Reynolds Starts ad Campaign for American Spirit

A Reynolds American Inc. subsidiary has launched a new national magazine advertising campaign for its premium Natural American Spirit cigarette brand.

The full-page ads will appear in such magazines as Sports Illustrated, Time, Field and Stream, Southern Living, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair and US Weekly.

“The aim is to drive brand awareness, highlight Natural American Spirit’s 100 percent additive-free natural tobacco proposition, and generate trial among adult smokers,” Seth Moskowitz, spokesman for Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co., said Monday.

Natural American Spirit has climbed into the top-10 U.S. brands with a 1.8 percent market share, benefiting in part from its national advertising not being put on hiatus in recent years.

In May 2013, Reynolds ended a 5½-year voluntary advertising moratorium on its major cigarette brands with its Camel Crush style. It also has run national ads for Camel snus, which are pitched for use in places where smoking is prohibited.

Those national ads with the iconic Camel drew criticism from five anti-tobacco advocacy groups, which asked the attorneys general of Missouri and South Dakota to investigate whether Reynolds was in violation of the 1998 landmark Master Settlement Agreement. Part of the agreement prohibits or limits the ability of tobacco manufacturers to advertise their products in publications that target a teenage audience.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids declined comment Monday on the Natural American Spirit campaign.

Reynolds has said the company believes the cigarette and snus ads “are in full compliance” with the MSA.

“We review readership data and analyze the editorial content of the publications over time to be sure the topics covered have a predominant adult appeal and focus, and only advertise in magazines that have adult readership of 85 percent or higher,” Reynolds said in a statement,.

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Dartmouth Crossing Costco to Stop Selling Tobacco Products

Costco’s Dartmouth Crossing location has announced it is quitting tobacco products.

The store posted a notice to customers saying it will stop selling tobacco products after August 31.

The news is getting a mixed reaction from Costco customers, some of whom didn’t know the measure had been announced.

Costco declined to comment after its Dartmouth Crossing location announced it will no longer sell tobacco products.

“I didn't even know they had cigarettes, to tell you the truth,” said shopper Lewis MacDonald.

“I never did buy them with Costco anyways,” remarked shopper Colleen Boudreau.

The announcement is welcome news to the Nova Scotia Lung Association.

“Anything we can do to decrease the access to tobacco in this province is positive as far as the Lung Association is concerned,” said Louis Brill, the association’s CEO.

“The reason is irrelevant to me. It’s just the decrease in access,” he said.

Costco is not revealing the reason for the decision.

A spokesperson at Costco’s Ottawa headquarters declined to comment, saying the company does not do interviews.

In its notice to customers, the Dartmouth Crossing location did say it’s not quitting cold turkey.

Cigarette orders will still be available for pickup at Costco’s Bayers Lake store.

Jennifer Heatley, tobacco control co-ordinator with the province’s Department of Health and Wellness, says anything to reduce access to tobacco is a positive step.

“Reduced access and availability is a key contributor to reducing smoking,” Heatley said.

She said Nova Scotians have been finding reasons to quit.

“Right now we're at about 19 per cent smoking rate, which is down from around 30 per cent in 1999,” she said.

That puts Nova Scotia roughly in the middle of the pack nationally, she said.

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Will Saskatchewan Ban Sale of Menthol Cigarettes?

 “Out of 15 to 19 year olds in Saskatchewan, 20 per cent smoke,” said Saskatchewan Lung Association health promotion vice-president Jennifer Miller.

That’s one of the highest smoking rates among youth in the country.

“If we look at the last three years the Canadian numbers have gone down about three per cent but in Saskatchewan we’ve only gone down just over one per cent,” said Miller.

Sunday marked World No Tobacco Day and the day Alberta became the latest province to take menthol tobacco products off the shelves, snuffing them out at the end of September. This comes as most flavoured tobacco products are also being pulled.

“The most important thing is that we help protect the health of Albertans and particular our youth, the research was really clear that this step needed to be taken to do so,” said Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman in Edmonton on Sunday.

“There’s a misperception that youth don’t use menthol products but what we know is that it’s actually the flavour of choice for youth,” said Miller.

Nova Scotia set the bar removing flavoured tobacco and menthol Sunday. Other provinces are moving in that same direction.

The Saskatchewan Lung Association feels the Saskatchewan government should also ‘butt out.’

“We don’t have to open up legislation for this … it’s a simple regulation, they have the regulatory authority to make this change and they need to step up, we’re really being tired of being the last province to be doing this,” said Miller.

The provincial government says it is committed to reducing tobacco use in Saskatchewan, especially when it comes to youth and is working on a provincial reduction strategy. It’s also monitoring Health Canada’s approach to the federal government’s Tobacco Control Act.

A bill was passed in Manitoba Monday to regulate electronic cigarettes and in Quebec, three tobacco companies have been ordered to pay $15 billion in damages an historic class action lawsuit.

Five Cigarette Companies Among Armenia's Top 20 Taxpayers

Two of the largest cigarette producers in Armenia are Grand Tobacco and International Masis Tabac.

In the first quarter of this year Grand Tobacco paid 2.528 billion (US$ 5.261 million) in taxes, up from 1.733 billion AMD in the same period last year.

International Masis paid 1.374 billion AMD (US$2.859 million) in the first quarter of this year, up from 1.287 billion AMD last year.

Masis Tobacco, another cigarette producer owned by Grand Holding, paid 120.8 million AMD in taxes, 320 million less than last year.

Cigarette production in Armenia is taking off. According to the National Statistical Service, 2,891,000 cigarettes were produced in Armenia in the first quarter of 2015 – up 28.4% over the same period last year.

Since the above companies export 80% of their product, it’s safe to assume that their exports have also grown. But we still have no raw data from the customs service in Armenia.

