said.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after completing investigations in February, recommended that people not use THC-containing e-cigarette or vaping products since it has identified vitamin E acetate, often used as an additive in THC-containing products, as a chemical of concern.
More than 30 countries worldwide have banned e-cigarettes as of 2020 including Thailand, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia. As of April last year (2019), Malaysia’s former Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad announced a new bill whilst pointing out that at present tobacco cigarettes and e-cigarettes are regulated under different directives.
Cigarettes are regulated by the Control of Tobacco Product Regulations 2004 under the Food Act 1983, while e-cigarette liquid containing nicotine, falls under the Poisons Act 1952. He stated that the new bill will underline all regulations and controls on e-cigarettes and vapes, including the sales guidelines.
However, there has been no news or updates following the change in government back in March and Covid-19 pandemic.
The international health profession is rightly focused on the SARS-CoV-2 virus threat at the moment. Meanwhile, another multinational threat has insidiously spread: Alarmism about nicotine vapor products (aka e-cigarettes) has infected a growing number of governments around the world, causing authorities to eschew science, logic, and human nature. Out of blind panic, they are disregarding the indisputable evidence that giving smokers legal access to nicotine vapor can save millions of lives. Instead, they embrace prohibitionist policies that will keep people smoking and dying. The main culprit behind spreading this mass psychosis is, sadly, the United States.
MIchelle Minton / Credit: Competitive Enterprise Institute
I have written extensively about agencies, health charities, and activists who have orchestrated the campaign of fear and doubt around e-cigarettes—products that even notorious anti-vaping advocates, like University of California San Francisco Professor Stanton Glantz, admit are substantially less toxic than smoking. I and others have dissected the financial and professional benefits that drive the campaign to ban nicotine vapor products even while deadly cigarettes remain freely available. Here, I will discuss the methods by which these entities cultivate and export e-cigarette alarmism worldwide.
The three main players in the tragicomedy public discourse on e-cigarettes are: representatives of government agencies, public health activists, and the media. The media has acted mostly as a megaphone for government agencies and activists, parroting and amplifying the narrative disseminated by government actors and activists. This post will focus primarily on how anti-tobacco activists, in and outside of government, created and sold those narratives.
Statistical Sleights of Hand
Authorities in the U.S. have become pioneers in the art of statistical hocus pocus. They managed to transform limited evidence about shifting trends in vaping among young people into supposed proof of a full-blown nicotine-use crisis. And, like any good magician, performing this trick often involves misdirection. In the case of statistics, such misdirection is often achieved by:
Focusing on the scariest-sounding data;
Using the scariest language to describe data; and
Ignoring or downplaying details that put the data in a less scary context.
A good example is the way government, media, and anti-vaping activists used the results of the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), a survey of middle and high school students, administered annual by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Months before the 2018 NYTS data were made public, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the results showed youth vaping had become an “epidemic.” The media repeated the information, as dictated by the FDA, over and over again so that, by the time results were actually released, it hardly mattered what the survey really showed. The narrative had been set in the public mind: Teens were now vaping nicotine in epidemic proportions. Of course, once researchers were finally able to analyze the data, they found little more than smoke and mirrors.
Highlight the scariest data. Media outlets from Fox News to National Public Radio ran headlines with some variation of the talking point that between 2017 and 2018 youth vaping had doubled and now one in five youth were users of nicotine vapor products. This generated public concern and interest in solving the problem, which, of course, was the goal.
What neither the FDA nor the media highlighted, however, was that this data point only referred to the number of students who reported any vaping in the 30 days prior to the survey. While it could mean some of those youth were vaping nicotine every day, it also meant some portion may have only vaped once, perhaps for the first time, and never again. That’s what a later examination of the data found. The vast majority of youth who reported “vaping” on the NYTS did so on a handful of days. In fact, less than 1 percent of underage students who never smoked reported vaping regularly.
Use scary language. In 2017, 11.7 percent of students reported any past-month use of e-cigarettes in the NYTS. In 2018, that number rose to 20.8 percent, a 9 percent increase year over year. But a 9 percent increase in youth vaping just doesn’t sound as scary as youth vaping “doubled.” Again, that’s the point. The use of relative versus absolute numbers is often employed specifically to make something appear more important.
Downplay mitigating details. Within weeks of the FDA’s announcement, the existence of a youth vaping epidemic took on the status of indisputable truth. And the matter of how e-cigarettes impact youth health eclipsed considerations about the products’ potential benefits for adults and the hazards that always accompany any sort of prohibition. The national survey had, after all, shown a doubling in the numbers with over 20 percent of students (one in five) now vaping nicotine. Except, in addition to ignoring the fact that most youth were not vaping regularly, both the FDA and the media ignored the fact that the survey did not say what youth were vaping.
