FDA issues warning letters to 3 tobacco companies over "additive-free" claims

Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration issued warning letters to the makers of Winston, Natural Spirit and Nat Sherman cigarettes over their “additive-free” and “natural” label claims.
The agency issued the warnings to ITG Brands LLC, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc. and Sherman’s 1400 Broadway N.Y.C. Ltd. The issue over the claims is that they may lead consumers to believe the products pose a lower risk. That claim has to be scientifically proven.
In a statement, the FDA said it has determined that the products under the warning letter need what is called a “modified risk tobacco product order” before they can be marketed in that way. It has not issued any orders for modified-risk products to the market and this is the first time it is using its authority to take action against “natural” or “additive-free” claims.
The companies have 15 days to respond with a plan or dispute the warnings.
There was no immediate response from the companies.
Imperial Tobacco Group Plc. owns ITG Brands, which also makes Kool cigarettes and USA Gold. Reynolds American Inc. owns Santa Fe Natural Tobacco.
The warning comes several days after a large group of anti-tobacco organizations sent the FDA a letter urging the agency to enforce regulations against Santa Fe Natural Tobacco over marketing claims. That letter, sent on Monday, was signed by 29 groups including the American Heart Association, American Legacy Foundation and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
The anti-tobacco group’s letter alleged that Natural American Spirit’s advertising in magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair violated the Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.
“The potential for irreparable damage to public health from the marketing of tobacco products with modified risk claims is well illustrated by the industry’s years of deceptive advertising of ‘light’ and ‘low-tar’ cigarettes,” the letter stated.
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/08/27/fda-issues-warning-letters-to-natural-tobacco-makers

LA Times: $2 more for cigarettes? California tobacco tax proposal revived in special session

A proposal to raise the tobacco tax by $2 per pack of cigarettes in California was given new life Wednesday when legislation was announced as part of a special session on healthcare.
Supporters say the new bill has a better chance of passing than one that stalled in the regular session because the $1.5 billion raised by such a tax could help the state pay for healthcare costs for low-income residents, a key goal of the special session.
Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) said he will introduce the tobacco tax, noting that California’s current 87-cent-per-pack tobacco tax makes the state 33rd in the nation, far below New York, which charges a tax of $4.35 a pack. There is also a $1.01 federal tax on cigarettes.
A rally for the proposal was held Wednesday next to the Capitol by the Save Lives California coalition, made up of groups including the California Medical Assn., the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Assn. and the Service Employees International Union.
The coalition said that if the Legislature fails to muster the two-thirds vote to pass the tax, it will put the tax proposal on the 2016 ballot.
“We know raising the tobacco tax has been proven to prevent and reduce smoking, especially among young people,” Pan told the nearly 100 people at the rally. He said 40,000 people die each year in California from tobacco-related diseases, and treating such illnesses costs taxpayers $18.1 billion annually.
A Field Poll released Wednesday indicates a $2 tobacco tax to pay for healthcare costs is supported by 67% of Californians.
The tax is one of several anti-tobacco bills being considered during the special session, including one raising the smoking age to 21 and another restricting the use of electronic cigarettes in public.
“The special session is an opportunity for lawmakers to take long-overdue action to prevent young people from falling prey to the No. 1 cause of preventable death in California: tobacco addiction,” said Claudia Alvarez, an SEIU delegate and family medicine resident at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
Those in the audience at the rally included Jennifer Kent, the governor’s appointee as director of the California Department of Health Care Services.
“To the extent we have an ongoing need for revenues we’re obviously willing to consider both this tax and any other revenue sources,” Kent said in an interview afterward. “We’re here and interested and willing and able to partner” with the coalition.
She said there is a strong link between tobacco use and illnesses covered by Medi-Cal.
The regular-session tobacco tax bill was opposed by groups including the Cigar Assn. of America and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which argued it creates a regressive tax on a declining revenue source.
“At a time when state revenue has recovered and the governor says there is even a surplus, there is no reason for a tax increase,” said Jon Coupal, president of the taxpayers group.
Proponents of the bill estimate 295,000 smokers will kick the habit the first year if the tax goes up $2 per pack, and many others will not start smoking to begin with.
http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-california-tobacco-tax-proposal-revived-for-special-session-20150826-story.html

NY Times Opinion: Clashing Views on E-Cigarettes

By

A British government agency has issued a bullish assessment of the value of electronic cigarettes in helping people to quit smoking. It found that e-cigarettes can reduce the health risks of smoking by 95 percent because they deliver nicotine to satisfy an addiction, but far fewer harmful chemicals than regular cigarettes. It also found little evidence that large numbers of consumers who had never smoked were taking up e-cigarettes. That seemed to challenge the notion that e-cigarettes would be a gateway to more dangerous products.

