Chinese e-cigarette maker RLX Technology, parent to the RELX brand, jumped 146 percent in its trading debut after raising $1.4 billion in its U.S. initial public offering.
Creit: RELX
RLX Technology’s American depositary shares closed at $29.51 Friday, giving the company a market value of about $46 billion. Backed by Sequoia Capital China, the company sold 116.5 million shares for $12 a piece on Thursday after marketing them for $8 to $10.
The IPO was led by Citigroup Inc. and China Renaissance Holdings Ltd. The company’s ADS, each representing one ordinary share, are trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RLX.
The IPO, the first major U.S. listing this year by a China-based company, signals continuing investor demand, according to Bloomberg.
RLX, founded in 2018, is China’s largest e-cigarette maker with 62.6 percent of the country’s market, according to a report by China Insights Consultancy cited in the company’s IPO prospectus.
China is the world’s largest potential vaping market, with an estimated 286.7 million adult smokers in 2019, RLX said in its prospectus. But vaping products only have a 1.2 percent penetration rate, compared with 32.4 percent in the U.S.
Californians will decide next year if flavored vaping products should be banned. The California Secretary of State’s office certified a referendum challenging the state’s ban on flavored vapor and other tobacco product sales had garnered more than the minimum number of valid signatures. The referendum will head to the ballot in November, 2022.
Credit: Elsa Olofsson
The ban is on hold and retailers can continue selling flavored e-liquids and other products until votes are cast. The ban had been set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021, but was delayed until the signature verification process had been completed. I
n order to qualify for the ballot, organizers of the referendum submitted more than 1 million signatures, as they needed to get 623,212 verified signatures from California voters. On Friday, the Secretary of State’s office published a report indicating that organizers had gathered 781,885 valid signatures.
Had the minimum number of valid signatures not been met, the law would have taken effect once the Secretary of State had verified the process was complete. The election is scheduled for Nov. 8, 2022, and those results will then need to be certified. If the law banning flavors is approved, it would go into effect on Dec. 8, 2022.
It did not make it illegal to possess or use such products, however. In addition to the referendum, the state has also been sued over the ban by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., American Snuff Co. LLC, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. Inc., Philip Morris USA Inc., John Middleton Co., U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. LLC, Helix Innovations LLC, Neighborhood Market Association Inc. and Morija LLC, which does business under the name Vapin’ the 619. That litigation is currently ongoing.
U.S. Customs and Border Protections (CBP) officers at Chicago O’Hare’s International Mail Branch seized 50,000 dragster Mountain Vape Pens on Tuesday. The shipment, originated from Hong Kong, and was destined for a residence in Alexandria, Kentucky.
Credit: CBP
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined the shipment violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) as misbranded consumer goods being imported by an unauthorized agent, according to a press release. Tobacco products imported or offered for import into the United States must comply with all applicable U.S. laws. Read more about the FDA’s regulations governing e-cigarettes and other tobacco products.
The shipment was seized on January 19, and was mis-manifested as Lithium Ion Battereies, a common practice used by smugglers, CBP states. “CBP believed the shipment was intentionally improperly labeled in order to avoid detection,” the release states. “Additionally, CBP presumes the products are being sold without authorization. CBP continues to work diligently to stop non-legitimate products from entering the U.S.” The pens had an MSRP of $450,000.
“Our officers are dedicated to identifying and intercepting these types of shipments that could potentially harm our communities,” said Shane Campbell, Area Port Director-Chicago. “Customs and Border Protection’s trade enforcement mission places a significant emphasis on intercepting illicit products that could harm American consumers, and we will continue to work with our consumer safety partners to identify and seize unsafe and illicit goods.”
Last year the FDA announced an increased enforcement priority of electronic nicotine delivery systems, and issued detailed guidance to the industry of these new enforcement priorities that regulate the unauthorized importation of tobacco products.
CBP provides basic import information about admissibility requirements and the clearance process for e-commerce goods and encourages buyers to confirm that their purchases and the importation of those purchases comply with any state and federal import regulations.
