Category: News This Week

Imperial Tobacco said on Thursday that it was continuing to make “good progress” with its initiatives in the “e-vapor sector” through its subsidiary Fontem Ventures, and that it remained on track to launch its own products in 2014.

In publishing an interim management statement, Imperial reported that its stick equivalent [cigarettes and fine-cut] volume fell by 7 percent and its underlying volume [excluding the effect of trade destocking] was down by 5 percent during the nine months to the end of June.

The company’s key strategic brands were said to have outperformed market trends, but reported volume for these brands was down by 4 percent and underlying volume was down by 1 percent.

Within the overall trend, fine-cut tobacco performance was described as “excellent,” while there was said to have been good growth in premium cigars and snus.

“I’m pleased with the significant progress we’re making with the strategic transition of the business, which is strengthening our sustainable sales growth capabilities and optimizing our costs in line with our strategy,” said CEO Alison Cooper.

“Our full-year expectations remain unchanged. We continue to focus on maximizing opportunities for our total tobacco portfolio in the EU against a backdrop of weak industry volumes and are driving good in-market performances in Asia-Pacific and Africa and Middle East, with our share improving in many markets.

“Whilst opportunities to grow sales in the short term are being impacted by the environment challenges, we remain focused on generating high-quality returns and sustainable growth from our portfolio.”

Hong Kong is the main source of fake electronic cigarettes and e-liquids entering the EU, according to the European Commission’s 2012 annual report on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR).

A commission press note said that last year EU customs “detained” almost 40 million products valued at nearly €1 billion “suspected of violating” IPR.

Cigarettes were said to have accounted for 31 percent of “interceptions.”

Postal and courier packages accounted for about 70 percent of customs “interventions,” with 23 percent of the “detentions” in postal traffic involving medicines.

China was said to be the main source of fake goods entering the EU.

The Thailand Tobacco Monopoly (TTM) would consider developing and importing electronic cigarettes if the government were to legalize them, according to a story in the Bangkok Post.

Managing director, Torsak Chotimongkol, was quoted as saying that, as a government agency, the TTM could not proceed with such a project until electronic cigarettes were legalised.

“However, if the situation becomes clearer and the product is legally approved, we may consider importing e-cigarettes and developing our own product as an option for smokers,” Torsak said.

Electronic cigarettes cannot be sold legally in Thailand because they have not been approved by the Thailand Food & Drug Administration.

However, they are widely distributed online and sold discreetly in some stores.

The European Parliament’s environment, public health and food safety committee has voted to back the European Commission’s proposal to classify electronic cigarettes as medicinal products.

For many people, this proposal is the most health-negative of the raft of proposed revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive put forward by the commission at the end of last year.

In its response to the proposed revisions, Parliament’s legal affairs committee said, in part, that Article 18 prohibited nicotine-containing products such as electronic cigarettes containing a certain nicotine level if they were not authorized pursuant to the Medicinal Products Directive. “It is, however, quite unclear if these products (which are much less harmful than tobacco products) even fall under the scope of the Medicinal Products Directive,” the committee said. “For products which do not fall under the Directive, this would effectively constitute a ban. Banning products which are less harmful than tobacco products and which can be a means of smoking cessation is certainly not in line with the public health aims of the proposal.”

Before Wednesday’s vote by the environment committee, a group of vapers wrote an open letter to the chairman of the environment committee, Matthias Groote, calling for a rethink on the proposal for regulating electronic cigarettes.

The group said that for 5 million to 7 million people within the EU, electronic cigarettes had provided and continued to provide a viable alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes.

And it asked Groote and his committee to imagine how many lives could be saved if electronic cigarettes were allowed to continue to flourish.

However, the group expressed concern that what it called this positive story was about to come to an abrupt halt because of the commission’s proposal. “By regulating e-cigarettes as a medicinal product, and by banning flavours, the Commission and its supporters in Parliament and Council are effectively banning e-cigarettes, as the Parliament’s own Legal Affairs Committee has made clear,” it said.

The group made the point that whereas electronic cigarettes were safe, tobacco cigarettes killed 700,000 people in the EU each year and neither the commission nor Parliament were proposing to ban them.

In fact, the commission and the environment committee are proposing that some cigarettes should be banned: slim cigarettes and those with characterizing flavors, including menthol.

