Mail Online

Tobacco giant STILL making a mint despite menthol cigarette ban

By Tom Kelly Investigations Editor

THE UK’s biggest tobacco company has sold over £1billion worth of menthol-tasting cigarettes in the year since menthol cigarettes were banned, the Mail can reveal.

It’s feared up to 120,000 people will die in the long term after Japan Tobacco International (JTI), which makes Benson & Hedges and Sterling, was accused of ‘cynically sidestepping’ new regulations aimed at stopping children from smoking.

The firm replaced several of its brands with an almost identically named and marketed range of ‘menthol reimagined’ cigarettes which launched the very day the menthol ban came into force in May last year.

Figures produced by data analytics firm Nielsen and leaked to the Mail show JTI sold more than 100million packs of the new mintytasting cigarettes, which accounts for more than 2billion individual cigarettes and total sales topping £1billion. The tobacco giant is estimated to have made over £90million in profits from the estimated 600,000 people who have smoked the replacement cigarettes – which are mostly sold in the same green packaging and which customers have said taste ‘fully menthol’.

This is despite the fact Public Health England launched an inquiry after a leaked document showed how the tobacco firm advised retailers on how to keep ‘making a mint’ from the huge UK menthol cigarette market – accounting for a fifth of smokers – after the ban.

PHE said it had warned JTI of concerns that some of its products still have a ‘characterising menthol flavour’ – which has been unlawful since last year.

The Mail’s revelations also come as MPs on the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health this week demanded a tightening in the law to extend the ban to any menthol-tasting cigarette rather than the current ‘cigarettes with a characterising flavour’ of menthol, which they said had made the intended ban ‘easy to circumvent and complex to oversee.’ Their report said: ‘The purpose of flavourings is to make cigarettes more appealing and easier to smoke, whether they are “characterising” or not is irrelevant, as well as setting a standard which is difficult to measure…’

Deborah Arnott, head of Action on Smoking and Health, said: ‘The investigation reveals just how ineffective the ban on flavours introduced by the Government last year has been.

‘Banning only flavours which meet the ill-defined test that they are “characterising” makes no sense at all.’ PHE said it was also planning more testing for cigarette products.

But JTI said it was confident it was ‘fully compliant with UK law’ and said rival firms had launched similar products in other EU markets which have the same laws.

The Mail revealed last May how a handbook produced in association with JTI called ‘making a mint’ was given to retailers. It was subtitled ‘Everything you need to know to successfully navigate the menthol ban’.

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2021-07-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/281968905715844

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