CBP conducts operations at ports of entry throughout the United States, and regularly screens arriving international passengers and cargo for narcotics, weapons, and other restricted or prohibited products. CBP strives to serve as the premier law enforcement agency enhancing the Nation’s safety, security, and prosperity through collaboration, innovation, and integration.
The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) and National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPRC) in the U.S. have released an innovative toolkit as part of their nationwide campaign to raise awareness on the dangers of black-market vapor products and empower law enforcement and adult community leaders to prevent and enforce against these illicit activities.
The IPRC and NCPC launched this public-private partnership, with the support of Juul Labs, in October 2019, seeking to raise awareness on the consequences of illicit vapor products, with the objective of delivering tools and resources to communities grappling with this critical issue across the country. Now, the IPRC and NCPC have expanded upon this initiative by providing law enforcement and other key stakeholders with a toolkit that will aid in their efforts to educate and mobilize their communities against this dangerous illicit trade.
The toolkit is a comprehensive resource that details the various forms of illicit vapor products, such counterfeit, compatible and diverted products, and teaches the community how to spot such products. It also contains broader educational resources, along with strategies on how best to elevate these vital messages through social media, community events and meetings, and in cooperation with local businesses.
According to Juul, Illicit vapor products present a number of public health, economic and security consequences. Critically, they undermine underage-prevention measures because of their ease of access and may present additional health and safety risks for adult consumers given that they often are produced in unsanitary conditions without manufacturing and quality controls and lack ingredient testing and product characterization. They also may contain harmful chemicals not present in other, authentic products.
As part of this campaign, and with the support of IPRC, NCPC will leverage its vast, nationwide network to get this toolkit into the hands of law enforcement, trade partners, and other adult community leaders.
“It is imperative that we continue to partner across stakeholders, including law enforcement, to address the illicit market of vapor products,” Juul wrote in a statement. “Supporting public-private partnerships like the IPRC/NCPC initiative is one way we can actively fight back against illicit trade of vapor products. By empowering stakeholders through awareness and education, we can address the illicit trade of vapor products and foster a more responsible marketplace for the category.”
A new bill in the U.S. state of Mississippi aims to add vapor to the state’s 15 percent tobacco tax rules. Senate Bill 2182, authored by Senator David Blount, would define an “electronic smoking device” and add that to the definition of other tobacco products with the additional tax.
Credit: Pieter Van de Sande
“‘Electronic smoking device’ means any device that can be used to deliver aerosolized or vaporized nicotine to the person inhaling from the device, including, but not limited to, an e-cigarette, e-cigar, e-pipe, vape pen or e-hookah,” the bill states. “Electronic smoking device includes any component, part or accessory of such a device, whether or not sold separately, and includes any substance intended to be aerosolized or vaporized during the use of the device. Electronic smoking device does not include any battery or battery charger when sold separately. In addition, electronic smoking device does not include drugs, devices or combination products authorized for sale by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as those terms are defined in the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.”
Current Mississippi law indicates that cigars, cheroots, stogies, snug, chewing and smoking tobacco and all other tobacco products except cigarettes shall be taxed 15 percent of the manufacturer’s list price. This bill would add electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) to that list.
A new year and new resolutions. In 2021, many Americans will attempt to lose the weight gained after weeks – and months – of stay-at-home orders. Some may have been inclined to reduce their Zoom time, but for many smokers the beginning of a new year marks a resolution to quit smoking.
Credit: Marko Tomic
This particular resolution is difficult. A 2016 study from the UK’s Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) reported that “quitting smoking is the most difficult resolution to keep,” and that among Brits who reported making a resolution to quit smoking, “41% kept this for a month, [and] 13% [stuck] with it after a year.” A study from the University of Scranton found “only 8 percent of people who make resolutions [to quit smoking] meet their goal.”
Regardless if one is choosing to quit smoking as a New Year’s resolution, giving up cigarettes is difficult any time of the year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less “than one in 10 adult cigarette smokers succeed in quitting each year,” and in 2018, only 7.5 percent of smokers had successfully quit smoking.