But the study is hardly definitive; experts in America have drawn different conclusions on usage and on the gateway issue.

The British assessment, commissioned by Public Health England and conducted by academic experts, was cautious in its claims. It noted that the best results are obtained when e-cigarettes are used in combination with professional counseling and smoking-cessation medication.

In the United States, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, e-cigarette use by young people has grown more rapidly than in Britain. The user population includes many children who have never smoked and thus may be vulnerable to being hooked by nicotine and later moving to traditional cigarettes.

By coincidence, a day before the British study was issued, a study tracking more than 2,500 students at 10 Los Angeles schools who had never smoked tobacco, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, came to the opposite conclusion. It said ninth graders who had tried e-cigarettes were far more likely than other students to start smoking “combustible tobacco” (cigarettes, cigars, hookahs) within a year.

Strong regulation is needed in Europe and the United States to protect young people from advertising and promotions designed to lure them into trying e-cigarettes and perhaps getting hooked on them. America’s Food and Drug Administration needs to issue rules it proposed last year and make them even stronger by banning flavors that appeal to youngsters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/opinion/clashing-views-on-e-cigarettes.html?_r=0

AP: Teens' E-Cigarette Use Linked With Later Smoking

By LINDSEY TANNER AP Medical Writer
Teens who use e-cigarettes are more likely than others to later smoke conventional cigarettes and other tobacco products, a study at 10 Los Angeles high schools suggests.
The study doesn’t prove that electronic cigarettes are a “gateway drug” but some doctors say it bolsters arguments that the devices should be strictly regulated as proposed by the Food and Drug Administration.
Whether teens had tried just one e-cigarette or were habitual users isn’t known, nor is whether they became heavy smokers or just had a few puffs. That information would be needed to help determine whether nicotine from e-cigarettes predisposed users to seek out other sources.
Despite those limitations, the study “is the strongest evidence to date that e-cigarettes might pose a health hazard by encouraging adolescents to start smoking conventional tobacco products,” said Dr. Nancy Rigotti, director of a tobacco research and treatment center at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her commentary and the study were both published in Tuesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
E-cigarettes haven’t been extensively studied and there’s no scientific consensus on any potential benefits or harms, including whether they lead kids to become regular smokers.
The new, government-funded study involved about 2,500 14-year-olds who had never used conventional tobacco products including cigarettes. Students were first surveyed in fall 2013. The Los Angeles study population was diverse but whether the same results would be found nationwide is uncertain.
At the start, about 9 percent — 222 kids — said they had used e-cigarettes at least once, similar to rates seen in a recent national survey. Almost one-third of them tried cigarettes, cigars or water pipes within the following six months, versus just 8 percent of the kids who’d never tried e-cigarettes. The gap persisted when students were surveyed again, a year after the study began.
Hookahs and cigars were more popular than regular cigarettes in both groups.
The researchers considered traits that might make teens more likely to use tobacco, including impulsiveness, delinquent behavior and parents’ smoking habits. Their analysis showed those traits played a role but didn’t fully explain the link between e-cigarettes and later tobacco use.
University of Southern California researcher Adam Leventhal, the study’s lead author, noted that e-cigarettes were initially introduced as a potentially safer alternative to tobacco for smokers who were trying to cut down, but they have evolved into a recreational product for some users.
Available for nearly a decade, e-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that turn nicotine-containing liquid into vapor that is inhaled. Though nicotine can be addictive, e-cigarettes lack the chemicals and tars of burning tobacco.
National data show e-cigarettes have become more popular among teens than regular cigarettes.
Leventhal said his study “does little to dispel concerns that recreational e-cigarette use might be associated with moving on to these very harmful tobacco products.” But he said more research is needed to determine if e-cigarettes are really the culprit.
University of Rochester tobacco researcher Deborah Ossip said because teens’ brains are still developing, they’re more sensitive to the effects of nicotine, and that using just a few e-cigarettes could make them vulnerable to using nicotine in other forms. She had no role in the research.
The FDA in 2014 proposed rules that would ban the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors and would add the devices to the list of tobacco products it regulates. Laws banning the sale of e-cigarettes to minors have been enacted or proposed in several states.
———
Online:
JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org
FDA: http://tinyurl.com/pe7nqtl
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/teens-cigarette-linked-smoking-33155901

