Category Archives: Uncategorized

Philip Morris might stop selling cigarettes in the UK?

Philip Morris International made a seemingly startling claim the other day – that the company is looking to drop cigarettes altogether in the United Kingdom within 10 years.

PMI is a spin-off of Altria, which was the umbrella corporation over the old Philip Morris company in the U.S. PMI runs Philip Morris’ old assets around the world outside of the U.S. I know it’s confusing … it is a completely different company from Altria.

From NBC News:

“I want to allow this company to leave smoking behind,” CEO Jacek Olczak told The Mail on Sunday, a U.K. tabloid. ‘I think in the U.K., 10 years from now maximum, you can completely solve the problem of smoking.”

While it’s not the first time he has made such a pronouncement, when it comes to ending smoking in America, the tone is a little softer.

The caveat is PMI is apparently considering moving toward something called “tobacco sticks.” I’m not 100 percent positive, but these tobacco sticks, which PMI calls IQOS, are different from e-cigs.

From NBC:

These smoke-free products include PMI’s IQOS heated tobacco device, which in early July received limited FDA approval to be marketed as a modified-risk tobacco product that reduces a person’s exposure to harmful chemicals. Altria is the exclusive licensee of the device in the United States, where it will be sold by Philip Morris USA, which makes Marlboro cigarettes for the domestic market.

 

So, they “sort of kind of” are thinking of getting out of the cigarette business. Maybe the UK will be their initial test market. I don’t see PMI getting out of the cigarette business worldwide. They sell a LOT of cigarettes in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, the Philippines and Indonesia, one of the heaviest-smoking countries in the world.

From the article:

Critics are skeptical of the company’s motives.

“If PMI were serious about banning combustible cigarettes within 10 years, it would strongly support strong new government action now to make cigarettes (and all similarly smoked tobacco products) less attractive, less addictive, more expensive, and otherwise less readily available to both smokers and nonsmokers, especially youth,” said Eric Lindblom, a law professor at Georgetown University. “But they have not done that.”

Juul settles with North Carolina for $40 million

I expect this will be the first of many, many, MANY settlements paid out by Juul in lawsuits and investigations both into its business practices and its targeting teens with advertising. Juul has been an especially sleazy company for years and the roosters are finally starting to come home to roost.

The North Carolina Attorney General’s Office began an investigation into Juul’s targeting of minors in 2018. During that investigation, the courts found that Juul illegally destroyed documents, ignored court orders and wasted the state’s time by loading them with irrelevant documents.

Juul agreed to pay a $40 million settlement because its court fines for its actions were actually much more.

From a CNBC article:

“North Carolina is now the first state in the nation to hold Juul accountable for its instrumental role in creating a youth vaping epidemic,” North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said at a press conference revealing the agreement Monday.

North Carolina kicked off its investigation in 2018 and announced the lawsuit the following year. In May, the judge for the case ruled that Juul destroyed documents, provided thousands of pages of irrelevant information and ignored related court orders. The company faced millions of dollars in fines tied to that decision, but the agreement announced Monday will wipe that slate clean.

Under the agreement, Juul will not be able to target its advertising to minors, use anyone in its marketing materials who is younger than 35 years old or pay for influencers to promote its products, among other restrictions.

Here’s the great news. There’s nine other states that have filed similar lawsuits against Juul and a coalition of 39 states is investigating Juul.

I predict that when it’s all said and done, Juul will end up paying over $1 billion in various settlements for its advertising and business practices and Altria will happily pay it with its massive legal war chest as the price of doing business.

Altria (Philip Morris, Marlboro) bought a controlling share into Juul in 2018 and most of the company’s execs from its heyday 3 to 5 years ago quietly scurried off.

Washington, Massachusetts ban flavoured vapes

While Trump and the federal government dithers, the staet of Washington has banned flavoured vapes and Massachusetts may not be far behind.

Washington made the decision via executive order in October, but it’s not necessarily permanent. The ban is just for 120 days, but Gov. Jay Inslee has requested a permanent ban via state legislation.

From a CNN.com article:

Matthew Myers, president of the advocacy group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, applauded Inslee and supported the call for a ban on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes in Washington state.

Massachusetts to temporarily ban the sale of e-cigarettes and vaping products

“The time is now to end the youth e-cigarette epidemic, and Gov. Inslee’s call for prohibiting flavored e-cigarettes is exactly what we need,” Myers said in a written statement.

