‘It’s still tobacco in the end’

Ecigarettes to be regulated just like the traditional product

Many ministries and sectors affirmed that heated cigarettes are a tobacco product and therefore fall under the Law on Prevention and Control of Harmful Effects of Tobacco based on legal documents applied since 2012.

Issues regarding electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco have been receiving attention from ministries, the government and national assembly for years.

The Industry and Trade Ministry has been assigned the task of presiding and co-ordinating with ministries and ministerial-level agencies to develop regulations to manage these products.

To effectively manage the tobacco product, the Law on Prevention and Control of Harmful Effects of Tobacco is being analysed by the parties to evaluate its correlation with each type of product, specifically electronic and heated cigarettes.

The law’s article 2.1 regulates: “Tobacco is a product produced from all or part of tobacco ingredients, processed in the form of cigarettes, cigars, tobacco, pipe tobacco or other forms.”

The article 2.3 adds: “Tobacco raw materials are tobacco leaves in loose form, sheets that have been pre-processed and separated from stems, tobacco fibres, tobacco stems and other substitute materials used to produce cigarettes.”

Thus, the law stipulates that only the ingredients of a product should be considered to determine it as “cigarette” not considering the production process or usage of each different types of products, whether cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco or other forms such as heated tobacco.

On the basis of existing legal documents applied since 2012, many ministries and branches affirm that heated cigarettes are a tobacco product. Thus, heated tobacco is under the scope of the Law on Prevention and Control of Harmful Effects of Tobacco, similar to cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco.

Instead of using a lighter, heated tobacco uses an electronic device that heats the tobacco material.

In a seminar on new types of cigarettes, Le Dai Hai, vice-director of civil and economic law department (Justice Ministry) said: “For heated tobacco, we confirmed that it is a tobacco product because it is made from tobacco ingredients, then inserted into the device for smoking.”

In the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), “tobacco ingredients” are also used as the basis for identifying a product as tobacco.

The FCTC states that “tobacco products” means products wholly or partly made from tobacco materials manufactured for smoking, sucking, chewing or inhaling. Recently, at a meeting on the state’s management work for heated cigarettes and electronic cigarettes, Health Minister Dao Hong Lan emphasised the need to have a solid basis to ban new generation cigarettes and carefully consider whether or not the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms applies to electronic cigarettes and heated cigarettes.

Meanwhile, some have affirmed that the Law on Prevention and Control of Harmful Effects of Tobacco is already designed to cover tobacco products in the future.

national assembly delegate Pham Khanh Phong Lan, who also participated in passing the Law on Prevention and Control of Harmful Effects of Tobacco 2012, commented that the law clearly defines tobacco and related products, including electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products. —