The government in the Philippines is being urged to raise the minimum age of people allowed to use vaping products to 25, ban flavored products, online sales, and “eventually” e-cigarettes entirely.
Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance Executive Director Ulysses Dorotheo said also wants the introduction of “standardized packaging” on vaping products – removing colors, scents, and indications of flavors in a proposal issued to lawmakers during a Senate committee hearing on sustainable development goals, innovation, and future thinking on Friday.
“To raise the minimum age to 25 which is the cut-off for adolescent brain development so as to reduce the risk of nicotine addiction,” he said, reports the Inquirer.
Individuals as young as 18 years old may legally smoke vaping products in the Philippines.
The country’s Food and Drug Administration backed the suggestion of Dorotheo.
Restricting the sales of vaping products online is likewise pushed by Dorothero, noting it “is where our youth spend much of their time.”
Further, Dorotheo sought to increase the excise taxes on vaping products, pointing out that a lower tax rate is levied on such items compared to tobacco products.
Dorotheo eventually emphasized that the “long-term ideal outcome” is to ban vaping products.
The Philippine Tobacco Industry (PTI) recently called on the Philippines’ Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to crack down on illicit vapor products.
Cleveland, Ohio is considering a proposal that would ban the sales of flavored cigars and most other tobacco products within Ohio’s second-most populous city.
At a City Council Meeting this week, Council President Blaine A. Griffin, Ward 6, and Council Member Kevin Conwell, Ward 9, introduced a proposed ordinance that would ban the sale of almost all flavored tobacco products within Cleveland city limits.
Ordinance No. 184-2023 has one exception, it would allow hookah bars to sell flavored shisha tobacco for on-site consumption. There are no exemptions for flavored cigars of any kind, reports Charlie Minato of Halfwheel.
The law defines a flavored tobacco product as one “that imparts a taste or smell, other than the taste or smell of tobacco, that is distinguishable by an ordinary consumer either prior to, or during the consumption of, a Tobacco Product, including, but not limited to, any taste or smell relating to fruit, menthol, mint, wintergreen, chocolate, cocoa, vanilla, honey, or any candy, dessert, alcoholic beverage, herb, or spice.”
It would also ban retailers and manufacturers from advertising products as having a taste or smell other than tobacco, presumably targeting things like the cooling sensation of menthol cigarettes.
While the bill passed the Republican-controlled legislature during a lame-duck session, it was vetoed by Gov. Mike DeWine, also a Republican, who called for a statewide ban on flavored vaping products. DeWine’s veto allows for laws like the one proposed in Cleveland to be enacted.
A bill in the U.S. state of Vermont is gaining traction that would outlaw all flavored vaping and other tobacco products.
Sponsors of the legislation said the bill is an attempt to curve the spike of youth nicotine use and to improve the health of all Vermonters, according to NBC5.
“The health consequences are huge, we know of cardiovascular disease, lung disease, various cancers, and pre-cancerous chronic conditions like emphysema,” said Sen. Virginia Lyons, lead sponsor of the bill.
Lawmakers also acknowledged that while the state may lose money from tobacco tax revenue, it could be made up in healthcare savings with Vermont spending an average of $348 million annually to treat tobacco-caused illnesses.
NBC5 received the following statement on the potential ban from an R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company spokesperson.
“Reynolds is committed to Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) and we believe our portfolio of potentially reduced-risk products can play a critical role in its delivery. We strongly believe there are more effective ways to deliver tobacco harm reduction than banning menthol in cigarettes. Evidence from other markets where similar bans have been imposed demonstrates little impact on overall cigarette consumption.”
Several states in the Northeast have or are considering flavor bans. Connecticut also introduced a bill that would ban flavored e-cigarettes. New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island have barred the sale of flavored vaping products. Massachusetts banned all flavored tobacco items, including flavored cigars, cigarettes and vaping goods.
Vermont’s ban was originally proposed in early 2020 as a way to prevent youth use, but was sidelined after the Covid-19 pandemic began to impact the country.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong submitted testimony concerning House Bill 6488 stating that he fully supports the state’s proposed ban on flavored vaping and other tobacco products.
He also expressed concern that the “An Act Concerning Cigarettes, Tobacco Products, Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems and Vapor Products” bill as currently written exempts the most widely used flavor—menthol—which must be included in the ban to deter youth addiction.
“Ending the sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol, will have an enormous impact in reducing the number of people who die or suffer debilitating preventable illness from tobacco use, significantly reducing the number of young people who become addicted to tobacco products, and reversing the youth e-cigarette epidemic,” Tong states. “A comprehensive flavor ban that includes menthol will save thousands of Connecticut lives, protect public health, and advance health equity. It should be implemented immediately.”
