Tag: news

WITCO Plans to Introduce Vapes to Trinidad and Tobago

Credit: Firewings
The West Indian Tobacco Company (WITCO) is planning to introduce vaping products and is researching cannabis use, reports Trinidad Express.
“The research is clear, [vaping is] 95 percent safer than cigarettes, so the same risk profile does not exist,” said Raoul Glynn, WITCO’s managing director. “That is why you have Public Health in the United Kingdom giving vaping products to 1 million consumers in the U.K. We saw it in T&T for Carnival, where people felt more comfortable vaping than smoking cigarettes.”
“It’s not one or the other because we will continue to have cigarettes for consumers who want to smoke, but we also want to have the vaping products for those consumers as well,” Glynn said.
Glynn said WITCO is actively researching the effects cannabis can have on users. “It has very relaxing elements and then you have some elements that do not have a positive effect on people. So we have to be careful, and WITCO would not bring something to market that would put people at risk. The group has done extensive research and concluded one in the U.K. with consumers. We will take those learnings and see if it is ready to go to market, but at this stage, I think it is a bit far off,” he said.
April 28, 2023
Veolia Launches UK-based Vape Collection Service

Credit: Chepko Danil
Resource management company Veolia has launched a national vape collection service to help provide safe disposal and recycling routes for the three million vapes currently thrown away in the U.K. each week.
Veolia states it can now facilitate the collection and transport of vaping products from retailers to a recycling facility to extract the valuable materials, including lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese, inside.
The recycling of these items could save more than 10 tons of lithium that could be recycled into new products from the batteries, which would save up to 72 tons of carbon emissions compared to using raw materials, as producing one ton of lithium from ore produces around nine tons of CO2 emissions, according to Scottish Local Retailer.
Collections will be scheduled according to demand and in order to store and transport these materials safely, Veolia will provide retailers with individual containers of vermiculite, a mineral that will minimize fire risks from the lithium-ion batteries contained within the vapes.
“Two vapes are thrown away every second. They might be called disposable, but they can and should be recycled,” said Donald Macphail, Chief Operating Officer – Treatment at Veolia UK, said. “Our new nationwide vape collection service will provide a safe recycling avenue to retailers who provide the mandatory take back schemes for vapes and ensure that we can extract the valuable materials contained within, and mitigate any fire and environmental risks.”
April 27, 2023
Watchdog Group Says FDA Ignoring Science on Vapor

The government watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services over what it says are scientific integrity violations involving the impact of vaping.
The complaint states the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is promoting public health messages on vaping that appear to be unsupported by its own research and scientific findings, according to Center Square.
Protect the Public’s Trust stated the FDA was making “scientifically unfounded statements about the vaping industry” contrary to its own research, adding the agency’s own data appeared to contradict the FDA’s public stance on vaping products.
Protect the Public’s Trust said an FDA report found that “only a subset” of the many harmful compounds found in cigarettes are found in vapes and “at much lower levels” than those in cigarette smoke. That FDA report found that menthol-vapes were helping adult smokers quit cigarettes better than fruit, candy or traditional tobacco flavors.
In the complaint, Protect the Public’s Trust stated that FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb presented vaping as comparable to smoking traditional cigarettes because “several of the dangerous chemicals in tobacco smoke are also present in the aerosol of some [vaping] products.”
The FDA didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
But the FDA declared that “Vaping is not harmless. It carries real health and safety risks, including addiction and other negative health effects.”
“Many studies suggest e-cigarettes and noncombustible tobacco products may be less harmful than combustible cigarettes. However, there is not yet enough evidence to support claims that e-cigarettes and other ENDS [Electronic Nicotine Delivery System] are effective tools for quitting smoking,” the FDA stated on its website.
Protect the Public’s Trust stated there has been a pattern of the government not following “the science.” Protect the Public’s Trust also claimed in December 2022 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to track side effects of taking the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Once again, it appears that federal public health leadership has chosen to sacrifice scientific integrity and the public’s rapidly disappearing trust on the altar of political and special interest agendas,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, in an email to The Center Square. “While we were promised that health officials would follow the science, what we have observed instead is a disturbing trend of ignoring or disregarding scientific research and data that don’t fit their particular biases.”
April 27, 2023
Cannabis Company not Violating Smoore Patents