Opinion: Chamber's tobacco tax stance flawed

By John LaChance from Fargo

I used to believe smoking was just a part of life. My parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, doctors, nurses, teachers, etc. all smoked around me as I was growing up.
For years, I worked in bars and restaurants where people smoked. The more they smoked, the more they drank. The more they drank, the more they spent. The more they spent, the more I made. Simple.
I even participated in a public service announcement urging people to vote against banning smoking in bars in restaurants many years ago. I would be a hypocrite if I did not disclose that information.
I was dead wrong.
State Chamber executive Andy Peterson’s opinion piece in The Forum (Sunday, July 12) offering a rationale that it’s “free enterprise” for the Greater ND Chamber of Commerce’s stance on lobbying against a cigarette tax increase prompted me to research what this stance may be costing his members.
North Dakota has the sixth-lowest cigarette tax per pack in the United States, $0.44 per pack. Montana, $1.70 per pack. South Dakota, $1.53 per pack. Minnesota, $2.90 per pack. Canada, $2.80 per pack.
Statistically, there are more than 440,000 workers in North Dakota (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor).
I couldn’t find exact numbers but let’s say, conservatively, half of those workers, 220,000, work for the 1,037 member businesses listed on the Chamber’s website. Four of the top five largest employers in the state are also members of the Greater ND Chamber of Commerce. The fifth employer was not disclosed.
The average cost to a business per employee who smokes is $5,816 a year, per a 2013 Ohio State University study. A Gallup poll from 2013, “estimates that 19 percent of workers still smoke and that workers who smoke cost the U.S. economy $278 billion annually in lost productivity due to absenteeism and extra health care costs. This figure is based on an analysis of the cost of extra missed workdays due to poor health, partial absenteeism due to smoke breaks, and additional health care costs compared with workers who do not smoke.”
So let’s say, conservatively, 41,800 workers (220,000 x 19 percent) employed by the Greater ND Chamber businesses still smoke. That is potentially costing these member businesses $243,108,800 ($5,816 x 41,800).
The most recent revenue numbers I could find from cigarette sales in North Dakota was $68,951,521 for 2009.
Hmm?
Now I’m just beginning my graduate studies in business, but it appears it would be in the Greater ND Chamber’s best interest to encourage a cigarette tax increase.
Not only would an increase in the cigarette tax raise revenue for some of Peterson’s members, it would decrease the amount of money most if not all of his member businesses are losing out on paying for smoking- related costs.
Simple.
http://www.inforum.com/letters/3799718-letter-chambers-tobacco-tax-stance-flawed

Opinion: Does the ND State Chamber side with the U.S. Chamber on Opposing Tobacco Prevention?

By: Dr. Eric Johnson, Grand Forks
President, Tobacco Free North Dakota
If you have not read the June 30, 2015 New York Times article titled, “U.S. Chamber of Commerce Works Globally to Fight Antismoking Measures”, please do so. While we acknowledge there is, at times, a disconnect between national, state and local organizations such as the Chambers of Commerce organizations, I couldn’t help but recognize some similarities between Chamber international efforts as detailed in the article referenced above and the actions of the Greater North Dakota Chamber here in our state.
Even as an active member of the Healthy North Dakota Summit, a public health initiative established by then-Governor John Hoeven and whose statewide plan identifies strategies to “support North Dakotans who make healthy choices – in schools, workplaces, senior centers, homes and anywhere people live, learn, work and play,” the GNDC has not only been absent in supporting tobacco prevention efforts in our state, it has actively opposed them.
With the goal to “reduce tobacco use in North Dakota” on paper in their statewide plan and in mind, we are troubled to see efforts of the Chambers of Commerce – whether internationally or here at the state level – combat proven prevention strategies that save both lives and money.
We call on North Dakotans to demand better and challenge the GNDC to accept what the numbers have long confirmed – that comprehensive tobacco prevention practices are fiscally responsible to taxpayers, health care systems, and ultimately, our workforce and employers in the business community.
——-
Click here to read Mr. Andy Peterson’s letter to the editor in response.
And click here to read Dr. Eric Johnson’s corrections to the inaccuracies of Mr. Peterson’s letter.

