Category: News This Week

The member of the European Parliament representing North West England, Paul Nuttall, has spoken out against news that the European Commission is ‘considering hiking up tax on healthier electronic cigarettes,’ according to a note posted on the website of the UKIP party, of which Nuttall is deputy leader.

The Commission is said to have asked excise duty experts from across the EU to consider the ‘best way to achieve fiscal equal treatment’ of electronic and tobacco cigarettes.

“I am a great fan of e-cigs and UKIP has been very supportive of the practice because it is healthier and a source of jobs for innovative British companies,” said Nuttall, who is described as a new e-cig convert. ‘The British government must stand up against these measures and UKIP undertakes to oppose any legislation from the EU to put tax on electronic cigarettes.

“I have never seen a private pleasure that the EU does not want to tax. Of course this move will hike up the cost of vaping e-cigarettes, and thus push more people back to ordinary and less healthy cigarettes.

“This move unmasks the EU’s real intent of its Tobacco Directive which was to tax all cigarettes more and help governments make more money. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, ‘The EU’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Swisher International is creating a new company, E-Alternative Solutions (EAS) to develop, market and distribute for the rapidly growing vapor market. Swisher’s senior vice president for sales and marketing will serve as the CEO of EAS.

“We have been carefully reviewing the e-cigarette space for a while through market research, customer feedback and in-depth reviews of the technological landscape,” says Miller. “Thanks to Swisher International’s world-class capabilities in combination with the best-in-class team we are assembling to lead EAS, we have the ambition to become a market leader in the evolving e-alternative category—just as Swisher has in the tobacco market for over 150 years.”

Jacopo D’Alessandris will serve as EAS president. D’Alessandris has almost 20 years of marketing and general management experience in consumer-packaged and electronics-goods products. Most recently he served as chief marketing officer for the consumer division of Philips North America. Prior to joining Philips in 2006, D’Alessandris was a global executive at L’Oreal for 10 years in various leadership roles in Europe and Latin America.

“I am excited to join the Swisher family to lead its sister company EAS,” said D’Alessandris. “The e-cigarette and vapor space has been growing rapidly but is still in its infancy. Breakthrough technology and innovative marketing, coupled with Swisher’s expertise in the tobacco space will be the key ingredients I will focus on to build EAS’ success.”

Initially, EAS will offer two proprietary liquid vapor product lines. The products are currently being tested in select markets and sold online. These liquids, which are used in electronic vapor devices, are manufactured in the U.S. using high-quality ingredients and the highest levels of quality control, according to EAS.

The EU Commission is considering looking into whether electronic cigarettes should be taxed in the same way as traditional cigarettes are taxed, according to a story in the Irish Times.

The Commission is said to have asked excise duty experts from across the EU to consider the ‘best way to achieve fiscal equal treatment’ of electronic and tobacco cigarettes.

Such a move would drastically increase the retail prices of electronic cigarettes, hinder or perhaps halt their take up and, presumably, lead to the sorts of illegal-trade levels that currently plague the tobacco industry.

US-based Swisher International has formed a new ‘sister’ company, E-Alternative Solutions (EAS), to focus on developing, marketing and distributing electronic cigarettes and electronic vaping products, according to a CSPNet (Convenience Store/Petroleum) story.

John Miller, Swisher senior vice president of sales and marketing who will serve also as the CEO of EAS, said EAS had the ambition to become a market leader in the evolving e-alternative category – “just as Swisher has in the tobacco market for over 150 years”.

Meanwhile, Jacopo D’Alessandris, who has been appointed president of EAS, said the “e-cigarette and vapor space” had been growing rapidly but was still in its infancy. “Breakthrough technology and innovative marketing, coupled with Swisher’s expertise in the tobacco space, will be the key ingredients I will focus on to build EAS’ success,” he said.

Initially, EAS will offer two proprietary liquid vapor product lines. It is testing the products in select markets and selling them online. The liquids, which are used in electronic vapor devices, are manufactured in the US.

E-cigarettes are for sale at county jails around the United States even as some government officials, schools and health experts urge tighter control over the devices, especially in public buildings.

Many jail officials say the benefits of e-cigarettes outweigh any potential problems or health risks. They say e-cigarettes calm agitated inmates, decrease traditional cigarette contraband and bring in more revenue for the jails.

“With most jails and prisons banning tobacco-burning cigarettes, inmates who smoke often suffer nicotine withdrawal and become agitated and short-tempered,” said James Frye, chief deputy of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office in Sidne, eastern Ohio.

“We’ve seen a big improvement in behavior, with less arguments and fights,” he said.

Thomas Borland, jailed in Shelby County since October on a driving infraction, said he is grateful he can buy e-cigarettes.

“They help calm me down,” said the longtime smoker, who hopes the devices will help him quit tobacco cigarettes.

Other jails, including the Darlington County Detention Center in South Carolina, cite similar results with providing inmates e-cigarettes.

“Our main goal, though, was to cut down on people sneaking in cigarettes and loose tobacco, and we’ve seen a tremendous reduction there,” said. Mitch Stanley, center director.

Pax Labs has sold more than 500,000 units of its Pax open-system vaporizer, achieving an important psychological milestone.