“The evidence is clear that flavored e-cigarettes have fueled this epidemic — 97% of youth e-cigarette users report using a flavored product in the past month and 70% cite flavors as the reason for their use. The recent spate of serious lung illnesses associated with e-cigarette use has added to the urgency of acting now to protect our kids and, indeed, the health of all Americans,” he said in the statement. “We look forward to working with Gov. Inslee and state lawmakers to pass this legislation and end the youth e-cigarette epidemic.”

Massachusetts may be next.

The state Senate of Massachusetts approved a ban on all flavoured e-cig products and a 75 percent excise tax on e-cigs. The state house earlier approved a similar bill.

The bill will be sent to a joint committee before being sent to Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican. Baker has not stated if he will approve it, but he did impose a temporary ban on e-cig sales after the rash of illnesses broke out earlier this year.

The state of Michigan and the city of San Francisco have already banned the sale of e-cig flavours. San Francisco’s ban is a ban on all e-cig sales, period.

Washington to raise smoking, vaping age to 21

Washington is the latest state that will be raising its smoking and vaping age to 21. The Washington State Senate just passed a bill and Gov. Jay Inslee quickly signed it earlier this month.

This is a push going on nationwide in cities and states. Washington is the ninth state in the nation to raise the smoking/vaping age to 21.

This is something I’ve long had slightly mixed feelings about. I think there’s a valid argument that if you’re old enough to vote, join the military and go to adult jail, you’re old enough to smoke and vape.

From a Seattle Times article:

During debate over the measure, Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, pointed out that 18-year-olds can make major life decisions such as joining the military, and called it hypocritical to stop them from smoking if they wanted.

“The nanny state is alive and well, and this is another example,” said Padden.

However, I also hear the argument that this is a tool to stop the rapid increase in teen vaping. If you have to be 21 to buy vaping products it makes it that much harder for some 15-year-old kid to do it in a convenience store.

There are bills in other states, such as Virginia and Texas, to raise the smoking age, but I have no idea if there is any chance of passage in these states.

More mixed bags for e-cigs … study suggests e-cigs increase risk of stroke

It’s been such a mixed week for e-cigs, with one study showing e-cigs are more successful than nicotine patches and gum for helping people quit, yet the American Lung Association ripping the FDA as a “failure” for doing nothing to stem the tide of teen vaping.

Well, this week another study came out that e-cigarettes, while perhaps safer than cigarettes, are still not completely harmless.

In what is admittadly a pretty limited study, a new survey by the American Stroke Association shows that e-cig use is associated with a higher risk of strokes and heart attacks.

From an NPR story:

“There’s a certain notion that e-cigarettes are harmless,” says Dr. Paul Ndunda, the study’s author and an assistant professor at the School of Medicine at the University of Kansas in Wichita. “But this study and previous other studies show that while they’re less harmful than normal cigarettes, their use still comes with risks.”

This study relied on a behavioral factor survey from the CDC and looked at 66,000 e-cig users. It found a 71 percent higher risk of stroke, 59 percent higher risk of heart attack and 40 percent higher risk of heart disease.

(OK, I’m going to be honest here … while I’m sure these figures are accurate, my first question is how many of these e-cig users are smokers and former smokers … the increased risk of stroke and heart disease could be from the smoking more than the e-cigs.)

The study does get into this to a degree, to be fair.

From NPR:

Ndunda found e-cigarette users are twice as likely to also smoke conventional cigarettes, compared with people who don’t use e-cigarettes.

To see the health effects of e-cigarette use alone, Ndunda and his colleague Dr. Tabitha Muutu compared people who had only used e-cigarettes — not conventional cigarettes — to nonsmokers.

“Even in that group there was a 29 percent higher risk of stroke and a 25 percent higher risk of heart attack,” Ndunda says. Taken together, these two analyses point to an additive effect of e-cigarette and conventional cigarette use.

So, Ndunda admits in the aritlce that the study has its limitations because there’s so many factors at play here — e-cigs, mixing e-cigs and cigarettes, and my point, the pre-existing damage experienced by former smokers from their decades of cigarette use.

Anyway, this survey strongly suggests it’s probably a really, really bad idea to mix e-cigs and cigarettes together. That if you’re going to use e-cigs, you really have to quit cigarettes to actually have any health benefit.

