E-Cigarettes R Us Australia

Although they appeared on the Australian market about six years ago, it is only now that the first Australian clinical trial of electronic cigarettes as a quit-smoking tool has been announced. While they are popular with users, the government and a number of public health experts are cautious about electric cigarettes.

The e-cigarette is a battery-operated device that is used to quit smoking. It simulates the effect of tobacco smoke by heating up a liquid which turns to vapour and is then inhaled by the user. Some models look exactly like a real cigarette, but many are larger and of a different colouration.

Even though electronic cigarettes have not been approved as a therapeutic product, they are legally available in Australia, and are popular with people wishing to quit smoking.

Whereas in the United Kingdom where electric cigarettes are included in official quit smoking guidelines, the Australian federal government does not support their use as a quitting aid because they have not yet been evaluated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Recently the federal Department of Health and Ageing announced that it had “commissioned a regulatory impact statement on options for further regulation of electronic nicotine delivery systems (including electronic cigarettes) and smokeless tobacco products” [1].

Some public health experts have also expressed their concern about e-cigarettes. Dr Steve Hambleton of the Australian Medical Association said that he was concerned about the insufficient evidence of the benefits of electric cigarettes, the lack of regulation, and the possibility that they might serve as an “entry into smoking not necessarily as an exit from smoking” [1].

Similarly, Professor Simon Chapman, a lecturer in public health at the University of Sydney, said that e-cigarettes which mimic the “smoking performance” of cigarettes might reinforce the appeal of smoking [1].

Even so, the scientific research on the effectiveness and safety of electronic cigarettes is promising. In August 2012, the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre in Greece reported that it had found that electric cigarettes had no adverse effect on the functioning of the cardiovascular system. One of the researchers, Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, stated that “substituting tobacco with electronic cigarettes may be beneficial to health” [2]. An article published in the September 2012 issue of the journal Addiction reported that e-cigarettes enhanced quitting motivation, lowered cravings for tobacco cigarettes, and greatly lowered the exposure to toxins in non-smokers [3]. Another study, whose results were published in the BMC Public Health journal in 2011, found that there was a substantial decrease in cigarette consumption in people who used electric cigarettes over a six month period. More than half of the 40 experiment participants either quit smoking altogether or more than halved their cigarette consumption [4].

Now it seems that the Australian government wants the facts about e-cigarettes. Dr Coral Gartner, a research fellow at the Centre for Clinical Research at the University of Queensland, will soon commence a federal government-funded trial with 1600 smokers to test the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as a long-term substitute for tobacco cigarettes.
Dr Gartner rejected calls to ban electronic cigarettes, but argued that they should be regulated with the same restrictions as tobacco cigarettes, because the quality and safety of different devices was highly variable.

“If a large enough proportion of the smoking population find them to be an acceptable substitute, it might be possible to encourage smokers to move to e-cigarettes with the longer-term aim of phasing out conventional cigarettes, which are the most harmful nicotine product and kill half of all long-term users,” she said [1].

References
[1] Asher Moses, “Experts wary of e-cigarettes as test run looms”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 2013.
[2] Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, “Electronic cigarettes do not damage the heart: First-hand smoke, second-hand smoke or electronic cigarettes”, 2012 European Society of Cardiology Congress, 25 August 2012.
[3] Wagener T L, Siegel M & Borrelli B (2012) Electronic cigarettes: Achieving a balanced perspective, Addiction, Volume 107, Issue 9, 1545-1548.
[4] Polosa R, Caponnetto P, Morjaria J B, Papale G, Campagna D & Russo C (2011) Effect of an electronic nicotine delivery device (e-cigarette) on smoking reduction and cessation: A prospective 6-month pilot study, BMC Public Health, Volume 11: 786.

