Despite a total ban on vapes in Brazil, even the authorities are confused about the precise regulations prohibiting vapes. Meanwhile consumers fight for regulation that will combat the risk of contraband vapes in the country. Joining us today is Alexandro Lucian, a journalist, specialist researcher in THR and president of Direta, a non-governmental consumers organisation focused on tobacco harm reduction, to bring us all the latest updates from Brazil!
Chapters:
0:00 - Coming up on today's programme 0:42 - Brazil U-Turns on vape ban on flights 4:28 - Consumers fight for new vape regulations 7:17 - Contraband vapes flood marketTranscription:
00:00:04 --> 00:01:17
Joanna Junak: Hello and welcome! I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.tv. Vaping regulations in Brazil are still evolving. Consequently, there are many questions regarding the legality and accessibility of vaping products. Let's check how the new regulations are currently being interpreted in Brazil. Joining us today to update us on the situation in Brazil is Alexandro Lucian, a journalist, specialist researcher in THR and president of Gireta, a non-governmental consumer's organization focused on tobacco harm reduction. Hello, Alexandro. Due to these new regulations in Brazil, some people are having difficulties with the interpretation of vaping policy. Can you please explain to us what has recently happened in Brazil because of these changes?
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Alexandro Lucian: Of course, because Anvisa prohibited vaping commerce, advertising and importation since 2009. But they never prohibited things like manufacturing, And it was a flawed law. So in the past, I don't know, four years, five years, they were discussing about updating this regulation. And this year they updated, unfortunately, maintaining the ban. but we think that they did a very poor job because the text they use, the words, the phrases they used was not exactly, it was open for interpretation. So they included words like transportation and storage of vaping devices and vaping products without telling specifically that was for commerce purposes. So this made ANAC, which is the agency that controls all the flight travels in Brazil, to understand that the transportation was also included to the persons, to the users, to the consumers. So they updated their regulation in their website. stating that vaping devices could not be transported in any domestic flight in Brazil. When we saw that, we as consumers and myself as president of Direta, which is an organization representing vaping consumers in Brazil, we reached out to ANAC asking them why they were banning vaping devices since it was not what Anvisa or regulatory agency was intending to do. And then after some pressure, some letters we sent, they reached out to Anvisa. So ANAC spoke to Anvisa about it. And a few, I think, two or three months after the banning, they... changed their minds and now we are as we should be. So transportation on vaping devices are allowed, domestic flights, and you can even go out of Brazil, go to any country in the world, but you cannot come back with vaping devices. The importation of vaping devices are still banned. This was specifically put in the new regulation of Anvisa So any importation whatsoever, even if it's not for commerce, just for your personal use, is forbidden. So if you try to enter Brazil coming from England, Canada, or any other country, despite these countries having regulations and permitting the sales of VPN devices, you cannot enter Brazil. And if they find your device, they will confiscate it.
00:04:29 --> 00:04:38
Joanna Junak: And can you tell us about Bill 5008 and what measures it proposes regarding the regulation of vaping products?
00:04:39 --> 00:07:16
Alexandro Lucian: We have a bill 5008 from Senator Soraya Tronic. This bill was introduced at the end of last year and several actions were already taken, for example, some public hearings and some commissions, but The way things work in Brazil, every bill must pass several steps before it becomes active. So right now, we have to pass three commissions. And this bill is only in the first commission. And because of a lot of things happening, even because once one bill is being discussed, it doesn't mean that it's going to be voted because you have... some senators that want to take a closer look to this bill, so another 30 days must pass, and then they have other bills that are more urgent they have to discuss, so this bill goes in a secondary position, and so on and so on. We also have elections right now for mayors, city elections everywhere in Brazil, So we have right now a moment of standby to wait for these elections to pass, and then this subject is going to be discussed again. There is a lot of resistance. There are a lot of senators that are not... supporting this bill. There's a lot of other senators that are. The consumers are supporting this bill because what this bill wants is to regulate similarly like cigarettes in the meaning that it's going to be regulated the substances used in the manufacturing. It must be registered in Anvisa and compared it with toxicological reports with the cigarette and shows it's less harmful, you will have the possibility to have devices that are sold only for adults. You don't allow advertisement. You... put some heavy fines to whoever tries to sell to minors and some other rules that we need because right now in Brazil we have absolutely no rules whatsoever about vaping commerce in the country.
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Joanna Junak: And last question to you, Alexandro. There's an important new agency in Brazil that we've heard about. What is it?
00:07:27 --> 00:10:30
Alexandro Lucian: We have an agency called Federal Revenue, which is like the IRS in the America. It's an agency that controls taxes, customs, everything in Brazil. And the Federal Revenue of Brazil are those who are responsible for... fiscalization and for seizing products that are contrabanded in Brazil, everything from cell phones and counterfeited products and also vaping devices. This agency, the chief of this agency, went in a meeting with Anvisa saying that the federal revenue of Brazil cannot and it's unable to properly make fiscalizations of vaping devices in Brazil. They told Anvisa that it's impossible to control all the contraband that enters Brazil and a regulation should happen if we wanted to protect the consumers and also all the society in Brazil. The numbers they show is about $10 million every year since 2022. So in 2022, we had 50 million reais in products, which stands at almost for $10 million, just of products that were confiscated. In 2023, we had another $10 million, even more, And we have sold $20 million in the last two years of confiscated products. And the Federal Revenue told Anvisa that they think this is only 10% of the products that actually enters Brazil. Since the people don't understand that vaping is prohibited, there is no... understanding of the prohibition of those products, it's impossible, in these were the words of the Federal Revenue of Brazil, it's impossible to properly make a fiscalization, make an effort to stop the contraband in Brazil. So they asked Anvisa to think about some kind of regulation so they could make their job much easier and also possible. So this is very important because we see one of the most important agencies in Brazil that controls everything we do like taxes and everything we buy, we pay faxes and they control everything. is saying to Anvisa that it's impossible to control the contraband in Brazil since it's so big and so already everywhere in Brazil.
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Joanna Junak: Thank you, Aleksandro. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. You can also find transcriptions of each episode on the GFN TV website. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.