Retailer Tobacco Training Sessions in September Hosted by FDA Followed by Workshop at NACS Show
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will host four more live retailer training sessions in September. The remaining sessions will be in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles. Topics up for discussion are:
Who is subject to the regulation
What products are regulated
Age verification
Displays and vending machines
Samples, Coupons, Sponsorships and Gifts
Light, low, and mild cigarettes
NACS will host a workshop with officials from the FDA to answer retailer questions regarding compliance with the new law at the NACS Show on Thursday October 7th at 9 a.m. Must be registered for the Show to attend.
Massachusetts is poised to become the first state in the nation to force retailers to prominently display graphic warnings about the perils of smoking right where cigarettes are sold — at tobacco sales racks and next to cash registers.
Images of ominously darkened lungs, damaged brains, and diseased teeth could start appearing before the end of the year in more than 9,000 convenience stores, pharmacies, and gas stations, if a proposal by the state Department of Public Health is approved as expected. Other posters would direct smokers to where they can get help to stamp out their habit.
Retailers who refuse to display the signs within 2 feet of tobacco displays and cash registers could face fines of $100 to $300.
Online Chat between FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) and Retailers to Take Place Wednesday According to a notice from the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) a comprehensive retailer education campaign to raise awareness about new regulations regarding the sale and distribution of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco is being developed.
“The retail community plays a direct role in helping us protect our kids from tobacco. We would like to have retailers be part of the community to protect kids. Therefore, we’d like to get your help in how we communicate with retailers. Please join us on May 26, 2010 from 10am-6pm EST for an online opportunity to help us help retailers learn the latest FDA information impacting retailers. We will discuss CTP’s planned communication to tobacco retailers. This includes CTP’s communication themes, messages, and channels. Your insights and experiences will help CTP effectively communicate regulations and information with you; the retailer.”
This web dialogue is a relatively new tactic of communication between regulators and those being regulated. It is sort of a combination of a webinar and an online chat. “The web dialogue will give you an opportunity to share ideas, offer recommendations, ask questions, and interact with your colleagues and CTP Communication staff.”
NACS hosted its own webinar to answer retailer questions in March about the Family Smoking and Prevention Act. Also, be on the lookout for the June issue of NACS Magazine for an “FDA Tobacco 101” of important regulations retailers must be following by June 22.
WANTED to pass on a note from Bill Godshall from SmokeFree PA.
Situation: The NY Senate Health Committee may consider a bill (S7234) that would ban e-cigarette sales as soon as Tuesday, April 27.
The NY Assembly may consider an identical bill (A9529) at any time.
Action requested: Call/e-mail/fax/snail mail NY Senate Health Committee members, and e-mail NY Assembly members urging them to oppose S7234 & A9529, and urging them to amend the legislation to ban e-cigarettes sales to minors.
Smokefree Pennsylvania sent the following letter to NY Senate Health Committee members (and a similar one to NY Assembly members). Contact information for NY Senate Health Committee members and NY Assembly is below. Please forward this e-mail to e-cigarette consumers and other tobacco harm reduction advocates ASAP.
The Honorable Thomas K. Duane, Chair
New York Senate Health Committee
430 State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12247
Re: Health Committee legislation to ban sales of electronic cigarettes (S7234 & A9529)
Dear Senator Duane:
Smokefree Pennsylvania strongly encourages you to OPPOSE S7234 & A9529 because they would force e-cigarette consumers (who quit smoking by switching to e-cigarettes) to either go back to smoking deadly cigarettes, or to purchase these life saving products from a newly created black market. An even better alternative is to AMEND the legislation so it just bans e-cigarette sales to minors, as is the law with all other tobacco products.
The growing body of scientific evidence consistently indicates that e-cigarettes (also called nicotine vaporizers) are at least 99% less hazardous alternatives to smoking cigarettes, as they emit no smoke. Since 2007, an estimated 300,000–500,000 smokers in the US (including tens of thousands of New Yorkers) have switched to e-cigarettes, which emit smokefree nicotine vapor. The American Association of Public Health Physicians, American Council on Science and Health, and many other health policy experts agree.
Instead of protecting health (as some groups claim), S7234 & A9529 threaten public health by protecting the deadliest consumer product (cigarettes) from market competition by far less hazardous smokefree alternatives. E-cigarette consumers and smokers have a human right to access and use far less hazardous tobacco alternatives to cigarettes.
By creating a black market for e-cigarettes, S7234 & A9529 would force e-cigarette suppliers in NY to move to other states, encourage e-cigarette consumers to buy from a black market, and waste state and local tax dollars for enforcement and adjudication.
Although the cigarette industry would be the chief beneficiary of S7234 & A9529, tobacco companies aren’t lobbying for the legislation. Rather, drug industry funded abstinence-only anti-tobacco groups are pushing the bills because they vehemently oppose smokers reducing their health risks by switching to less hazardous smokefree tobacco alternatives.
After 25 years of advocating laws that reduced smoking, I cannot think of a more effective way to protect cigarette markets or to harm/kill hundreds of thousands of smokers than by banning sales of e-cigarettes or other smokefree alternatives, as S7234 & A9529 would do.
Once again, please reject or amend this outrageous and inhumane legislation.
As cigarette sales plunge, tobacco companies are marketing smokeless products to skirt smoking bans and keep customers. Lesley Stahl investigates the pros and cons. Here is the link for your review. A very interesting review. What are your thoughts on the topic? Was the presentation good for the future of Snus? Give us your feedback.
American Blend cigarettes like Marlboro are now banned in Canada so the Philip Morris International subsidiary Rothmans, Benson & Hedges is now able to only exports its AB products. Canada’s law banning the manufacture, importation and sale of flavored cigarettes and small cigars, except those with menthol, and prohibiting tobacco product advertising in newspapers and magazines, took effect on October 8th, despite criticism from the tobacco industry and lawmakers in US tobacco-growing States that the measure was too broad and would unfairly restrict the import of US-grown burley leaf since most of it is exported as licorice-cased blended strip ready for use along with other cocoa and vanilla flavored leaf. Anti-smoking groups said the criticism was unfounded since Canada did not import any US-grown burley leaf in 2007 and 2008, and “American-blend” cigarettes make up less than 1% of the Canadian cigarette market. The anti-smoking groups also said fruit-flavored cigarettes and small cigars were marketed like candy to lure young smokers. The law had support from both government and opposition lawmakers (Reuters 10/8).
What makes this particularly interesting is that it now appears that at the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control meeting taking place now in Jordan, the TobReg committee, which is tasked with making recommendations about flavors in cigarettes, is apparently seriously looking at the possibility of recommending the elimination of all flavors – not just the characterizing flavors such as cherry, lemon etc.