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong
Tong stated that his office has a long history of battling tobacco companies “from negotiating the Master Settlement Agreement in the 1990s to the recently announced settlement with Juul, we have focused our efforts on combatting the insidious ways that Big Tobacco has marketed to children.”
The bill is the most recent effort by members of the legislature’s Public Health Committee to take flavored nicotine products off the market in an effort to reduce smoking and vaping among young people. Similar legislation has failed to make it across the finish line during recent legislative sessions.
Connecticut lawmakers heard testimony on legislation that would ban the sale of flavored tobacco and vape products as well as prohibit the use of vapes while in a vehicle with a child.
Connecticut is one of few states in the region that has not adopted a prohibition on flavored e-cigarettes. New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island have barred the sale of flavored vaping products. Massachusetts banned all flavored tobacco items, including flavored cigars, cigarettes and vaping goods.
Bloomberg Philanthropies has committed another $420 million over four years to the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use. This fourth investment brings Bloomberg’s total commitment to tobacco control to more than $1.58 billion since 2005.
The Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use is helping cities and countries implement measures such as smoke-free public places, banning tobacco advertising, increasing tax on tobacco products, requiring graphic warnings on cigarette packaging and mass-media public awareness campaigns.
Currently, the initiative spans more than 110 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)—including China and India, which together account for nearly 40 percent of the world’s smokers.
Critics of Bloomberg’s agenda say his policies fuel corruption and drive countless people back to smoking combustible cigarettes. In a release, the American Vapor Manufacturers Association (AVM) stated that despite his “pretensions and self-aggrandizement, the tragic reality is that Michael Bloomberg is bankrolling a prohibition campaign that aims to stigmatize and outlaw the single most effective smoking cessation method ever devised, nicotine vaping.”
The AVM states that it has extensively documented that Bloomberg’s money is used to coerce public officials, pay lobbyists, and even install personnel in public institutions. “It funds front groups that have no genuine following but peddle demonstrable misinformation to the public,” the release states. “The money is even used to bribe journalists through dark money grants to rig the news coverage of this crucial public health issue. It is thoroughly corrupt and happening at a scale that shocks the conscience.
From the new $420 million in funding, $280 million will be aimed at reducing tobacco use in LMICs and $140 million will target reducing e-cigarette use among teenagers in the United States.
“Over the past two decades, we’ve made major progress in reducing tobacco use and the death and disease connected to it, but it continues to take a devastating toll, and it remains the leading cause of preventable death,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries, in a statement.
“This latest investment will help to spread strategies that have proven so effective at saving lives — including smoke-free laws and advertising restrictions—to more nations and communities around the world.”
Multnomah County in the U.S. state of Oregon in December passed a law banning the sale of flavored tobacco products. Opponents of the ordinance filed a lawsuit in county circuit court Jan. 26, seeking to block the ban.
The plaintiffs, 21+ Tobacco and Vapor Retail Association of Oregon and a smoke shop called Division Vapor, argue that state law “specifically authorizes the licensed sale of tobacco products and inhalant delivery systems statewide” and that Multnomah County lacks the authority to ban the sale of flavored products used for vaping and in hookahs, according to Willamette Week.
The ban is scheduled to go into effect in January 2024.
“Plaintiff Division Vapor requires that anyone entering its store be at least 21 years old and has signs posted at the entrance stating this requirement,” the lawsuit says. “Division Vapor vigorously enforces its restrictions prohibiting entry of underaged individuals.”
The lawsuit follows an earlier effort by tobacco sellers in Washington County to overturn a ban passed by the board of commissioners there. In that case, a Washington County circuit judge ruled the county didn’t have the authority to issue such a ban. Multnomah County officials say that ruling has no bearing on their ban.
Lawmakers in Oregon recently introduced a new bill that would end the sale of flavored vaping and other tobacco products across the state.
Concept Photo of Huachengda Precision cotton products (Credit: Huachengda Precision)
Flavor bans are challenging e-liquid and hardware manufacturers to produce adaptive products.
By Ellesmere Zhu, 2Firsts
Since China’s e-cigarette control measures took effect on Oct. 1, 2022, consumers can legally purchase only tobacco-flavored vapes in that country. Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, several U.S. states and cities have banned flavored e-cigarettes. The European Union passed a ban on flavored heated-tobacco products recently, perhaps signaling what may come for flavored e-cigarettes. The once wide range of flavored electronic nicotine-delivery system (ENDS) products is now rapidly narrowing.
