22nd Century Group Inc (XXII)

[kjgaro]

Someone asked a question on their last earnings call about marketing globally. In case you missed it here it the except:

Unidentified Analyst

Third question is, if I may, very different subject. I was in Thailand last month, and I hadn't been in 20 years. And I was - I really noticed how much less smoking I saw around the country. I was in 4 cities. And vaping, which didn't exist when I was there 20 years ago, I'm not talking about cannabis but just tobacco or nicotine-flavored vaping, was so outlawed that you could not buy a vape battery, a cartridge, anything in the country. And there was like no black market because they support their laws in a very serious way. Why - and again, I apologize if this has been addressed in recent calls. Why is the company not marketing to - in countries that clearly have very strong pro-health care, anti-tobacco bias? Or can they all be waiting for the FDA? Because it seems that the science will be compelling for a country with that kind of a bias.

Henry Sicignano

Well, that's another very thoughtful question. And I think the short answer is that many countries don't have "FDA" of their own. And so many of them do look to the United States FDA for leadership. So we've heard that many times. But at the same time, even though our cigarette is very low nicotine, it is still a combustible cigarette. And so there are very different laws in every country all around the world about combustible cigarettes. Suffice to say that we've been in discussions with many of these countries, and we know that at least 4 of them are exploring Very Low Nicotine cigarette mandates or encouragements of their own, each in a different way. There's tax policy that some are exploring. There are brand offerings that some are exploring. And then there are mandates that some are exploring. So all of these things are being explored. My guess is that when the FDA moves, everyone else will follow soon thereafter. I'm just - we're going to take the next call, but I just want to mention there are 7 minutes remaining. We have a hard stop at 5:00. So I'll be happy to answer the questions until we have to stop.