May 8th, 2012
The Chemical Engineer
Richard Jansen
ONE of the US’ biggest tobacco companies, Lorillard, has snapped up electronic cigarettes company blu ecigs for US$135m.
The market for so-called e-cigarettes is tiny compared to that open to more traditional products, but has grown rapidly over the past few years. Lorillard’s purchase is the first major move from a major tobacco firm to embrace the technology, which works by atomising nicotine-laced liquid that is then inhaled. This produces an exhaled vapour, but no smoke.
Lorillard CEO Murray Kessler says that blu is “the perfect adjacency for us to participate in the smokeless market.”
May 2nd, 2012
WASHINGTON — A new government report says Americans’ smoking habits have displayed “sizable market shifts” since federal tobacco taxes were increased in 2009.
Sales of pipe tobacco and large cigars, which are taxed at a lower rate, have skyrocketed as smokers have adjusted their buying habits to the new price structure.
Monthly sales of pipe tobacco increased 12-fold, from about 240,000 pounds in January 2009 to over 3 million pounds in September 2011, the GAO found. And monthly sales of large cigars more than doubled, from 411 million pounds to more than 1 billion pounds over the same period.
April 30th, 2012
Editor’s Note: Please note the concluding sentence of this article: “It will remain unclear as to whether or not such a law will even pass until its Supreme Court hearing, as speech rights are typically highly protected.” Who is to decide which legally sanctioned products are to be subject to vendettas by the US government?
USD Vista
By Dierdre Greco