It also voted in favor of graphic warnings covering 75 percent of the fronts and backs of cigarette packs, though it did not accept a proposed amendment seeking the imposition of standardized tobacco packs.

The proposals still have to go before a plenary session of Parliament.

A group of vapers has written an open letter to the chairman of the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee, Matthias Groote, calling for a rethink on the European Commission’s proposal for regulating electronic cigarettes.

The committee is due to vote tomorrow on the totality of the commission’s proposals for revising the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), which include the electronic cigarette proposal.

The group says that for 5 million to 7 million people within the EU, electronic cigarettes have and continue to provide a viable alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes.

And it asked Groote and his committee to imagine how many lives could be saved if electronic cigarettes were allowed to continue to flourish.

However, the group expressed concern that what it called this positive story was about to come to an abrupt halt because of the commission’s proposals to amend the TPD. Under these proposals, electronic cigarettes could be placed on the market only if they were authorized pursuant to the Medicinal Products Directive. “By regulating e-cigarettes as a medicinal product, and by banning flavours, the Commission and its supporters in Parliament and Council are effectively banning e-cigarettes, as the Parliament’s own Legal Affairs Committee has made clear,” it said.

The group made the point that whereas electronic cigarettes were safe, tobacco cigarettes killed 700,000 people in the EU each year and neither the commission nor Parliament were proposing to ban them.

“The key health benefit of e-cigarettes is determined by how many smokers switch to them or use them as a staging post to quitting completely,” the group said in its letter. “It is therefore vital that e-cigarettes continue to be regulated as a consumer product. Many of us have tried numerous times to quit smoking using conventional nicotine replacement therapies and have failed; however, with e-cigarettes we have all cut down our smoking or stopped completely. Without anyone in the professional public health field doing anything and without spending any public money, smokers like us have been quitting, switching and cutting down through the use of e-cigarettes. This is something that should be celebrated, not a cause for concern.”

The group posed the following question to the committee: “Why would the EU want to intervene to prevent or obstruct a smoker having access to products that could potentially save his or her life?”

And it followed up that question with another: “Do MEPs really want to protect an industry that kills 700,000 people at the expense of a market-based, consumer-led public health revolution that has the potential to save millions of lives?”

The group urged the committee to reject the electronic cigarettes proposal.

“We believe it is poorly thought through, contains an arbitrary and pointless threshold, takes an easy shortcut by applying medicines regulation rather than designing appropriate regulation, and has been prepared without proper consultation of the industry and users like us,” the group said. “Members of your committee should insist that the Commission starts again and does a thorough job, looking properly at all the regulatory options and only once it has done the necessary work, bring forward proposals.

“In the meantime, Member States should enforce the existing legislation properly and report on what they are doing.

“For the sake of 7 million e-cigarette users and the millions of potential e-cigarette users, we urge you to do the right thing.”

The letter can be read in full at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/152389430/Open-Letter-From-Electronic-Cigarette-Users-From-Across-the-European-Union.

AucklandUniversity is carrying out a study into the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes as a quit-smoking aid, according to a TVNZ story.

More than 650 people are participating in the study comparing electronic cigarettes with the commonly-used nicotine patch.

Participant, Luis Paraha, who was said to have twice previously tried to quit, believes she has cracked the problem by combining exercise with electronic cigarettes.

“I just used the e-cigarette and then three weeks later, that was it – stopped,” she told ONE News.

University of Auckland researcher, Chris Bullen, said bodies such as the World Health Organization were asking what to do about the devices, but no-one had the answers because no-one had done a study until now.

As the proposed revision of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive is now being discussed in the European Parliament, the UK-based electronic cigarette manufacturer, Totally Wicked Ltd, is sending an electronic cigarette to all 754 MEPs.

‘Accompanying the e-cigarette will be a briefing document that simply and factually explains why e-cigarettes do not belong in the TPD,’ the company said in a press note issued through PRNewswire.

‘A covering letter asks MEPs to examine the e-cigarette in detail and poses the following question: “What do you do with a product that mimics smoking, but is not a cigarette, that stops people smoking, but is not a medicine?”.

‘Totally Wicked is concerned that at present, EU policy makers believe that e-cigarettes should only be placed on the market if they are authorised pursuant to Directive 2001/83/EC (the Medicinal Products Directive).