Many industry insiders believe the move to ban flavors could expand globally, pushing tobacco flavors into the mainstream market. The current wave of tobacco flavors are testing the tolerances of both e-liquids and the hardware (vaporizers). Manufacturers are now challenged with producing a flavor that customers are willing to purchase and enjoy in markets where any flavor other than tobacco is outlawed.
Reproducing the taste of traditional tobacco in an e-cigarette is no easy matter. It is one of the major hurdles that many enterprises are working on currently. The key to emulating the flavor and taste of traditional tobacco is the vaporizer (coil), a core component of any e-cigarette product. If a vaporizer manufacturer wants to tackle the flavor challenge, it must focus on hardware and software strength.
Technical Troubles
In the face of the global trend of enforcing tobacco-only flavors, e-cigarette manufacturers are having a difficult time making the transition. Most manufacturers rely on diluted tobacco flavors to help customers who have traditionally preferred fruit flavors through the transition, which results in the homogenization of tobacco-flavored vapes. This has many manufacturers trying to determine what features are necessary for a true tobacco flavor. Complicating the issue, no country regulates which combination of flavors make up a tobacco flavor nor how a tobacco flavor should taste.
A representative from Shenzhen Huachengda Precision Industry Co., a global vaping manufacturer specializing in R&D, says that any juice aiming to achieve a global presence must have several characteristics. High recognition, rich fragrance and superior taste are the key to building memorable experiences for customers while dry burning, burnt core, condensation and exploding juice (spitback) are issues to avoid.
Ceramic wick surface under electron microscope
The vaporizer, meanwhile, should have a stable structure, which can be achieved by proper assembly and material selection. An unstable liquid absorption rate causes dry burning and burnt cores while unstable heating leads to inconsistency of taste.
Currently, the two most popular vaporizer materials on the market are ceramic wick and cotton wick. The current ceramic wick is hard in texture and easy to assemble, but due to technical limitations, its fine and small-size pore textures result in unstable liquid discharge as the juices with a higher viscosity (such as tobacco flavors) cannot flow through smoothly, according to Chen Ping, CEO and chief engineer for Huachengda.
Cottonwick surface under electron microscope
In comparison, the cotton wick is fully permeable and has a larger pore size, which allows the juice to pass smoothly (see Figure 2). However, for all cotton wicks offered on the market today, there is a risk of the wicking being burnt if the temperature on the device is set too high.
“There is a great difference between the characteristics of tobacco-flavored and fruit-flavored e-liquids. If we apply the vaporizer designed for fruit flavor to tobacco flavor, the taste performance and performance of the core is completely different, really an unsatisfactory reproduction of the tobacco flavor,” says Chen. “Taking into consideration the different features between tobacco-flavored and fruit-flavored juice, Huachengda has come up with optimized tobacco flavor through its vaporizers. Ideally, different flavors of juice require different vaporizers, just like one key can only open one lock.”
The Next Generation
After the instability issues are resolved, manufacturers like Huachengda must still find the proper hardware to truly unleash the authentic tobacco flavor in e-liquids. To this end, Chen says his company has invested heavily in R&D. The vaporizer’s structure, materials, formulations and heating element must all be optimized, he explains.
For example, the previous generation of vaporizers were heated by wires, causing overheating, scorching and even burning. However, the heating element comprising a mesh coil can heat the core evenly, thus producing a richer vapor. It has a solid structure that is not easy to burn off, and the flavor can still be maintained at the initial level of quality over long periods of use, according to Chen.
Looking forward on the path of innovation, Huachengda has been developing its new “fiber wick” for which the company applied for a patent in 2021. The manufacturing process of the fiber core is to break the fiber into a pulp and then “stick it together” with a binder to ensure the consistency of the material while improving uniformity, stability and vaporization, according to the company.
However, there is still room for improvement in this technology. When mixed with e-liquid, the fiber wick will absorb the juice and expand gradually. This affects the liquid absorption speed. More performance and material testing are needed before the technology can be applied on a mass scale. As for now, Huachengda has COTTONX, a larger coil that is suitable for disposable e-cigarettes, and its still-in-development fiber wick, a smaller, more compact coil suitable for pod system ENDS products.
“Improving the user experience has always been the focus of the entire industry,” says Chen, adding that a good example is how cotton dividers on the edge of coils were designed to prevent leakage; however, consumers complain of waste because it would absorb some of the liquids. The need to limit wasted e-liquid has spurred further innovation.