Study: E-cigs more effective than patches, gum for quitting cigarettes

Three studies came out in one day about e-cigarettes, two very, very negative and the third one with positive news.

It sort of sums up the mixed bag that are e-cigs, and sums up the quandary about them.

First, the good news. A recent study by Queen Mary University in London, published by the New England Journal of Medicine shows that e-cigarettes are far more effective than nicotine gum or patches in getting people to quit cigarettes.

The study involved 886 smokers, half were given the option to quit using e-cigs and the other half were given the option to quit through patches, gum or other nicotine replacement therapies.

After one full year, 18 percent of the e-cig group was able to quit smoking, while just 9.9 percent of the patches and gum group quit.

Those percentages may not sound good, but it’s widely known that nicotine replacement treatments have a pretty high failure rate. Most smokers, it takes four or five tries or more to actually quit.

From a CNBC article:

Doctors have been wary of recommending people use e-cigarettes as a way to wean themselves off conventional cigarettes, citing both the lack of evidence showing they work and lack of data on the long-term health effects of using the products. The new study may quell some of those concerns. However, the study is also likely to receive some pushback because it was conducted in the United Kingdom, which has embraced and even encouraged e-cigarettes as an alternative for adult smokers.

Here’s another flaw with the study, I think. The point of patches and gum is to eventually wean people off of addictive nicotine. However, that’s not how very many people really use e-cigs. They remain addicted to the nicotine, and in my opinion, as long as they remain addicted, they remain at risk at falling back onto cigarettes.

From the same article:

“While e-cigarettes are ‘safer’ than traditional cigarettes, they are not without risks,” Boston University professors Belinda Borrelli and George O’Connor said in a statement.

They also pointed to the finding that at the one-year mark, 80 percent of people in the e-cigarette group were still using the devices. So while people stopped smoking cigarettes, they were still using e-cigarettes. The study’s authors also noted this finding, saying it “can be seen as problematic if e-cigarette use for a year signals ongoing long-term use, which may pose as-yet unknown health risks.”

Huge numbers of teens using the products — particularly one brand, Juul — have soured perceptions about e-cigarettes in the U.S. Even Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who has championed the devices as a way to help adult smokers, says the industry is at a tipping point.

That final paragraph about Juuls explains the condundrum about e-cigarettes. While they appear to have a very valid and genuine value in helping some people quit smoking, the down side is their use among teens has exploded in the past five years … and these are kids who have never smoked a cigarette in their lives. They’re not using e-cigs to get off cigarettes, they’re using them to get addicted to nicotine to begin with.

The FDA has started talking tough about e-cigs the past couple of months, even going so far as saying it might just outright ban e-cigs. If 18 percent of the people who try e-cigs to get off cigarettes are successful, I think that’d be a terrible step in the wrong direction.

But, they gotta stop the teen epidemic of vaping. If that means banning fruity e-cig flavours, so be it. I personally would like to see e-cig marketing more strictly regulated. I liked the idea the FDA came up with a few weeks ago (and quickly dropped, unfortunately), of only allowing e-cig sales in tobacco shops, where you have to show an ID just to walk into the door. The FDA came up with some odd idea of only allowing e-cig sales in adult areas … but still allowing them to be sold in convenience stores. How could that even work?

Anyway, an interesting study showing the other side of the e-cig debate and showing that it’s not a black and white issue.

FDA chief threatens to completely remove e-cigs from the market

The war between FDA chief Scott Gottlieb and the e-cig industry continues to escalate with Gottlieb last week threatening to just say “Fuck it” and completely take e-cigs off the market.

To wit, the Food and Drug Administration has come out harshly against the e-cig industry beginning about six months ago because of the skyrocketing increase in teen vaping rates.

So, the FDA came out with a series of rules regarding e-cigs, including some restrictions on fruity flavours and the requirement that e-cig products only be sold in areas open to adults. The FDA didn’t get into marketing of e-cig products.

These rules weren’t as strong as what *I* had hoped for, at the very least, I liked an idea that was floated to restrict e-cig sales strictly to tobacco shops, but that got dropped, likely because of pressure from the industry.

Anyway, Gottlieb said he has met with industry representatives and he remains unimpressed with their response so far.

