Korea Electronic Cigarette Association: The blind spot of synthetic nicotine e-liquid regulation needs to be addressed urgently and it is recommended to include it in the Tobacco Law

Korea Electronic Cigarette Association: The blind spot of synthetic nicotine e-liquid regulation needs to be addressed urgently and it is recommended to include it in the Tobacco Law

The Korean Electronic Cigarette Association supports the amendment to the Tobacco Business Act, advocating that synthetic nicotine be classified as tobacco to eliminate regulatory blind spots and promote reasonable tax rate adjustments.

According to Asia Time on August 8, the Korean Electronic Cigarette Association said that it supports the amendment to the Tobacco Business Act, requiring "synthetic nicotine" to be classified as cigarettes.

The Electronic Cigarette Association called the amendment "an essential law" and advocated "eliminating regulatory blind spots by quickly passing the Tobacco Business Act that defines synthetic nicotine as tobacco, and also considering reasonable adjustments to tax rates by tobacco type (such as ordinary tobacco, heat-not-burn e-cigarettes, and atomized e-cigarettes) to increase tax revenue."

On the 15th of last month, Park Sung-hoon, a member of the People's Power Party, proposed a "Partial Amendment Bill to the Tobacco Business Act" that includes expanding the definition of tobacco from "using all or part of tobacco leaves" to "using tobacco and nicotine."

Article 2 of the Tobacco Business Act defines tobacco as "products suitable for smoking, chewing, smelling or atomizing with tobacco leaves as all or part of the raw materials."

According to current laws, the main raw material must be tobacco to be classified as tobacco, so synthetic nicotine e-liquids are not considered tobacco under domestic law. Therefore, synthetic nicotine e-liquids do not need to be labeled with warning slogans and pictures like ordinary tobacco, and can be sold and promoted online, and do not need to pay tobacco-related taxes.

Park Sung-hoon pointed out that synthetic nicotine tobacco products are not subject to youth sales penalties and can even be set up in educational environmental protection areas, resulting in teenagers being exposed to atomized electronic cigarettes without protection.

According to the association, the import volume of synthetic nicotine e-liquids has more than doubled from 56 tons in 2020 to 119 tons in 2022. As of 2022, the proportion of e-cigarette e-liquids containing synthetic nicotine is 92.2%.

The association emphasized that

"Countries such as the United States and Sweden regulate synthetic nicotine as tobacco or nicotine products, and New Zealand's smoking rate has dropped sharply to 6.8% after introducing atomized electronic cigarettes as a smoking ban policy. Therefore, our country should also quickly classify related products such as synthetic nicotine as tobacco."