The NYTS questionnaire asked students about their use of “e-cigarettes,” which it describes as “battery powered devices that usually contain a nicotine-based liquid that is vaporized and inhaled.” However, researchers have found that most of the students who report “vaping” on surveys about e-cigarettes don’t use nicotine. For example, a study from 2016 found that approximately 65 percent of the 12th, 10th, and eighth grade students who used e-cigarettes reporting using “just flavoring” without nicotine. More recent research indicates that a substantial portion of youth who report “vaping” also use cannabis. In fact, 50 percent of students who reported any e-cigarette use and 70 percent of those who reported frequent use on NYTS also said they had used marijuana in e-cigarettes.
Arguably the most important detail ignored in panic over youth vaping was the fact that, despite fears about vaping leading to smoking, youth smoking rates were continuing to decline. In fact, the rate of smoking among both adolescents and adults hit a record low in 2018 and have continued to decline since. But the FDA and most media outlets paid little attention to the details about how often youth were vaping, what they were vaping, and what effect it might be having on health because these details might not produce the same level of alarm as the idea of an “epidemic,” which again, is the point. And it worked.
Over the following years, not a day would pass without some new headline about the problem of youth vaping, the evil e-cigarette companies targeting teens, or the need for authorities to do something. As a result, counties and states have begun to prohibit e-cigarettes, the federal government raised the national minimum tobacco purchasing age to 21, banned non-tobacco flavors for pre-filled vaping devices, and is currently considering a bevy of additional restrictions to make these products less attractive, harder to obtain, and more expensive for adult smokers. Given that e-cigarettes, particularly flavored e-cigarettes, are the most effective means of helping smokers quit smoking, this should not be hailed as a victory. But, at least among those morally opposed to nicotine use, it was. Now they are seeking to export that “successful” strategy to the rest of the world.
American Panic Down Under
Despite the irrefutable evidence that non-combustible forms of nicotine are vastly safer than combustible tobacco, a long and growing list of countries now ban the sale, importation, or even possession of such products, like India, Brazil, Thailand, Singapore and Uruguay. Whenever the debate about such bans arises in any new country, invariably it is followed by attempts to infect that debate with American-style vape panic.
A recent example has unfolded in Australia over the last few months, where, though nicotine vaping is banned, the country’s estimated 300,000 vapers have managed to skirt the prohibition by having nicotine shipped from overseas. This June, however, Health Minister Greg Hunt threatened to close that loophole by banning the importation of nicotine beginning in July—weeks before Parliament returned from their summer holiday. The justifications for the ban were the youth vaping “epidemic” in America, rising incidence of nicotine poisoning in Australia, and increases in vaping among young adults.
Highlight the scariest data with the scariest language. In announcing his proposed ban, Hunt pointed both to the “78 percent increase” in youth vaping in the United States and a claim that nicotine poisonings in Australia had doubled since 2018, which according to him, was caused primarily by “imported products of dubious quality and safety.” Never mind that the only reason Australians must import nicotine of dubious quality is because the country banned nicotine vaping. The relative language Hunt uses about poisonings certainly sounds scary. But, as you might guess, the absolute numbers seem far less dire.
Downplay mitigating details. The source for Hunt’s claim comes from the Victorian Poisons Centre, which as Hunt noted in a press release, reported 21 cases of nicotine poisoning in 2018 and 41 cases in 2019. A look at the data for 2018 (2019 is not yet publicly available) shows that there were actually 100 calls made to the Centre related to “antismoking products,” which it defines as nicotine gum, lozenges, patches, Chantix, and e-cigarettes. What this means, assuming Hunt’s figure is correct, is that while 21 calls were related to e-cigarettes, 79 calls were related to other products. To put that in panic-speak, products that are legally sold over the counter in Australia caused almost four times as many poisonings as e-cigarettes, which Hunt wants to ban.
Thanks to backlash from vapers around the world, as well as members of his own government, Hunt was compelled to back away from his proposed ban, at least temporarily. But this seems to have inspired anti-vaping advocates to try harder in copying successful, panic-inducing tactics employed in the United States. Most recently, it appears they are trying to replicate exactly the slight of hand American activists pulled off with the 2018 NYTS.
When All Else Fails: Lie
On July 16, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released the 2019 results of their national survey on drug use, which is conducted every three years. According to news reports, like this one in The Guardian, it found that e-cigarette use among young Australian non-smokers had quadrupled since 2013! Furthermore, a shocking 65 percent of adolescents and 39 percent of young “report using e-cigarettes despite having never smoked.” As is the point, stories like this are sure to shock Australians and spur efforts to keep or even strengthen the country’s nicotine vaping ban to get this problem under control. Of course, as with the youth vaping “epidemic” in America, the problem doesn’t exist; it’s statistical hocus pocus.
