EC proposes prohibiting flavoured heated tobacco products
The European Commission (EC) said on June 29 that it was proposing to prohibit the sale of flavoured heated tobacco products in the European Union.
This proposal comes in response to the significant increase in the volumes of heated tobacco products sold across the EU, the EC said.
It said that a recent Commission report showed a 10 per cent increase in the sales volumes of heated tobacco products in more than five EU countries, while overall in the EU, heated tobacco products exceeded 2.5 per cent of total sales of tobacco products.
Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said: “By removing flavoured heated tobacco from the market we are taking yet another step towards realising our vision under Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan to create a ‘Tobacco Free Generation’ with less than five per cent of the population using tobacco by 2040.
“With nine out of 10 lung cancers caused by tobacco, we want to make smoking as unattractive as possible to protect the health of our citizens and save lives,” Kyriakides said.
Stronger actions to reduce tobacco consumption, stricter enforcement and keeping pace with new developments to address the endless flow of new products entering the market – particularly important to protect younger people – were key for this, she said.
The proposal will now undergo a period of scrutiny by EU ministers and the European Parliament and enter into force 20 days after the publication in the bloc’s Official Journal.
EU countries will have eight months to transpose the directive into their national law and after an additional three months of transition, the provisions will start to apply, the EC said.
(Photo: Lindsay Fox, via Wikimedia Commons)
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