China has just amended its tobacco monopoly law to include e-cigarettes, as Filter reported.
This means that vaping products and their manufacturers will be regulated strictly by the Chinese government under the same process as cigarettes.
It is unclear exactly what the new regulations will mean in practice—we know that companies will be required to obtain production licenses. But it could be that China is about to revolutionize global tobacco harm reduction.
China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC), the world’s largest tobacco company, sells more than 40 percent of the world’s cigarettes and is wholly owned by the Chinese government. So it would be fair to contend that the government has a lot to gain from slowing or prohibiting the growth of safer alternatives such as vapes and heated tobacco products. At the same time, there are many incentives for the government to push things in an entirely different direction, if it takes a long-term view.
Martin Cullip – Filter – 2021-12-06.
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