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** 11 December 2020
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** UK
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** Woodford-backed nicotine inhaler Voke goes up in smoke (#1)
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** Soldiers convicted of smuggling Afghan cigarettes in army postbags (#2)
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** UKIP Wales announce commitment to reverse ban on smoking in pubs (#3)
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** International
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** Philip Morris International announces planned leadership succession (#4)
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** The Netherlands: Cigarette display ban flouted as big tobacco is paying supermarkets to display products (#5)
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** Indonesia to slow down the pace of tobacco tax hike due to the coronavirus pandemic (#6)
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** Links of the Week
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** HMRC: Tobacco Track and Trace following the UK transition period (#7)
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** Statistics on Smoking, England 2020 (#8)
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** UK
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**
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** The maker of a nicotine-inhaling device which won backing from the one-time star fund manager Neil Woodford has gone up in smoke after failing to secure a fresh round of funding.

Kind Consumer, which made the Voke brand, called in administrators from Smith & Williamson and has agreed to a sale of assets for £1.6 million to OBG Consumer Scientific, a subsidiary of Pharmaserve, a privately owned group and supplier. The company’s collapse will trigger tens of millions of pounds of losses for investors, who included Mr Woodford’s former investment management group and the former Tesco chief, Sir Terry Leahy.

Alan Sutherland, Kind Consumer’s chief executive, is understood to have informed shareholders that there was only a “slim prospect” of any return to them from the insolvency process.

Source: Sky News, 9 December 2020
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** Two soldiers used family and friends to smuggle thousands of cigarettes into the UK while serving in Afghanistan. Former Royal Logistic Corps sergeant Gareth Parry, 39, and corporal David McEwan, 42, carried out the scam while working in the British Army post room at Kabul International Airport in 2017 and 2018.

Swindon Crown Court heard the soldiers would buy cigarettes and tobacco at a cut-price rate in markets at the airport and the Afghan capital. They would then send it to accomplices in their hometown of Swindon in security-cleared postbags.

A total of 297,000 cigarettes and 10.5kg of rolling tobacco were despatched tax-free by Parry. Parry admitted evading duty and a charge of conspiracy. He was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years, and must complete 300 hours of unpaid work. McEwan admitted conspiracy to evade £9,000 duty. He received 16 months’ jail, suspended for two years, with 200 hours’ unpaid work. Four others who admitted involvement in receiving and distributing the cigarettes received various sentences.

Source: Swindor Advertiser, 9 December 2020
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** Smoking in pubs could return in Wales if political party UKIP Wales gets its way. UKIP Wales has announced, in the run-up to next May’s Senedd elections, that it will back the lifting of the smoking ban to allow Welsh pub landlords to provide contained and ventilated “smoking rooms” inside.

Where it is not desirable to construct smoking rooms, UKIP Wales would also give pub landlords the right to declare their pub “all smoking” or “non-smoking.”

Source: Western Telegraph, 10 December 2020
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** International
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**
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**
Philip Morris International yesterday announced a long-planned leadership succession, which will be completed in May 2021.

The current CEO of PMI, Andre Calantzopoulos, has been appointed Chairman of the Board, to take effect shortly before Annual Shareholders Meeting in May 2021. For personal reasons, the current Chairman, Mr Louis Camilleri, expressed his desire to retire from the day of this announcement. Consequently, Mr Lucio Noto, the Independent Chairman of the PMI Presidency, will serve as interim Chairman until the succession of Mr Calantzopoulos in May.

PMI’s current chief operating officer, Jacek Olczak, will succeed Mr Calantzopoulos as Chief Executive Officer immediately after the May meeting.

Source: Financial Times, 10 December 2020
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**
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** Ten different tobacco companies have been making illegal payments to Dutch supermarkets to encourage them to display and sell their products in a certain way, the Dutch food and product safety board NVWA said yesterday.

The report reveals that tobacco companies made the payments in return for commitments on where the tobacco products were placed in shelves, on reaching sales targets and even for staff training.

The amounts the supermarkets received ranged from 10,000 Euros to around 2 million Euros per year, health minister Paul Blokhuis told MPs in a briefing. The tobacco companies are the initiators of the illegal deals and will be fined between €45,000 and €450,000, Blokhuis said.

Cigarettes have been banned from public display in supermarkets from 1 July 2020, and the measure will be extended to include petrol stations and other outlets from 1 January 2021. The sale of tobacco by supermarkets is set to be entirely banned from 2024.

Source: Dutch News, 10 December 2020
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** Indonesia will raise the excise tax on tobacco products by an average of 12.5% in 2021, the country’s finance minister said on Thursday, citing a need to balance efforts to control smoking with the need to support an industry that is a major employer.

The 2021 increase compares with the 23% average excise tax hike this year and may disappoint tobacco control advocates pushing for more vigorous action in a country with one of the highest smoking rates in the world.

About 70% of adult men use tobacco products in Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), one of the highest rates globally, with cigarette prices also among the lowest of any country. The new excise policy, which takes effect on 1 February 2021, is aimed at lowering the smoking prevalence among youths from 9.1% to 8.7% in 2024, the minister said.

Source: Reuters, 10 December 2020
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** Links of the Week
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**
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** HM Revenue & Customs has published a tax information and impact note which is about changes to tobacco track and trace procedures, following the UK transition period. This measure will give the UK full regulatory control of the traceability and security features schemes which apply to tobacco products in the UK.

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** View here: [link removed]
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**
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** NHS Digital has published new statistics on smoking in England. Key findings of the data include:
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** There were an estimated 506,100 hospital admissions attributed to smoking in 2019/20. This is similar to 2018/19 where there were 504,200 admissions and an increase of 10% from the 461,700 admissions in 2009/10.
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** For males, admissions attributed to smoking in 2019/20 accounted for 5% of all hospital admissions and 3% of all admissions for females.
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** There were an estimated 74,600 deaths attributable to smoking in 2019, a decrease of 3% from 2018 and a 9% decrease from 2009.
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** For males, this accounted for 19% of all deaths, and 12% of all deaths for females.
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** The number of items dispensed as an aid to stop smoking in England was 710,000 in 2019/20, down from 2.48 million in 2009/10.
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** Source: NHS Digital, 8 December 2020
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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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