Commission plans to boost supervision of e-cigarettes

Legislation planned amid concerns young people are using product more

China is planning to establish legislation to supervise electronic cigarettes as part of overall tobacco control efforts as use of the products increases among the youth, the National Health Commission said on July 22.

"To reduce tobacco prevalence, we must prevent adolescents from trying tobacco. But e-cigarettes can easily lure youngsters and turn them into users of traditional tobacco later," Mao Qun'an, chief of the commission's planning department, said at a news conference.

"It is necessary to intensify supervision over e-cigarettes. The National Heath Commission is working with other related departments conducting research on e-cigarette supervision and planning to put it under supervision through legislative means."

Like conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes can also be harmful. The flavored vapor they produce contains many toxic substances, and smokers could get addicted to the nicotine, Mao said.

"The use of e-cigarettes has become a popular trend in China and many other countries as well," he said. "Although the number of e-cigarette smokers in China is still low, surveys show an increasing number of people, mostly young people, are using them."

About 0.9 percent of people in China were e-cigarette users last year - compared with 0.5 percent in 2015 - according to a survey released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in May, which was based on nearly 20,000 people across China. The number of e-cigarette users in China who are 15 years or older is estimated at 10 million, the center said.

In comparison, of all people 15 years or above in China, 26.6 percent last year were smokers of conventional tobacco, a decline from 27.7 percent in 2015, the report said.

Although law and regulations are generally lacking regarding the supervision of e-cigarettes in China, progress has been made in the past few years, with a few cities adopting legislation.

In June, Shenzhen, a major city in South China's Guangdong province, passed a regulation that added e-cigarettes to its smoking control list, which means they will be banned in the city's indoor public places.

Previously, other cities including Hong Kong, Macao and Hangzhou also enacted similar bans. In addition, other countries such as Singapore and Australia have included e-cigarettes in their tobacco control lists.

In Beijing, the existing tobacco control regulation only targets conventional cigarettes, resulting in a dilemma for enforcement officials in the city when they receive complaints about people using e-cigarettes in public places, said Wang Benjin, an official for health law enforcement at Beijing Municipal Health Commission.

Tobacco control has been included as a crucial part of China's overall efforts to improve people's health, according to a national plan released by the State Council, China's Cabinet, earlier this month.

It is expected that the percentage of smokers who are 15 years or older in China will decline to 24.5 percent by 2022 and to 20 percent by 2030, according to the plan.