Of the three companies, Grand Tobacco enjoys the lion share of the cigarette market - 50.8% of filter cigarette production and 92.3% of non-filtered varieties.

Cigarette imports have dropped. In 2014, Armenia imported US$44.6 million worth of cigarettes; down $16.8 million from 2013.

Overall, five companies in the cigarette business were ranked in the top 20 taxpayers in Armenia for the 1st quarter of 2015: Grand Tobacco (7th), JTI Armenia (11th), International Masis Tabac (13th), Avers (14th), and Philip Morris (15th). However, today many people prefer to buy cigarettes online at lowest prices in order to receive cigarettes right at their home.

Bid to Ban Smoking in Cars with Kids Fails

 The Illinois Senate snuffed out a proposal Wednesday to ban smoking in cars with kids.

The measure, designed to limit exposure to second-hand smoke, received just eight "yes" votes out of a possible 59 in the Legislature's upper chamber.

Opponents said it was ironic the proposed law was being discussed at the same time the state is moving to decriminalize marijuana.

The sponsor of the measure, state Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, said he was merely trying to protect children.

"When you're in a car you're in a confined area," Silverstein said.

Under the proposal, police could not stop a vehicle solely because the driver is seen smoking with kids in the car. The stop would have to involve some other traffic violation.

The law also wouldn't have applied to people driving convertibles.

The legislation is Senate Bill 729.

Should Feds Ban Menthol-Flavoured Tobacco?

As the federal government tries to crack down on flavoured-tobacco products, including little cigars, ostensibly targeted to youth, there’s an ongoing tug-of-war over the menthol equivalent. Back in 2010, Ottawa banned flavours said to appeal to teens, such as cherry and grape, from tobacco products that weigh less than 1.4 grams. But that didn’t change much: according to Health Canada, the industry got around the ban, in part by simply selling larger cherry- and grape-flavoured products.

Ottawa moved to close that loophole and introduced rules last month. If they’re adopted by the summer, all larger fruity-flavoured tobacco products will be verboten. But neither ban includes menthol cigarettes. And even though youth smoking rates are at a record low 7 per cent, anti-smoking advocate Les Hagen says excluding menthol is still a mistake.

Hagen points to a study from the Propel institute for Population Health that found a third of all Canadian teens have tried menthol in the last 30 days.

“This information has come out within the last few years, but unfortunately it’s not getting the attention it deserves,” Hagen said. “If the goal of this legislation is to discourage young people from using tobacco products – it should start with a ban on menthol.” That data convinced Ontario’s Associate Minister of Health to include a ban on menthol in that province’s legislation.

“The evidence shows that those who smoke menthol cigarettes tend to smoke more and that it’s harder to give up smoking if you’re a menthol smoker,” Associate Minister of Health Dipika Damerla said But Alex Scholten, President of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association, says the data is being cherry-picked.

“The Propel studies show that in 2010 – 2011, 5% of students in grades 10-12 had smoked a menthol product in the last 30 days. In 2012-2013, the Propel studies showed this number had actually gone down to 4%,” Scholten said, adding “No one is focusing on that – instead they are pushing for outright bans which are not justified by the downward trending rates of youth tobacco consumption.”

Scholten says the effects of a ban are overstated, especially retailers are already legally required to ask for ID and keep cigarettes behind display bins. Banning a particular product “takes it out of that controlled environment and puts it into contraband circles, where you’re not going to see age-testing, taxation’s not going to be done … the product is not sold behind display bins – it’s sold in smoke shacks or on the street by criminal organizations,” Scholten said.

Scholten points to RCMP data showing an increase of nearly 800 per cent in contraband mini-cigar seizures after the federal government first banned them in 2009. Health Canada said it couldn’t comment on the industry’s claims, but did say it sees a need for the new rules around flavoured tobacco.

1 in 5 Americans Still Smoke

More than 50 years after the first U.S. surgeon general's report on its dangers, smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. And almost three out of four of those in this country who still smoke say they want to quit, so they know the consequences.

The good news is that because so many did quit, smoking, at least in the United States, has been in decline. Robert Proctor, professor of the history of science at Stanford University, said cigarette smoking continued to grow throughout the 1960s and 1970s, reaching a peak of about 630 billion cigarettes, or more than 31 billion packs, smoked annually in the United States before the start of its decline in 1982.

The 1964 surgeon general's report set off one of the most powerful public health efforts ever, dramatically cutting the number of smokers. But tobacco products still pose significant risks to the health of Americans, and while the number of smokers in the U.S. has significantly declined, for every American smoker who has quit, the global rate of smoking has increased, said Allan Brandt, a professor at Harvard Medical School.

Within months of the 1964 report, the Federal Trade Commission ordered cigarette companies to put warning labels on packaging, and in 1969, cigarette advertising was banned from television and radio. Since then, according to the surgeon general's office, adult smoking rates have been cut in half.

Erika Sward, of the American Lung Association, said that those who are most likely to smoke today generally are the less educated of a lower socioeconomic status. Targets of aggressive tobacco company marketing campaigns are the poor, the needy, the impaired, the vulnerable, those who are unable to quit, and children, she added.

"People who still smoke," Proctor said, "are those who have lost the freedom not to." He added that Hollywood still depicts smoking as glamorous, accounting for about one third of new smokers.

The tobacco industry, according to Proctor, clearly knew by the mid-1950s that cigarettes were dangerous, and the surgeon general's office charged that it deliberately misled the public about the risks.

The evolving tobacco market offers little comfort. A spokesman for the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston confirmed that all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and hookahs, contain highly addictive levels of the chemical nicotine. Thus the tobacco habit hangs on.