Entries from July 2008 ↓

I remember it clearly. It was an overcast day in June 2002 in Lancaster County, Pa., when I attended a meeting that has always left me with a lasting impression. As the tobacco buyer for a major oil company, I quietly sat (not something I’m known for) and I listened to the discussion that one day would make Lancaster County tobacco free! Quite frightening was this agenda, as it would make it illegal to grow any tobacco, market tobacco or use any form of tobacco within the county boundaries. Could this ever happen?

Today, convenience stores are faced with a future that will be greatly affected by future FDA regulation. The bill imposes major regulatory obstacles in the marketing of any new tobacco products. It treats tobacco products like medical devices. However, most of the regulatory provisions make no sense for application to tobacco products. Product changes which fueled the recent unprecedented growth of the “other tobacco” portion of the convenience channel will now need to go through cumbersome review.

Approval or denial will be given based on whether the product or its changes are deemed “in the best interests of public health.” The standards are broadly defined in the bill with the goal of reducing overall tobacco consumption. This bill will not allow the FDA to ban the product or reduce nicotine to zero but its provisions will allow for the FDA to impose any requirements or prohibitions it sees fit.

It is clear from my understanding that the FDA would have broad authority to make tobacco products highly unattractive to adult smokers and highly inaccessible to the public. All of these factors will most definitely affect the convenience store channel in a negative way.

Another area of the bill that will affect the convenience channel of trade is that the bill prevents the communication about significant differences among the levels of risk presented by different types of tobacco products. The convenience store channel needs to address this lack of good practice and realize that not all tobacco products are the same in the spectrum of risk, or in other words, some are riskier than others.

At a recent conference on “Harm Reduction” many attendees were extremely concerned that this message is being squashed by those who deny this truth and ultimately want to ban the use of all tobacco products.

If moist smokeless tobacco is safer than cigarettes why must it post the following: “Warning: This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes”? If, like I proposed in an earlier article, “Who Said Tobacco Can’t Be Safer?” (CSD, May 2008) that one day in the future a brilliant mind cracks the code and finds a way to make tobacco safer would this legislation allow for this claim? I think not.

Would not the convenience channel of trade benefit the most from the sales of a tobacco product that truly was a safer or safe product? Wouldn’t you want to be able to communicate that message?

H.R. 1108 eliminates federal preemption of marketing and advertising which would allow states or local governments to set its own standards. They would be able to enact any restriction “that is in addition to, or more stringent than,” those in the bill. One can only imagine the nightmare this would present to national distributors and the convenience channel of trade.

A bill that one would assume would create uniformity in the industry most likely will lead to chaos. Is it not possible that a local government could one day decide to enact a much more stringent law that banned tobacco from being grown, marketed or used within its boundaries?

As I look to the past is there a glimpse of the future? The foundation of a movement was evidenced back in June 2002. If the movement succeeded and you operated a convenience store in Tobacco Free Lancaster County would your business survive? How would you replace the lost sales and profits from tobacco sales that are no longer allowed? H.R. 1108 as it is currently written puts your business at risk. H.R. 1108 needs to be opposed.

This article was recently published in the July 08 Convenience Store Decisions magazine. I’d be interested in hearing your opinions! Do you think that this could ever happen? What are you doing as a retailer today to oppose potential legislation like this that would seriously affect your business? If your a manufacturer or wholesaler what are your thoughts?

The Brazilian tax authorities shuttered Phoenix - an independent cigarette producer in Sao Paulo - last Wednesday, July 16.

This makes five independent plant closings in 14 months - American Virginia’s Rio plant, Sudamax near Sao Paulo earlier this year, Cibahia in Sao Paulo a few months ago and Cibrasa in Rio around the same time, representing an annual volume of around 20 billion cigarettes.

If the taxes truely were not being paid you may be pleased but in Brazil it is not that simple.

The lost volume will not be recouped by the Brazilian Government but will be picked up by the many Paraguayan producers who’s product manages to arrive in Brazil - despite efforts to prevent them.

85% of Brazil’s cigarette price is taxes; so it is easy to see this represents about 2.5 billion Reais (or almost $1.6 billion.)

In this case the only viable way to reduce the contraband entering Brazil is to moderate the tax difference. You can increase the cigarette tax in Paraguay (already it contributes 10% to Paraguay’s gross tax receipts) or reduce it in Brazil.

The remainder of Brazil’s independents are probably feeling a little nervous right now - after all who’s next?

These days you almost can’t talk about lower tar cigarettes without the ensuing argument of compensatory smoking and the misleading intent of the cigarette manufacturers deliberately producing lower tar products and misleading the public.

But the debate raises a fundamental flaw in the public health community’s argument for low tar cigarettes.

Why is it that the original surgeon general’s findings in the US and UK both concluded there were health risks with smoking and that the evidence was the more you smoked the higher the risk?

Assuming this is correct - and if you want further evidence read my post on menthol cigarettes - then smoking lower tar cigarettes or fewer must have advantages. Right?

Some governments appear to agree. The EU, Canada, Brazil and Saudi Arabia all have tar ceilings.

