E-Cigarettes R Us Australia

The world’s biggest tobacco companies are spending millions of dollars advertising e-cigarettes on UK television, as they seek to cash in on the growing trend.

Analysts at US investment bank Canaccord Genuity expect e-cigarettes to be the “most significant development in the history of the organised tobacco industry”. They estimate the global market will rise this year from £1.3 billion to £1.9 billion, and the potential for further growth is obvious: the existing tobacco business is worth £450 billion annually.

Traditional industry giants are moving in. Lorillard (the maker of American brands such as Newport and Kent) has bought Blu, an e-cigarette maker, for US$135m. British American Tobacco (BAT), the maker of Lucky Strike and Benson & Hedges, launched its own e-cigarette in the UK last July and Philip Morris International, the world’s biggest and most infamous tobacco company, is due to follow suit very soon.

If e-cigs are the future, then we have advertising regulations to thank, at least in part. The direct and indirect advertising of tobacco products in the press has been banned in the UK for a decade, while the last television commercial was shown almost 50 years ago. Two years ago, new laws required all supermarkets to hide cigarettes and related products from public view, and by 2015 all other business and smaller shops will also be obliged to comply.

The intention has been to eradicate images of tobacco from day-to-day experience, and to deter children from taking up the habit. Opinions tend to differ on the overall success of the bans but one thing is indisputable – fewer people now smoke in comparison to 30 years ago. The General Lifestyle Survey indicates 45% of adults smoked in 1974 compared with just 20% in 2011.

But the marketing of e-cigarettes is gathering pace. And at present there is no ruling to prevent their advertising, or any age limit on who can buy the products. For big tobacco this represents a chance to get creative, and maybe to gain some reflected cool. As the founder of one e-cigarette company points out, “the product shares certain characteristics with cigarettes, and you cannot be seen to promote smoking.”

The manufacturer E-lites, for instance, ran an advert last year featuring actor Mark Benton. Benton plays a father who nips outside for a cigarette and inadvertently misses out on his child’s first steps. The strapline: “What are you missing out on?” The obvious point is that the purchase of an e-cigarette means you never have to suffer the indignity and embarrassment of going outside to smoke again. Plus, you won’t miss out on life changing events.

More recently, a new e-cig known as the Vype was launched, with the strapline: “Experience the breakthrough”. The Vype advert does represent a breakthrough moment not just for manufacturer BAT, but for smokers everywhere. Featuring a young, good looking couple running through a dimly lit urban landscape, the 30 second ad ends with a still image of the product standing black and alone on a podium. We are meant to be infused with wonder and mystery and connect the attractiveness of the athletic couple with the sleek shiny Vype. If we didn’t know better this could be an ad for cologne.

Of course, companies want to appeal to the young, good looking and single. This is nothing new. But the “e” means such appeals can now be conducted overtly, and endorsements are on the increase. On its website, E-Lites features a range of celebrities puffing away, from Johnny Depp to Dappy from N-Dubz. Actor Stephen Dorff and former playboy model Jenny McCarthy front campaigns for bluCig.

But that’s not all. Welsh football team Merthyr Town now play in the “Cigg-e Stadium”, named after their new sponsor who has (not coincidentally) opened a shop in the town. Glasgow Celtic, with a massive international fanbase, have an “official partnership” with E-lites which effectively means vapour sticks can now be sold and consumed within its stadium.

Of course, such actions have not been welcomed by everyone. Criticising Celtic’s actions, Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, said, “The whole campaign to ban smoking in public places was about de-normalising smoking as an activity in public. This [deal] goes exactly in the opposite direction. It sends out entirely the wrong message to young people.”

A New South Wales Greens MP has lit up an e-cigarette in State Parliament to prove a point about legal loopholes around the vapour devices.

Greens health spokesman Jeremy Buckingham caused a stir when he leaned back in his seat and started blowing puffs of vapour from the device during Upper House Question Time.

Government Whip Peter Phelps jumped to his feet to alert the Upper House President to Mr Buckingham’s behaviour.

“Mr Jeremy Buckingham is clearly smoking a vape cigarette in this house, more importantly, he’s done it with clear pre-meditation,” Dr Phelps said.

“It is an outrageous act against the decorum of this house.”

Mr Buckingham replied: “I’m not smoking.”

The President of the Upper House, Don Harwin, reprimanded Mr Buckingham for using props, but he was allowed to remain in the chamber.

Other MPs called out that it was a “stunt” and called Mr Buckingham a “media tart”.

The Government has introduced a bill to Parliament to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, but the Greens and Labor say it does not go far enough.

Mr Buckingham said e-cigarettes should be dealt with under all the same laws covering tobacco and nicotine, including banning their use in non-smoking areas under the Smoke-Free Environment Act.

He said his actions in the house highlighted the double standard applied to e-cigarettes.

“I was trying to make a very important point today that under NSW law and the modest reforms of the Government, it is still legal in this state to vape in a preschool, on a bus, in a public space and even in the Parliament,” he said.

“I was making the point that this is a really serious health issue and the current reforms don’t go far enough in protecting the community.”

E-cigarettes are more effective than nicotine patches and gum in helping people to quit smoking, according to a study that challenges the negative views of some public health experts.

The issue of e-cigarettes has become a public health battleground, alarming those who think that their marketing and use in public places where smoking is banned risks re-normalising tobacco.

Supporters say the vast majority of smokers are using e-cigarettes to kick their tobacco habit and that the health consequences of nicotine use without the tar from cigarettes appear, as yet, to be far less of a problem.

