Category: News This Week

  • Automating e-cigarettes out of China

    Freedom Smokeless has unveiled its new, U.S.-built, high-speed e-cigarette automation machinery at the TPC [Tobacco Plus Convenience Expo] 2014 show in Las Vegas.

    In a press note issued yesterday through PRNewswire, Freedom, which is an e-cigarette manufacturer based in southern California, said that it was the first U.S.-based company to offer automatic machinery that could provide for affordable cartridge filling, e-cigarette assembly and packaging.

    The machinery was designed “to bridge the gap from China to America,” it said.

    The first of six machines had been installed in Freedom’s FDA-registered, ISO- and GMP-compliant facilities, the press note said.

    By May, all six automated lines would be up and running with the capacity of producing more than 4 million units a week.

    “The response at the recent TPC show was overwhelming,” said Glenn Kassel, Freedom’s president and co-founder.

    “When watching the video of our automated production, people were amazed that we had developed such sophisticated technology, especially our built-in quality assurance features.”

  • E-cigarettes are best quit aids

    New research has indicated that smokers of tobacco cigarettes who use e-cigarettes to try to quit their tobacco habit have better outcomes than those who use no aids or those who used an over-the-counter (OTC) nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), according to a blog by Grzegorz Krol on the Nicotine Policy website.

    The research was presented by Dr. Jamie Brown, of University College London, and colleagues at the 20th annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in Seattle on Feb. 8.

    The study was conducted on a large representative sample of the English population, and was based on people who had smoked during the past 12 months. It looked at those who had made at least one quit attempt using only an e-cigarette, using only an OTC NRT, or using no aid in their most recent quit attempt. The outcome assessed was abstinence from cigarettes up to the time of the survey.

    Users of e-cigarettes performed best, with 19.9 percent having stopped smoking. Of those who used no aids, 15.1 percent were successful, while only 10 percent were successful using OTC NRT.

    Krol cautioned that care was needed in looking at these results, which were taken from an abstract of the research paper.

    Krol’s blog and the abstract are at http://nicotinepolicy.net/commentary/86-g-krol/861-new-research-shows-electronic-cigarettes-better-for-quitting-than-no-aid-over-the-counter-nrt-worse-than-no-aid.

  • E-cigarette vapor causes turbulence

    India’s national carrier, Air India, has been reprimanded by the health ministry for advertising and selling e-cigarettes on-board its aircraft, according to a story in the Times of India.

    In a letter written to the civil aviation ministry, the health ministry said Air India had been selling through its discount booklets “Air Bazaar” a tobacco-free e-cigarette using a picture of a model vaping.

    The advertisement was said to be in contravention of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (prohibition of advertisement and regulation of trade and commerce, production, supply and distribution) Act, 2003.

    The ministry’s letter claimed the advertisement had put the government in an embarrassing situation.

    And it said it had been contrary to the government’s policy of using public transport for the display of health-promotion messages.

  • Counterfeit vaporizers raise safety issues

    US-based Ploom has warned that counterfeit versions of its Pax vaporizers can raise safety issues, according to a ChinaCSR.com story.

    Ploom’s vaporizers are smoking alternative devices that heat tobacco contained in pods to a constant temperature, vaporizing nicotine and flavors without burning the materials or producing smoke.

    But Ploom says that certain counterfeit Pax products contain plastic materials that are not stable at operating temperatures.

    It has advised consumers who have bought counterfeit Pax products to stop using them immediately.

    Ploom says it has located manufacturers of counterfeit Pax products and initiated legal actions in China to stop the manufacture and sale of these products.

  • White Cloud starting recycling program for its e-cigarettes and batteries

    White Cloud Electronic Cigarettes has said that it is partnering with Big Green Box to offer a US recycling service for its products, including its batteries, according to a PRNewswire story.

    Big Green Box is a federally-approved recycling company based in Anaheim, California.

    The service will ensure that White Cloud meets the standards of electronic-waste disposal set by the US Department of Transportation and the United Nations.

    It will provide customers with the opportunity to recycle their rechargeable electronic cigarette batteries and Fling disposable electronic cigarettes.

    “Try to think about this for a moment: there are 20 to 50 million metric tons of electronic waste disposed off every year, worldwide,” said White Cloud’s managing director, Danielle Steingraber. “Right now, only 12.5 per cent of e-waste is currently recycled, but we can do our part to help change that.”

    The PRNewswire story went on to say that while it might seem that a few electronic cigarette batteries in the trash could make any real environmental difference, as the number of electronic cigarette users continued to rise worldwide, it would quickly become critical that electronic cigarette users recycle.

  • Health alliance says e-cigarettes must remain available to smokers

    The European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) has called for the regulation of e-cigarettes as a matter of urgency, but insists that regulation should be framed so as to ensure these products remain available to smokers, according to an Agence Europe story.

    The agency report said that, in the absence of health impact studies on e-cigarettes, the EPHA had called for the adoption of the precautionary principle in respect of all devices containing nicotine.