The data released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare is, admittedly, confusing. So, it is at least possible that the author of The Guardian article simply erred in stating that 65 percent of non-smoking adolescents reported “vaping.” Nonetheless, this isn’t just misdirection; it’s outright wrong. What the data show is that among the respondents who said they had ever used an e-cigarette in their life, almost 65 percent of those aged 14 to 17 said they were non-smokers at the time they first tried an e-cigarette (table 2.27.) First, this doesn’t mean they were “never smokers,” only that they hadn’t smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime, nor does it mean they continued using an e-cigarette. The survey, in fact, indicates that only 8 percent of youth, aged 14 to 17, ever tried an e-cigarette (table 2.19), and among all respondents who ever tried an e-cigarette, most—87 percent—tried it only once or twice and never again (table 2.28). So, how many non-smoking youngsters in Australia are actually currently “vaping?” From what the survey reveals, almost none.
The survey perplexingly defines “current use” as using e-cigarettes “daily, weekly, monthly, or less than monthly.” [Emphasis added] Functionally, it seems as if any use in the last 12 months counts as current use. But, even with that broad definition, the proportion of non-smoking youth who currently use e-cigarettes has remained strikingly small at 1.3 percent among those aged 14 to 17.
As for the statement about “quadrupling” e-cigarette use among non-smokers, you can see from the numbers that this is false. They could accurately say that current use of e-cigarettes among non-smokers increased 75 percent among adolescents and 50 percent among young adults. But it would still be misleading, a prime example of how using relative terms can exaggerate insignificant changes to extremely small absolute numbers. And that is exactly how unwarranted panics are generated. It’s not clear if the author of The Guardian article meant to mislead or simply misunderstood the data. But we can certainly expect more of this sort of statistical sleight of hand if and when the debate over whether Australia should continue to deny smokers a life-saving alternative takes center stage.
Michelle Minton is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Minton specializes in consumer policy, covering regulatory issues that include gambling, tobacco harm reduction, cannabis legalization, alcohol, and nutrition.
The State Duma MPs in Russia have adopted a bill restricting the use of electronic cigarettes and hookahs.
According to a statement from the lawmaking authority, the measure sets restrictions on the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and hookahs inside certain territories, premises and objects; issues requirements for demonstration of electronic smoking articles in audiovisual works for minors and adults.
Moreover, the document restricts the sale of vapor products and bans their sale to minors and involvement of children in the use of them, according to a Russian state information agency.
There is also a proposal to introduce administrative fines for violations of the imposed restrictions.
Pyxus International, a global value-added agricultural company, announced that its Prepackaged Plan of Reorganization of Pyxus International and its Affiliated Debtors was overwhelmingly approved by each class of creditors entitled to vote.
Of those that submitted ballots, holders of 100 percent of first lien notes (holding over $266 million of principal) and over 99 percent of the second lien notes (holding over $524 million of principal) voted in favor of the Prepackaged Plan.
In addition, on July 22, 2020, the Bankruptcy Court presiding over the company’s Chapter 11 cases approved the company’s entry into a commitment letter for a $75 million revolving credit facility to be provided by Sound Point Capital upon the effective date of the Prepackaged Plan, subject to satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions.
“The level of support from our first lien and second lien noteholders in favor of the Prepackaged Plan, and the commitment from Sound Point to finance the company’s go-forward working capital needs, reflects their collective confidence in our proposed restructuring transaction and future business strategy,” said Pieter Sikkel, Pyxus’ president and CEO. “The Company looks forward to working with its creditors and its other constituents to complete its restructuring process and emerge from the Chapter 11 in the near term.”
The hearing to consider approval of the Prepackaged Plan is scheduled for August 18, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Possession of a vaping device in the U.S. state of Georgia if under the age of 21 is now a criminal offense. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill into law today.
Also, much like traditional tobacco products in the state, an excise tax will be placed on vaping products, which is expected to generate approximately $4.3 billion each year.
House Bill 375 passed overwhelmingly in both the Georgia House and Senate.
The new law will make it a misdemeanor if someone under the age of 21 is caught with a vaping device, punishable by a fine or community service. When a device is confiscated, it will become the property of the state and be destroyed.
Philip Morris International (PMI) has released its second-quarter results and reinstated its 2020 forecast.
Diluted earnings per share were down by 16.1 percent, and net revenues were down by 13.6 percent. Operating income was down by 14.3 percent.