The development of the vaporizers differs from that of the microchip, clarifies Chen. “For chips, from 10 nm [nanometers] to 5 nm to 2 nm, the smaller the better,” he says. “But for vaporizers, the development direction is still to be explored. We need to develop and customize the products according to specific laws and regulations and user needs in a decentralized manner. This means that only manufacturers with a large pool of technology reserves and strong R&D can go far in this industry.”
Exterior view of Huachengda, a global professional vaporizer manufacturing base
British American Tobacco will appeal the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s marketing denial orders for its Vuse Vibe Tank Menthol 3.0% and Vuse Ciro Cartridge Menthol 1.5%, the company announced in a statement.
On Jan. 24, the FDA denied marketing applications for two menthol refills used in Vuse Vibe and Vuse Ciro vaporizers, which are sold in the U.S. by BAT subsidiary R.J. Reynolds. According to the agency, Reynolds’ applications presented insufficient evidence to show that the potential benefit to adult smokers outweighs the risks of youth initiation and use.
“Reynolds intends to seek a stay of enforcement immediately and will pursue other appropriate avenues to allow Vuse to continue offering its innovative products to adult nicotine consumers age 21+ without interruption,” the company said.
“We believe that menthol vapor products are critical to helping adult smokers migrate away from combustible cigarettes. FDA’s decision, if allowed to go into effect, will harm, not benefit, public health.
“We remain confident in the quality of all of Reynolds’ applications, and we believe that there is ample evidence for FDA to determine that the marketing of these products is appropriate for the protection of public health.”
Anti-tobacco campaigners countered that menthol e-cigarettes appeal to underage consumers. “Existing evidence demonstrates that non-tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, including menthol flavored e-cigarettes, have a known and substantial risk with regard to youth appeal, uptake and use; in contrast, data indicate tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes do not have the same appeal to youth and therefore do not pose the same degree of risk,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in a statement.
Morgan Stanley said it expected the rejected products to remain on the U.S. market for the duration of BAT’s appeal, with minimal impact on the company’s operations. “Longer term, should today’s denial order reflect a broader effort by the FDA to ban menthol e-cigarettes, BAT’s U.S. cigarette business could benefit given its menthol mix as it might discourage some smokers from quitting or switching to reduced risk products,” the bank wrote in a note to investors. Reynolds’ Newport brand represents about 40 percent BAT’s U.S. cigarette dollar sales, according to Morgan Stanley.
The Jan. 24 rejection of the Vuse refills underscores the FDA’s ongoing reluctance to approve menthol e-cigarette flavors. To date, the agency has approved only tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes.
However, the FDA has granted both a premarket tobacco product application and modified risk tobacco product designation to IQOS’s menthol variant, which may eventually leave Philip Morris International’s heat-not-burn product as one of the few menthol reduced-risk alternatives on the market.
The FDA is targeting publishing a final rule to ban menthol cigarettes in August 2023, but considering expected industry litigation, final implementation could be five to six years away, according to Morgan Stanley.
Lawmakers in Oregon introduced a new bill that would end the sale of flavored vaping and other tobacco products across the state.
House Bill 3090 aims to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and all other flavored tobacco products. This includes hookah, e-cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco, reports KATU.
“We have been setting ourselves up for success through the legislature for the last seven years, to get to the point now where we can finally have a huge impact on reducing the pipeline of new customers,” said Jamie Dunphy, the Oregon director of government relations for the American Cancer Society.
Dunphy said the bill is the next step in reducing the number of people who vape.
Washington County, Oregon’s flavored vaping and tobacco ban was struck down by a judge who stated that counties in Oregon do not have the authority to enact such measures and that they must come from the state legislature.
New Mexico State Capitol at dusk (Credit: Ball Studios)
A New Mexico lawmaker is proposing a ban on all flavored vaping and other tobacco products. The bill would stop the sale of any vaping or other tobacco product that has any flavoring added. The representative behind this bill says the main goal is to stop kids from getting hooked on nicotine.
“Most of my sales are all flavored stuff. There’s far few and in between that will come and be like ‘I just want nothing flavored,’” says Sabrina Garley, manager of Biroska SmokeShop, a vape vendor in New Mexico, according to KRQE.
Local smoke shops around Albuquerque say they fear a bill banning these flavored tobacco products like e-cigarettes and vapes will hurt their business. “I thought, ‘we’re going down.’ Definitely, definitely one of our biggest sellers. We’d have to figure out something else to replace that,” Garley says.
House Bill 94 is sponsored by Las Cruces State Representative Joanne Ferrary. “House Bill 94 will prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products and it will define the terms and make sure that we aren’t losing a new generation of kids to nicotine,” Ferrary says, “By removing the flavored tobacco products from the market, it will keep kids from gravitating towards any of the flavors on the market.”
