26
TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014
TMA REPORT
…U.S.Sens.Bill Nelson (D-Fla.),Mark
Pryor (D-Ark.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.),
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Richard
Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown
(D-Ohio), Edward Markey (D-Mass.),
Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Jeff Merkley
(D-Ore.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) on July 10
introduced the Child Nicotine Poisoning
Prevention Act of 2014, which would
direct the Consumer Product Safety
Commission to issue rules requiring safer,
child-resistant packaging
for liquid
nicotine containers used to refill e-cigs.
…During a two-day Investor Day
held June 26 and 27, Philip Morris
International (PMI) announced plans to
launch
Marlboro HeatSticks
in Japan
and Italy later this year with further
expansion in 2015, saying that the product
resembles a cigarette,contains real tobacco,
and can be inserted into a hollow device
called an iQOS, which heats the stick to a
maximum of 350 degrees Celsius to create
a tobacco-flavored nicotine vapor.
…PMI announced, without disclosing
the value of the transaction, that it
acquired 100 percent of Birmingham,
UK-based
e-vapor company Nicocigs
,
whose flagship brand is Nicolites. A
PMI spokesperson commented that
the acquisition will give the company
“immediate access to, and a significant
presence in, the growing e-vapour
category in the UK market, as well as
a strong retail presence,“ as Nicocigs,
according to Nielsen data, has a share
of about 27 percent in the $350 million
UK e-cig market and distributes to over
20,000 stores in the country.
…Tax analyst and Forbes contributor
David Brunori writes that vested interests
that depend on state cigarette excise tax
revenues are supporting proposals to tax
e-cigs in the same manner as conventional
cigarettes under the pretense of addressing
negative externalities—societal costs that
affect parties that did not choose to incur
those costs—but that
e-cig taxation
is
actually a “money grab” because the state
loses revenue if consumers smoke less
cigarettes and more e-cigs. He argues that
“[w]e should be subsidizing e-cigarettes,
not making them more expensive,”
given evidence that e-cigs have positive
externalities.
…A survey of 2,000 current and former
smokers,conducted in June 2013 by a team
of researchers led by Daniel Giovenco of
the Center for Tobacco Surveillance and
Evaluation Research at Rutgers School of
Public Health in New Jersey to find out
whether they ever used an e-cig or are
“established users” (used the device more
than 50 times), showed that while 47
percent of the current smokers had tried
e-cigs, only 3.8 percent were established
users, indicating that cigarette smokers are
slow to switch
to routine use of e-cigs.
…In a study published in
Tobacco
Control
, researchers led by C.K. Gourdet
of the University of Illinois at Chicago
found that in the current absence of any
federal law governing e-cigs,
34 U.S.
states have adopted laws
that address
e-cigs either explicitly or as part of
language applying to tobacco-derived or
nicotine-containing products.
…Commenting on an open letter
sent to World Health Organization
(WHO) Director General Margaret
Chan from a group of 53 scientists who
cautioned against
classifying e-cigs as
tobacco products
under the Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)
and called e-cigs “among the most
significant health innovations of the
21st century,” Wells Fargo said that it is
encouraged by what appears to be a broad
belief among health professionals and
scientists on the “benefits of e-cigs/vapor
and the vast public health opportunity
such products present,” and noted that
the letter was issued ahead of the WHO-
sponsored FCTC meeting in Moscow
scheduled for October 2014.
tBi
On harM reduCtiOn…