The U.S. International Trade Commission on Monday ruled definitively in favor of U.S. the cannabis vapor products manufacturer Advanced Vapor Devices (AVD) after a year-long patent infringement case brought by China-based e-cigarette maker Shenzhen Smoore Technology Limited.
The commission affirmed an administrative law judge’s February 2023 finding of no violation of Smoore’s CCELL’s coil patents. Under the ruling, there is no violation by AVD’s cartridges, components, or products.
“Today is an enormous victory for the U.S. cannabis vaping sector,” stated AVD Co-Founder and CEO Alex Kwon in a release. “AVD’s disruptive technology, reliability, and exceptional service will enable us to safeguard our rights and innovate for our clients’ benefit.”
“We are grateful to the International Trade Commission for exposing CCELL’s bullying of U.S. companies,” said Michael Brosgart, AVD chief operating officer. “AVD shouldered the burden of this litigation because we are committed to our industry, and believe consumers deserve the highest quality products. We can’t wait to share our upcoming innovations.”
Out of nearly 7 million premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs), only 23 e-cigarette-style products have been approved for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Most of the approved products have been manufactured by Smoore International Holdings, through its subsidiary, Shenzhen Smoore Technology, which manufactures the Njoy Ace, Njoy Daily, Logic Power and Logic Pro devices.
Cannabis vaping products are not regulated on a federal level.
April 27, 2023
Focus on Harm Reduction
Experts share their insights relating to tobacco harm reduction during the April 25 In Focus webinar
In the run-up to the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Panama (COP10) this November, public health professionals, industry representatives and policy experts on April 25 shared their insights into issues relating to tobacco harm reduction (THR) and sustainability as part of the GTNF’s IN FOCUS online series. Following is a summary of the presentations and panel discussions.
Contributed

Credit: Red Pixel

James Murphy
James Murphy, director of research and science at BAT, opened by saying that tobacco harm reduction is simple in concept: the switching of people who wish to use nicotine from risky forms of combustible tobacco products to lower risk tobacco and nicotine products. He noted that THR was the reason he joined the industry as a scientist almost 20 years ago, and that motivation remains today as the principal driver for coming to work each morning. His focus is making THR the centerpiece for all of BAT’s scientific research efforts.
Murphy outlined that the challenges to THR are many, but they are outweighed by the opportunities for reducing the health impact of the industry across the globe if stakeholders get it right. He sets out four key topic areas for his remarks: 1) the benefits of THR for reducing the impact of the industry on global public health; 2) the key challenges facing THR; 3) the need for a common view on the race to zero combustion; and 4) the importance of science.
Murphy stated that adult smokers who wish to continue to use nicotine now have access to a range of reduced-risk products that are better for them and for those around them. In countries that have embraced the concept of THR, including Sweden, the U.K., Japan and the U.S., there have been significant declines in smoking rates as smokers have migrated to noncombustible products, such as heated-tobacco products, vapor products and oral nicotine and tobacco products. Real-world evidence continues to be collected that indicates improvements in quality of life and lower instances of smoking-related morbidity when noncombustible products displace cigarettes.
Murphy gave an overview of upcoming opportunities for THR to be discussed globally, including the U.K. government’s upcoming publication of a new tobacco control plan, the COP10 meeting in Panama, the recommendations from the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s evaluation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products, and proposals in 2024 from the EU around the third Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).
He set out four key challenges on THR: 1) objective science remaining at the core of the debate, with agreed frameworks for all stakeholders on assessing the risk profile of noncombustibles; 2) ensuring each country offers consumer access to regulated noncombustibles; 3) regulations must be enforced to prevent unregulated black market products being sold to consumers; and 4) preventing youth access to nicotine products and balancing the debate with the benefits of adult smokers switching to lower risk products.
Murphy then turned to the importance of the race to zero combustion, setting out the relative harm reductions (90 percent to 95 percent less) from heated-tobacco, vapor and oral products as compared to combustibles. Consumers using lower risk noncombustible tobacco and nicotine products experience substantially lower levels of toxins, comparable to levels observed in those who quit using tobacco products altogether.
He focused on the need for the industry to codify what is meant by THR: a race to zero combustion, not zero nicotine use, and reducing cigarette prevalence to below 5 percent, the accepted threshold for effectively zero in a country. He highlighted Sweden, which, through the use of snus and oral tobacco products, will achieve its smoking target 16 years ahead of the EU and has the lowest smoking-related disease outcomes anywhere in the EU.
He then turned to the importance of world-class science in providing a robust evidence base to substantiate the role of reduced-risk products (RRPs) in global THR. Regulators need it to form the basis of regulation; politicians need it so they can cut through the rhetoric; and consumers need it so they can feel confident in switching to lower risk products. He remarked that industry science is necessary as regulators require specific data on the manufactured products, as seen in the U.S. with premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) regulations or in the EU with the TPD.
Murphy closed by lamenting the polarization of the global debate on THR and the lack of scientific conferences where all stakeholders—industry included—can debate scientific studies and come to common conclusions on THR science to drive progress forward. His final remarks highlighted that the race to zero combustion has only really begun and that common science conclusions must form the basis of what the industry does.

