Category: Regulation

Railways seek smoking ban
ProRail wants to ban smoking at all train stations in the Netherlands, with all smoking zones disappearing at the 400-plus stations within the next two years, reports the NL Times, citing a company spokesperson.
ProRail receives many complaints from travelers who are bothered by smokers, the spokesperson said, so the company does not want to wait for a national smoking ban. The rail manager is currently working on convincing all parties involved to support the plan.
Earlier this week, Clean Air Nederland announced that 113 outdoor cafe terraces had banned smoking, up from 39. And late last year, the National Prevention Agreement was signed saying that smoking areas in restaurants, cafes and pubs must close by 2022.
July 31, 2019
Plain packaging in Uruguay
Uruguay will require plain tobacco packaging starting January 2020 to discourage smoking, Uruguay’s Public Health Minister Jorge Basso said on Monday.
The announcement follows a 2016 court ruling against Philip Morris International which had sued to throw out a bill demanding plain packaging.
“Justice, in this case, ruled in favor of the bill,” said Basso, noting that “prevention and the promotion of healthy habits are the leading concerns of public policy on matters of health.”
Since the government’s anti-tobacco campaign was launched, the smoking rate in the country has fallen from 25 percent among those aged above 15 in 2009 to 21.6 percent in 2017.
July 30, 2019
Larger warnings coming
South Korea’s health ministry has announced that the graphic warnings on cigarette packs will be enlarged starting in 2020, reports Yonhap News.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said it plans to adopt a revised law that mandates expanding the warning images from the current 50 percent of the package’s exterior to 75 percent. Currently, the size of the warning photos must cover more than 30 percent of both sides of cigarette packages with warning text making up an additional 20 percent.
The revision—which mandates 55 percent of the warning photos and another 20 percent with warning text—comes amid growing calls to send a stronger message discouraging smoking.
Currently, 105 countries have adopted pictorial warnings, with 43 of them mandating more than 65 percent of tobacco packages to be covered with disturbing pictures that depict the consequences of smoking.
July 29, 2019
WHO in no doubt
E-cigarettes are “undoubtedly harmful,” according to a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Although the specific level of risk associated with ENDS (electronic nicotine delivery systems) has not yet been conclusively estimated, ENDS are undoubtedly harmful and should therefore be subject to regulation,” the WHO wrote in its report.
The report, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, also highlighted that progress has been made in the fight against tobacco, but more action is needed such as raising taxes, enforcing bans on advertising, and protecting others from tobacco smoke.
The report showed that while only 23 countries have implemented cessation support policies at the highest level, 116 more provide fully or partially cost-covered services in some or most health facilities, and another 32 offer services but do not cost-cover them, demonstrating a high level of public demand for support to quit.
Tobacco use has also declined proportionately in most countries, but population growth means the total number of people using tobacco has remained high. Currently, there are an estimated 1.1 billion smokers, around 80 percent of whom live in low- and middle-income countries.
July 29, 2019
Sales ban contemplated
San Francisco city supervisors are considering whether to ban all sales of electronic cigarettes a part of an effort to crack down on youth vaping, reports PBS.
If they move forward, San Francisco would become the first city in the United States to do so.
Supervisors on Tuesday were set to weigh a ban on the sale and distribution of e-cigarettes in San Francisco until the FDA completes a review of the effects of e-cigarettes on public health, as well as ban manufacturing e-cigarettes on city property. If supervisors approve the measures, they will require a subsequent vote before becoming law.
“Young people have almost indiscriminate access to a product that shouldn’t even be on the market,” said city attorney Dennis Herrera. “Because the FDA hasn’t acted, it’s unfortunately falling to states and localities to step into the breach.”
June 19, 2019
Loose change
It is now illegal to sell single cigarettes on the Maldives, according to a story in The Maldives Independent.
The ban, which came into force on Saturday, is the first provision of the January 2019 regulation on tobacco-products pack design and labeling to come into effect.
Other provisions, including graphic health warnings on tobacco-products packaging, are due to come into effect later this year.
From November 1, it will be illegal to sell tobacco products without graphic health warnings.
The ban on the sale of loose cigarettes and the graphic-images requirement were drawn up two years ago, but their introduction was delayed until a new government took over.
The sale of single cigarettes needed to be banned because “it is a tactic mainly used to lure children and young adolescents into smoking,” Dr Aishath Aroona, vice chair of the Tobacco Control Board, told the Maldives Independent after the regulation on packaging and labeling of tobacco products was submitted to the president’s office for approval in September 2017.
Meanwhile, in May 2019, Malé City Council decided to introduce a ban on smoking on the streets of the Maldives capital. It is due to take effect six months after the council enacts new regulations, according to the council.
The country’s 2010 Tobacco Control Act prohibits smoking in government offices, parks, sports stadiums, public transport, childcare or educational facilities and designated non-smoking areas in restaurants. The law did not include streets and roads in its definition of a public space.
June 3, 2019
License to smoke
Saudi Arabia’s higher authorities have approved regulations to issue licenses for cafés and restaurants offering shisha and other smoking products, according to a story in The Saudi Gazette.
In addition, the regulations will ban tobacco-smoking outlets from being established in the Central Haram Areas in Makkah and Madinah.
The story said that, according to well-informed sources, the new regulations are due to come into force after Ramadan.
