E-cigarettes no longer sold to minors in Romania
A law banning the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors has been endorsed by Parliament in Bucharest and will be submitted to president Klaus Iohannis for promulgation
Mihai Pelin, 29.02.2024, 13:50
After last week’s ban on the sale of energy drinks to minors in Romania, now it is time for the e-cigarettes to be included in the same category of banned products. The law banning the sale of such products to minors has been endorsed by the decision-making Chamber of Deputies.
The Romanian MPs have endorsed a bill banning the sale of vapes to young people under 18. This category of banned products also includes the tobacco heating devices and oral nicotine products.
Any violation of the new law will be sanctioned with high fines in accordance with the crime gravity, including the sale of the aforementioned banned products via the vending machines, easyboxes or couriers.
Customers will have to produce an ID in shops or when they get their online orders. At the same time, students are not allowed to use the aforementioned products in schools or other education units. At the same time, schools will have to introduce in their regulations, coercive measures in order to make students comply with the law banning the sale, ownership or use of tobacco-based products, e-cigarettes and tobacco-heating devices on school premises.
The definition of the e-cigarette and its refills has been taken over from the European legislation. Several amendments, initially rejected by the specialized committees, have also been endorsed during the latest debates housed by the Chamber of Deputies.
Most of these belong to the Chamber’s interim president Social-Democrat Alfred Simonis, who has also initiated the aforementioned bill.
Alfred Simonis: “Children will no longer be able to buy such electronic cigarettes. Neither will they be able to buy those nicotine pouches. These products will no longer be available in vending machines at that, while fines will be up to 20 thousand Euros for any shop that sells these things to minors.”
The opposition USR and AUR have also endorsed the bill, but added that banning advertisements to these products is equally important. Here is the USR MP, Emanuel Ungureanu.
Emanuel Ungureanu: “Publicity – banning advertisements to these products is the key, as in this way you sanction the sellers as well. You thus stop the spreading of fake news even to committees – that these products are less toxic than traditional smoking. Being exposed to commercials for these products is the most toxic thing, which you cannot prevent only through banning the products.”
Scientific research shows that the use of this type of products entails a series of health risks.
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