There are many options for smokers to use to help aid their smoke-free journey, including traditional nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) like gum and patches, medication, and switching to electronic cigarettes and vapor products. In the aforementioned RSPH report, the agency noted vapor products “are becoming increasingly popular, and RSPH [recognizes] the growing body of evidence that for many they can be an effective smoking cessation tool.”
A landmark October 2020 review published in the Cochrane Library Database of Systematic Reviews examined 50 completed studies on e-cigarette use, which represented more than 12,400 e-cigarette users. The authors found that there was “moderate-certainty evidence, limited by imprecision, that quit rates were higher in people randomized to nicotine [e-cigarettes] than in those randomized to nicotine replacement therapy.” Indeed, the authors found that of “every 100 people using nicotine e-cigarettes to stop smoking, 10 might successfully stop, compared with only six of 100 people” using NRT or “nicotine-free e-cigarettes.”
Despite the science presented, many lawmakers are disregarding the evidence and seeking to limit and/or prohibit adult access to vapor products. Currently, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island have banned the sale of flavored vapor products. Massachusetts has a current ban on both flavored combustible cigarettes and e-cigarettes, and California’s own flavored tobacco and vapor ban is currently delayed as officials verify signatures for a referendum that would create a ballot measure to repeal the flavor ban in 2022.
Worse, politicians have used the novel coronavirus to push through legislation that bans the United States Postal Service (USPS) from delivering vapor products. Literally “buried” in the thousands of pages in the December COVID-19 relief package is the “Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes to Children Act” which orders the USPS to “promulgate regulations” to apply the Jenkins Act – which currently forbids the shipment of cigarettes by the USPS – to vapor products. The legislation also imposes greater tax reporting requirements on business sales of vapor products that are shipped by the USPS.
Although addressing youth use of e-cigarettes is laudable, essentially preventing online sales of vapor products will harm consumers of those products as retailers are forced to rely on an even limited number of delivery services to ship their products. FedEx recently announced that beginning on March 1, 2021 the delivery service “will begin prohibiting electronic cigarettes, vaping liquids, and other vaping products in the FedEx global network.”
New Year’s resolutions shouldn’t be broken because of government regulations. Former smokers should not be fearful of a possible return to cigarettes because policymakers are preventing access to tobacco harm reduction products. Perhaps the only good thing is that this year, unlike other New Year’s resolutions, smokers can blame the government on their broken resolution to quit smoking.
The views expressed in the above opinion are those of the authors’ and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Vapor Voice or its parent organization.
Lindsey Stroud is the creator and manager of Tobacco Harm Reduction 101 (www.thr101.org), a website that provides analysis and insight on tobacco and vapor products. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
The Missoula County Commissioners in Montana has provisionally voted to expand the city’s vape ban five miles beyond city limits in what commissioner’s say is an effort to reduce youth access to vape products.
Credit: Antonin Fels
The ordinance restricts self-service display of all vaping and tobacco products and prohibits the sale of flavored e-liquids and other tobacco products, according to an article on khq.com. The approval is provisional, meaning it will be discussed again on Jan. 28 before there is a final vote of approval.
Public comment is available online, via mail or at the county commissioners meeting on Jan. 28.
In late November, the City of Missoula, Montana banned flavored vaping products and not flavored combustible tobacco products. Now, Missoula County is considering using its extraterritorial powers to extend the city’s ban on the sale of flavored vapes and their display five miles outside city limits next week.
New Year resolutions always include commitments to quit smoking. Most people fail not for want of trying but for want of options that can help them. Our interventions to date are not good enough. Will the World Health Organization’s (WHO) campaign to help 100 million people quit tobacco (WHO News Release Dec 8, 2020) make a difference? Is the WHO willing to embrace new methods and emerging scientific data to course correct and in the process save millions of lives?
Credit: Martin Budenbender
The WHO depends upon “new contributions from partners” to help smokers quit (WHO News Release Dec 8, 2020), Derek Yach and Chitra Subramaniam write in an opinion for Business Insider. They are as diverse as Amazon Web Services, Facebook, and Google. These digital giants are not known for their solutions to help people quit. Worse, WHO has turned to Allen Carr’s Easyway that has published studies of dubious quality and has a strong opposition to the use of nicotine even in nicotine replacement therapy (NRT Allen Carr, BMJ 2006).