Riccardo Polosa
Riccardo Polosa, professor of internal medicine at the University of Catania and founder of the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction, began his remarks by stating that there is no doubt that the evidence in favor of e-cigarettes being effective in terms of smoking substitution is quite strong. He highlighted the systematic reviews, randomized control trials and population studies that show evidence that e-cigarettes are important tools in helping smokers quit.
Turning to heated-tobacco products (HTPs), Polosa explained that it is true that HTPs are similar to e-cigarettes in that they deliver nicotine in an equivalent range and mimic the ritualistic aspects of cigarettes, and both have a potential for smoking substitution. Although there is population evidence to suggest that HTPs are effective in this, to date, there have been no real randomized controlled trials that have proved these assumptions.
He set out that researchers at the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) had designed and conducted a study to directly compare e-cigarettes with HTPs, involving the first randomized controlled trial of HTPs, in order to compare the effectiveness, tolerability and acceptability of both HTPs and refillable e-cigarettes for the purposes of cigarette substitution. The design of the study was standard: a switching trial, involving the randomization of 220 smokers not intending to quit but interested in trying new technologies and tar-free products. These 220 random subjects were split across two different products: IQOS 2.4 for HTPs and Justfog Q16 for e-cigarettes.
Polosa highlighted that the results showed clearly that the efficacy in terms of smoking substitution for HTPs is impressive, demonstrating how HTPs can help smokers to quit, with a continuous abstinence rate of 39 percent for HTPs versus 30.8 percent for e-cigarettes. He also showed that the number of dual users reduced over time, with the number of quitters increasing over time, and commented that this is a trajectory not normally seen in conventional smoking cessation trials.
Looking at risk perception, Polosa stated that there was no difference between the two groups: People using e-cigarettes perceive conventional tobacco as fairly high risk whereas they do not perceive their smoke-free product to be as risky as tobacco or conventional cigarettes. He also highlighted that both groups showed a clear improvement in terms of exercise tolerance over time, with results apparent even in week 4 of the trial, very early after switching.
He concluded by answering the question of whether HTPs are successful: yes.