    The EPHA’s intervention has come at a time when inter-institutional dialogue on the European Commission’s proposed revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive has essentially stalled in respect of e-cigarettes.

    The EPHA has published a document in which it recommends the adoption of watertight European legislation for protecting public health.

    Monika Kosinska, EPHA secretary general, said that without a robust regulatory framework in place in the EU, e-cigarettes were hanging in a legal limbo.

    It was essential that this emerging range of products was urgently regulated to safeguard people’s health.

    “To achieve this, Brussels has to make sure that strict rules on advertising and sponsorship as well as market surveillance and monitoring are the corner stones of new legislation, whilst ensuring that the products are accessible to existing smokers,” she was quoted as saying.

  • EU smokers could be left exposed by Commission plans for e-cigarettes

    European Commission proposals could leave tobacco smokers within the EU with easy access to tobacco cigarettes but little access to less risky alternatives to these products.

    According to a story in the European Voice, the commission, whose proposal to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines was turned down by MEPs in October, is now putting forward other measures seen by some as being medicines regulation by the back door.

    If the commission has its way, smokers might be left with no access to electronic cigarettes and—with the exception of tobacco users in Sweden—no access to snus.

    The question of how to regulate e-cigarettes is said to be the biggest remaining obstacle to an agreement between MEPs and the member states on revising the European Union’s Tobacco Products Directive.

    As negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers prepare to meet in Brussels to finalise the text of a revision to the directive, lobbying about e-cigarettes is intensifying.

    At issue are differences about whether e-cigarettes should be regulated lightly because they might prove useful to wean smokers off more harmful cigarettes, or whether e-cigarettes should be heavily regulated because they pose a health risk.

    The European Voice says that, ahead of the negotiations, the commission has circulated a text that proposes introducing a series of restrictions on e-cigarettes, including banning those that produce levels of nicotine above 20 mg per ml of vapor or 10 mg/unit, and those with refillable cartridges or tanks. They would also ban e-cigarettes designed to taste like tobacco.

    Thirteen health experts from Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Poland and the U.K. have written a letter warning that the latest commission proposals could bring to an end the positive effect that safer electronic cigarettes have had in weaning smokers from tobacco cigarettes, which, they said, caused 700,000 premature deaths a year in the EU.

  • European Commission’s proposals would ban e-cigarettes

    New European Commission proposals, if adopted, would ban every e-cigarette on the EU market and would severely limit or make unviable the development of new products, according to Clive Bates, the director of Counterfactual, a public interest consulting and advocacy group.

    “Late last week the European Commission circulated a confidential new proposal for regulating e-cigarettes,” Bates wrote on The Counterfactual website.

    “The document was sent only to those negotiating the future of e-cigarettes behind closed doors in Brussels—representatives of the European Parliament and European Council.

    “This isn’t a final proposal, but it provides the negotiators with something to discuss.”

    Bates said that a copy of the document had been obtained by the Nicotine Science and Policy website and was at http://nicotinepolicy.net/documents/policy/Article%2018%20-%20Electronic%20cigarettes%20-%20Commission%20proposal%2022%20Nov%202013.pdf.

    “It is quite frankly appalling—lacking any legitimacy in public health or internal market policy-making …,” Bates continued. “Make no mistake, if implemented this proposal bans every product on the market today and would severely limit options for future products—and may make it commercially unviable to develop in future.”

    In a long piece, Bates goes on to list the main troubling features of the document; how the proposals should be scrutinized; and how to respond to the proposals.

    His piece is at http://www.clivebates.com/?p=1655.

  • JTI to launch tobacco vaporizer in Korea

    JTI Korea said yesterday that it would introduce Ploom, a tobacco vaporizer, on the domestic market on Nov. 18, according to a story in The Korea Herald.

    The Ploom vaporizer is a pocket-sized smoking alternative device that heats tobacco contained in pods to a constant temperature, vaporizing nicotine and flavors without burning the materials or producing smoke.

    In December 2011, Japan Tobacco International and the San Francisco-based Ploom announced that they had entered into an exclusive, long-term cooperation agreement under which JTI would commercialize Ploom’s new generation of “smoking alternative products” outside the U.S.

    Ploom capsules will be available in Korea in six variants: Mevius, Camel, Cooler, Gold, Orchard and Alert. A multipack containing all six variants also will be available.

    A pack, comprising 12 capsules, will retail at WON4,500: about twice the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes.

  • E-cigarettes banned on public transport

    The use of e-cigarettes on Switzerland’s public transport system will be banned as of next month, according to a Medical Xpress story quoting the national association of mass-transit operators.

    From Dec. 15, those caught using e-cigarettes on public transport will face a fine of CHF25, a spokesman for the Public Transportation Union told the Swiss news agency ATS.

    The regulation against smoking tobacco on public transport was extended to take in e-cigarettes because, it was said, inspectors had difficulty distinguishing between traditional and e-cigarettes

    Swiss regulations do not allow the sale of e-cigarettes, but their use in the country is allowed and the federal public health agency has noted an increase in their use.

    There are currently no regulations in Switzerland governing the use of e-cigarettes in restaurants.