Reuters: States target e-cigarette sales to minors amid slow federal action

NEW YORK – Frustrated by the slow pace of federal action, state attorneys general are waging their own campaigns against the sale and advertising of e-cigarettes to minors.

More than a dozen AGs, including those in New York, California, Indiana and Ohio, are using new state and local laws – some of which they helped craft – to put pressure on the industry at all levels, from neighborhood vape shops to big tobacco companies like Altria Group and Reynolds American Inc.

Much of the campaign so far has involved threats to sue violators or appeals to a company’s sense of responsibility, though some lawsuits have been filed, too.

State actions have accelerated in the wake of government data released in April, which showed that teen use of e-cigarettes tripled in 2014 alone, making them more common for youngsters than tobacco.

North Dakota passed its own bill to combat e-cigarettes this legislative session. House Bill 1186, which was signed by Gov. Jack Dalrymple on April 9, outlaws the sale of e-cigarettes to minors in the state. Minors are not allowed to buy, possess or use electronic smoking devices, and those who sell or give e-cigarettes to anyone under 18 is guilty of an infraction.

“The key is to avoid another generation being addicted to nicotine,” Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said in an interview.

State attorneys general played a pivotal role during the 1990s in battling tobacco companies over conventional cigarettes.

The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), an accord reached in November 1998 between the state attorneys general of 46 states, five U.S. territories, the District of Columbia and the five largest tobacco companies, resulted in significant changes to cigarette marketing and required the tobacco industry to pay the states about $10 billion annually for the indefinite future.

Nearly a year ago, a group of AGs asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to take a tougher line on e-cigarettes, the risks and benefits of which are still being studied.

In April of 2014, the agency proposed banning the sale of e-cigarettes to people under the age of 18, but did not recommend prohibiting advertising, flavored products or online sales – all of which help make the devices attractive to youngsters, according to public health advocates.

The FDA proposal has been under review ever since, which has meant that vaping remains legal for youths in states that haven’t passed laws banning it. The agency is likely to finalize its new e-cigarette regulations later this summer, though it could be several years before the federal rules go into effect.

Federal regulations and the 1998 Master Settlement prohibit makers of conventional cigarettes from targeting youth and from advertising on television, billboards and mass transit, but the rules don’t apply to e-cigarettes.

So far, however, 46 states have passed laws banning their sale to minors. Twelve of those states have also passed laws requiring child-proof packaging for e-liquids and e-cigarettes, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

AGs are using these laws, as well as others not directly tied to e-cigarettes, to force companies to drop ads appealing to teens, switch to child-proof packaging and spend thousands of dollars on more vigilant age verification systems for their websites and online deliveries.

In June, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced settlements with four companies that were not complying with the state’s rule about child resistant packaging for nicotine liquids.

Reuters spoke with more than 10 e-cigarette and vaping companies – including Reynolds American, which sells Vuse, and Altria Group, which sells MarkTen and Green Smoke – that acknowledged they have been contacted by state law enforcers or by the National Associations of Attorneys General. Reynolds and Altria say their brands were not in violation of local laws.

Some of the AGs have coordinated their efforts. One group is pressuring certain e-cigarette manufacturers and vendors to limit ads that appeal to teens, especially on company websites and places like YouTube.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, along with colleagues from several other states, sent a letter in April to privately-held manufacturer NJOY, asking it to “immediately instruct YouTube to restrict” access to its advertisements to adults.

NJOY said in an April letter to DeWine that more than 90 percent of the U.S. viewers who have watched its hosted YouTube videos are at least 18, and the company said it would suspend videos if that figure fell to 85 percent or less.

NJOY, which previously settled a case with California over allegations of targeting minors and deceptive marketing, would not comment further.