In response to falling sales and profits in Europe, Imperial Tobacco, the world’s fourth largest cigarette company by market share, recently announced that it will be establishing a new venture to develop electronic cigarettes. The company’s Chief Executive, Alison Cooper, stated on 26 February 2013 that “We’re looking at opportunities and we’re actively developing in that area at the moment” and that Imperial Tobacco was “open-minded” about purchasing existing electric cigarette companies [1].

Imperial Tobacco is following the lead set by one its main competitors, British American Tobacco, which established a company called Nicoventures in 2011 to research e-cigarettes [2].

Like many tobacco companies, Imperial Tobacco has seen its sales drop in developed countries as people give up smoking and as the black market grows. Instead, it has been focusing on emerging markets in Saudi Arabia and Turkey where anti-smoking legislation and public awareness of the negative health effects of tobacco is far weaker than in most European countries.

Indeed, 2012 and early 2013 have seen a number of big tobacco companies investing in electronic cigarettes, both in the United Kingdom and United States.

In December 2012, for example, British American Tobacco acquired CN Creative, a company that sells electric cigarettes.

A press release published on the company’s website on 19 December 2012 states that “British American Tobacco announced today that it has acquired CN Creative Limited, a UK based start-up company who specialises in the development of e-cigarette technologies intended to offer smokers a less risky alternative to cigarettes” [3].

According to Euromonitor, a market research company, British American Tobacco and CN Creative have plans to launch what they have called an “e-light cigarette” on to the market some time in 2014 [4].

In the United States, big tobacco companies are similarly investing in e-cigarette research or buying up existing electronic cigarette retailers. Market leader Altria is planning to launch an electric cigarette on to the market some time in the middle of 2013 [5]. Its competitor Reynolds American is currently doing market research on its own e-cigarette [6]. All of these companies, however, are following the lead set by Lorillard, the third biggest cigarette manufacturer in the United States, which purchased the largest American electronic cigarette company – BluCigs – in 2012 for a reported $135 million [7]. Lorillard claims to control 40 per cent of the United States electric cigarette market [8].

The big tobacco companies, realising that tobacco cigarettes are a dying business throughout the developed world, have decided to get in to the e-cigarette market in an effort to maintain their earnings in these markets where fewer people are smoking.

References
[1] “Imperial Tobacco to develop e-cigarettes as profits drop”, Reuters, 30 April 2013.
[2] British American Tobacco, “British American Tobacco establishes stand-alone company, Nicoventures Limited”, British American Tobacco website, 5 April 2011.
[3] British American Tobacco, “British American Tobacco buys UK based e-cigarette technology company”, British American Tobacco website, 19 December 2012.
[4] Don Hedley, “What’s happening in tobacco”, Euromonitor International, 29 March 2013.
[5] Mike Esterl & John Kell, “Altria to enter e-cigarette market”, The Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2013.
[6] Reynolds American, Quarterly Report, United States Securities and Exchange Commission, 23 April 2013.
[7] Lorillard, “Lorillard Inc. reports first quarter 2012 results and acquisition of blu ecigs”, Lorillard website, 25 April 2012.
[8] Shane MacGuill, “Mass appeal: Lorillard earnings releases give a unique glimpse of US e-cigarette market”, Euromonitor International, 1 May 2013.

Imperial Tobacco, the second biggest tobacco company in Europe and the fourth biggest in the entire world, has reported its first drop in earnings since it listed on the stock market in 1996.

In the previous six-month period, profits fell by 6.5 per cent to 1.43 billion pounds ($2.22 billion), the British company reported on 29 April 2013.

The reason given was the “difficult” economic situation throughout Europe, but especially in France, Germany and Spain.

The real reason is the simple fact that millions of smokers across Europe are giving up smoking cigarettes as more and more of them realise that tobacco smoke is a deadly concoction of poisons and carcinogens. Now that there are more products for quitting smoking than ever before, such as the e-cigarette, people are finding it easier to give up their unhealthy habit.

One can only hope that Imperial Tobacco’s fall in profits signals the beginning of the economic death of the big tobacco corporations.

