With China About To Ban E-Cig, E-Cig Industry Will Die A Natural Death Soon...

[AhMeng]

E-Cigarette Online Stores in China Asked to Stop
By Staff Reporter | Nov 05, 2019 04:36 AM EST

(Photo : Pixabay)

The People's Republic of China has called for the cease of sales and marketing of e-cigarettes and vaping equipment online which could practically result in a total ban on the use of such materials. This move was conceived by a joint idea of a Chinese regulator and the state tobacco monopoly stating not only health concerns but also the rise in e-cigarette users.

The vaping industry

China's e-cigarette and vaping industry has been booming for the past years. According to a study by Tsinghua University's Public Health and Technology Supervision Research Group, China has more than 7.4 million e-cigarette users. Furthermore, it is the largest producer of e-cigarette products.

On the other hand, Americans spend $7 billion in annual sales only for e-cigarettes and vaping. Aside from being commercially available in online platforms and being lured online by using terms such as "young" and "fashion", part of the market involves targeting teenagers with flavors such as Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum and Zombie Blood. These make it popular not only to minors but to elders as well. At an exposition in Shanghai this week, women in pencil dresses and heels gave out flavored liquids like Bulgarian rose, bubble tea, and Moutai, a Chinese liquorwhich makes it appealing to all age brackets.

However, not only Chinese and United States authorities have been rethinking of banning e-cigarettes and vapes but also authorities in India. Because of this, a statement was released.

Support from popular e-cigarette brands

Even with the "vaguely" worded announcementposted on the websites of the State Administration of Markets and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, three online platforms quickly removed their ads related and regarding to e-cigarettes and vaping devices. Additionally, seven of China's popular brands, headed by RELX, posted statements on their social media accounts that they will act on terminating the sales and advertisement of such devices on the internet. However, the biggest e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Alibaba did not leave any comment.

Mysterious vaping-related lung injuries

Moreover, the increasing concern towards the number of mysterious vaping-related lung injuries is one of the reasons behind the ban. The death of John Steffen, 68, from Nebraska, made headlines across the state after dying with vaping-related illness instead of dying from respiratory failure and pulmonary disease after years of smoking cigarettes.

The general knowledge is that smoking via cigarettes would cause lung cancer and so it was the use of e-cigarettes that convinced Mr. Steffen to change his mind. According to Mrs. Steffen, Mr. Steffen began vaping five years ago using nicotine—e-cigarette brands like Mistic, blu, and Juul, all of which are sold over the counter at drugstores. According to representatives on mentioned brands, they said that they "appreciate the work of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the state public health authorities."

Unfortunately, Dr. Thomas Safranek, the state epidemiologist, admitted that if the department of health didn't receive a tip, they wouldn't know that Mr. Steffan's death was tied to vaping.

Moreover, although the investigators didn't have a conclusion as of yet, they seem to link the illness to appear to people who have used tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)- or cannabidiol (CBD)- related products

 

[mojito]

Just go underground that's all. No way to enforce.

 

[AhMeng]

Just go underground that's all. No way to enforce.

When China bans it, no more demand from the most populous cuntry ...

 

[Xisiqomelir]

The cigarette lobby has centuries of saved earnings to bribe politicians, and politicians are ridiculously cheap-cheap.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

Vaping, e-cigarette startups at risk from China's tobacco monopoly
By Josh Horwitz on Nov 8, 2019 6:51AM