California has sent letters to more than 150 e-cigarette and vaping companies in recent years “to encourage voluntary compliance with applicable state and federal laws,” including a ban on sales to youth, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

The state is also pursuing companies that sell fruit-flavored vaping liquids that appeal to teens and those that make false or misleading statements in their advertisements. One letter sent by the state asked a manufacturer to quit claiming that “electronic cigarettes are one of the safest forms of nicotine available” and that “when you exhale, you are exhaling harmless water vapor.”

“Many companies have taken some or all of our recommended steps,” said Kristin Ford, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Kamala Harris.

AGs are paying particular attention to sales on websites, a popular source of vaping materials for teens, who trade information about which ones require little proof of age.

Jan Verleur, CEO and co-founder of electronic cigarette company VMR Products, said his company changed its age verification system in some states after being contacted by a state AG. He estimated the cost per order would increase by about 50 cents, but would not say if VMR would absorb any of that. The company makes about half its sales online.

“This is bad news for the smaller players and good news for the tobacco companies, whose business model relied on mass manufacturing, not personalized products,” said Philip Gorham, an equity analyst at Morningstar who covers consumer products.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/business/3783488-states-target-e-cigarette-sales-minors-amid-slow-federal-action

New York Times: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Works Globally to Fight Antismoking Measures

By DANNY HAKIM

KIEV, Ukraine — A parliamentary hearing was convened here in March to consider an odd remnant of Ukraine’s corrupt, pre-revolutionary government.

Three years ago, Ukraine filed an international legal challenge against Australia, over Australia’s right to enact antismoking laws on its own soil. To a number of lawmakers, the case seemed absurd, and they wanted to investigate why it was even being pursued.

When it came time to defend the tobacco industry, a man named Taras Kachka spoke up. He argued that several “fantastic tobacco companies” had bought up Soviet-era factories and modernized them, and now they were exporting tobacco to many other countries. It was in Ukraine’s national interest, he said, to support investors in the country, even though they do not sell tobacco to Australia.

Mr. Kachka was not a tobacco lobbyist or farmer or factory owner. He was the head of a Ukrainian affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, America’s largest trade group.

From Ukraine to Uruguay, Moldova to the Philippines, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its foreign affiliates have become the hammer for the tobacco industry, engaging in a worldwide effort to fight antismoking laws of all kinds, according to interviews with government ministers, lobbyists, lawmakers and public health groups in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States.

The U.S. Chamber’s work in support of the tobacco industry in recent years has emerged as a priority at the same time the industry has faced one of the most serious threats in its history. A global treaty, negotiated through the World Health Organization, mandates anti-smoking measures and also seeks to curb the influence of the tobacco industry in policy making. The treaty, which took effect in 2005, has been ratified by 179 countries; holdouts include Cuba, Haiti and the United States.

Facing a wave of new legislation around the world, the tobacco lobby has turned for help to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with the weight of American business behind it. While the chamber’s global tobacco lobbying has been largely hidden from public view, its influence has been widely felt.

Letters, emails and other documents from foreign governments, the chamber’s affiliates and antismoking groups, which were reviewed by The New York Times, show how the chamber has embraced the challenge, undertaking a three-pronged strategy in its global campaign to advance the interests of the tobacco industry.

In the capitals of far-flung nations, the chamber lobbies alongside its foreign affiliates to beat back antismoking laws.

In trade forums, the chamber pits countries against one another. The Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, recently revealed that his country’s case against Australia was prompted by a complaint from the U.S. Chamber.

And in Washington, Thomas J. Donohue, the chief executive of the chamber, has personally taken part in lobbying to defend the ability of the tobacco industry to sue under future international treaties, notably the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement being negotiated between the United States and several Pacific Rim nations.

“They represent the interests of the tobacco industry,” said Dr. Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, the head of the Secretariat that oversees the W.H.O treaty, called the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. “They are putting their feet everywhere where there are stronger regulations coming up.”

The increasing global advocacy highlights the chamber’s enduring ties to the tobacco industry, which in years past centered on American regulation of cigarettes. A top executive at the tobacco giant Altria Group serves on the chamber’s board. Philip Morris International plays a leading role in the global campaign; one executive drafted a position paper used by a chamber affiliate in Brussels, while another accompanied a chamber executive to a meeting with the Philippine ambassador in Washington to lobby against a cigarette-tax increase. The cigarette makers’ payments to the chamber are not disclosed.

