Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Korean Merchants protest cigarette prices

Korean merchants from across the province claim they’re being forced out business by Imperial Tobacco.

More than 800 members of the Ontario Korean Business Association, which represents 2,000 stores, travelled to Toronto on Tuesday to rally outside media companies to get their message out.

They charged that Imperial Tobacco is selling busy stores tobacco products at cheaper prices than retail outlets which are less active.

Association president Ken Lee said the company began last month charging mom and pop stores more expensive prices for cigarettes, as compared to stores that sold a huge volume of smokes.

Lee estimated about 30% of Ontario stores purchased cartons $5 to $10 less than other stores.

“This pricing is very unfair to us and it will drive many small stores out of business,” he said on Tuesday. “Many stores that don’t get a good price have to sell cigarettes at cost or under cost to stay alive.”

About 60 of the businessmen, who travelled from Niagara Falls, Barrie and other areas, were holding signs in a rally outside the Toronto Sun’s King St. E. offices on Tuesday.

Store owner Jay Jin said he has a tough time keeping his store open and called for a universal price for cigarettes.

“Under this system it is very difficult for us to make a living,” Jin said.

Imperial spokesman Eric Gagnon said some merchants belong to a preferred pricing program and get better rates based on the volume sold and other criteria they have to meet.

“We haven’t seen any store closures in a pilot project,” Gagnon said on Tuesday.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The Wild Wild West of e-cigarette manufacturing


Researchers at the University of California, Riverside may as well tell smokers looking to switch to e-cigarettes to keep smoking regular cigarettes based on their study claiming that current versions of the cigarette alternative present a range of issues that pose possible public health risks. Published in today’s online issue of Tobacco Control, the UC Riverside study looked at five brands of e-cigarette — an “electronic nicotine delivery system” — for design features, accuracy and clarity of labelling and the quality of instruction manuals and associated print material supplied by the manufacturers. The study authors said that they uncovered design flaws in some brands of the e-cigarettes, noticed inadequate labelling in the packages and identified quality control issues, including leaky cartridges. This led them to suggest that regulators remove e-cigarettes from the market.

“Some people believe that e-cigarettes are a safe substitute for conventional cigarettes,” said study co-author Dr. Prue Talbot, director of UC Riverside’s Stem Cell Center. “However, there are virtually no scientific studies on e-cigarettes and their safety. Our study — one of the first studies to evaluate e-cigarettes — shows that this product has many flaws, which could cause serious public health problems in the future if the flaws go uncorrected.”

The authors’ failure to mention anything about the use of e-cigarettes as a harm reduction method while discussing the device’s public health impact frustrates ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. “What’s missing is whether e-cigararette vapors are safe or not. They only insist that we don’t know and shouldn’t take our chances. The message they send with such articles is: Keep on smoking.”

ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross points out that the researchers’ objective was to investigate current manufacturing practices for the product, but that they failed to mention that e-cigarette manufacturing is in its infant stage of development. “If this were about a plant that manufactured Lipitor or asthma inhalers, you’d say ‘How could they get away with that?’ But we’re in the Wild Wild West of e-cigarette manufacturing with very little regulatory oversight as yet. Yes, we need to ensure that e-cigarette makers use good manufacturing practices. Yet, if given the choice, I’d still rather smoke an e-cigarette manufactured now than a traditional cigarette produced under tightly regulated manufacturing practices.”