In March this year, the Chinese government promulgated the "Administrative Measures for Electronic Cigarettes", which prohibits the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes except for tobacco flavors. The World Health Organization welcomes this and looks forward to the strong implementation of the policy once it enters into force in May 2022.
The supervision of e-cigarettes should be one of the comprehensive tobacco control strategies. WHO recommends that as long as the production, sale and circulation of e-cigarettes is not prohibited, Member States should take appropriate regulatory measures to achieve the following key objectives: to protect the public from potential health risks, to prevent any unsubstantiated health claims about e-cigarettes, and to protect tobacco control efforts from commercial interests.
E-cigarettes are harmful to their users and may also be harmful to those around them. The use of e-cigarettes in public places will make it more difficult to implement the ban on smoking in public places. Moreover, the use of e-cigarettes by children and adolescents is particularly harmful. Exposure of children and adolescents to nicotine can cause lasting damage to their brain development and may also make them addicted to nicotine. In addition, children and adolescents who use e-cigarettes, even if they are experimental, are more than doubling the likelihood of smoking cigarettes later. In order to make their products attractive to young people, e-cigarette companies strive to promote these products as fashion symbols through various tastes, attractive packaging and other forms of advertising and promotion.
In retrospect, we need to bear in mind that the most effective measures to protect adolescents are far from being limited to regulating e-cigarettes, but also implementing all evidence-based tobacco control measures that China has committed to implementing through ratification of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC). It's also important to remember that the tobacco industry will never stop attracting new consumers by making their products more accessible, affordable, and attractive to children.
Tobacco use remains one of the leading risk factors for NCDs in China. Article 5.2 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control requires Parties to implement effective measures to prevent and reduce tobacco consumption, nicotine addiction and exposure to tobacco smoke. The government can effectively protect public health, especially the health of the younger generation, by:
Raise excise taxes on all tobacco and e-cigarette products and ensure that increases outpace inflation and income growth so that tobacco is not as cheap as a school lunch;
Completely ban smoking and banning the use of e-cigarettes in indoor public places, workplaces and public transportation to protect people from the hazards of second-hand smoke and make the phenomenon of smoking in public places no longer ubiquitous in society;
Require that such products be packaged with substantial graphic health warnings to effectively inform the consequences of using these products and that their packaging is not attractive to adolescents; and
Advertising, promotion and sponsorship of all forms of tobacco products and e-cigarettes are prohibited.
If all of the above measures can be implemented and enforced vigorously, our next generation can be effectively protected from these toxic products.
We look forward to China's further progress in implementing the above measures to ultimately achieve the goal of a "Healthy China."