“This is not just a number, but a compelling metric measuring strong, continued product demand for alternative tobacco products,” said James Monsees, CEO, Pax Labs. “We have not released sales data up to this point, but this news is too good not to share. And, it’s not only an important benchmark for Pax Labs and our flagship Pax vaporizer, but also, it’s yet another sign of the growing size of the vaporization sector.”

To reach an even wider audience, Pax Labs is lowering the price of its popular vaporizer to $199.99 from $249.99, effective immediately. A system that heats loose-leaf tobacco, Pax is currently available in the U.S. and Canada.

Researchers in Canada have claimed that the federal government has effectively stymied scientific studies aimed at determining whether electronic cigarettes are a life-saving alternative to tobacco cigarettes or a magnet drawing more people to smoking, according to a story by Tom Blackwell on nationalpost.com.

And some experts have accused Health Canada of needlessly delaying the scientific study of electronic cigarettes while planning to dispatch teams of secret shoppers to test how willing stores are to sell the devices to young people. The department has apparently just issued a $350,000 tender for a contractor to provide the service, using teenagers who, while masquerading as ‘typical customers’, will try to buy the devices at 4,000 or more retailers and then report back to adult observers.

Canadian governments have used such programs regularly in the past to keep tabs on compliance with tobacco-marketing laws, but this would mark the first time they had been applied to devices touted as a much-safer alternative to conventional cigarettes.

Scientists need Health Canada’s green light for studies because nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes are not legally available in the country.

But one respected scientist has said the department is treating the products like an experimental drug, dragging out and muddying the approval process, even though millions of Canadians consume nicotine legally from an unquestionably more harmful source: tobacco.

The University of Waterloo’s David Hammond, a former advisor to the World Health Organization on tobacco control, said his Ontario-government funded trial was now all but dead because of the federal response.

“The lack of clarity and response from Health Canada has been very frustrating; at a certain point they simply stopped responding to our emails,” said Prof. Hammond. “There is an urgent need to conduct a proper scientific trial … In the absence of a proper trial, Canadian smokers will continue to serve as guinea pigs in a far less controlled experiment.”

Read the full story here.

A recent UK employment tribunal case has sounded a warning that an employer wishing to dismiss an employee for vaping might not be able to fall back on its conventional smoking policy to justify the action taken, according to a piece on cipd.co.uk quoting Stuart Jones, head of employment and pensions at Weightmans.

The case in question did not concern a dismissal, but a constructive dismissal, and the tribunal found that the employer had ‘reasonable and proper cause’ for all of its actions.

However, the tribunal identified as a ‘point of concern’ that, while the employer clearly considered vaping to be the equivalent of smoking, it was not clear that the employee had breached any policy by using an electronic cigarette. She had not been informed of the specific rule she had broken because there was no rule in force prohibiting the use of electronic cigarettes. The only potentially relevant policy in place was a conventional no-smoking policy.

Jones commented that if an employer decided that a ban on electronic cigarettes was necessary and appropriate, it would need to consider amending any existing no-smoking policy to explicitly prohibit electronic cigarettes. And any policy would have to extend to third parties, such as visitors.

If an employer chose to restrict, rather than ban electronic cigarettes, a clear policy on usage was advisable. Employers would need to think also about how any changes would be communicated to employees. Avoiding misunderstanding around this relatively novel issue was crucial.

Dismissal in the absence of a designated policy or provision might potentially be fair, but was more likely to be fair where an employer could point to a breach of a specific rule. While all cases would turn on their own facts, a clear and consistently applied policy would certainly strengthen an employer’s position where dismissal was contemplated.

The charging of four vendors in the Punjab, India, for selling electronic cigarettes and liquid nicotine has made the pages of the Hindustan Times and drawn a comment from Hussan Lal, described as ‘Commissioner FDA and Punjab Secretary Health and Family Welfare’.

As well as being charged with the sales offences, the four vendors have been charged also with ‘violating the directive issued by the state government to make the state tobacco free’.

They are said to have been charged under various sections of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, part of which bans electronic cigarettes.

Lal was quoted as saying that as many as 20 districts of the Punjab had ‘already been declared tobacco free’.

Meanwhile, Ajay Singla, state drug controller, Punjab, said electronic cigarettes contained nicotine in chemical form which was a “lethal and addictive chemical”.

Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, nicotine was allowed to be manufactured only as nicotine gums or lozenges. “Every other product which contained nicotine is illegal,” he said.

U.S. schools are clamping down on e-cigarettes because they can also be used for illegal substances like marijuana.

Most schools have folded e-cigarettes into their anti-tobacco policies, which typically punish students with detention, a letter home and sometimes a tobacco-education class.

But other schools in states including North Carolina, New Jersey, Washington and Connecticut, are grouping the devices in with bongs and pipes, meaning students could face long suspensions, drug tests and have possession of drug paraphernalia marked on their school record.

“Our goal is to reduce access and discourage use on campus,” said Sarah D’Annolfo, dean of students at The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. The co-ed boarding school amended its policy this school year to have e-cigarettes fall under its drug and alcohol policy. A disciplinary committee made up of faculty and students evaluate violations case-by-case, but they could result in a weeklong suspension and a mark on their record rather than a chat with the dean and school doctor and parental notification.