The fee for licenses will be fixed in accordance with the size of the outlets, but will not exceed SR100,000 a year.
The sources reportedly said that the proceeds from the licenses would be spent on supporting the Ministry of Health in its anti-smoking programs and in its efforts to otherwise combat the adverse effects of smoking.
The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs will make public the regulations.
June 3, 2019
Boys and girls will be …
Twenty-one percent of Swiss boys and thirteen percent of girls aged 11-15 have tried electronic cigarettes at least once, according to a story at swissinfo.ch reporting on a survey of addiction among schoolchildren.
The findings were said to have alarmed the group Addiction Switzerland, which carried out the study of 11,000 children between the ages of 11 and 15.
“Vaping should not become normal consumer behavior among young people,” said Grégoire Vittoz, director of Addiction Switzerland, in a statement.
Swiss law is currently being adapted in relation to vapor products, but Addiction Switzerland has called also for such products to be priced beyond the means of schoolchildren, and for advertising restrictions.
The organization said that nicotine was addictive and could damage brain development in young people.
Overall, marginally fewer 11-15-year-olds said they had tried addictive substances than was the case during the previous survey in 2014.
In 2018, 10 percent of boys and eight percent of girls said they had smoked conventional cigarettes at least once a week, while in 2014 the respective figures were 12 percent and nine percent.
About 11 percent of boys and four percent of girls said that they had drunk alcohol at least once a week (10 percent and six percent in 2014).
The survey found also that 27 percent of boys and 17 percent of girls had used illegal cannabis at least once in their lives (30 percent and 19 percent in 2014). The figures for trying CBD (cannabidiol) products were nine percent and five percent for boys and girls.
The 2018 survey was part of an international Health Behavior in School-aged Children external link (HBSC) study carried out under the auspices of the World Health Organization external link, and was financed in Switzerland by the Federal Office of Public Health external link and cantons. It was the ninth time the HSBC study has been conducted in Switzerland.
March 29, 2019
E-cigs to be legalized
The Seychelles is to legalize the use of electronic cigarettes with a new regulation that will place ‘alternative nicotine products’ (ANDs) under the country’s tobacco control law, following the approval of Cabinet Ministers, according to a Seychelles News Agency story.
Bharathi Viswanathan, program manager within the Prevention and Control of Cardiovascular Diseases unit at the Seychelles Hospital, was said to have told the news agency that currently all ANDs were banned in the Seychelles.
But the agency reported that, under the new regulation, ANDS would be classified as tobacco products so that nearly all provisions in the Seychelles tobacco control law would extend to their manufacture, distribution, sale and use.
ANDs were not on the market when the Seychelles’ first Tobacco Control Act was drafted in 2009, said Viswanathan; so amending the law would ensure that a ‘framework’ existed for consumers and sellers. Under the new regulation, sellers would need a license.
Viswanathan said that the only difference in treatment of traditional tobacco products and ANDs would be in respect of labeling. The warning labels would not be the same as those on cigarette packaging, but the details were still being worked out.
Presumably, ANDs warning labels will reflect the comparative risks because Viswanathan said that ANDs comprised a good option to help smokers who wanted to quit smoking.
“It is a good way to help smokers quit the habit and it is also less detrimental to health as it contains less nicotine and other harmful substances found in real cigarettes,” she said.
March 28, 2019
When better isn’t best
The next EU Commission will propose strengthening tobacco regulations, based on a report ‘showing how the Tobacco Product Directive (TPD) works in practice’, according to a story by Sarantis Michalopoulos for Euractiv.com quoting the EU Commissioner responsible for health, Vytenis Andriukaitis.
The report was not specified, but, in line with Article 28(1) of the TPD, the Commission is required to submit in 2021 a report on the TPD.
“We have two issues: one is to collect information about electronic cigarettes but also different novel tobacco products,” Andriukaitis was quoted as saying. “They will have a lot of work to do. They need to show how the TPD works in reality and explore possibilities to improve it.”
The EU official, who recently announced he would run for Lithuania’s presidency, was said to have lashed out at the tobacco industry saying that it had not realised the damage it had caused.
Andriukaitis said tobacco was an “accidental product” in Europe as no one on the continent smoked before Columbus brought it here.
He said nicotine posed a completely different issue compared to that posed by alcohol. He conceded that alcohol consumption needed to be controlled but seemed to defend it on the grounds that alcohol had had ‘10,000 years of culture in the continent’.
Michalopoulos wrote that, ‘contrary to the EU executive and the World Health Organization’s strict approach, the tobacco industry claimed that vaping is a good way to replace smoking and eventually quit, and should, therefore, be encouraged’.
Andriukaitis, Michalopoulos wrote, insisted it was better to use smoking cessation aids such as Nicorette. But he added that if there was a real possibility to help heavy smokers kick the habit with the help of electronic cigarettes, then a specific methodology should be followed.
“If one uses electronic cigarettes as a method to stop smoking, it has to be managed by medical doctors and specialists, to be sold in pharmacies and not in supermarkets,” he said.
“But in reality, you see a different picture. The industry proposes dangerous products and they use different loopholes in the directive. And they use different advocates to say they are less harmful. Young adolescents who have never smoked before try to smoke electronic cigarettes. It’s ridiculous,” Andriukaitis said.
March 27, 2019