Delon Human
The next speaker, Delon Human, president of Health Diplomats, started by quoting the definition of Article 1d of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and highlighted the phrase “harm reduction strategies” (HRS). He went on to set out that the overall goal of population health is to prevent disease and premature death, but it is important to remember that these are individuals with different needs and lifestyles. It is also important to include health professionals in any discussion on HRS to balance the needs of populations and individual health as well as the rights of individuals to access healthcare and to use nicotine products.
He stated that he wanted to make three suggestions to accelerate THR.
The No. 1 issue for Human is engagement. A whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach, involving multi-stakeholder action, is required, and more needs to be done with key stakeholders in the tobacco and nicotine industries, particularly regarding engagement with the WHO and governments. He continued by saying that Article 5.3 of the FCTC does not exclude engagement between industry and government; complex problems can only be solved with multi-stakeholder engagement, and engagement does not mean agreement. This engagement with industry is needed to facilitate the crucial exchange of knowledge and data.
Turning to his second suggestion, Human made the point about the centrality of science in the debate. The “quit or die” approach is ineffective, irresponsible and disrespectful of patients and consumers. They need to hear the full story and have access to information and products that do not involve combustion, specifically reduced-risk alternatives if they cannot or will not quit.
He highlighted that this transformation can be accelerated if global public health scientists were to embrace the opportunity to test the benefits of adult smokers switching to reduced-risk products. Human commented that, for too long, the argument has been that there is not enough evidence to validate THR in smoking cessation. HRS have been used successfully with HIV/AIDs, drug control and alcohol consumption, and they should be applied to tobacco control. He raised the speed of Covid vaccine testing, which gave a powerful validation of HRS.
Human spoke to the opportunity presented by COP10 to prepare the ground for further research in HRS and the new evidence available from countries where governments have allowed properly regulated reduced-risk products. Where THR has been adopted, smoking rates have reduced.
He gave examples: In Sweden, the smoking rate is the lowest in the EU at 5.6 percent whereas Germany has seen rates increase to up to 36 percent. He lamented that “smoke-free Sweden” should be a case study in successful THR, but little attention has been paid to the public health revolution there. In the U.K., the government’s “swap to stop” scheme has both incentivized and funded adult smokers to switch from combustibles to vaping, and more broadly, the country has seen a 4.3 percent decrease in smoking. In Japan, heat-not-burn (HnB) products launched in 2014 and have led to a significant decline in smoking rates: Between 2016 and 2019, the number of adult smokers fell by 10 percent. In the U.S., nicotine products go through a rigorous and scientific PMTA-testing process, which costs hundreds of millions of dollars to companies, and other countries could benefit from this knowledge to support their adult smokers to quit.
He closed this section of his remarks by suggesting that each example merits a country case study to consider how each THR approach has reduced incidence of smoking-related diseases and premature deaths, and more engagement among the WHO, governments and the whole of industry would facilitate progress in THR.
Lastly, Human turned to industry contributions to the debate, highlighting the critical role played by the GTNF in bringing stakeholders together. He highlighted several dimensions that merit industry having a seat at the table: 1) R&D capacity, with companies investing greatly in this, including specific knowledge on consumer behavior; 2) product innovation, with all stakeholders needing to incentivize innovation while ensuring consumer safety and high standards; and 3) responsible marketing practices, with the marketing to children of primary concern.
In closing, Human stated that there are 100 million consumers worldwide who have switched from combustible cigarettes to noncombustible nicotine alternatives, and now is the time to accelerate, transform and modernize tobacco control by injecting HRS, ensuring that affordable, accessible and acceptable alternatives can make a contribution.
Following his remarks, Human moderated a panel discussion titled “Using the FCTC to Accelerate Tobacco Harm Reduction” that included the following panelists: Grant Churchill, tutor in medicine at New College Oxford and associate professor in chemical pharmacology at the University of Oxford; Ehsan Latif, senior vice president of grants management and health and science strategy at the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World; Mihaela Raescu, professor in the faculty of dental medicine at Titu Maiorescu University in Bucharest; and Heino Stoever, social scientist and professor of social scientific addiction research at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences in Germany.
Human referenced the positive work done around the work in the harm reduction space, specifically citing Sweden, the U.K. and Japan as world-leading in this field. He spoke of Sweden’s incredibly low smoking rates with only 5.6 percent of the population using combustible tobacco.
He explained that the success seen in these countries needs to be examined in greater detail to highlight why vapes in the U.K., snus in Sweden and heated tobacco in Japan are increasing in popularity.
Human then detailed how several of his patients have seen remarkable improvements in their taste, smell and respiration since switching from combustible tobacco to RRPs in only two weeks.
Churchill tailored his contribution around the misconception of nicotine. He emphasized that tobacco, specifically combustible tobacco, needs to be separated from nicotine. He set out the molecular level of nicotine as a compound and explained that nicotine is not harmful in the concentration it exists within RRPs.
Churchill outlined that tobacco is made up of 4,000 smaller compounds, many of which are harmful. Nicotine represents only one of those 4,000 compounds and is not nearly as damaging as most of the others found in tobacco. For that reason, the education and rebranding of nicotine is critical in establishing RRPs as safe alternatives to combustible tobacco.
Latif spoke primarily from the regulatory perspective of the panel and led the conversation about the upcoming COP10 summit hosted in Panama later this year. He expressed his concern over a lack of action and not wanting legislators to make rash decisions. He called for all decisions to be led by facts and science, explaining that no RRP category should ever be prohibited as it will only lead to illicit trade and unregulated, untested products.
Latif echoed the message from Churchill that combustible tobacco is causing the most harm within the industry and that legislators need to take action to reduce the number of smokers. He emphasized this by saying, “You can’t wait 10 [years] to 15 years and then count the bodies at the end … We need some action now.”
Raescu explained the oral health benefits of switching from combustible tobacco to RRPs, describing how oral health improves drastically within nine months of making the switch. She mentioned that there is a decrease in bacterial plague concentration and quality, resulting in major oral health improvement.
Raescu also called for improved education for doctors and other health practitioners regarding nicotine and tobacco. She set out her belief that, currently, a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding results in the wrong advice for patients, having a negative effect on their individual health. Nicotine as a compound must be better understood by medical practitioners in order for it to be correctly conveyed to legislators.
Stoever started by giving a summary of the focus of his career on harm reduction in Germany. Using his experiences from Covid-19 and other emergencies, Stoever emphasized the importance of education and the lack of this in Germany: 60 percent of Germans think the dangers of vaping equate to those of tobacco. Stoever went on to set out that public health agencies in Germany are not providing adequate information on the benefits of reduced-risk products, and this gap has had to be filled by academics.
He spoke to the changes observed during the pandemic, where people’s lifestyle patterns changed radically to include working from home: There was an increased observance of people smoking during virtual meetings, which demonstrated the effectiveness of normal structural prevention strategies and social controls on preventing smoking besides behavioral prevention.
Mary Glindon
The panel discussion was followed by a keynote presentation by Mary Glindon, Member of Parliament for North Tyneside in the U.K. and vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Vaping.
Glindon set out her role at the APPG and the reasons for her interest in the topic of tobacco harm reduction. She spoke about her late husband’s transformation from smoking to vaping—his “pipe”—and the impact more widely that smoking has on her constituents in the northeast of England. Not only does she hear from those who have switched that their health has improved but also their finances, given the lower costs of vaping.
She spoke of her support for the U.K.’s ambition to be smoke-free by 2030 and the work undertaken by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (previously Public Health England) since 2015 to support vaping as a key harm reduction strategy, with it being proven to be at least 95 percent less harmful. Going further, Glindon praised the U.K.’s approach—one that she described as world leading and evidence led—with e-cigarettes at the heart of its strategy. She also highlighted the independent review last year by Javed Khan into “making smoking obsolete,” which included support for vaping as one of his key recommendations.
However, Glindon then spoke of the concerns Khan had also raised in his report that the U.K. will miss its 2030 target if it does not accelerate the rate of smoking decline by at least 40 percent.
She gave a series of recommendations on what action the government should take to remedy this while being clear that the preference is that people should neither smoke nor vape, nor should nonsmokers take up vaping. She spoke of tobacco harm reduction through vaping in the U.K. being consumer led but that it had left more than 6 million people who had not yet made the switch. Ensuring access to the right information and tackling misinformation and misperceptions of the relative harms of e-cigarettes versus combustible tobacco is key and must be embedded in all approaches on tobacco harm reduction.
Glindon also stated the need for effective communication strategies from governments, approved and trusted independent health messaging and the inclusion of the benefits of switching on vape packaging and on cigarette packaging too. She raised the need to ensure that medical professionals at local stop smoking services are sufficiently supported to speak authoritatively on reduced-risk products, with clinicians signposted to the latest clinical guidance and evidence on e-cigarettes.
Covering the recent announcements by Minister for Public Health Neil O’Brien, Glindon called for the U.K. government to finally release its new tobacco control plan and the new tobacco and related products regulations, both of which are two years overdue. She called for responsible companies like those represented at the GTNF to call out the bad actors who are undermining progress on tobacco harm reduction and for the industry as a whole to prevent youth access, tackle illegal products and promote sustainability.
Turning to the world stage, Glindon highlighted pressures from outside the U.K., including alternative policy directions from the EU and World Customs Organization on tariffs and taxes. Going further, she spoke to the upcoming COP10 conference in Panama later this year, calling it “the biggest threat to the U.K.’s world-beating harm reduction strategy” with its “singular mission focused on actively encouraging countries to ban vaping as part of its tobacco control approach, purposefully flouting the evidence of vaping’s success.” She called on the U.K. government to show leadership, to send ministers as part of the delegation to COP10 and to “actively take part in leading the conversation instead of only being a passive observer and financial contributor.”
Glindon then expanded on her concerns around preventing youth access, tackling illegal and noncompliant products and ensuring that the issue of sustainability, particularly with disposable devices, is addressed. She also called for an update on the vaping evidence set out by Public Health England back in 2015, asking how to get to a certainty greater than 95 percent less harmful.
In her closing remarks, Glindon spoke of the need to expand beyond a focus in the U.K. solely on vaping as a tool for tobacco harm reduction and called for the government to consider HnB and oral nicotine products to help reach the remaining 6.6 million smokers in the U.K. She emphasized the need for more research to be done, independent of commercial interests.
Finally, Glindon made clear that the industry has to address the key issues it faces—rogue players, youth access and environmental concerns—otherwise it faces being regulated out of existence. Her final words were “Be good: work hard, tackle the problems, seize the future.”