It is not clear how the chamber’s campaign reflects the interests of its broader membership, which includes technology companies like Google, pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and health insurers like Anthem. And the chamber’s record in its tobacco fight is mixed, often leaving American business as the face of a losing cause, pushing a well-known toxin on poor populations whose leaders are determined to curb smoking.

The U.S. Chamber issued brief statements in response to inquiries. “The Chamber regularly reaches out to governments around the world to urge them to avoid measures that discriminate against particular companies or industries, undermine their trademarks or brands, or destroy their intellectual property,” the statement said, adding, “we’ve worked with a broad array of business organizations at home and abroad to defend these principles.”

The chamber declined to say if it supported any measures to curb smoking.

The chamber, a private nonprofit that has more than three million members and annual revenue of $165 million, spends more on lobbying than any other interest group in America. For decades, it has taken positions aimed at bolstering its members’ fortunes.

While the chamber has local outposts across the United States, it also has more than 100 affiliates around the world. Foreign branches pay dues and typically hew to the U.S. Chamber’s strategy, often advancing it on the ground. Members include both American and foreign businesses, a symbiotic relationship that magnifies the chamber’s clout.

For foreign companies, membership comes with “access to the U.S. Embassy” according to the Cambodian branch, and entree to “the U.S. government,” according to the Azerbaijan branch. Members in Hanoi get an invitation to an annual trip to “lobby Congress and the administration” in Washington.

Since Mr. Donohue took over in 1997, he has steered the chamber into positions that have alienated some members. In 2009, the chamber threatened to sue if the Environmental Protection Agency regulated greenhouse gas emissions, disputing its authority to act on climate change. That led Nike to step down from the chamber’s board, and to Apple’s departure from the group. In 2013, the American arm of the Swedish construction giant Skanska resigned, protesting the chamber’s support for what Skanska called a “chemical industry-led initiative” to lobby against green building codes.

The chamber’s tobacco lobbying has led to confusion for many countries, Dr. da Costa e Silva said, adding “there is a misconception that the American chamber of commerce represents the government of the U.S.” In some places like Estonia, the lines are blurred. The United States ambassador there, Jeffrey Levine, serves as honorary president of the chamber’s local affiliate; the affiliate quoted Philip Morris in a publication outlining its priorities.

The tobacco industry has increasingly turned to international courts to challenge antismoking laws that countries have enacted after the passage of the W.H.O. treaty. Early this year, Michael R. Bloomberg and Bill Gates set up an international fund to fight such suits. Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an advocacy group that administers the fund, called the chamber “the tobacco industry’s most formidable front group,” adding, “it pops up everywhere.”

In Ukraine, the chamber’s involvement was no surprise to Hanna Hopko, the lawmaker who led the hearing in Parliament. She said the chamber there had fought against antismoking laws for years.

“They were against the tobacco tax increase, they were against placing warning labels on cigarettes,” she said. “This is just business as usual for them.”

Country-by-Country Strategy

More than 3,000 miles away, in Nepal, the health ministry proposed a law last year to increase the size of graphic warning labels from covering three-fourths of a cigarette pack to 90 percent. Countries like Nepal that have ratified the W.H.O. treaty are supposed to take steps to make cigarette packs less appealing.

Not long afterward, one of Nepal’s top officials, Lilamani Poudel, said he received an email from a representative of the chamber’s local affiliate in the country, warning that the proposal “would negate foreign investment” and “invite instability.”

In January, the U.S. Chamber itself weighed in. In a letter to Nepal’s deputy prime minister, a senior vice president at the chamber, Tami Overby, wrote that she was “not aware of any science-based evidence” that larger warning labels “will have any discernible impact on reducing or discouraging tobacco use.”

A 2013 Harvard study found that graphic warning labels “play a lifesaving role in highlighting the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit.”

While Nepal eventually mandated the change in warning labels, cigarette companies filed for an extension and compliance has stalled.

“Since we have to focus on responding to the devastating earthquake, we have not been able to monitor the state of law enforcement effectively,” said Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, a senior health ministry official.

The episode reflects the chamber’s country-by-country lobbying strategy. A pattern emerged in letters to seven nations: Written by either the chamber’s top international executive, Myron Brilliant, or his deputies, they introduced the chamber as “the world’s largest business federation.”

