The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced it issued 11 warning letters last week to online retailers for illegally marketing tobacco products with misleading or unsubstantiated claims or descriptors indicating that they can be used to reduce harm or the risk of tobacco-related disease.

 

“There is no known safe tobacco product. It is illegal for tobacco companies or retailers, including internet sellers, to make unsubstantiated claims or statements that imply tobacco products reduce health risks,” said Lawrence R. Deyton, M.S.P.H., M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “FDA will pursue enforcement actions to protect the public health.”

 

The FDA cited the online retailers for a variety of illegal marketing claims that violate the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, including use of terms such as: “Light”; “Low”; “Mild”; “Less toxic”; or “Safer.”

 

These claims are not permitted unless a company has received an order from the FDA allowing it to market a product with these claims based on scientific evidence. The agency has issued no such orders to date.

 

In the past, some tobacco products were marketed with descriptors that indicated they were safer or had a modified risk. Those products were never proven to reduce health risk. Those deceptive marketing practices may actually have led to continued or increased tobacco use and harm to consumers who incorrectly thought they were using a product that might be less risky. This kind of marketing is now illegal under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

 

In addition to these marketing violations, other cited violations included the illegal sale of flavored cigarettes.

 

The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products conducts routine monitoring and surveillance of tobacco product marketing, advertising and promotion to assess compliance with the law. The agency will consider additional sanctions for failure to correct the violations cited in warning letters, which may include civil money penalties, no-tobacco-sale orders, seizure, injunction and/or criminal prosecution.

 

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 May 2011 11.00 BST

By RICHARD CRAVER | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: May 22, 2011

A University of South Carolina researcher is preparing to answer two questions with widespread implications for the tobacco industry and public-health community.

Can a smokeless product, in this instance Camel Snus, contribute to a smoker quitting cigarettes — particularly one who doesn’t want to stop?

If it does, could an increase in use of smokeless-tobacco products over cigarettes cause a net harm to the population?

On Thursday, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Luxembourg’s Ministry of Finance, represented by the “Administration des Douanes et Accises” (Administration of Customs and Excise).

Each year, large quantities of cigarettes are subject to counterfeiting and smuggling. Counterfeiting consists of producing imitations of brand cigarettes and selling them as authentic products. Smuggling concerns the selling of brand cigarettes without paying taxes and excise duties.

International trafficking
The European Union is not spared from these fraudulent actions. Each year, counterfeit cigarettes and tobacco deprive the member states of considerable tax and customs revenues and cause resellers an important loss of earnings. Furthermore, the composition of these fraudulent products is unknown as they are not subjected to quality controls.