Nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are banned in Japan. At the same time, the market for tobacco companies' version of e-cigs - heat-not-burn - is growing. Japan's largest cigarette manufacturer is now investing more in electronic solutions.
Cigarette sales continue to fall in Japan, Reuters reports. One of the reasons is that heat-not-burn products are attracting more and more smokers in the country. Heat-not-burn is the tobacco companies' answer to traditional e-cigarettes, using tobacco instead of e-liquid to deliver nicotine. Phillip Morris' variant, IQOS, has been steadily growing in popularity and in 2018 accounted for 16% of tobacco sales in Japan, according to the WHO.
More profit with Heat-not-burn
For Japan Tobacco, which accounts for half of all cigarette sales in Japan, the reduction in smoking means 23% less profit in 2021. At the same time, Japan Tobacco has fallen behind its competitors in the heat-not-burn market. Profit margins for so-called heatsticks is much higher than for cigarettes and Japan Tobacco states that they will focus more on their own variant, Ploom stick. 1000 employees are given notice of redundancy to cover the expected losses.
More harmful than e-cigarettes
Heat-not-burn (HNB) products have been on the market since 2014. The technology is based on heating tobacco, in the same way that e-liquid is heated in an e-cigarette. The health risks of HNB products are likely to be less than those of tobacco smoking. At the same time, the UK Public Health Agency, a world leader in tobacco harm reduction, notes that the evidence base for assessing the health risks of HNB is currently thin.
"Of the 20 studies we looked at, 12 came from the tobacco companies themselves. The studies suggest a harm reduction effect for smokers, but we need more independent studies to draw firm conclusions. It is likely that HNB products emit fewer toxic chemicals than cigarettes, but more harmful substances than regular e-cigarettes," writes the UK Health Protection Agency, in its annual Report on the risks of e-cigarettes and related products, 2018.
Not allowed to sell e-liquid with nicotine
Phillip Morris was authorized in 2020 to promoting IQOS as a harm reduction product in the US. Other HNB products are also on the market in Europe. However, the fastest growing markets are Japan and South Korea. In Japan, HNB are subject to the same laws as regular tobacco products, with associated taxes and bans. Regular e-cigarettes and nicotine-containing e-liquid are prohibited from sale. Nicotine-containing e-liquid is regulated as a medicine and currently no e-juice manufacturer is authorized to sell the products in the country. Japanese e-cigarette users are able to import nicotine e-liquid for personal use, according to a report by Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction.