Then the letters mention a matter “of concern.” In Jamaica and Nepal, it was graphic health warnings on packages. In Uruguay, it was a plan to bar cigarettes from being displayed by retailers. The Moldovan president was warned against “extreme measures” in his country, though they included common steps like restricting smoking in public places and banning advertising where cigarettes are sold.

A proposal to raise cigarette taxes in the Philippines would open the floodgates to smugglers, the government there was told. Tax revenue has increased since the proposal became law.

“We are not cowed by them,” said Jeremias Paul, the country’s under secretary of finance. “We meet with these guys when we’re trying to encourage investment in the Philippines, so clearly they are very influential, but that doesn’t mean they will dictate their ways.”

Protecting tobacco companies is portrayed by the chamber as vital for a nation’s economic health. Uruguay’s president is warned that antismoking laws will “have a disruptive effect on the formal economy.” El Salvador’s vice president is told that “arbitrary actions” like requiring graphic health warnings in advertisements undermine “investment and economic growth.”

On the ground, the chamber’s local affiliates use hands-on tactics.

After Moldova’s health ministry proposed measures in 2013, Serghei Toncu, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Moldova, laid out his objections in a series of meetings held by a regulatory review panel.

“The consumption of alcohol and cigarettes is at the discretion of each person,” Mr. Toncu said at one meeting, adding that the discussion should not be about “whether smoking is harmful.”

“You do not respect us,” he told the health ministry at another.

At a third, he called the ministry’s research “flawed from the start.”

His objections were not merely plaintive cries. The American chamber has a seat on Moldova’s regulatory review panel giving it direct influence over policy making in the small country.

“The American Chamber of Commerce is a very powerful and active organization,” said Oleg Chelaru, a team leader on the staff that assists the review panel. “They played a very crucial role in analyzing and giving an opinion on this initiative.”

Mr. Toncu, who has since left the chamber, declined to comment. Mila Malairau, the chamber’s executive director, said its main objective was to make sure the industry “was consulted” in “a transparent and predictable manner.”

After recently passing in Parliament, the long-stalled measures were subject to fresh objections from the chamber and others, and have not yet been enacted.

Fighting a Trade Exception

In Washington, the U.S. Chamber’s tobacco lobbying has been visible in the negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a priority of the Obama administration that recently received critical backing in Congress.

One of the more controversial proposals would expand the power of companies to sue countries if they violate trade rules. The U.S. Chamber has openly opposed plans to withhold such powers from tobacco companies, curbing their ability to challenge national antismoking laws. The chamber says on its website that “singling out tobacco” will “open a Pandora’s box as other governments go after their particular bêtes noires.”

The issue is still unresolved. A spokesman for the United States trade representative said negotiators would ensure that governments “can implement regulations to protect public health” while also “ensuring that our farmers are not discriminated against.”

Email traffic shows that Mr. Donohue, the chamber’s head, sought to raise the issue in 2012 directly with Ron Kirk, who was then the United States trade representative. In email exchanges between staff members of the two, Mr. Donohue specifically sought to discuss the role of tobacco in the trade agreement.

“Tom had a couple of things to raise, including urging that the tobacco text not be submitted at this round,” one of Mr. Donohue’s staff members wrote to Mr. Kirk’s staff. The emails were produced in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which provided them to The Times.

Mr. Kirk is now a senior lawyer at Gibson, Dunn, a firm that counts the tobacco industry as a client. He said in an interview that during his tenure as trade representative, he met periodically with Mr. Donohue but could not recall a specific conversation on tobacco.

He said trade groups were generally concerned about “treating one industry different than you would treat anyone else, more so than doing tobacco’s bidding.”

The chamber declined to make Mr. Donohue available for an interview.

A Face-Saving Measure

In Ukraine, it was Valeriy Pyatnytskiy who signed off on the complaint against Australia in 2012, which was filed with the World Trade Organization. At the time, he was Ukraine’s chief negotiator to the W.T.O. His political career has survived the revolution and he is now an adviser to the Ukrainian prime minister, Mr. Yatsenyuk.

In a recent interview, he said that for Ukraine, the case was a matter of principle. It was about respecting the rules.

He offered a hypothetical: If Ukraine allowed Australia to use plain packaging on cigarettes, what would stop Ukraine from introducing plain packaging for wine? Then Ukrainian winemakers could better compete with French wines, because they would all be in plain bags marked red or white.