China's base of 300m smokers is five times bigger than America's market.
In a glass-walled laboratory, chemists puff on vaping devices as they test liquid nicotine flavors. Nearby, staffers with cartons of instant noodles on their desks tap away at laptops, messaging suppliers and customers.
Here at the Shenzhen offices of e-cigarette start-up RELX Technology, workers scramble to keep pace with the rush of firms vying for sales in the world’s biggest tobacco market. Their potential-customer base starts with 300 million Chinese smokers of traditional cigarettes – about nine times the number in the United States. Founded by former employees of Didi Chuxing, China’s answer to Uber, RELX aims to become China’s answer to Juul Labs Inc, the San Francisco startup that captured a huge share of the US vaping market with a sleek and addictive e-cigarette.
RELX makes an almost identical product: a stick-shaped device that burns high-nicotine liquids packaged in plug-in “pods.” But it won’t have to compete with the US e-cigarette giant. Juul has yet to crack China’s market even as it aggressively expands elsewhere in Asia and faces a regulatory crisis in the United States https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/juul-ecigarette over a surge in youth vaping. Juul’s delayed entry into China – potentially its most lucrative market – underscores the complexity and risk of operating here.
E-cigarette sales have grown slowly in China compared to other industrialized nations. Its market is about one-ninth the size of the United States, according to market research firm Euromonitor. One main reason: China Tobacco, which is both the government-owned cigarette company and the national tobacco regulator. The state monopoly has not clearly signaled how it will regulate e-cigarettes – or whether it will sell them. If it does, it has the power to regulate its competitors out of the business.
One investor in a Chinese e-cigarette startup likened the combined regulatory and competitive threat to “a knife on the neck.”
China Tobacco did not respond to written questions from Reuters.
The cigarette giant’s power stems in part from its contribution to the national purse - accounting for 5.45 percent of China’s tax revenue in 2018. That amounts to 10.8 trillion yuan (US$1.5 trillion), according to calculations by Professor Rose Zheng of the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.
Still, China Tobacco sells cigarettes for a fraction of what they cost in most nations – as little as 3 yuan per pack, or less than half a US dollar. RELX sells a device and one pod for between 299 yuan to 399 yuan.
Foreign firms, particularly US firms, face the additional obstacles of the US-China trade war, cultural challenges in marketing and distributing, and competition from a host of new Chinese e-cigarette startups including RELX, which was valued at US$2.4 billion based on a recent investment.
In September, Juul briefly starting selling devices on two popular online commerce sites, Tmall and JD.com Inc. But the products were pulled from the websites days later for unknown reasons.
Juul, Tmall parent company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, and JD.com declined to comment on the Juul product removals or China’s regulatory environment. China Tobacco issued a notice Nov. 1 urging e-commerce platforms and e-cigarette companies to shut online stores offering vaping products, a move aimed at stopping youth sales.
Juul declined to comment on its China strategy.
RELX CEO Kate Wang said she’s “not worried” about the government’s impact on the sector. The products will continue to remain available, she said, “as long as there’s proof that this is a good solution for smokers.”
Frontier market
Many e-cigarette startups still see boundless opportunity in China. Nearly half of Chinese men smoke cigarettes, according to the World Health Organization. Chinese factories make 95 percent of the world’s e-cigarettes, according to Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee, a Chinese trade association. But almost all of that production is exported.
Juul’s explosive US growth only recently convinced Chinese e-cigarette firms of the viability of small, high-nicotine vaping devices in China. They had focused on larger, box-shaped devices that spew vast clouds of vapor and spawned a subculture in the Chinese hip-hop community. The box vapes were less effective in delivering nicotine but offered better profit margins, said Michael Gao, founder of Chinese e-cigarette company Moti.