‘By wishing to regulate e-cigarettes as a medicinal product, and by banning flavours, Totally Wicked believe the Commission and their supporters in Parliament are effectively banning e-cigarettes, a view that is supported by the European Parliament’s own Legal Affairs Committee.’

“The e-cigarettes we have chosen to send to MEPs look nothing like a conventional tobacco cigarette,” said Fraser Cropper, business development director at Totally Wicked. “Contrary to what many MEPs think, the vast majority of e-cigarettes sold throughout the EU look nothing like cigarettes.

“We hope to make it clear to MEPs that e-cigarettes are not a medicinal product and that users do not see themselves as ill or in treatment.

“MEPs have an incredible opportunity to craft regulation that reflects the reality of e-cigarettes – they are nicotine-containing consumer products that compete with cigarettes but with many superior characteristics, mainly by virtue of not using combustible tobacco.

“Tobacco cigarettes have been unequivocally proven to contribute to the early mortality of the European population. During this time, our legislators have been unwilling or unable to ban cigarettes, a product that if it came onto the market today, would without question be prohibited.

“Surprisingly, rather than be applauded and encouraged by our elected representatives as the potential panacea to the smoking epidemic, we find Article 18 of the draft TPD, stifling the potential of these products and effectively handing over the product’s concept to the pharmaceutical sector, destroying a safer alternative.”

Philip Morris USA will launch an e-cigarette under the MarkTen brand in Indiana in August, reports The Wall Street Journal.

MarkTen is a disposable e-cigarette but can be reused by buying a separate battery recharging kit and additional cartridges. Made in China by a contact manufacturer, the e-cigarette is expected to sell for about $9.50.

PM USA is the last of the major U.S. tobacco companies to introduce an e-cigarette in an industry-wide effort to diversify beyond the traditional cigarette business, which has become more challenging in the face of tax increases, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma.

Last week, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., a subsidiary of Reynolds American, announced it would start selling its Vuse e-cigarette to retail outlets throughout Colorado in June.

Vuse was developed in-house by R.J. Reynolds R&D experts, and will be manufactured in the United States.

In April 2010, Lorillard acquired e-cigarette maker Blue Ecigs. It has expanded into more than 80,000 retail outlets.

Analysts estimate sales of e-cigarettes could double this year to $1 billion. Some have even said consumption of e-cigarettes could surpass consumption of traditional cigarette within the next decade. The Food and Drug Administration plans to assert regulatory authority over e-cigarettes in the near future.

Electronic cigarette maker Njoy said Monday it had raised $75 million in financing from investors including Napster founder and ex-Facebook president Sean Parker.

A group including Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker is investing $75 million is NJOY, a leading manufacturer of e-cigarettes, reports The Wall Street Journal. Parker co-founded the music-sharing site Napster, was the first president of Facebook and has been a big donor to cancer research.

NJOY accounted for 35.6 percent of the U.S. cigarette market in U.S. convenience stores in the four weeks ended May 11, according to Wells Fargo Securities. NJOY Kings’ brand more closely resembles regular cigarettes than do some competing products. The company has been advertising on TV and attracted celebrity endorsers such as musicians Courtney Love and Bruno Mars.

In March, former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona joined NJOY’s board, saying it is important to explore alternatives to traditional cigarettes because the adult smoking rate has remained stuck at around 20 percent of the population.

E-cigarettes are believed to be less harmful than traditional cigarettes because they don’t rely on combustion However, the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers in 2009 the new technology could pose its own health risks and required further study. The long-term impact of inhaling e-cigarette vapor, which contains substances such as propylene glycol, has yet to be determined. The agency is planning regulation that would treat e-cigarettes as tobacco products.

Industry experts says U.S. retail sales of e-cigarettes could reach $1 billion this year—just 1 percent of the country’s cigarette market but twice that of 2012.

Vapor Corp. said on Wednesday that CEO, Kevin Frija, was due to make a presentation at the Second Annual Marcum LLP MicroCap Conference on May 30 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.

The company’s presentation is scheduled to begin at 16.00 hours Eastern Daylight Time.

More information and registration is available at the conference website: http://www.marcumllp.com/microcap