“We had this in the Soviet times,” he said. “It was absolutely plain packaging everywhere.”

Some Ukrainian officials have long been troubled by the case.

“It has nothing to do with trade laws,” said Pavlo Sheremeta, who briefly served as Ukraine’s economic minister after the revolution. “We have zero exports of tobacco to Australia, so what do we have to do with this?”

Last year, he urged the American Chamber in Kiev to reconsider.

“I wrote a formal letter, asking them, ‘Do you still keep the same position?’ ” Mr. Sheremeta said. “Basically I was suggesting a face-saving way out of this.” But when he met with chamber officials, the plain packaging case was outlined as a top priority.

They refused to back down. After Mr. Pyatnytskiy, a tobacco ally, was installed as his deputy, Mr. Sheremeta resigned.

“The world was laughing at us,” he said of the case.

Shortly after The Times discussed the case with Ukrainian government officials, there were new protests from activists. Mr. Yatsenyuk called for a review of the matter. Ukraine has since suspended its involvement, but other countries including Cuba and Honduras are continuing to pursue the case against Australia.

Andy Hunder, who took over as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kiev in April, said the organization was moving on, adding, “We are looking forward now.”

Sofiia Kochmar contributed reporting from Kiev, Bhadra Sharma from Kathmandu and Palko Karasz from London.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/business/international/us-chamber-works-globally-to-fight-antismoking-measures.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

Upon reading this article, TFND communicated its disappointment with the Greater North Dakota Chamber’s work in our state alongside Big Tobacco. In doing so, we sent this letter: TFND Letter to GNDC – 7.1.15.

GNDC responded: GNDC – TFND Letter – 7.2.15

And our final communication back to GNDC: TFND response to GNDC – 7.2.15

Reuters: FDA seeks data on e-cigarettes after surge in poisoning cases

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it is seeking additional data and comments on liquid nicotine as it considers warning the public about the dangers of its exposure amid a rise in electronic cigarette use.

The agency has evaluated data and science on the risks, especially to infants and children, from accidental exposure to nicotine and liquid nicotine that is used in e-cigarettes. (1.usa.gov/1GXeSo4)

More Americans are using e-cigarettes and other vaporizing devices than a year ago, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed in June.

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The surge in e-cigarette use comes as conventional cigarette smoking has declined in the United States to about 19 percent of adults, prompting tobacco companies such as Altria Group Inc, Philip Morris International Inc and Reynolds American Inc to rush into the e-cigarette market.

(Graphic on global market: link.reuters.com/kuk83w)

Recent increases in calls and visits to poison control centers and emergency rooms involving liquid nicotine poisoning have raised public health concerns, FDA said.

The health regulator is now considering if it should warn the public about the dangers of nicotine exposure and require that some tobacco products be sold in child-resistant packaging.

Among high school students, e-cigarette use jumped to 13.4 percent in 2014 from 4.5 percent in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cigarette use over the same period fell to 9.2 percent from 12.7 percent, the largest year-over-year decline in more than a decade.

(Reporting By Samantha Kareen Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Don Sebastian)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/30/us-fda-ecigarettes-idUSKCN0PA2SD20150630

The Dickinson Press: Several businesses caught selling tobacco to minors

By Andrew Haffner

The Southwestern District Unit Health caught six Dickinson businesses selling tobacco to a minor Monday in a quarterly compliance check of 25 city retailers.

The businesses that failed the check are M & H Gas Station, Cenex Convenience Store on Villard Street, Simonson’s Store on Villard Street, Rosie’s Food & Gas, and Family Fare supermarkets at both 18th Street West and Roughrider Boulevard.

Tobacco Treatment Specialist Jennifer Schaeffer said in a release that compliance checks are conducted with a trained minor student with a police officer present. Dickinson municipal code prohibits selling tobacco to minors, with punishments tiered to the persistence of retailer offenses.

First-time offenders can face a fine of $100, while those who sell illegally three times within two years may receive a $500 fine and tobacco license revocation.

Schaeffer said in the release that the Southwestern District Unit Health offered a training course for tobacco retailers to prepare them for subsequent compliance checks.

“We are trying to educate them and the public that this is an important issue in keeping our children safe,” she said in the release.

http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/news/local/3777389-several-businesses-caught-selling-tobacco-minors