“The old box-style models, you could sell for US$100,” compared to about US$30 for a Juul-like device, Gao said. “So everyone had doubts about the pod model.”
Juul’s success quelled those doubts. Dozens of Chinese startups released pod-style vapes starting in 2018. Many had roots in China’s technology industry. Shenzhen-based Laan, for instance, was founded by former employees at WeChat, the messaging app owned by Tencent. YOOZ, based in Beijing, was launched by Cai Yuedong, an online media entrepreneur.
Samuel Liu, who launched the Evove brand of e-cigarettes, envisions a mass market. “It’s a legal drug; it’s a fast-moving consumer good; and it’s an electronic product,” he said. “Electronic cigarettes will be the second item you carry in your pocket, after your phone.”
And yet Liu and others acknowledge the risk posed by China Tobacco.
“When VC’s come to me, I always tell them they shouldn’t get too excited,” he said. “You don’t know when the government will come in and just claim this market for itself.”
Some VCs are embracing the risk. In April, RELX closed on US$75 million in venture capital funding from high-profile investors including Sequoia China and Yuri Milner.
In addition to e-commerce sites, RELX sells its products through bars, cafes and smartphone repair shops, and says it has more than 900 branded storefronts as franchise partners. The company also plans to soon open flagship stores in Southeast Asia and London.
The company’s most popular flavors are mung bean, a common ingredient in Chinese desserts, and laobinggun, a type of popsicle popular in the nineties in China.
“We search for flavors that are pretty familiar to people over 30, things that are old-fashioned and inspire emotion,” says Wang.
Monopoly control, mixed signals
China Tobacco dominates the nation’s tobacco supply from manufacturing to retailing. The same entity controls regulation under a different name – the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.
The administration has at times worked against efforts to limit smoking. In Hangzhou, for example, the local government in 2018 attempted to ban indoor public smoking. The movement lost momentum after the tobacco administration pushed for lighter measures including more designated smoking areas, which it said allowed for “civilized smoking” in a statement to Reuters at the time.
In May 2017, the regulator claimed jurisdiction over heat-not-burn smoking devices - an alternative type of e-cigarette that creates a vapor from raw tobacco leaves. The decision effectively barred Phillip Morris International Inc from Chinese sales of its IQOS device, a heat-not-burn e-cigarette popular in Japan. China Tobacco subsidiaries have since begun testing their own heat-not-burn devices and selling them in limited quantities.
Phillip Morris said in a statement it had no current plans to sell IQOS in China but did not comment on the nation’s regulation of the heat-not-burn sector.
The government has sent conflicting messages on whether it intends to regulate e-cigarettes that vaporize liquid nicotine blends - or sell them itself.
In March, state broadcaster CCTV aired a segment highlighting the potential health risks from inhaling nicotine and other chemicals in e-cigarette liquids. The spot was part of a program - broadcast annually on China’s national “Consumer Day” - that targets industries the government alleges have wronged the public.
Industry players say they struggled to interpret the government’s message in the segment. They hoped it signaled that the tobacco monopoly would continue allowing e-cigarette sales but start regulating their quality and safety. They had the same hopes in May, when a government regulator submitted draft regulations for exported Chinese e-cigarettes to the World Trade Organization.
Many industry observers, however, continue to believe China Tobacco will eventually enter the e-cigarette market itself.
State-owned enterprises such as China Tobacco are “bloated and slow to take action,” said Maggie Chen of ESun, a Shenzhen-based consulting firm that helps companies comply with import and export regulations. “But they are definitely paying attention to this sector.”

