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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015
its The Real Cost media campaign:
1) “Contract” builds on the message
of loss of control due to addiction
and emphasizes that cigarettes are
addictive though they may give “the
illusion of control;” and 2) “The 7,000”
says that a smoker inhales a “toxic mix
of more than 7,000 chemicals” with
every cigarette smoked.
…Following the U.S. and Indonesia’s
deal to keep the U.S.
ban on clove
cigarettes
in exchange for a promise
of resolving certain trade issues, the
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
released
a
memorandum
of
understanding. The document outlined
four areas of agreement including the
U.S. agreeing to refrain from “arbitrarily
or unjustifiably” discriminating against
Indonesian cigars and cigarillos in
light of the FDA’s proposed deeming
regulations for currently unregulated
tobacco products.
…FDA
reported
issuing
16
notifications to retail stores
across
the U.S. found to be selling tobacco
products that CTP determined to be
not substantially equivalent (NSE) for
sale—Star Scientific Incorporated’s
Stonewall and Ariva products—and
encouraged the retailers to contact
their sources to discuss options for
inventoried products subject to an
NSE order.
…
Forbes
contributor Sally Satel,
who writes about medicine and culture,
calls
Swedish Match’s FDA application
for
modified-risk tobacco product
for
its General snus a “test of the FDA’s
sincerity in its pledge to allow the data
to guide the policy.” She notes that if
FDA approves the application to allow
the company to “showcase its relative
safety for smokers,” more smokers
might make the switch in what would
be a “great boon for public health” as
demonstrated in Sweden, which has
the lowest rate of smoking-related
diseases in Europe.
…
Swedish Match CEO Lars
Dahlgren
told
Reuters
that its FDA
MRTP application, which argues that
snus presents less risk of diseases
like lung and oral cancer, is “an
essential part of [its] strategy” and
“could potentially be an important
catalyst” for its snus in the U.S. The
company’s profits have slid over the
last two years due to discount snus
competition in Sweden. Swedish
Match’s chief scientist Lars-Erik
Rutqvist noted that the “conversations
with FDA are far better than with the
EU,” which bans snus sales except in
Sweden, because “[i]n the EU it was
all political, [but in] the FDA it has
been about science.”
…For the first time ever, CTP
issued a
warning letter to a
manufacturer
(King Mountain Tobacco
Company Incorporated of White
Swan, Washington) and placed two
companies (Dk Distributors of Fort
Lauderdale, Florida and Lit Distributor
of Jacksonville, Florida) under an
“import alert” for their reported
failures to pay user fees to support
FDA tobacco regulatory activities.
…Noting the increased likelihood
of a Republican-controlled Congress
giving U.S. President Obama fast-track
negotiating authority on the
Trans-
Pacific Partnership Agreement
(TPPA),
Forbes
contributor John Brinkley says
that when Congress drafts the fast-track
bill, it could demand that the tobacco
industry be excluded from TPPA’s
dispute settlement chapter. He argues
that this is the right thing to do because
there is “nothing good about tobacco,”
but that it will not happen because the
industry “still has the power to strike
fear into the hearts of lawmakers.”
Some, including Republican Senator
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who
is set to become the Senate majority
leader, argue that the tobacco industry
should not be discriminated against
in the TPPA negotiations and that
a tobacco “carve-out” would set a
dangerous precedent.
…In Australia, where the sale of
e-cigs containing nicotine is illegal,
the Intergovernmental Committee on
Drugs, which provides drug-related
policy advice to ministers, is hiring
consultants to develop a discussion
paper on the marketing and use of
electronic nicotine delivery systems.
Work on the discussion paper is
expected to start in February 2015,
with the final document to be released
within months afterward, and for
consultants and ministers to discuss
TMA REPORT
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