Is the End in Sight For Vaping?

Is the End in Sight For Vaping?

The roller coaster ride upward that vaping has experienced so far may be headed for a precipitous plunge downward, if the events of the past summer are any indication. City after city, state after state, country after country have banned vaping in one form or another. Usually it has just been the flavored versions but sometime the ban has gone across the board.

One wonders if this couldn’t have been predicted back in June when the city of San Francisco proposed its ban on vaporizers, which because of the legal requirement for confirmation by the state legislature should probably be referred to as a moratorium. TI correspondent Bob Crews analyzes the possible fallout of the Ban on the Bay in “A Bad Summer for Vaping” on page 14. See also the report on the response of Indian tobacco producers to their government’s full-scale ban on e-cigarettes on page 32 in Leaf News.

Among our other stories this month: Who would have thought the Slavic country of Ukraine would become a significant player in the European cigarette trade? But that is what correspondent Eugene Gerden reports in “Ukraine’s Appeal for Global Tobacco Majors” on page 20.

The changing conditions on the tobacco market have motivated British American to take steps to render their operation more efficient, including a substantial reduction in staff. See “How BAT Plans to Create a More Efficient and Focused Company” on 28. This could prove to be an upcoming trend, as Japan Tobacco International also plans a reduction in force. See “Major Staffing Cuts At JTI” on page 13 (part of TI Digest).

Back to the future? India has attacked the problem of declining yields and soil deterioration by reassessing their traditional tobacco-growing methods. Good results have occurred, including the development of an “organic” type of tobacco that could provide a new market for growers. This research has been directed by the Tobacco Board of India, and the executive director of that organization, Sunitha Kolaventy, gives a complete report starting on page 24. We hope to have more on exciting trends in Indian tobacco in future issues.

Finally, you will be interested to learn about recent market developments in Armenia, Australia and Morocco, along with numerous other subjects in TI Digest, beginning on page 10. And many of you will be intrigued to get facts and figures on Hurricane Dorian, which caused serious damage on tobacco in the Carolinas in the United States. You can find that report on page 30 in Leaf News, as well as short reports on Malawi Canada and Paraguay, among others.

See you next month.

—Christopher Bickers, Editor-In-Chief