Elements of the WHO and CDC and many public health advocates choose mostly to ignore this key point.

Again it is the consumer who bears the brunt of this  - surely they should benefit (albeit not as much as using other tobacco products) from lower tar or less harmful cigarette developments?

Where is the constructive debate on lower tar products and reduced risk in cigarette smoking? Would FDA regulation help drive this?

As it currently stands menthol cigarettes will be exempted as a flavor additive in proposed FDA regulation.

If you are a supporter of menthol cigarettes, and about 28% of the US smoking population is; this is good news.

If you are against menthol cigarettes or smoking in general - this is not good news. But what’s the big deal?

Demographics and harm reduction  - that’s the big deal.

Let’s start by clarifying a couple of points. It is a food-safe natural product (although there are synthetic menthols too) which is pervasive - toothpaste and candy are two examples. Menthol is not inherently harmful and there is no evidence that it creates any problems when added to cigarettes. Generally quite the contrary - 28% of US smokers really like it and a disproportionate percentage of them are African Americans.

This is the demographic part where things become a little more sensitive. There is some epidemiological evidence that African American smokers appear to have higher incidences of health risks. Is it the menthol many are asking?

The truth is most menthol cigarettes are higher in tar than their peers - and this is most likely the cause - not the menthol.

Interestingly hardly anybody is bringing this up. It would be relatively easy to reduce the tar in menthol products to match non-menthol brands.

A step program to reduce tar levels over time with menthol products would allow smokers to migrate to a lower tar product without noticing a step change. Admittedly a small benefit - but an important benefit nontheless.

Graphic health warnings on tobacco products are not mandatory under the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control. Yet a growing number of countries plan to introduce such warnings on the premise that by doing so, more smokers will be encouraged to quit than would be the case if existing text warnings were retained. However, according to a recent news article, a Health Canada poll has found that graphic health warnings are increasingly seen by Canadian smokers as being ineffective in this regard. Canada was the first country in the world to introduce graphic warnings back in 2001 and the results of the poll are seen by some as indicating that the existing warnings simply need refreshing. This could be so, but an alternative interpretation is that graphic health warnings fail in their purpose because they provoke outright denial, rather than fear, of the consequences of smoking. Also, from a harm reduction perspective, graphic health warnings do not steer smokers towards forms of tobacco and/or nicotine products such as smokeless tobacco, which are now widely considered to be much safer than cigarettes - it’s very much a ‘quit tobacco or die from a grisly death’ message. An alternative approach could be to use the health warning space on the packs to provide the consumer with less threatening information that might encourage him/her to move down the continuum of risk posed by different product formats. For example, packs of cigarettes could perhaps carry a health warning that simply says “Much safer nicotine-containing tobacco and non-tobacco products are available “. Following the same logic, cans of smokeless tobacco might carry a health warning that says “Safer non-tobacco nicotine-containing products are available” Nicotine replacement products might carry a health warning that says” Whilst this nicotine-containing product is safer than tobacco products, no product that contains nicotine is totally safe” Obviously one would have to do a fair amount of consumer research to get the vectored messaging right –but it’s a thought!   What do you think?    How might consumers react? How might governments react?

The UK Department of Health has recently published a consultation on the future of tobacco control. This consultation is seen as the first step in the development of a new UK tobacco control strategy and covers four main areas: Reducing smoking rates and health inequalities caused by smoking, protecting children and young people from smoking, supporting smokers to quit and lastly, helping those who cannot quit. While the first three areas build on orthodox tobacco control initiatives, in public policy terms the last area is potentially groundbreaking. This is because it considers the potential of a harm reduction approach. The consultation document (section 5 part D) points out that harm reduction strategies seek to minimize the adverse health and social consequences of substance use and that to date harm reduction approaches have not received widespread attention for tobacco. As the health impacts of smoking are largely unrelated to nicotine, it may therefore be possible to find new ways to reduce the risk to smokers who are unwilling or unable to break their addiction. For this reason it is argued that future UK government strategy in tobacco control should therefore address the needs of the smoker who cannot quit and give consideration to how the harms caused by smoking can be reduced. The consultation document acknowledges that for critics, the disadvantage of even a harm reduction strategy using only ‘pure’ nicotine products is that it involves an acceptance of addiction. Furthermore there are even greater concerns about a harm reduction approach using non-smoked tobacco products, as it would lead to the implicit abandonment of the goal of a tobacco-free society. The fact that harm reduction is incorporated in a consultation document coming from the country currently rated as having the most effective tobacco control strategies in Europe is a very interesting development. Hopefully it is a sign that the debate on tobacco harm reduction is going from fringe to more mainstream. The question posed in the consultation document is “Do you support a harm reduction approach and if so can you suggest how it should be developed and implemented?” Responses (from any group or member of the public with an interest in tobacco control) can be submitted online to the UK Department of Health by 8^th September 2008. A summary of responses will be made available on the Department of Health website at the end of the year. What are your thoughts? Will tobacco products get a look in? Will this have any influence on global tobacco control policy?