Representative He Lin: Speed up the introduction of industry regulations so young people stay away f

On March 3, He Lin, a deputy to the National People's Congress and deputy director of the Health Education Institute of the Guizhou Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a reporter from Democracy and Legal System News that during this year's Two Sessions she submitted a proposal on “protecting minors from e-cigarettes and accelerating the introduction of industry regulations.”

In recent years, e-cigarette use among adolescents has become a key concern in global public health.

According to He Lin, e-cigarettes, also known as “electronic nicotine delivery systems,” vary in nicotine content and harmful emissions, and are harmful both to users and to people indirectly exposed to the aerosolized substances. Some e-cigarettes marketed as nicotine-free have been found to contain addictive nicotine. Exposure to nicotine products can harm adolescents whose bodies are not yet fully developed.

However, at present, e-cigarette sales and promotional advertising can be seen everywhere at counters in malls, supermarkets, and convenience stores across China.

According to the 2019 China Secondary School Tobacco Survey released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 69.9% of junior middle school students had heard of e-cigarettes in 2019, and the usage rate was 2.7%. Compared with 2014, these figures increased by 24.9 and 1.5 percentage points, respectively. E-cigarette use among Chinese adolescents is showing a clear upward trend.

“Teenagers are highly curious and are more likely to try new things,” He Lin said. The e-cigarettes currently circulating on the market include many categories such as heated tobacco and vaping devices, with more than 15,000 flavors. Yet there are still no industry standards specifying what materials may be added to e-cigarettes, in what quantities, or what substances may be released. There are also no regulations governing the safety of the batteries used for heating, leaving such decisions to individual manufacturers.

He Lin said the newly revised Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Minors clearly prohibits the sale of cigarettes and e-cigarettes to minors.

So far, countries including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, and Italy all stipulate that e-cigarettes may not be sold to people under the age of 18.

To this end, He Lin recommended that the relevant administrative authorities under the State Council speed up the formulation of e-cigarette industry standards so that regulation has clear rules to follow; strictly enforce the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Minors by prohibiting the sale of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to minors; and formulate comprehensive measures for the production and sale of e-cigarettes.