Derek Yach
Global health advocate Derek Yach opened by stating how the world’s health is in a much worse state since coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly regarding noncommunicable diseases (cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and chronic lung illnesses) as well as mental health.
He used his own experience in the field of noncommunicable diseases to explain how different approaches must be taken, highlighting his concerns that what worked 20 years ago will no longer work in today’s climate and that modern science and health have to receive political and private sector support.
He then introduced tobacco harm reduction as a critical category that can help to reduce the growing concerns in this area. Yach spoke to the point that governments around the world are being inactive to, or even dismissive of, the clear and obvious benefits of RRPs. This is risking the health and lives of many of its own citizens.
Yach gave his own recommendations on how governments should address the 1.1 billion global combustible tobacco smokers still in existence today, referencing the positive work being conducted in the U.K., specifically mentioning the recent review by Javed Khan and the U.K. government’s recently introduced “swap to stop” scheme, which will offer 1 million vape starter kits to current smokers.
He made a call for the WHO and other governing bodies to appoint a commission that could 1) further develop the science and evidence now available; 2) review the progress of the U.K. and FDA in authorizing this positive change; and 3) take stock of the current situation and set it out in front of COP10 in Panama in November.
He then outlined the importance of the role of physicians and the need for them to be properly educated to understand the difference between tobacco and nicotine and between cigarettes and e-cigarettes. Without this education, medical professionals are unable to prescribe other, less harmful solutions to their patients.
Next, Yach spoke of the importance of COP10, urging delegates to showcase positive examples of how RRPs are used around the world to radically reduce the number of combustible tobacco smokers. Sweden, the U.K., South Korea and Japan were all offered as examples of how RRPs have been deployed correctly to help users make the switch away from cigarettes.
Finally, Yach held a mirror to the tobacco industry, commenting that it, too, was in need of further analysis of its own practices. He explained that in many low-income and middle-income nations, RRPs are legally available; however, the industry has not launched or given easy access to the range of harm reduction products available.
To this point, the major focus on RRPs has been in high-income countries, and there needs to be an acceleration of getting these products to all countries around the world.
Yach concluded his remarks by reflecting on his opening comments: Tobacco harm reduction is about stopping the growing trend of noncommunicable diseases and saving lives.
Yach then went on to lead a discussion panel titled “Drawing on Behavioral and Consumer Insights to Encourage Harm Reduction,” which included the following panelists: Jessica Zdinak, social and behavioral scientist and owner at Applied Research and Analysis Consulting; Mohamadi Sarkar, scientific strategy and analysis and regulatory affairs at Altria Client Services; and Cother Hajat, public health physician and epidemiologist at Independent Respondent.
Yach identified several smokers across the world attempting to quit smoking and asked panelists to consider what approaches should be adopted to help them do so. In many of the deprived communities of the world, Yach mentioned that availability of tobacco harm reduction products is an issue in order to get people to quit and tasked the panel to come up with solutions to remedy that.
Yach lamented the disinformation surrounding the e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury crisis that appeared in many academic research papers, which can still be found on the internet despite retractions being made by a research journal. He suggested that inspiration could be found from Twitter to ensure that such articles can be traced in order to issue a warning and correction relating to the disinformation.
Sarkar focused on the personal dimension that needs to be adopted by each of the 1 billion smokers around the world who need to stop smoking and shared his memories of treating smokers with diseases, such as myocardial infarction, when he was a clinician, but who ultimately did not quit.
Sarkar’s main concern is that disinformation has become a significant barrier to smokers quitting, with 80 percent of Americans in 2021 believing, wrongly, that e-cigarettes are as harmful as, if not more harmful than, combustible cigarettes. He also lamented that 80 percent of doctors surveyed believed that nicotine causes cancer.
Zdinak criticized the public health profession generally for omitting the basics of psychology and physiology in their appraisal of harm reduction efforts. She asserted that smokers’ basic needs must be met to successfully get consumers to switch to alternative products that are less harmful.
She went on to say that health communication messages should capture what people are thinking and feeling. In doing so, Zdinak referred to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and where smoking cessation sits within smokers’ priorities and said that community groups may be necessary to create a higher order for them to consider quitting.
Hajat stated that the voices of smokers are often missing from research reports and reinforced the need to change that. She praised the U.K. Department of Health for embracing tobacco harm reduction products as vital weapons in its arsenal to improve the health of the nation and welcomed recent proposals to use pack inserts in combustible cigarettes.
She also welcomed the incentives for pregnant women, who make up 10 percent of the smoking population, and for people on low incomes to receive starter kits to accelerate smoking cessation and meet the government’s 2030 target to become smoke-free.
Jeremy Lim
The panel discussion was followed by a keynote presentation from Jeremy Lim, CEO and co-founder of AMiLi. Lim opened by reflecting on the themes developed throughout today’s conference. He started by reaffirming the words of Yach, echoing his sentiment about the polarization of tobacco control and a lack of understanding of the differences between combustible tobacco and other nicotine products. He made clear that this is essential for countries in the developing world, which are chronically short of doctors, making misinformation even more problematic.
He supported the concept of introducing a WHO commission that specifically analyzes the positive progress made in countries like Sweden, the U.K. and Japan, which could result in a homogenized view of tobacco harm reduction, eradicating the misunderstanding about tobacco and reduced-risk products.
Lim then reemphasized what Sarkar had set out, explaining that much of the focus and attention is around theoretical concerns, such as youth access and environmental impact, but not enough spotlight is given to the individual smokers themselves who suffer the greatest impact from their addiction. He spoke of a systemic bias against smokers, citing the perception that smoking is a self-inflicted issue where subtle blame is given to the individuals who smoke. Smoking is not seen as a mental health or social health issue—it is seen as a choice.
Offering his own thoughts on the role society plays in helping or hindering the progress of tobacco harm reduction, Lim used the analogy of a person pushing a large cylinder up a steep hill. The gradient of that hill is determined by society—the more society hampers harm reduction, the harder it will be for people to quit; vice versa, the more society embraces the concept, the more support each smoker is given to quit.
Lim outlined his concern over the rising cases of youth access to vaping products, calling for a joint effort from everyone involved in the industry to remove these “bad players.”
He concluded his remarks by urging the industry to put its ideological and political preferences aside and to focus on science and on individual smokers instead.
April 26, 2023
FEELM Commends UK Vapor Outlook During GTNF Event