The study, by a team from University College London, looked at attempts of nearly 6,000 people to stop smoking and found that, while engaging with the NHS smoking cessation services was the most effective way to quit, using e-cigarettes beat nicotine replacement therapy, as well as the efforts of people to stop with no help at all.

Professor Robert West of the department of epidemiology and public health, the senior author of the study, said that it was extremely important to find out how well e-cigarettes worked as a quitting tool. “It really could affect literally millions of lives. We need to know,” he said.

He admitted, however, that it was a controversial area. He also acknowledged opponents’ fears and suspicions about the commercial involvement of scientists. “I don’t and will not take any money from any e-cigarette manufacturer,” he said. His department does take money from pharmaceutical companies that make smoking cessation drugs, but they are rethinking that. “I need to be able to talk about e-cigarettes without even the conception of conflict of interest,” he said.

The study, published in the journal Addictions, was based on surveys of people who had stopped smoking in a 12-month period between July 2009 and February 2014. In recent years, an increasing proportion report using e-cigarettes rather than over-the-counter nicotine replacement therapy such as patches or gum. Many try to quit without support. Those who cut out cigarettes completely do better than those who try to reduce the numbers they smoke. A very small proportion get help from the NHS smoking cessation services.

When the results were adjusted to account for the differences between the smokers in terms of background, age and other variables, those using e-cigarettes were around 60% more likely to quit than those using nicotine replacement therapy or just willpower.

“It is one piece of the jigsaw and not a final answer,” said West. “It may be different in different countries. If it [use of e-cigarettes for quitting] continues to grow, we will expect a public health benefit.”

He said there were misconceptions about e-cigarettes. “Despite what a lot of people think, e-cigarettes are not good news for the tobacco industry and the tobacco industry would like them to go away. They sell tobacco and would like to go on doing that,” he said.

The European Commission has decided that e-cigarettes should be regulated as consumer products below a certain nicotine strength, but that the higher strength versions, which campaigners say those trying to stop smoking need, should be regulated as medicines. In this country that would be the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA). Two MHRA licences have so far been applied for, both by tobacco companies. West says that is because only the tobacco industry has the money and the time necessary to go through the licensing process, unlike the small and medium-sized e-cigarette manufacturers, which is a problem.

If e-cigarette use as a smoking cessation tool were to be supported in any way by the NHS, it would have to be via MHRA-licensed products to ensure quality, he said.

“I think it would be perfectly reasonable for people to consider e-cigarettes for use with their patients,” he said. “The NHS would only get involved where the products had that mark of approval. I don’t think the NHS could engage with e-cigarettes outside that process.”

Pharmaceutical companies such as GSK and Pfizer, which make smoking cessation drugs, are among the opponents of e-cigarettes. “They are losing sales hand over fist to e-cigarettes and are incentivised to make it appear they are not effective,” said West.

A section of the public health community is also hostile. “It is related to a broad distaste for large corporations making large amounts of money out of psychoactive drugs,” he said. “You might see some of it as a puritanical ethic, which is a strong driver.”

NSW tobacco laws could be amended to specifically outlaw electronic cigarettes after a landmark legal test case in WA led to the criminal prosecution of an online stockist.

”E-cigarettes”, or vapourisers, are battery-powered devices that simulate the effects of smoking by heating a nicotine liquid into vapour, which the user then inhales and exhales.

It has always been illegal to sell e-cigarette liquids that contain nicotine under Australian law but in a big development last week, the Supreme Court of Western Australia effectively banned e-cigarettes outright in the state, prosecuting a company, called HeavenlyVapours, which had been selling the dispensers and nicotine-free ”e-juice” through a website.

The ruling means that anyone over 18 in WA can legally smoke a cigarette containing multiple chemicals and carcinogens, but cannot buy the electronic version which many claim has assisted thousands of smokers to quit worldwide.

Last week, the owner of HeavenlyVapours, Vince van Heerden, said of the ”case law precedent” in an online forum: ”One can only imagine that the other states may now try to follow suit.”

Asked about the case, the NSW Ministry of Health confirmed it was ”continuing to monitor” the case and was waiting to see ”whether the decision may be appealed.”

In the meantime, it confirmed more than a dozen Sydney retailers were facing legal action after being caught selling illegal nicotine-laced e-liquids, late last year.

”Prosecutions are being considered for breaches of the Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Regulation 2008 and evidence has been collected,” a Health Department spokesman confirmed.

Vapourisers range from imitation cigarettes that cost as little as $20, to the Romanian built Wizard Evolved DA20 which sells for $1000.

In 2011, HeavenlyVapours’ premises were raided by the Western Australian Health Department over alleged breaches to section 106a of the Tobacco Products Control Act which prohibits the sale of anything such as food or a toy that mirrors a tobacco product. But in September last year, HeavenlyVapours was acquitted by a magistrate’s court which ruled there was insufficient evidence that the e-cigarettes in question looked anything like traditional cigarettes or cigars, pointing out the devices could just as easily resemble a ”fountain pen”.

But several weeks after the case was dismissed, the WA Health Department lodged an appeal which proved successful last week with the judge determining that any e-cigarette product that involves ”a hand to mouth action” and results in the ”expulsion of vapour” does in fact resemble a tobacco product.

Mr Van Heerden said his legal costs to date were almost $45,000 ”for something no one has ever been charged or prosecuted for before”.

But he has vowed to fight on. ”Common sense and dozens of studies demonstrate that e-juice consumed through e-juice/personal vapourisers do not contain the many thousands of deadly chemicals traditional tobacco cigarettes do,” he said online. ”We deserve the right to choose an alternative.”