This is a quote from a Gottlieb tweet:

I still believe e-cigarettes present an opportunity for adult smokers to transition off cigarettes and onto nicotine delivery products that may not have the same level of risks. However, if the youth use continues to rise, the entire category will face an existential threat

Also, from an NBC News article:


“I’ll tell you this. If the youth use continues to rise, and we see significant increases in use in 2019, on top of the dramatic rise in 2018, the entire category will face an existential threat,” Gottlieb told a meeting.
“It will be game over for these products until they can successfully traverse the regulatory process.”

Gottlieb said he has met repeatedly with the vape industry. “I find myself debating with tobacco makers and retailers the merits of selling fruity flavors in ways that remain easily accessible to kids,” he said.

Last November, Gottlieb said he was starting the process to limit sales of flavored e-cigarettes, as well as to ban menthol in combustible cigarettes.

“I have questions about whether they are living up to the very modest promises that they made,” he said. “It matters if the e-cig makers can’t honor even modest, voluntary commitments that they made to the FDA.”

I’m curious if the industry is taking these threats seriously? Juul very quickly shut down its social media presence, but it might be too little, too late to slow down teen vaping use … or to satisfy the FDA.

Gottlieb said the dramatic rise in e-cigs is sabotaging the success public health advocates have had in cutting the teen smoking rate.

From a Yahoo article:

“This progress is being undercut — even eclipsed — by the recent, dramatic rise in youth vaping. A few years ago, it would have been incredible to me that we’d be here, discussing the potential for drug therapy to help addicted youth vapers quit nicotine,” he said Friday.

Gottlieb cited statistics about the large use of e-cigarettes by young people, saying that between 2017 and 2018 there was a 78 percent increase in e-cigarette use in high school students, and a 48 percent increase among middle schoolers. That means the total number of middle- and high-school students using e-cigarettes rose to 3.6 million — 1.5 million more than used the product the previous year. He added that more than a quarter (27.7 percent) of high-school-age e-cigarette users use the product regularly, and more than two-thirds (67.8 percent) are using flavored e-cigarettes. 

“Youth use of e-cigarettes has become an epidemic,” Gottlieb said, adding, “It could be ‘game over’ for some [of] these products until they can successfully traverse the regulatory process. I think the stakes are that high.” Gottlieb also noted that e-cigarettes can be a helpful tool for adults trying to quit smoking traditional cigarettes, and said he hopes to avoid removing e-cigarettes from the market because of the good they can serve in that regard. 

Stay tuned. Gonna be a rocky year on this issue likely.

It’s official, Juul is now a subsidiary of Philip Morris, ie Altria

The tobacco industry will sell you the disease and now will sell you the cure.

This came out a couple of weeks ago and apparently this week it became official. Juul, those cutesey little e-cigs that plug into laptop computer and look just like a flash drive, came to completely dominate the e-cig industry incredibly quickly, eating up 75 percent of the market in less than two years.

Altria just invested $13.5 BILLION into Juul, taking ownership of 35 percent of the company.

Juuls sort of advertised themselves as an indie company against the tide of Big Tobacco. No more. Juul IS BIG TOBACCO now, baby. Altria, formerly known as Philip Morris, makers of Marlboro cigarettes.

Here’s the shit that actually pisses me off. From an AP story:

Juul will remain an independent company, but it gains access to Altria’s massive infrastructure and reach. Namely, Altria will help Juul secure space on store shelves beside traditional cigarettes. It will also help Juul reach smokers via cigarette pack inserts and mailings.

Yeah, fuck you, Juul. You’ve been one of the biggest guilty parties, if not THE biggest guilty party, in marketing e-cigs to kids. Now that you’ve got these teenagers hooked on nicotine, you get Altria’s [quote] “massive infrastructure and reach.”

Surgeon general labels teen vaping an “epidemic”

More harsh rhetoric toward e-cigarettes and the explosion of e-cig use by teenagers over the past seven years.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams joined the head of the FDA this week in denouncing e-cigarettes, going so far as to call teenage e-cigarette use an “epidemic.”

From an NPR article:

“I am officially declaring e-cigarette use among youth an epidemic in the United States,” Adams said at a news conference. “Now is the time to take action. We need to protect our young people from all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.”


“We have never seen use of any substance by America’s young people rise this rapidly,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said at the briefing. “This is an unprecedented challenge.”

Officials at this press conference largely blamed Juul for the epidemic, though to be fair, the increase in teen vaping was already happening before Juuls hit the market about two years ago.

Less than 2 percent of teens were vaping in 2011. In 2018, that figure has increased to 21 percent.

At the same time, there’s been a big decrease in teens smoking, which is great.