Echo Liu, FEELM’s European Division director
FEELM, the flagship atomization technology brand for Smoore International, the world’s largest vaping company, commended the U.K. Government for the country’s tobacco harm reduction strategy. The U.K.’s vaping outlook centers around the use of vaping as a tool for smoking cessation, and encouraging existing smokers to transition to a less harmful alternative.
Andrew Lewer, Delon Human and Echo Liu
During a breakfast event before the virtual IN FOCUS seminar, an annual half-day event organized by the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) that focuses on harm reduction, FEELM representatives spoke in central London alongside Andrew Lewer MBE MP, the vice chair of the U.K. Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Vaping, as well as Delon Human, the president of Health Diplomats and a former Secretary-General of the World Medical Association.
The conversations centered on the theme of addressing tobacco harm reduction, and how best to support smokers to transition to reduced-risk products, including vapes, heat-not-burn products, and oral nicotine.
“We welcome the UK Government’s ongoing recognition of the potential that vaping has to achieve its ambitions for a smoke-free future, and we are committed to working with regulators and the wider industry to address the key challenges the sector faces,” said Echo Liu, FEELM’s European Division director. “Our vaping solutions have been widely adopted in more than fifty markets – including the UK, France, and Germany – and these are helping millions of smokers to improve their health by switching to vaping.”
FEELM’s disposable ceramic coil technologies have already been launched in major markets such as France, the U.K. and Belgium, and will soon be available in other key markets, according to a press release.
“The FEELM MAX solution, which offers more puffs, greater taste consistency, and a fully visible e-liquid measure, is the best disposable available which ensures regulatory compliance,” the release states. “FEELM will be launching its FEELM MAX at the Birmingham Vaper Expo on May 13.”
April 26, 2023
Taiwan Boosts E-Cig Investigations After New Rules

