Background
Since Could 2020, cigarettes and roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco with a characterising flavour of menthol have been banned within the European Union (EU) owing to the European Tobacco Merchandise Directive (EU TPD). Different characterising flavours had been banned in 2016. Cigars, cigarillos, pipe tobacco, heated tobacco and tobacco equipment are exempt from the ban.1
Regardless of the ban, a considerable proportion of adolescents and younger adults in Denmark nonetheless smoke menthol cigarettes (29% pre-ban vs 20% post-ban).2 3 This can be resulting from tobacco business ways to bypass the ban. This paper supplies insights into the response of the tobacco business to the implementation of the menthol ban in Denmark. On this case examine, we determine loopholes within the characterising flavour ban and talk about the best way to make bans on menthol-flavoured tobacco best. The evaluation relies on screening tobacco merchandise utilizing on-line tobacco shops, and samples of cigarette packages, tobacco flavour equipment, and menthol-flavoured cigarette-like merchandise bought between December 2019 and January 2022.
Circumvention of the menthol ban
Flavoured tobacco equipment
Varied forms of tobacco flavour equipment to insert into cigarette packs, cigarette filters and RYO tobacco have been launched to the Danish market. These merchandise allow customers to customize their cigarettes with menthol and candy flavours. In some circumstances, the merchandise are produced by tobacco corporations (figure 1). After the ban, 3.4% of people who smoke aged 25–29 years used flavour equipment.4 Furthermore, there was a rise in the usage of RYO tobacco amongst grownup people who smoke (13% pre-ban vs 17% post-ban).2 3
Examples of tobacco flavour equipment marketed in Denmark. (A) Menthol filter sprays (Egogreen and Ottaman). (B) Menthol drops (Instahit). (C) Capsules with menthol, sweet and comfortable drinks flavours (Aroma King and Hoffmann). (D) Menthol flavour stone (Taste By Stone). (E) Free mint filter suggestions for cigarettes with recessed filters (FlavorMe, King’s Tobacco Worldwide). (F) Menthol and fruit flavour infusion playing cards (Frizc, Hipzz and Aroma King). (G) RYO cigarette tubes with fruit flavour (Contemporary Bomb); RYO cigarette tubes with menthol flavour (Pegasus, Continental Tobacco Company). (H) RYO filter suggestions with menthol and fruit flavours (Contemporary Bomb and Frutta). RYO, roll-your-own.
Recessed cigarette filters
Recessed filters are a kind of specifically formed cigarette filters with a hole part on the mouth finish of the cigarette. This enables for inserting smaller menthol filter suggestions. Our evaluation signifies that in Denmark, cigarettes with recessed filters are discovered solely in menthol substitute packages (packages described by retailers as former menthol packs) or in new cigarette model variants insinuating menthol-like qualities (packages with no earlier counterparts). All of the recognized variants with recessed filters had been produced by British American Tobacco (BAT) (figure 2).
Cigarettes with recessed filters and their menthol traits. (A) Pall Mall Ultramarine and King’s Ultramarine (on-line retailer description: ‘… provides a cooling impact and a contemporary feeling …’), Prince Gray Plus, Pall Mall Steadiness, Pall Mall Expertise, King’s Purple Plus and Prince Black Plus (substitute packages for the previous menthol cigarettes: Prince Inexperienced Enhance, Pall Mall Inexperienced, Pall Mall Double Capsule, King’s Double Crush and Prince Double Click on). (B) The design of the cigarette sticks with recessed filters.
Pack designs and model descriptors insinuating menthol-like qualities
Cigarette pack designs function a advertising and marketing instrument for tobacco corporations to affect shoppers’ perceptions of style. Regardless of a characterising flavour ban, pack design might manipulate people who smoke’ expertise of menthol/non-menthol flavour. After the ban, one pack from Japan Tobacco Worldwide (JTI) retained insinuating menthol-like qualities. It retained the model descriptor ‘Activate’ and an illustration on the bundle, indicating that the cigarette nonetheless had a click-function (figure 3A). Furthermore, the standard yellow filter was changed with a white filter with blue circles, which additionally insinuate a click-function, though the variant didn’t have a capsule inside (figure 3B). The identical variant was launched in an version with menthol aroma added to the lid (figure 3C). This particular version offered a transparent violation of the EU TPD and was on sale for under a quick interval. The TPD prohibits flavourings within the bundle, however it additionally bans labelling that accommodates components or options that discuss with style, scent, flavourings, or create an inaccurate impression concerning the product’s traits. Thus, the model descriptor ‘Activate’ and the illustrations on the Camel bundle may contravene the EU TPD.
Examples of post-ban design insinuating menthol traits. (A) Camel packaging with the model descriptor ‘Activate’ and an illustration containing a mint-like leaf. (B) Camel Activate cigarette follow blue circles on the filter insinuating click-function. (C) Camel Activate bundle with an illustration guiding the patron to rub on the lid to launch a menthol aroma.
About 15 months after the ban, BAT launched three totally different cigarette variants with ‘Ultramarine’ as a model descriptor. At one on-line retailer, the three packages had been accompanied by the identical description insinuating menthol-like qualities: ‘New product with fashionable design and a brand new mix which provides a cooling impact and a contemporary feeling to the well-known tobacco style’.5 These descriptions are violations of the Danish ban on tobacco advertising and marketing however present helpful insights into the ways of the tobacco corporations. Furthermore, the bundle design of the variant, King’s Ultramarine, was an identical to a former menthol cigarette pack named King’s Double Crush.