Source: Gabi Thesing, “Imperial Tobacco reports first profit decline in 17 years”, Bloomberg, 30 April 2013.

Research conducted by a group of scientists from the University of East London into electronic cigarettes has found that almost 75 per cent of the people who participated in the study reported using the devices as a safer option to tobacco and as a way of quitting smoking altogether.

As part of the study, University of East London researchers contacted some 1400 e-cigarette users between September 2011 and May 2012 through an online survey.

The research findings, which were published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Addiction on 28 March 2013, demonstrate that approximately 75 per cent of survey respondents started using electric cigarettes as an alternative to smoking, while 22 per cent reported they had started using the devices for other reasons, such as to avoid smoking bans in clubs and other places.

Probably the most significant finding of the study is that 86 per cent of the participants reported not having smoked tobacco cigarettes for several weeks or months since using the electronic cigarette. Furthermore, the amount they smoked had decreased dramatically. The researchers also discovered that most of the survey respondents felt their health had improved greatly since using the e-cigarette.

Doctor Lynne Dawkins, who headed the study on behalf of the University of East London, said that “despite the growing popularity of electronic cigarettes, little is known about who uses e-cigarettes and why. We know that the majority of people reported great health benefits: a reduction in coughing and improved breathing for example. The benefits are most likely from people smoking fewer cigarettes, rather than as a direct effect of the devices.”

She added that the “public need[s] to be better informed about what we know and what we don’t know about e-cigarettes. This survey is just a starting point, and further research is clearly needed to evaluate their effectiveness and long-term safety.”

The effectiveness rate of electric cigarettes found in the most recent study is much greater than that of a similar study conducted at the Boston University School of Public Health which found that 31 per cent of e-cigarette users quit smoking after a six-month period. The University of East London study is more scientifically sound because its survey population is much greater (1341 people) than the Boston University study (222 people).

These studies provide more evidence that the electronic cigarette is the most effective way to quit smoking.

With more and more scientific research being published that demonstrates electronic cigarettes are much less harmful than tobacco cigarettes and can help significant numbers of smokers quit smoking, it might surprise people to learn that eight leading anti-smoking organisations in the United States have called for them to be banned.

This might seem strange, especially given that the aim of these groups is to reduce and ideally eliminate the use of tobacco cigarettes and the negative health consequences of smoking. Why would these organisations call for the banning of a product which could save the lives of millions of Americans?

Part of the answer might lie in the fact that all eight groups received money from Pfizer, a multi-billion dollar international pharmaceutical corporation known for its illegal and immoral business practices, which range from illegally marketing painkillers in the United States to experimenting on children in Nigeria, killing some of them and leaving others with mental and physical deformities.

Pfizer manufactures one of the most popular quit smoking drugs, Chantix, which generated $720 million in sales in 2011 alone. With the growth in popularity of the electronic cigarette, Pfizer stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Pfizer gave the anti-smoking groups the following sums of money in 2011 and the first half on 2012:

American Medical Association: $857,500
American Academy of Pediatrics: $720,800
American Legacy Foundation: $300,000
American Cancer Society: $252,750
Action on Smoking and Health: $200,000
American Lung Association: $190,250
American Heart Association: $136,000
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: $100,000
TOTAL: $2,757,300

All eight organisations submitted briefs to the United States District Court urging it to permit the Food and Drug Administration to ban electronic cigarettes. One is left wondering if their opposition to e-cigarettes stems from the facts or the influence of Pfizer’s generous monetary gifts.

Fortunately for American smokers, the judges hearing the case in question decided that electronic cigarettes were tobacco products and thus were to be regulated in the same way as regular cigarettes, which means that they can be imported into the United States.

Electronic cigarettes are readily and legally available in Australia to people who want to quit smoking. There do not appear to have been any calls to ban them here, but if such calls should appear, it would be worthwhile to see whether those making them have been on the receiving end of donations from pharmaceutical corporations like Pfizer for whom the e-cigarette is a threat to their bottom line.