Xinhua: Ningxia cracks down on disorder in the new e-cigarette market

Xinhua News Agency reported on April 14 that in recent years, the regulation of China's e-cigarette market has gradually become standardized. However, some non-standard fruit-flavored e-cigarettes have begun to appear in disguised forms, with products resembling "milk tea cups" and "cola cans" that look like children's toys or trendy drinks, representing illegal products in the e-cigarette market.

To rectify various chaotic phenomena in the e-cigarette market, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Tobacco Monopoly Bureau and the Autonomous Region Market Supervision Administration jointly issued a notice on "Comprehensively Standardizing the Order of the E-Cigarette Market," clarifying the focus and prohibitions of the joint inspection work of the two departments and carrying out special inspections of the e-cigarette market.

The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Tobacco Monopoly Bureau conducted comprehensive research on nearly 300 existing e-cigarette market entities in the region, released the Autonomous Region's "E-Cigarette Retail Point Layout Plan," and scientifically and effectively allocated resources in the e-cigarette retail market; successively formulated a series of institutional documents such as the "E-Cigarette Normalized Market Supervision Work Plan" to standardize law enforcement and regulatory behavior; urged the e-cigarette regulatory key city—Yinchuan City Tobacco Monopoly Bureau to jointly sign a "Long-term Mechanism for Joint Law Enforcement and Supervision of the E-Cigarette Market" with six departments including the Yinchuan Civil Affairs Bureau, Public Security Bureau, and Market Supervision Bureau, forming a joint law enforcement leadership group.

In the process of promoting special inspections, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Tobacco Monopoly Bureau played a role in the long-term system of joint law enforcement and supervision of the e-cigarette market, coordinating law enforcement forces across the region to form a regulatory synergy.

Highlighting comprehensive supervision of market entities. Focusing on illegal activities such as operating e-cigarettes without a license, selling e-cigarettes to minors, and selling non-standard e-cigarettes, the bureau, together with market supervision and other departments, conducted joint law enforcement inspections in key places such as large commercial complexes, dining and entertainment venues, and electronic markets, simultaneously clearing illegal e-cigarette advertisements and online sales links, continuously standardizing the legal awareness of e-cigarette operators, and effectively blocking illegal sales channels for e-cigarettes.

Joint inspections of dining and entertainment venues.

Emphasizing logistics and delivery supervision. Actively coordinating with postal services, express distribution centers, and transportation and road administration departments to increase inspection efforts on logistics packages involving e-cigarettes and land transportation links, strictly investigating the sources of involved packages and illegal carrying of e-cigarettes beyond limits, effectively enhancing the targeting and precision of supervision and enforcement.

Conducting inspections of logistics points involving e-cigarette packages.

Focusing on major cases and breaking networks. Organizing the Autonomous Region's intelligence information analysis center for tobacco-related cases to comprehensively collect and analyze clues related to internet sales of e-cigarettes, continuously increasing cooperation efforts, and requesting public security departments to intervene in external investigations in advance, fully grasping the flow of funds and sources involved in the cases, and vigorously promoting the extension of major case clues upstream.

Seized various illegal e-cigarette products.

Since the normalization of e-cigarette regulation, the region has completed the rectification of 146 entities, organized changes to over 120 non-compliant business licenses, and cleared over 1,300 illegal e-cigarette advertisements; 15 e-cigarette cases have been investigated, with 8,453 tobacco sticks and 953 e-cigarette devices seized, along with 2,456 invisible mutated e-cigarettes such as "milk tea cups" and "cola cans."