Recently, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and other four departments jointly issued the "Special Work Plan for Cleaning Up and Rectifying the Sale of Electronic Cigarettes to Minors and Severely Cracking Down on E-cigarette-related Violations and Crimes", requiring that from now until the end of April, the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors will be cleaned up and rectified.
Prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes to minors?
The "age threshold" is useless
Although, the sale of e-cigarettes to minors is prohibited
It has become the consensus of society
But for some e-cigarette sellers
This rule seems to be useless
Online platform
Many settled merchants "hang sheep's heads and sell dog meat"
Guiding consumers under various guises
This includes minors purchasing e-cigarettes
And in offline stores
Merchants generally provide free trial suction services
Even blatantly put e-cigarettes
Sold to minors
Wuhan's Optics Valley World City Pedestrian Street is an important place for young people from surrounding colleges and universities to shop and relax on weekends. The pedestrian street of more than 1,300 meters is distributed with 18 stores opened by 14 brand e-cigarettes, and each store has an experience area.
The reporter found that many fashionably dressed and young-faced people experienced e-cigarettes in e-cigarette stores. Xiao Liu, a student at a Wuhan university, said that the purchase of e-cigarette cartridges has become one of his living burdens, and he will use 1/5 of the fixed monthly living expenses to buy new e-cigarette products, the amount is about 300 yuan. When visiting some e-cigarette stores, although the store marked "minors are strictly prohibited from using" and showed id cards when purchasing, the reporter did not require the purchaser to show his ID card when asking for purchase.
Minors offline
Buying e-cigarettes doesn't seem to be difficult
Online purchases also have "hidden" channels
↓↓↓
The "online ban on e-cigarettes" was implemented more than two years ago. However, there are still some merchants who use e-commerce platforms, social platforms, content communities, short videos and other channels to use various edge-skimming words to evade censorship and sell e-cigarettes to minors.
Reporters in Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, etc
Multiple e-commerce platforms
Use fuzzy keywords
You can still search for related product purchase links
When consulting and placing orders, a number of online store customer service said that "there is stock, you can directly place orders", did not ask the reporter whether he is an adult, and repeatedly recommended that "no nicotine, can help quit smoking."
Many e-commerce sellers have also lured buyers to social platforms such as WeChat and Weibo to evade censorship and sell e-cigarettes to minors. When the reporter clearly informed multiple sellers that they were minors, the sellers did not refuse to sell.
The so-called smoking cessation artifact
It's addictive
So, is e-cigarette really "nicotine-free" as these merchants say, and can even be used as a "smoking cessation artifact"? In fact, the harm of electronic cigarettes is no less than that of cigarettes, and once minors smoke, they are more harmful to health.
Published by the World Health Organization
WHO Global Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2021
Make it clear that e-cigarettes are harmful
The report shows
The aerosols generated by e-cigarettes during use usually contain known toxic substances such as ethylene glycols, aldehydes, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and metals. The use of e-cigarettes can affect heart rate and blood pressure, have a negative impact on both cardiovascular and pulmonary organs, and increase the risk of cardiovascular and lung diseases.
Experts say that there is nicotine in e-cigarettes, and smoking e-cigarettes does not help smokers quit smoking effectively.
The main ingredient that causes addiction is nicotine, and the nicotine in e-cigarettes is also addictive, and the nicotine content of some e-cigarettes even exceeds that of traditional cigarettes.
Nicotine may be more harmful to adolescents than adults. Smoking began in adolescence, and respiratory diseases and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases increased significantly in adulthood.
The four departments struck hard
The act of selling e-cigarettes to minors
According to the 2019 China Middle School Students Tobacco Survey Survey released by China Disease Control, the proportion of junior high school students who have heard of e-cigarettes in 2019 is 69.9%, and the current e-cigarette use rate is 2.7%. Compared with 2014, it increased by 24.9 and 1.5 percentage points, respectively.
In view of the rising proportion of minors smoking electronic cigarettes, the work plan jointly issued by the four departments will crack down on the illegal act of selling electronic cigarettes to minors.
Scenario requirements
Comprehensively check and clean up the e-cigarette sales outlets around the campus and purify the surrounding environment of the campus;
Strengthen supervision and inspections, focusing on inspecting the implementation of provisions such as the setting of warning signs and the verification of identity documents at e-cigarette sales outlets in areas where minors gather, such as playgrounds and children's palaces, and comprehensively map out the situation of drug-related violations and crimes such as the sale and consumption of "e-cigarettes on the head" in bars, nightclubs, KTV, and other places where young people gather;
Promote enterprises to implement the main responsibility, clean up the Internet to promote and sell harmful information on e-cigarettes;
Investigate and deal with illegal acts of selling e-cigarettes to minors in accordance with the law, severely crack down on illegal and criminal cases of adding synthetic cannabinoids and other new types of drugs to e-cigarette oil, thoroughly investigate the source of production, destroy the production and sale network, and investigate and deal with illegal acts of operating tobacco products without a license in accordance with the law;
Combined with campus safety education, explain the harm of e-cigarette smoking to primary and secondary school students, and enhance the awareness and ability of young people to identify and resist e-cigarettes;
Strengthen legal publicity at tobacco sales outlets, urge e-cigarette operators to strictly implement warning signs and identity document verification regulations, and consciously and proactively refuse minors' requirements for purchasing e-cigarettes;
Strengthen the popularization of anti-smoking science, encourage the masses to actively report and actively discourage the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors, and form a strong guarantee for the whole society to protect minors from electronic cigarettes.
Daily Jun thinks
With the continuous improvement of laws and regulations,
Crackdowns and regulations are intensifying
Those who think they are
It is highly concealed and difficult to track
of e-cigarette merchants
It will be difficult to escape regulatory loopholes again
Let's work together
Protect the healthy growth of minors
Source: Meizhou Daily\ CCTV news client, "Yangtze River Daily" WeChat public account