Unfortunately, most of the countries listed as priorities for this campaign have yet to include NRTs in their national drug formularies despite WHO having included it in the Essential Drug list way back (Application for Inclusion of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) in the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, WHO, 2009).
WHO should conduct an independent review of the evidence of each partners’ interventions in the very diverse set of countries where they will be tested. Such a review is a basic requirement for making global recommendations. It must be as rigorous and science-based as the processes that were put into action to approve COVID 19 vaccines. (WHO News Release Dec 31, 2020)
Florence, WHO’s robotic digital health worker was launched with this campaign to help smokers quit. Dr. Yach tried it (see Speak to Florence) but found Florence true to its name – robotic and unable to answer simple questions and clearly out of depth when asked real world questions outside of the algorithm. A gimmick of this nature is disrespectful as it mocks those seeking to quit.
It seems that WHO is far more interested in ending the use of tobacco harm reduction products than in saving lives.
The latest Global State of Tobacco Harm reduction (GSTHR) report (GSTHR, Burning Issues 2020) indicates that almost 100 million people are now using a range of such products with most completely off combustible cigarettes and toxic smokeless tobacco products. This report provides convincing evidence that harm reduction products, including snus, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, are more effective means of quitting than the use of NRTs, and substantially lower exposure to harmful products of combustion seen in cigarettes and bidis.
In contrast, WHO’s latest report from their expert committee on Tobacco Product Regulation, released December 23rd, recommends banning and prohibiting e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. This echoes a call by the Union, a Bloomberg Philanthropy financed NGO, to all low and middle income countries (LMICs) to ban such products to “avoid being distracted” by them (WHO Expert Committee Meeting Report, Dec 23, 2020).
Distraction from what one may ask?
This “expert” report did not address snus. That may be because WHO accepts the EC ban as being the basis for its policies despite the recent USFDA decision that led to it being the first class of tobacco harm reductions products to pass its rigorous evaluation process (FDA News Release, Jul 2020).
Before the FCTC negotiations began 20 years ago under Dr. Yach’s leadership of the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI) WHO invited tobacco industry scientists to present to the fledgling Tobacco Products Regulation Expert Committee on their progress in developing safer tobacco products. The presentations were not useable then for any specific harm reduction recommendations to be made. The hope remained that in time scientific progress would follow. For that reason – and in good faith – harm reduction found its way into the very definition of tobacco control used in the FCTC (WHO FCTC 2004).
Decades have passed and tobacco consumption continues to kill people mainly in LMICs. Science and innovation have permeated every sector of society. Dirty legacy industries are now leaders in driving sustainable development. This is underway in the oil and gas, transport, mining and food sectors. And as the GSTHR and our Tobacco Transformation Index (https://tobaccotransformationindex.org/) bears out, such transformation is underway in the tobacco sector as well. This transformation should be embraced by the WHO not shunned.
Instead of looking into the future and enabling global leadership, the United Nation’s (UN) top health agency is digging into its past with a ferocity that is difficult to comprehend. Ignoring decisions by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Cochrane Collaborating Centers and other regulatory and science oversight groups indicating the power of THR to increase quit rates more effectively than NRTs for example, or the potential to sharply reduce risks associated with combustible cigarettes or toxic smokeless products.
One hopes that as 2021 unfolds, WHO will take a fresh look at the power of THR to accelerate an end to smoking. A good way to start would be to summon the leading scientists from tobacco and e-cigarette companies to present to the WHO Tobacco Product Regulations Expert Committee in a series of open sessions. The aim could be simple: to assess whether industry has made material progress in developing products able to end smoking in order to truly judge whether the unilateral bans and prohibitions are warranted.
From what we know, the answer is yes. WHO’s unambitious aim of helping 100 million of the 1.1 billion tobacco users quit could be revised upwards dramatically if they were to open up to rapid progress underway in the very companies we rightfully condemned 20 years ago.
