Page 8 - TOB Magazine Jan/Feb 2013

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TOBACCO OUTLET BUSINESS
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013
TMA Reports...
TMA REPORT By FARRELL DELMAN
On THE FDA…
…The FDA Center for Tobacco Products sent a warning
letter to Alex Freeman of Chisinau, Moldova, stating that
some of the cigarettes offered on his numerous websites
including camel-cigarettes.net, cigarettesmall.net, hot-
cigs.com, and cigarettesworld.com, are adulterated
under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, as
amended by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco
Control Act, because they are promoted as modified risk
tobacco products, with descriptors like “Lights,” “Ultra
Lights” and “Super Lights,” as well as claims like “lowest
ever rate of harmful additives, tar and nicotine,” without
an FDA order in effect that permits such promotion.
…The FDA had until November 26 to file its response to
a petition filed in the US Supreme Court by RJ Reynolds
Tobacco Company, Lorillard Tobacco, American Snuff,
Commonwealth-Altadis, Discount Tobacco City & Lottery
and National Tobacco, which asked the court to review a
March decision by the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit upholding the constitutionality of the FDA’s
requirement for graphic warning labels.
…The FDA Center for Tobacco Products sent
warning letters towww.indonesia-cigarettes.comand
its presumed affiliate clovecigs.com, stating that some
of the cigarettes the websites offer for sale to U.S.
customers are adulterated under the Federal Food,
Drug and Cosmetic Act, as amended by the Tobacco
Control Act, because they are promoted as modified-
risk tobacco products, with descriptors like “the new
mild generation” and “low-tar, low-nicotine,” without
an FDA order in effect that permits such promotion,
as well as to brandcigarettes4cheap.com of Metairie,
Louisiana, Dmitrii N. Kolonchuk of cheapcigarettesonline.
us in Minsk, Belarus, and smoke-mall.com of Scottsdale,
Arizona, for using descriptors like “Lights” and “Ultra
Lights.”
…Commenting on a recent media report that
the Ministry of Health in Costa Rica is considering
banning e-cigarettes because the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration reportedly found carcinogens and an anti-
freeze ingredient in cartridges that it tested, Prof. Michael
Siegel of Boston University’s School of Public Health
said it “is a shame that the FDA has never corrected
the misinformation that has resulted from its July 2009
press conference in which it widely misled the public”
about the carcinogenic risks from e-cigarette use, adding
that this “misinformation” is prompting other countries
to take action to eliminate a product that contains only
trace levels of a carcinogen, comparable to those found
in FDA-approved nicotine gum and patches, even while
they allow cigarettes “to remain on the market with their
thousand-times higher levels of the same carcinogen.”
…The FDA sent a warning letter to Derwin Yonarta
of clovecigarettesonline.com, stating that some of the
cigarettes the website offers for sale to U.S. customers
are adulterated under the Federal Food, Drug and
Cosmetic Act, as amended by the Family Smoking
Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, because they are
promoted as modified-risk tobacco products, using
descriptors like “the new mild generation” and “lower
in tar and nicotine,” without an FDA order in effect that
permits such promotion.
…The FDA also sent a warning letter to
tobaccoandcigarettes.net, stating that some of the
cigarettes it offers for sale to U.S. customers, such
as Kiss Superslims Strawberry and Richmond Cherry
Gold, are adulterated under the Federal Food, Drug
and Cosmetic Act, as amended by the Family Smoking
Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, because they are
purported to contain an artificial or natural flavor that
is a characterizing flavor of the products, in violation of
a provision in the FD&C Act that a “cigarette or any of
its component parts…shall not contain…an artificial or
natural flavor.”
…The U.S. Justice Department filed a petition on
October 9 asking for the full court of the U.S. Court of
Appeals in Washington, DC to rehear the challenge to the
Food and Drug Administration’s requirement that they
place FDA-proposed large graphic health warnings on
cigarette makers’ packaging, after a three-judge Appellate
panel for the same court in August affirmed a lower court
ruling blocking the mandate due to First Amendment
violations. Commenting on the department’s request,
Prof. Michael Siegel of Boston University’s School of
Public Health said that while granting en banc review is
Farrell Delman,
President, TMA