Poland is forging ahead with new restrictions on safer nicotine products, whilst still equating vaping with smoking - is this anti-THR messaging harming efforts to reduce smoking in the country? Przemysław Bobiński of #GFN25 media partner Vapour Poland joins us to discuss this and more!
Transcription:
00:04 - 01:13
[Joanna Junak]
Hello and welcome! I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.TV. The Global Forum on Nicotine Conference will take place once again in Warsaw, Poland. Recently, many European countries, including Poland, have introduced new regulations restricting safer alternatives to smoking. So, in today's program, Przemysław Bobiński, Editor-in-Chief, Vapor Poland, Safer Nicotine Business Forum, discusses the current state of tobacco harm reduction in Poland. How is this approach understood and implemented in the country? What do the regulations say? And how are safer nicotine products promoted as a healthier alternative to smoking? Hello Przemek, could you please tell us about the current state of tobacco harm reduction policy in Poland?
01:14 - 03:09
[Przemysław Bobiński]
So the thing with the harm reduction in Poland is that it doesn't exist at all in the term of the health, especially in the area of alternative nicotine. Mateusz Piorkowski- Despite the doesn't exist, this is the funnest thing is that our levels of people that are smoking now in Poland reached over 29% so it's one of the highest number of smokers in. whole Europe and despite of it the government doesn't care about the harm reduction at all and so there is no framework for harm reduction and it's still considered as a fairy tale and it's they literally they use this term in the manner of harm reduction and Each year, the Polish government spends more than 30 million złoty on fighting with the tobacco products to lower the rate of smoking. and nothing happens for many years. The majority of the funds are going to campaigns that are against the alternative nicotine products. For me, it's strange, but it's also terrible. I think that this is... This is all that I can tell about harm reduction in Poland. There is none.
03:12 - 03:21
[Joanna Junak]
And what is the official government message to the public regarding safer alternative nicotine products? And how is the topic shown in the media?
03:22 - 05:41
[Przemysław Bobiński]
The main message is kept the same from many years and it doesn't change despite any new studies and anything is going with the new information about safer products is just the same. The main message is that everything is harming the same your health. So even the alternative products are making more harm than the traditional cigarettes. And the second thing is that The whole subject is pushed on youngsters. The whole subject is just with the young people, not with the people who are trying to quit smoking. And this is one of the biggest problem that they are referring just to young people. The next thing is that the message is that everything what you can hear good about harm reduction and about alternative nicotine is considered to be message from the tobacco industry. And it's probably false. So everyone wants to trick you to use their products. And the last thing is that the best way to cope with this kind of product is to ban them. And totally ban. So for every aspect of the alternative nicotine products. So it's beginning with the... electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches, but with the exception of heated tobacco.
05:43 - 05:55
[Joanna Junak]
The Polish Parliament has passed an amendment to the Act on the Protection of Public Health against the Effects of Tobacco Use and Tobacco Products. What are the key changes introduced by this amendment?
05:57 - 10:24
[Przemysław Bobiński]
Key changes about the amendment. There are two things connected with it. The message of the government, why they are doing this, was to stop miners to use even non-nicotine cigarettes and liquids. And this is the first thing that is in this amendment. And this is connected to the... So you have a law giving the fines for the stores for selling for minors the electronic cigarettes, liquids and disposables. non-nicotine. So the second thing is that they make the liquids without the nicotine, which are considered to be used in the electronic cigarettes, to be also subject to the same laws as the nicotine products, as a liquid containing the nicotine. So the major change is, first, you have to have these products registered the same as a nicotine products. And the second thing is that you have the bottle size of the non-nicotine liquids in the 10 mils. So under this amendment, they change the whole market by forbidding the premixes. So most of the products, like before there was premix bottles, so long fills or short fills, they are changed to be forbidden now. And also the flavorings. The flavorings for now can be used only in 10ml bottles. What else? Of course, there is also the two-mill law for the size of the containers. Because the size of the... This was something that was like... not used in non-nicotine products. So the size of the container in the electronic cigarettes, which have to be now less than two mils. And this is the big thing that has started now. In the EU law, there is one thing that the volume of the liquid of the electronic cigarette liquid have to be less than 10 ml. And in the Polish law, the translation was that the bottle for the electronic cigarette liquid have to be less than 10 ml. So until now, until I think about one month ago, this was not a problem. and from one month they started to measure the all of the bottles containing the liquid also the the capacity of the containers which have to be less than two meals and frankly i think that there is no single device that is meets this criteria in the market and not even single bottle because more every bottle 10ml bottle have to be bigger have to be have bigger capacity to fill it up. So this is a strange but this is the thing that's also in this act. And it's also connected with the with the non nicotine liquids.
10:25 - 10:33
[Joanna Junak]
You mentioned banning e-cigarettes for minors. Does that mean that there is a problem with e-cigarette use among young people?