Market share for heated-tobacco units in IQOS markets rose by 1.8 points to 6.3 percent.
“Despite a very challenging quarter due to the pandemic, we delivered results above our previously communicated expectations for both net revenues and reported diluted EPS,” said Andre Calantzopoulos, PMI’s chief executive officer.
“This primarily reflected favorable sequential performance in June, with a strong industry volume recovery—notably in the higher margin EU region—and substantial IQOS user acquisition growth as well as the benefit of certain nonunderlying factors, some of which we expect to reverse in the third quarter.”
PMI reinstated its 2020 full-year forecast after withdrawing it in April due to uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. The “forecast represents a projected increase of approximately 2 percent to 5 percent versus pro forma adjusted diluted earnings per share of $5.13 in 2019,” according to PMI.
The Canadian province of British Columbia is bringing into force regulations to fully implement its “leading-edge” vaping action plan, which was announced in November 2019.
The regulations restrict the content, flavor, packaging, advertising and sale of vapor products in British Columbia. The province’s ministries of Health and Education will also establish a provincial youth advisory council to develop, pilot and launch youth-informed strategies to reduce vaping by young people.
“We heard from young people across the province that vaping companies are targeting them with a product that poses real and serious health and addiction risks,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “That’s why we are bringing in regulations to keep vapour products away from developing lungs and to prevent nicotine addiction. We know youth are eager to get involved in this action, and I’ve seen promising work through early youth engagement to help influence their peers and stop this dangerous trend of addiction.”
The new E-Substances Regulation, under the Public Health Act, restricts the amount of nicotine in vapor pods and e-liquids to 20mg/ml, and requires retailers to sell only those vapor products that are plainly packaged and have labels with health warnings. New retailers planning to sell vape products will need to comply with the regulation immediately. Existing vapor-product retailers will have a short transition period until Sept. 15, 2020.
The regulation immediately prohibits all retailers from selling non-nicotine or nicotine-cannabis blended vapor products.
Changes to the Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Regulation ban advertising of vapour products in places where youth can access, hear or see advertisements, such as bus shelters or community parks. They also restrict the sale of flavoured vapour products, which are attractive to youth, to adult-only shops.
The provincial youth advisory council will launch in September 2020, through a partnership between the ministries of Education and Health. The council will be established next month and will also monitor and evaluate the overall impact of the plan.
RELX Technology has helped Chinese authorities seize over 70,000 counterfeit e-cigarette products in June and July, 2020 through the company’s Golden Shield Program. The street market value of the products seized is estimated to be worth over $700,000.
It is understood that the products were intended to be sold in a number of markets around the world, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and China, according to a press release. Following the rise in the production of counterfeit vapor products and e-liquids, RELX established the Golden Shield Program in August 2019 to help prevent the production and sale of the illicit goods.
Members of RELX’s Golden Shield Program are working with online social media platforms, online e-commerce platforms, China’s Administration for Industry and Commerce, and local authorities throughout China to eliminate counterfeit vaping products from the market.
To date, RELX’s Golden Shield Program has aided authorities in 26 cases related to the production and sale of counterfeit vaping products, leading to the seizure of hundreds of thousands of counterfeit vapor devices, e-liquids, and other merchandise, the release states.
RELX’s R&D facility has performed a series of tests on the counterfeit devices and pods. The lab found that illicit compatible pods often use inferior e-liquids; contain harmful substances like toluene at levels that greatly exceed normal standards; and the nicotine content does not match what is labelled on the packaging. This explains why the compatible pods are often sold at a much lower price.
RELX has also found that fake RELX devices engraved with luxury brand logos, or co-branded devices, are also being sold on different social media networks like Facebook and Instagram. The fake engraved devices are similar to compatible pods in that they are produced in factories with no certification.
The products are not only a serious violation of RELX’s intellectual property, they are also a safety hazard, as their batteries are not properly tested. There have already been a number of cases where the battery of a fake engraved device has exploded.
Chen Changlu, Deputy General Manager at Amperex Technology Limited, a leading Chinese battery manufacturer, stated in an interview that lithium is a very active element.
“If not managed properly, it can easily lead to an item catching fire or even exploding. Developing safe designs is essential when using lithium batteries, but the market has many different players,” said Chen. “Some manufacturers remove the safety protection device or use inferior materials, creating a potential safety hazard. Please refrain from purchasing any products from unregulated manufacturers and only purchase products from legitimate manufacturers on official channels.”
RELX customers should only buy products from authorized channels and use QR code scanners on their phone to verify the authenticity of RELX products, according to the release. For more information on how to authenticate RELX products, customers can visit: https://relxnow.com/pages/verify.
