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Jo Churchill, Department for Health and Social Care, Tobacco: Sales:Written question – 59661, written answer to parliamentary question, 1 July 2020 Quintessential Quintessential is a Cornish family run business. They’ve been making the UK’s first and best loved smoking roach tips since the early 1990’s using various environmentally friendly papers including FSC, Recycled and 100% Pure Hemp, tree-free papers and vegetable based inks. a b c J. Courtez, JTI claims fake menthol tobacco products seized in the Uk ahead of May 20 ban, 2 April 2020, accessed April 2020 a b Flavored tobacco products dodging EU menthol ban found on sale in Estonia, ERR news, 14 July 2020, archived 15 July 2020, accessed August 2021
Taken altogether, these activities to minimise the impact of the characterising flavours ban to smokers prove once again that maintaining the status quo and protecting profits remain the key motives of the tobacco industry. New World Cigars Many countries in the Caribbean and South American islands now produce cigars of equal quality to Cuba. The majority of seed they are grown from originates from Cuba.On 28 April 2022 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced proposed standards for banning menthol as a characterising flavour in cigarettes and cigars with any characterising flavour other than tobacco. 1 2 The US had previously banned characterising flavours, except menthol in cigarettes in 2009 (see below). Philip Morris joins challenge to EU ban on heated flavoured tobacco products, Irish Times, 22 March January 2023, accessed October 2023 The ITC figures are supported by 2018 Euromonitor data, which show that the combined market share of menthol and capsules was generally higher in northern European countries, with the highest in Poland, at over 25%, followed by the UK, at over 20% . 11 The UK market Figure 2: Tobacco companies increased their sales of menthol in the run up to flavour bans in the UK and Poland (source: TCRG, June 2021) Since May 2020, cigarettes and roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco with a characterising flavour of menthol have been banned in the European Union (EU) owing to the European Tobacco Products Directive (EU TPD). Other characterising flavours were banned in 2016. Cigars, cigarillos, pipe tobacco, heated tobacco and tobacco accessories are exempt from the ban. 1
a b c d e f Menthol facilitates inhalation of tobacco smoke, even when you cannot taste it, RIVM News, 28 June 2021, accessed August 2021 b) results from an additive or a combination of additives, including, but not limited to, fruit, spice, herbs, alcohol, candy, menthol or vanilla”
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Tobacco companies used product innovation as a way to circumvent the menthol ban and maintain a market for their menthol products, claiming that they were doing so to meet the needs of consumers. 8 35 36 Chaiton M., Schwartz R., Cohen J., Soule E., Eissenberg T. Association of Ontario’s Ban on Menthol Cigarettes With Smoking Behavior 1 Month After Implementation. JAMA Intern Med. 2018; 178(5): 710–711. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.8650 Prior to the ban, menthol cigarettes formed an estimated 21% of the UK market. 9 2018 figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) indicate that there were 7.2 million smokers in the UK; based on the 2016 ITC survey data (detailed above) that would equate to nearly 900,000 smokers who usually smoke menthol cigarettes. According to market research survey based data, the figure was much higher in 2019, nearly 1.6 million in Great Britain, 14 Public Health Law Center, Supplement to Menthol Citizen Petition: Prohibit Menthol as a Characterizing Flavoring of Cigarettes and Cigarette Smoke, March 2021, accessed May 2022
a b c d e f J. Courtez, Menthol ban: stores respond to tobacco firm swap plans, Better Retailing, 29 April 2020, accessed April 2020
Marketing of Menthol to the Black Community
The European Union (EU) banned menthol as a characterising flavour in cigarettes in May 2020. Pre/post-studies in Canada suggest that a menthol cigarette ban can increase quit attempts and quitting among menthol smokers compared with non-menthol smokers. Why is there no menthol cigarettes? The provisions of regulation 15 (flavoured cigarettes etc.) do not apply to menthol cigarettes until 20th May 2020. Tobacco & smokers accessories: smokers demand value, Grocery Trader, 27 July 2021, archived 15 August 2021, accessed November 2021 The Irish Times also reported that PML was advertising a new cigarette in the retail press. Called “Marlboro Bright “, it was described by PMI as a “the Marlboro menthol blend – without methylation”. 64 66 PMI later said that this advertisement was a “mistake” and it should have used the phrase “without menthol” rather than “methylation”. 66 The company insisted that it had “delisted all menthol cigarettes in the UK and Ireland – all of our cigarettes remaining on the market, including our latest variant Marlboro Bright, do not have any menthol in them and are in full compliance with the law”. 67 After a period of scrutiny, a Delegated Directive was published in November 2022 and entered into force the same month, which banned HTPs with a characterising flavour in any of their components (referring to components closes a potential loophole for flavoured accessories). 94 95 EU member countries were required to adopt national laws by 23 July 2023, and enact the ban 3 months later, by 23 October. 92 Germany was the first country to pass the ban into law, 96
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