Teens getting addicted to nicotine, not so great.

I debated with a few vaping advocates on this story. They keep harping on two really false and lame narratives.

One: Who cares if teens are vaping … would you rather they be doing crack or meth?

Well, no, of course, that’s just stupid. I’d rather they not do ANY addicting substances. It’s not an either/or situation. It’s not either they vape or they do meth. I’d rather they do NEITHER.

And the second lame point: “Well, e-cigs don’t have the toxins of cigarettes, and they’re much safer than cigarettes.”

Yes, probably. And I emphasize “probably,” big time. Because the jury is still out about that. No one is totally sure everything that is in e-cig vapour. Yes, e-cigs don’t contain the Polunium-210 and carbon monoxide and benzene that cigarette smoke does, but it still contains formaldehyde and most of all … nicotine, which is incredibly addictive. And studies have shown that a higher percentage of teens who vape eventually take up smoking to get their nicotine fixed filled, than teens who never vaped to begin with.

Anyway, I’m going to get into these weak-ass arguments in a little more in-depth in a later post about libertarian fake journalist and tobacco industry apologist stooge John Stossel (again … this isn’t my first go-around with Stossel, who seems to really have a thing about tobacco issues.).

Anyway, to try and combat the increase in teen vaping, the FDA has proposed putting limits on where e-cigarettes can be sold, ruling that they must be sold in an area closed off to minors. The FDA pulled up just short of flat out banning e-cigarette sales in minimarts and convenience stores, which was being proposed.

Strong language, for sure from the surgeon general. It’s going to be really interesting what will happen with the e-cigarette industry in the next two or three years.

Here’s a good article from the Verge about what Adams’ proclamation actually means. It means e-cigarettes are squarely in regulators’ sites:

From the Verge:

The Surgeon General’s power is more about influence, and less about enforcement: the real regulatory power over vaping comes from the Food and Drug Administration. So this advisory doesn’t have any legal force, Micah Berman, a professor of health services management and policy at The Ohio State University, tells The Verge in an email. “They are a tool used by the Surgeon General to call attention to an issue and to provide guidance to the public,” Berman says. “They are only issued rarely, when immediate action is called for — which is what makes them so noteworthy.”


That’s why it’s particularly significant that the Surgeon General is using the word “epidemic,” says Kathleen Hoke, a professor specializing in public health law at the University of Maryland: “Using the e-word, epidemic, takes it to a higher level. From a public health perspective, we try not to use that word unless it’s warranted — otherwise you have the boy cried wolf,” she says. But she says, according to these health officials, youth vaping has reached that level: “It’s broad, vast in its impacts, and of deep concern about its lasting effects.”




California lawmakers propose ban on flavoured e-cig products

Yeah, those are actually e-cigarette flavours, not actual candy. Nope, not marketing to kids at all!

The headline to this article is slightly misleading. They aren’t talking about just a ban on flavoured tobacco in California, they’re talking about a ban on flavoured tobacco and flavoured e-cigarette products. I still think it’s important to differentiate between the two.

This is all part of a recent crackdown on e-cigarettes and their fruity, sugary flavours. The e-cigarette industry isn’t really fooling anyone when they claim they aren’t marketing to kids when they make flavours like “Smurf grape” and bubble gum.

Juul has apparently agreed to stop sales of some of its sweet flavours. Candy-flavoured cigarettes were banned some time ago, but Swisher sweet cigars, a long-established product and menthol cigarettes were still allowed.

Now, the FDA is moving to ban all flavoured tobacco products and menthol cigarettes. That move could be tied up in courts for a while, because menthol cigarettes are BIG business (roughly about 10 percent of cigarette sales) and the tobacco industry simply isn’t going to go down without a fight.

The City of San Francisco banned the sale of flavoured e-cig products and several state legislators in California are proposing a similar statewide ban.

Here’s my attitude about the sweet flavours. If e-cigs are really designed to help get smokers off cigarettes, then the draw should be the nicotine, not the flavour of the steam. By having strawberry and lemon-lime and what have you flavours, this to me is pretty clearly just part of the e-cig’s craven tactic of making their products appealing to kids — who are not using e-cigs to get off cigarettes, they’re using e-cigs to get addicted to nicotine to begin with.

Anyway, I hope the bill passes and in California, it probably has a good chance to pass. The day of reckoning for the e-cig industry has arrived, I think.