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** 24 February 2020
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** UK
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** Philip Morris drew up plan for £1bn tobacco transition fund (#1)
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** 'National disgrace': tackle regional health inequality, PM to be told (#2)
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** International
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** Inside the Philip Morris campaign to 'normalise' a tobacco device (#3)
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** New Zealand: Government to restrict vaping and e-cigarette sales and use in public (#4)
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** UK
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**

Philip Morris International (PMI), one of the world’s biggest tobacco companies, drew up plans for a £1bn tobacco transition fund in the UK to be spent by local authorities and Public Health England on persuading smokers to give up cigarettes in favour of alternatives such as its “heat not burn” smokeless tobacco product, IQOS, leaked documents reveal.
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** The documents, obtained by the Guardian and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, show PMI had discussions with a leading anti-tobacco MP about presenting a smoke-free bill proposing the fund to the House of Commons. If passed, the bill would have ended an advertising and marketing ban on IQOS and e-cigarettes. PMI wants to be seen as part of the solution to smoking, which kills half of all people who take it up, even though the company continues to make and market cigarettes around the world. Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, said this approach was “breathtakingly hypocritical”.

ASH advocates a “polluter pays” Smokefree 2030 Fund for tobacco control, but not one that transitions people on to other addictive tobacco products. Arnott said PMI was seeking to buy respectability, access to government and a role in smoking policy that the industry at the moment is categorically denied. “This is completely unacceptable,” said Arnott. “The tobacco industry is the most profitable consumer business on the planet, selling products which kill 7 million people a year globally and nearly 100,000 in the UK alone. The industry can afford to pay and it should be made to pay, not allowed a seat at the government policymaking table so it can ensure the fund is used to further the interests of its shareholders rather than public health.”

The MP who met PMI was Labour’s Kevin Barron, now retired, who has an exemplary record in combating smoking and is credited with getting the bill that banned smoking in public places through parliament. The internal documents – an email and two briefing papers – are dated March and May 2018. An email from Mark MacGregor, PMI’s corporate affairs director and a former chief executive of the Conservative party, said an exploratory conversation with the MP had been extremely positive.

PMI envisaged that IQOS would be redefined as a “considerably less harmful novel smokeless tobacco product” (CLHTP). Such products would have lighter regulation and would be promoted to people who cannot stop smoking and do not switch to e-cigarettes, says the document. “Publicly funded public health communications and anti-smoking campaigns, as well as professional health advice such as Nice guidance, must include advice on e-cigarettes and CLHTPs,” says PMI’s draft bill.

The bill, competing with 149 others, was not adopted. ASH worries that in the post-Brexit world, the EU’s tight regulations over e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products could be lifted with the sort of consequences that occurred in the US when Juul took off among teens. Arnott said: “ASH has worked with Kevin Barron for decades. He led the campaign in parliament to ban tobacco advertising and it’s thanks to his work that pubs are now smoke-free. If, as it looks like, PMI persuaded Kevin Barron of the need for government to partner with the industry, their ‘normalisation’ strategy is clearly working. Kevin may have left parliament, but PMI’s parliamentary and public relations campaign continues. Now the government has committed to considering the ‘polluter pays’ approach, PMI will be lobbying to ensure it’s structured to suit their commercial interests.”
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**
Source: The Guardian, 24 February 2020
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** See also:
ASH - Press release: Big tobacco’s attempts to infiltrate UK health policy completely unacceptable ([link removed])
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** Smokefree Action Coalition: Smokefree 2030 campaign ([link removed])
ASH: Smokefree 2030 Fund ([link removed])
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**
Tweet ([link removed]) @MattHancock and @Jochuchill4 to show them your support for Article 5.3 and protecting public health from tobacco industry vested interests.
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The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, has urged the government to tackle the “national disgrace” of regional health inequalities across England. In a speech marking the 10th anniversary of the landmark Marmot review into health inequalities in England, he will say ministers should address the crisis in the budget as part of Boris Johnson’s stated intention to “level up” the country. Ashworth’s comments come as Labour figures show people who live in so-called “red wall” constituencies, the party’s former strongholds in the Midlands and the north that switched to the Conservatives in December’s general election, suffer notably more ill health than those in more prosperous areas.

Comparing health outcomes in 20 red wall constituencies with those represented by the cabinet ministers Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel, Matt Hancock and Dominic Raab, the analysis found that men in the poorer areas live 5.9 fewer healthy years on average and women 7.7 fewer years. The party found deaths from cardiovascular disease was above the English average in all 20 of the sample red wall constituencies while deaths from cancer was above average in 95% of them. Above-average child poverty levels were found in 80% of the constituencies, whether or not housing costs were taken into account, while the proportion of adults and children who were overweight or obese was above the average in all 20. Ashworth is also due to challenge Labour about being more ambitious on addressing child poverty. An analysis of the party’s 2019 manifesto by the Resolution Foundation concluded that a focus on spending for older voters meant Labour would not notably reduce levels of child poverty.