Knowledge that ignores science cannot help public health. We are seeing it with the COVID 19 crisis. We are seeing it differently in tobacco control. Time is not on our side.
The views expressed in the above opinion are those of the authors’ and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Vapor Voice or its parent organization.
Derek Yach is president of the Smoke Free Foundation, USA. He has spent four decades advancing global public health especially chronic diseases. He was a key architect of the WHO’s FCTC.
Chitra Subramaniam is the founder of CSD consulting Switzerland. A journalist by training and a media entrepreneur she writes on public health, development and trade
Vaping devices and e-cigarettes are included and treated the same as combustible cigarettes in accordance with Macau’s local smoking control laws, according to Macau health authorities. Vaporizers or e-cigarette devices have become growingly popular in the city, and although their use outside designated areas is not forbidden, sales of vaping products are not allowed in Macau.
Credit: Timothy S. Donahue
The Health Bureau (SS) noted that some 2,368 smoking law infractions were recorded last year, with 21 cases referring to the use of electronic cigarettes in prohibited areas. The SS has called on the public to stay away from all tobacco products and all types of electronic cigarettes, to comply with and not violate the smoking law.
Some 92.5 percent of infractions were committed by men, with 40 percent of the total comprising of tourists. Most infractions were reported in parks/gardens and leisure areas, restaurants or commercial establishments.
Last year 409 inspections were also carried out in casinos, with 165 people indicted for smoking in prohibited places. Smoking is banned on the main floors of casinos, but is permitted in closed-off ventilated smoking areas, which are located on the casino floors. Macau is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.
Macau health officials have claimed that e-cigarettes are no safer than smoking traditional cigarettes.
Vaping products are going to be much harder to sell in Connecticut under bills that are being introduced in the General Assembly, including a ban on the sale of all nicotine products in pharmacies, and e-cigarettes within five miles of schools.
Credit: Haiberliu
Lawmakers are also expected to reintroduce legislation from Gov. Lamont that failed in the closure of the General Assembly last March, to ban flavored vaping devices, in attempt to prevent teenagers and young adults from starting what data show can become lifetime habits, according to an article in the Middletown Press.
Several of the bills, including the outright ban on refillable e-cigarettes and vaping products in the state, have been introduced by state Sen. Saud Anwar, a physician from South Windsor who serves as vice chairman of the Public Health Committee.
“Many of the children are facing life-long addictions and we must do something,” Anwar, a Democrat, said in a Friday interview. He said that it is hypocritical for pharmacies on the one hand to be places where health aids, drugs and vaccines are available, while the nicotine-based e-cigarettes and vaping materials are in the same place.
The five-mile zone around schools would also include neighborhood variety stores and gas stations. Another bill would require Connecticut buyers of online nicotine-delivery products to produce proof of their age before transactions can be completed.
Kevin O’Flaherty, regional director of advocacy for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said Friday said the organization’s main goal this year is to eliminate all flavored tobacco products, including cigarettes, mirroring a law that took effect last year in Massachusetts.
“We’ve got to protect kids from these flavors,” O’Flaherty said. “We really want all flavors off the market. You just have to do it that way. Smoking overall is going down. If we are serious about ending the cycle of addiction, we have to nip it in the bud. All of Connecticut’s neighbors have banned all flavored e-cigarettes, but only Massachusetts has banned flavored tobacco too.”
A spokesman for the vapor company Juul Labs, said Friday that with a customer base of one billion adults, it is committed to keeping children away from using its products, while helping grown-ups wean themselves from smoking. In September of 2019, the company ceased all marketing and advertising.
“We will continue to reset the vapor category in the U.S. and seek to earn the trust of society by working cooperatively with attorneys general, legislators, regulators, public health officials, and other stakeholders to combat underage use and transition adult smokers from combustible cigarettes,” the spokesman said.
At Puff City on River Road in Shelton, Matt Genc, a partner in the three-year-old smoke shop, says any state laws are part of the cost of doing business. He said that banning flavored vapes would hurt sales, but that the store obeys all rules. “Whatever is legal, we’re selling and whatever is not legal, we’re not selling,” Genc said in a Friday phone interview.
