Tobacco Alternatives Must Be Linked to Reductions in Existing Tobacco Production Capacity

Focusing on the Two Sessions · Concern for People's Livelihood

March has arrived, marking the time for China's "Two Sessions". This year, on March 5, the fifth session of the 13th National People's Congress opened as scheduled at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Since "e-cigarettes" have entered the public eye with the help of capital, they have become more than just a simple product; they are now a complex social issue involving "tobacco harm reduction" and "minors". Every year during the "Two Sessions", there are proposals regarding e-cigarettes, and this year's proposals are relatively systematic, categorizing e-cigarettes as "tobacco alternatives" and calling for these alternatives to be linked to reductions in existing tobacco production capacity.

National Committee member and professor at Nankai University's Economic Research Institute, Zhong Maochu, has proposed the main topic of "effectively promoting the achievement of smoking control goals", urging that China should quickly formulate a "Tobacco Control Law". He suggests that the number of tobacco operating enterprises, production volume, trade volume, tax revenue, and employment numbers at the national and regional levels must be reduced by a certain percentage compared to the previous year. The development of tobacco alternatives like e-cigarettes must be linked to reductions in existing tobacco production capacity.

Zhong Maochu believes that although China has made some progress in smoking control since joining the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2006, with the smoking rate among people aged 15 and older dropping from 26.6% in 2018 to 25.8% in 2020, there is still a significant gap from the goal of reducing it to 20% by 2030. Various phenomena that violate the provisions of the Convention still exist, and comprehensive smoking ban regulations, such as the mandatory requirement for warning images like "black lungs" on cigarette packs, have yet to be implemented. China's tobacco production is enormous, and the vast interests of the tobacco industry pose the greatest resistance to smoking control decisions.

Regarding "e-cigarettes", Zhong Maochu believes that e-cigarettes should be classified as "tobacco alternatives" and must be linked to reductions in existing tobacco production capacity. This means that investors in tobacco alternatives must acquire and merge existing tobacco production capacity to obtain production and operation licenses (the licensed scale must be smaller than the reduced scale, resulting in an overall reduction). The overall scale of tobacco alternatives like e-cigarettes must be reduced in sync with traditional tobacco economies and smoking populations.

The intention behind Zhong Maochu's proposal is to promote China's smoking control efforts, further intensify smoking control measures, and gradually incorporate the reduction of production capacity, tobacco economy, and smoking population into smoking control measures.

While this proposal is fundamentally correct, its implementation will involve many practical issues related to China's current economic situation and smoking control measures. Setting aside tobacco-related issues, in terms of e-cigarettes, the international classification of e-cigarettes mainly falls into two categories—"harm reduction products" or "(modified, low-risk) tobacco products", which are either advocated under moderate regulation or restricted through regulatory measures. However, the suggestion in the proposal to "reduce in sync with the scale of traditional tobacco economies year by year" is still unprecedented.