Menthol as an ingredient
The EU TPD doesn’t ban menthol as an ingredient; it solely bans menthol as a characterising flavour. This allows tobacco corporations to proceed the usage of menthol for its anaesthetic and cooling results. In August 2020, JTI was accused of violating the menthol ban in Denmark by persevering with so as to add menthol flavour to sure cigarette model variants. In response, JTI acknowledged that the continued use of menthol of their merchandise was in full compliance with the regulation and that the merchandise didn’t have a clearly outstanding scent or style of menthol.6
Menthol-flavoured cigarette-like merchandise
Previous to the menthol ban, two variants of cigarillos with menthol flavour had been registered in Denmark.7 Each variants resemble cigarettes in dimension and thickness, and one variant has a click-filter. From 2019 to 2020, the sale of cigarillos and cigars elevated by 7%,8 which can be related to the introduction of those menthol variants. Tobacco corporations and retailers additionally marketed menthol pipe tobacco and digital cigarettes with menthol flavour as alternate options to menthol cigarettes,9 10 and Phillip Morris Worldwide (PMI) promoted mentholated heated tobacco merchandise through shows in supermarkets and cigarette pack inserts (figure 4).
Phillip Morris Worldwide promotes IQOS HEETS as exempt from the menthol ban. (A) Marlboro Fuse Past bundle with a pack insert with the textual content: ‘Essential. From 20 Could 2020, this product doesn’t comprise menthol’ (entrance) and ‘The most effective factor you are able to do is to quit smoking. You possibly can nonetheless have a smoke-free different with menthol after 20 Could 2020, HEETS’ (again). (B) IQOS HEETS promotion show in a grocery store previous to the menthol ban: ‘The menthol ban doesn’t embrace IQOS warmth sticks’.
Dialogue
The merchandise recognized and analysed on this examine reveal that tobacco corporations use quite a lot of methods to undermine the menthol ban. A few of these ways are additionally observable in different nations. Within the UK, gaps within the EU menthol ban had been exploited by tobacco corporations to advertise tobacco merchandise which can be exempt from the ban.11 After province-wide menthol bans in Canada, tobacco corporations tried to retain menthol cigarette people who smoke by directing them to non-menthol alternate options whose packaging in color and descriptors communicated menthol-like qualities.12 13 In Eire, PMI launched a brand new cigarette model variant that it described to retailers as a ‘menthol mix with out methylation’.14
Some nations have adopted rules that counter the ways utilized by tobacco corporations to undermine bans on flavoured cigarettes. Brazil is the primary nation to ban all components which will change the style of tobacco merchandise, even these components that don’t instantly impart a attribute flavour.15 Canada has prohibited the usage of menthol and different flavouring components within the manufacture of cigarettes and most cigars,16 and Germany has prohibited menthol as an additive in cigarettes and smoking tobacco.17
In Denmark, a ban on the sale of tobacco gear, which will change the flavour of tobacco merchandise, has been adopted. Consequently, all flavoured tobacco equipment are banned by April 2022.18 To our data, Denmark is likely one of the first nations to introduce such a ban, though related bans have been proposed in Finland and Bulgaria.19 20 Furthermore, the Danish Security Know-how Authority has concluded that the usage of menthol as an additive in cigarettes is a violation of Danish laws, which prohibits flamable tobacco merchandise that comprise elements that facilitate the inhalation of tobacco smoke and nicotine uptake.21
Conclusion and suggestions
To be environment friendly, bans on flavoured tobacco merchandise ought to prohibit menthol and different elements with flavour properties, as elements. Consequently, authorities will not be positioned able to show whether or not a flavour is characterising. Banning menthol as an ingredient can even finish tobacco corporations’ use of menthol for its pharmacological results. Inside tobacco business paperwork reveal that even subliminal ranges of menthol might lower the harshness of tobacco smoking by making the smoke extra ‘easy’22 and that these properties attraction to novice people who smoke.23 Different elements which have the potential to masks the irritating impact of tobacco smoke, corresponding to elements that produce a cooling impact, must also be banned. Furthermore, laws ought to embody all tobacco merchandise to keep away from the substitution of 1 product with one other. To be complete, the laws must also prohibit flavoured tobacco equipment and filter modifications which can allow tobacco corporations to bypass the flavour ban. These suggestions ought to be thought of within the revision of the EU TPD. The revised TPD ought to no less than make it clear that member states might transcend the directive provisions to guard public well being.
Environment friendly laws must also prohibit distinctive options, colors, and model descriptors on tobacco packets and the tobacco merchandise itself that connote cooling results or flavours apart from the flavour of tobacco. Accordingly, the implementation of plain packaging of tobacco merchandise can help a menthol ban. A complete ban on tobacco advertising and marketing can be important to keep away from the advertising and marketing of tobacco merchandise exempt from the ban. Lastly, it is suggested {that a} menthol ban is supported by the prohibition of descriptions of tobacco product sensation in each on-line and bodily shops.
Ethics statements
Affected person consent for publication
Ethics approval
Not relevant.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Astrid Knudsen for a crucial evaluate of the manuscript.