The Marmot review, which was commissioned in 2008 by the then Labour government, uncovered massive “social gradient in health”, meaning that the lower a person’s socioeconomic position, the worse their health was likely to be. Calling the issue “a matter of fairness and social justice”, the report in 2010 concluded that premature deaths from health inequalities was losing an annual total of between 1.3m and 2.5m extra years of life. The economic costs of this, Marmot said, were “staggering”. A decade after his 2010 report, Sir Michael Marmot, a leading epidemiologist and expert on health inequality, will address what has happened since then in an update to be published tomorrow (Tuesday 25th February).

Source: The Guardian, 23 February 2020
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** International
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At Germany’s Bambi Awards for the media industry in November 2019, celebrities posed for red-carpet photos against a backdrop of established luxury brands. Alongside the likes of Mercedes-Benz and Swiss watchmaker Chopard was a newer name: IQOS, a “reduced risk” heated-tobacco device sold by cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc. Such promotions are part of a wide-ranging “normalisation” strategy by Philip Morris to scrub its image as a purveyor of cancer-causing cigarettes and present its new smoking alternatives as youthful, upscale lifestyle products, according to a ten-month study by tobacco researchers at Stanford University, published on Friday 21st February. The marketing strategy mimics that of tobacco companies in the mid-20th century, when they started associating cigarettes with Hollywood and high society.

“Philip Morris, as a company name, is somewhat of a pariah,” said Robert Jackler, a professor who led the study and heads Stanford’s Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising, “IQOS is an attempt to sanitize their product line” he added. The Stanford researchers said their study was spurred in part by a May 2019 Reuters investigation that found Philip Morris had used young online personalities, including a 21-year-old woman in Russia, to promote IQOS. The company’s internal marketing standards prohibit it from using youth-oriented celebrities or “models who are or appear to be under the age of 25.” The Reuters report prompted the company to acknowledge it had violated its own policy and to suspend its use of social media influencers.

The Stanford study found that, although the company suspended its “most visible” social-media influencer programs, IQOS marketing continues to stray substantially from its corporate standards on youth-oriented marketing. “Its use of youth-oriented social media channels, trendy pop music festivals and celebrity influencers are mis-aligned with their commitment to exclusive ‘adult smoker’ targeting,” the Stanford report concluded. For example, Philip Morris uses “coaches” and “ambassadors” to market IQOS in Romania and Russia, where employment agencies recruit attractive women as young as 19 to market IQOS, according to job postings.

The IQOS device is central to the firm’s efforts to overhaul its image through such initiatives as its “unsmoke” campaign, which promotes such “smoke-free” alternatives as a way to accelerate the shift away from cigarettes. At this year’s Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland - a gathering of some of the world’s richest people - Philip Morris set up an “Unsmoke your mind” lounge, where panelists argued against regulations preventing “truth in marketing” by tobacco firms looking to promote smoking alternatives.

Source: Reuters, 21 February 2020
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** See also: Stanford University School of Medicine - Global marketing of IQOS, The Philip Morris campaign to popularize “Heat Not Burn” tobacco ([link removed])
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The New Zealand government will introduce laws to further regulate vaping and e-cigarettes, including tightening age restrictions, barring advertising, and regulating where they can be sold and used. As the Bill is currently written, no vaping products will be able to be sold to people under the age of 18, nor are the products able to be advertised or used in sponsorship. The Bill also proposes measures which go beyond regulation in Europe. Under the proposals general stores would be limited to selling only three flavours: tobacco, mint and menthol. All other flavours will only be able to be sold at licensed vape stores. Vaping would also be banned from smokefree areas, so people would only be able to vape where cigarettes are allowed to be smoked.

Spokesperson for tobacco control organisation ASH New Zealand, Deborah Hart, was positive about the impact of e-cigarettes, saying: "It's quite simply the most disruptive influence on smoking in decades. It's challenging the smoke tobacco stranglehold on the nicotine market. We have 150,000 to 200,000 people vaping in New Zealand, and the vast majority of them are former smokers or smokers trying to quit." However, she has reservations about vapers who are trying to quit smoking having to share smoking areas in public places, and said that may need to be reviewed in the future.

Other changes in the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill include introducing a product safety system so the Ministry of Health can recall products, and manufacturers and imports must notify products before they can be sold.

Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa described the Bill, which will have its first reading in March 2020, as introducing "the most significant change to New Zealand's smokefree laws since they were introduced 30 years ago."

Source: Radio New Zealand, 23 February 2020
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For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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