Credit: Yao Photograph
Taiwanese authorities are conducting more than 2,000 vaping-related investigations per month following amendments to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act that banned e-cigarettes and tightened heated-tobacco product restrictions, reports The Taipei Times.
Fines totaling TWD280,000 ($9,117) have been imposed in 18 cases, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said.
HPA data showed that about 67 percent of the 2,173 cases were for allegedly selling e-cigarettes, 477 were for advertising e-cigarettes, 40 were for displaying e-cigarettes, and 42 were for e-cigarettes or HTP use.
“What is worth noticing is that among the 42 cases of alleged illegal use, 41 involved people aged under 20,” HPA Tobacco Control Division head Chen Miao-hsin said.
The amendments were implemented last month and also increased the age to buy cigarettes to 20, increased the size of required health warnings on cigarette cartons and expanded nonsmoking zones in public spaces.
Since the vaping ban was enacted in Taiwan on March 22, 15 out of 44 vape shops in Kaohsiung City have closed, according to the city’s Department of Health.
Among the city’s 44 stores, 10 have completely shut down their businesses while 15 have closed their doors, according to media reports. The rest of the stores have switched to selling other products, as the store owners said that the fines are too high to risk, according to Taiwan News.
In addition to intensive inspections of physical stores, the health department is monitoring online sales and social media advertisements. So far, one violator who made e-cigarette advertisements will be interviewed and fined.
April 26, 2023
Altria Tells Jury of ‘No Benefit’ from Juul Investment

Credit: JHVE Photo
Lawyers for Altria Group Inc. told a jury that the company didn’t benefit from its 2021 $12.8 billion investment in Juul Labs Inc. in a trial over whether Altria helped Juul Labs promote sales that led to a rise in youth vaping. The trial is a test case brought by the San Francisco school system.
Altria played a passive role in Juul’s efforts to market e-cigarettes to young users and “hasn’t received a penny for this investment, they haven’t benefited,” Beth Wilkinson, an attorney for the company, argued as the trial kicked off Monday in San Francisco federal court, according to Bloomberg News.
The 2018 investment vaporized to $250 million, she said, referring to the value of the Juul investment at the end of 2022 that Altria announced earlier this year when the company exchanged that investment for rights to heated-tobacco product technology.
Attorneys representing the San Francisco Unified School District told U.S. District Judge William Orrick that Wilkinson’s statements on the Juul investment to the jury were “prejudicial” to plaintiffs and violated ground rules on excluding certain information at trial.
The judge said he’ll take up the objection Tuesday morning before the trial resumes.
The bellwether trial forces Altria to publicly defend itself solo for the first time as it faces thousands more cases that were brought against the company and Juul. In December, Juul Labs agreed to pay more than $1.2 billion to settle more than 5,000 suits blaming the company for a youth vaping epidemic across the US.
Altria’s “going to say, ‘We didn’t market the product,’” Thomas Cartmell, a lawyer representing the school district, told jurors. “That’s true, but it’s very important for you all to know what Altria knew as they pursued and partnered with Juul,” he said, adding that Altria knew Juul’s marketing tactics would appeal to and hook young people, including kids.
Juul sales “skyrocketed” after Altria’s 2018 investment and the tobacco company helped the startup market its products and set up 10,000 new stores, Cartmell said. Altria knew Juul’s plans to boost sales would frustrate the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to curb youth e-cigarette use, he said.
The sprawling litigation in San Francisco federal court includes about 4,270 personal injury suits and more than 1,434 complaints brought by government entities and native Indian tribes, in addition to a proposed class-action fight, according to a recent court filing.
Juul and Altria defended the first trial that started in March over a case brought by Minnesota over deceptive marketing of e-cigarettes. The companies last month settled the state’s case, though details are yet to be disclosed.
In April, Juul agreed to pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia to resolve lawsuits and investigations into the marketing of addictive vaping products to children.
April 25, 2023
Activists Urge Thailand to Lift E-cigarette Ban