10:34 - 13:40
[Przemysław Bobiński]
Yes, it is. Yes, there is a problem. Because even on the streets, you can see many miners who are using electronic cigarettes. But the most important thing is that most of it is big puffs from the black market and not really regulated products. So making this kind of act, making disposables, legal disposables disappear from the market is making the thing that they are trying to opposite thing that they are trying to do. So to make miners to use electronic security a bit less, they are growing the black market and it's very easy to acquire this kind of products. uh in poland now and uh it started to be more profitable for the for the companies to sell this kind of products and we can see in the even me on the facebook i'm getting uh adverts from the companies that are selling uh big puffs and uh sending it to your home all the time. And it's nothing that the government that don't do anything with it, because it's very hard to fight with this with this kind of cell. But despite to fight with the black market, they fight with the legal products. And I think that is going to be a bigger problem. Should the electronic cigarettes, even without the nicotine, be banned for the minors? Of course, yes. And is it a problem in Poland? Yes, big. Some studies say that there is more than 70%. people, youngsters in the schools who are using electronic cigarettes once a month, and about even 50% who are using daily. But this kind of service, I don't believe them, but the government doing such a service and make it public. But it's still, despite the numbers, I think there are less than 50%. I think it's about 30%, but it's still a very big number. So it should be, you have to do something about it. But I think that education should be the key to make something with it, not the banning of the products.
13:42 - 13:44
[Joanna Junak]
So who should educate the public?
13:46 - 16:04
[Przemysław Bobiński]
This is the thing. Who should educate? If there is no harm reduction at all policy and harm reduction education in Poland, who should educate? This is a big problem because we don't have any school. I don't know about what, but the cigarettes are harmful, of course. And there is this kind of education, but... What else should we do? Really, for real, I don't know. I don't know for now because the campaigns of the black market products in Facebook, for example, on any other social media is very connected with the minors, with the music, and everything like this. And this is the forbidden fruit. I don't know how to say it in English. And it's very attractive for the young people. And in my opinion, it would be very hard to do something with it. And it would be very, we should have a very good plan, educational plan, and maybe some other things, and especially true about harm reduction. Yeah. And one more thing, In my opinion, one of the big problems in Poland is that there is a big advertising of the cigarettes. And despite that there is forbidden advertising, the advertising of cigarettes is forbidden. Every store, when you're going to go to Zabka or some other groceries, you have full shelves, even on gas station. You have whole shelves, which are one of the most beautiful shelves in the whole store. There is a cigarettes shelf. I think this is one of the problem.
16:06 - 16:17
[Joanna Junak]
Let's talk briefly about nicotine pouches, as some countries in Europe have introduced regulations regarding their use. What is the status of their regulation in Poland?
16:20 - 19:18
[Przemysław Bobiński]
About the nicotine pouches, the first law that came out was the law about the excise tax. It's from April of this year that the nicotine pouch is going to be subjected to taxation. They started to be defined by the law because there was no such a product before in the law. This is the first law that they are subjected to taxation. In my opinion, it's okay. So it's good to have something written in law and to regulate the market at all. And the second law that was introduced now, because I think it's going to be from today, it's going to be in a couple of weeks. is that you can sell and advertise the nicotine pouches. Is it okay? I think yes. It shouldn't be advertised and it shouldn't be sold for the underage people. So there are two things. But there's also another thing that was introduced into the law, but it was cancelled just before the act that happened. This week, in the law, there was the nicotine pouches would be considered the same. The law would be considered them as the same as a heated tobacco product. So there is not going to be any other flavorings, despite of tobacco. But they canceled this act. But we are waiting for it. Because they said that probably in the next year, in the beginning of the next year, they're going to be also the law that's banning the flavorings from the nicotine pouches. Also, there is the definition of the of the nicotine pouches is very narrow. So there is no place for the nicotine slice or something like this, like other products, like dissolving products in your mouth. So the nicotine pouch can't be dissolved.
19:20 - 19:28
[Joanna Junak]
And the last question to you, Przemek. What is the current regulatory status of other alternative tobacco products in the country?
19:31 - 24:04
[Przemysław Bobiński]
So the... The year 2025 was, I think it was one of the most important year for the alternative tobacco product despite of the regulation. The first thing was that they changed the road of the exact tax. They're going to change the exact tax soon also from the beginning of the next year. It's going to be much higher. But this year they introduced two very important taxes. They put the taxes, the first in the, I think, I don't know, even if it's in the first in the world, the taxation of the devices. So we have now From July, we have the taxation of the devices, so that each electronic cigarette, disposable or non-disposable, is subjected to taxation. And this tax is about 40 zloty, so it's about 10 euro. And there was a change also about the definition of the electronic cigarettes. And the electronic cigarette in Poland now is considered every device that's after connecting to the power source or steering unit can be used as a vaporizer. Even the pot by itself, it's now considered as an electronic cigarette and it's subjected to taxation. And so we are the pioneers in Poland in this kind of law. How are we going to end with the products? I think that the first thing is that from July, the disposable electronic cigarettes The disposables are not banned in Poland. They're going to be subjected to 40 zloty tax, so this 10 euro tax per piece. So this is the same as you would ban them. And what about the other products? Probably with the other products, they're going to stay on the market. Of course, there's going to be much more money to be spent on this kind of product by the consumers. But I think that the product is going to survive this taxation. And the thing with the 10 ml bottles, there started to be a big problem. I just said controlling the whole bunch of products on the market is now happening. And we don't know what's going to happen with the whole market because of the capacity problem with the bottles, which is surreal for me. And also the nicotine pouches are going to be taxated. So I think it's good for this kind of product to be legalized more and to be present in the law. But still, it's a big fight with these products. And I think that The whole thing that the government is doing in Poland is totally opposite to the harm reduction. I think that in Poland more than 80,000 people died last year from using cigarettes. and from using alternative tobacco products, none. So maybe someone should take this into consideration.
24:06 - 24:19
[Joanna Junak]
Thank you, Przemek. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. And make sure to check out our conference website or social media pages for the latest updates.