 

[Insider Player]

When China bans it, no more demand from the most populous cuntry ...

Still got places like Indonesia and Africa. As long as it remains cheap there’ll be a demand

 

[Hypocrite-The]

US identifies likely culprit of vaping illness outbreak
The Online Citizen 2019-11-09 Health


by Issam AHMED
US health officials said Friday they had identified vitamin E acetate as the likely culprit behind a vaping-linked lung injury epidemic that has killed 39 people and sickened thousands.
Investigators have previously pointed to the oil, which is sometimes used as a thickening agent for vaping products that contain a psychoactive substance called THC, as a possible cause of the outbreak.
But they are more certain now after it was detected in all 29 patients selected for a lung fluid study carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).


“These findings provide direct evidence of vitamin E acetate as the primary site of injury within the lungs,” said Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, calling it a “very strong culprit of concern” and describing the new work as a breakthrough.
“No other potential toxins were detected in the testing conducted so far,” she added.
Vitamin E acetate is found in many foods and is also used in cosmetics products like skin cream, but interferes with lung function when inhaled.
A CDC release added that more investigation was required to definitively confirm a causal link and that it remained possible more than one toxin was responsible for the current outbreak, which officials have called “e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury” or “EVALI.”
Minimum age push
The announcement came as President Donald Trump said he supported raising the minimum age for the purchase of e-cigarettes from 18 to 21 as part of a plan to curtail a surge in youth vaping.
But he also indicated that he was concerned about over-regulation of business, a sign the administration is considering stepping back from a previously announced ban on flavored e-juices popular among adolescents.
“We’re going to be coming out with a very important position on vaping,” Trump told reporters. “We have to take care of our kids, most importantly, so we’re going to have an age limit of 21 or so.”
He added that a policy paper would be issued next week.
The administration announced in September it would soon ban flavored products, but it appeared lobbying efforts by the vaping industry may have changed that position.
“We have a lot of people to look at, including jobs, frankly,” said Trump. “It has become a big industry. We’re going to take care of it.”
The federal minimum age for purchasing tobacco products is 18, but 18 states and the District of Columbia have set their minimum age at 21.
Raising the federal minimum age requires an act of Congress, and the cause has attracted bipartisan support, with one proposed bill co-sponsored by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Reprieve for industry?
Vaping is increasingly popular among youth, with a government survey this week finding that more than five million middle and high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the past 30 days, an all-time high.
Youth vapers overwhelmingly chose flavors like mint, mango, cream, fruit and cucumber, unlike people who are trying to quit smoking and turn to tobacco-flavored pods.
The proposed flavor ban has caused an outcry among vaping businesses, who argue they strictly ID their customers to confirm their age.
White House advisor Kellyanne Conway told reporters earlier this week vape shops may be exempted, leaving open the possibility that outlets like gas stations and convenience stores might be the ones affected by new regulations.

S identifies likely culprit of vaping illness outbreak

The Online Citizen 2019-11-09 Health
by Issam AHMED
US health officials said Friday they had identified vitamin E acetate as the likely culprit behind a vaping-linked lung injury epidemic that has killed 39 people and sickened thousands.
Investigators have previously pointed to the oil, which is sometimes used as a thickening agent for vaping products that contain a psychoactive substance called THC, as a possible cause of the outbreak.
But they are more certain now after it was detected in all 29 patients selected for a lung fluid study carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“These findings provide direct evidence of vitamin E acetate as the primary site of injury within the lungs,” said Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, calling it a “very strong culprit of concern” and describing the new work as a breakthrough.
“No other potential toxins were detected in the testing conducted so far,” she added.
Vitamin E acetate is found in many foods and is also used in cosmetics products like skin cream, but interferes with lung function when inhaled.
A CDC release added that more investigation was required to definitively confirm a causal link and that it remained possible more than one toxin was responsible for the current outbreak, which officials have called “e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury” or “EVALI.”
Minimum age push

The announcement came as President Donald Trump said he supported raising the minimum age for the purchase of e-cigarettes from 18 to 21 as part of a plan to curtail a surge in youth vaping.
But he also indicated that he was concerned about over-regulation of business, a sign the administration is considering stepping back from a previously announced ban on flavored e-juices popular among adolescents.
“We’re going to be coming out with a very important position on vaping,” Trump told reporters. “We have to take care of our kids, most importantly, so we’re going to have an age limit of 21 or so.”
He added that a policy paper would be issued next week.
The administration announced in September it would soon ban flavored products, but it appeared lobbying efforts by the vaping industry may have changed that position.
“We have a lot of people to look at, including jobs, frankly,” said Trump. “It has become a big industry. We’re going to take care of it.”
The federal minimum age for purchasing tobacco products is 18, but 18 states and the District of Columbia have set their minimum age at 21.
Raising the federal minimum age requires an act of Congress, and the cause has attracted bipartisan support, with one proposed bill co-sponsored by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Reprieve for industry?

Vaping is increasingly popular among youth, with a government survey this week finding that more than five million middle and high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the past 30 days, an all-time high.
Youth vapers overwhelmingly chose flavors like mint, mango, cream, fruit and cucumber, unlike people who are trying to quit smoking and turn to tobacco-flavored pods.
The proposed flavor ban has caused an outcry among vaping businesses, who argue they strictly ID their customers to confirm their age.
White House advisor Kellyanne Conway told reporters earlier this week vape shops may be exempted, leaving open the possibility that outlets like gas stations and convenience stores might be the ones affected by new regulations.