Photo: Teo
End Cigarette Smoke Thailand (ECST) is urging Thailand to legalize vaping, citing the U.K. progressive approach to e-cigarettes as an example, reports Thaiger.
In Thailand, the sale and use of e-cigarettes are illegal, creating an unregulated black market and increased access for minors, according to ECST.
“E-cigarettes are legal in England, allowing its government to impose measures and effectively enforce the regulations to protect minors,” said Asa Saligupta, a representative of the ECST and the Facebook page “What are e-cigarettes?” “The U.K. government is set to allow £45 million [$56.05 million] to reduce the country’s smoking rate and another £3 million for clamping down on shops selling vapes to youths under the age of 18.”
“The ban [in Thailand] is claimed to protect minors, but the sales and use of e-cigarettes are overt and commonplace. Children can easily access e-cigarettes through online channels without any regulations or inspections,” said Saligupta.
Following the U.K.’s example could be the solution to Thailand’s e-cigarette policy issues, according to Maris Karanyawat. “The subcommittee for studying factors affecting the health system and monitoring the enforcement of public health laws issued a report, which is based on a comprehensive study and opinions of all groups involved in the e-cigarette issue. The report suggests that Thailand should lift the ban on e-cigarettes so that they can be appropriately controlled through the 2017 Tobacco Products Control Act.”
In preparation for the upcoming tenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, scheduled to take place in Panama in November, Karanyawat said, “We hope that the Thai delegates will take into account the public health committee’s report, which recommends that a tobacco harm reduction approach be developed based on new scientific evidence which shows that e-cigarettes should be controlled differently from combustible cigarettes because they have different harmful effects.”
April 24, 2023
Insurance Agent Sued for ‘Quietly’ Excluding Batteries

A federal lawsuit has been filed by four companies that sell vaping devices against Kinsale Insurance Co., claiming the insurer dropped coverage for batteries but failed to fully inform the policyholders before denying a claim.
If the case goes to trial and appeal, it could potentially help clarify insurers’ and insureds’ responsibilities when policy wording is changed or exclusions are added.
“Defendant owed a fiduciary duty to plaintiffs based on trust and good faith that required defendant to act in the best interest of plaintiffs, its customers,” reads the lawsuit complaint, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Nashville. “It is reasonable for the insured to assume the policies provided the requested coverage.”
Kinsale Insurance, based in Richmond, Virginia, offers casualty and specialty casualty insurance for cannabis, transportation and other industries. It has not yet filed an answer to the complaint, according to the Insurance Journal.
Industry experts, however, said that the practice of changing coverage without fully notifying customers is not uncommon, and is rarely challenged. And Tennessee law may be less than crystal-clear on how far an insurer must go in notifying policyholders of changes and how specific notifications should be.
Battery fires from nicotine and cannabis vape devices are relatively uncommon but have become a worldwide concern for consumers, fire departments and insurers. In October 2022, Michael and Elisha Schmidt suffered a fire, reportedly from a vape pen battery, and sued the four vape companies over the damage.
The companies, Isabella Industries, Maelynn Industries, Sancia Industries and Illumivaption Inc., all had umbrella and general liability policies with Kinsale for seven years. But when the vape sellers renewed their policies in October 2022, Kinsale excluded batteries and battery-fire claims from the policies, while raising premiums, the suit claims.
“Defendant led plaintiffs to believe that the batteries were covered after the renewal,” the complaint reads. “Defendant did not inform plaintiffs that it had removed batteries from the coverage and did not ask Plaintiffs prior to doing so.”
The plaintiffs also argue that the policy wording was ambiguous and illusory, and thus, unenforceable under Tennessee law. The companies had always paid their premiums on time and had been loyal customers to Kinsale, they noted.
When the Schmidts filed their lawsuit, the vape companies filed claims with Kinsale. But the insurer denied the claims, arguing that the policies did not cover batteries. Kinsale would not provide a legal defense for the insureds.
The vape sellers argue that Kinsale’s refusal amounted to bad faith and unfair trade practices, and has cost the companies damages and attorney fees. They are asking for compensatory damages, punitive damages, legal fees and a declaration that the insurer must provide coverage and a defense.
April 24, 2023