According to the Vietnamese news thestar recently reported that according to the Vietnamese regulations in force since 2012, heated tobacco is considered a tobacco product and therefore should comply with the Tobacco Harm Prevention law.
Recently, the issue of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco has attracted the attention of the Vietnamese government and the National Assembly. In order to effectively regulate various tobacco products, the Tobacco Harm Prevention and Control Act is being evaluated.
Article 2.1 of the Act states: “Tobacco means all or part of tobacco raw materials extracted and made into cigarettes, cigars, cigarettes, pipes or other forms of products”, and article 2.3 adds: “Tobacco raw materials are untreated tobacco leaves, flake tobacco leaves with separated stems after pretreatment, tobacco fibers, tobacco stems and other alternative materials used in the production of cigarettes.”
As a result, this regulation considers only the composition of a product to be a “cigarette”, and does not take into account the production process or use of each different type of product, whether in cigarette, cigar, pipe or other forms.
Recently, at the “National Regulatory Work Report meeting on heated tobacco and e-cigarettes”, Vietnam’s Health Minister Dao Hong Lan stressed that there needs to be a sufficient basis to ban the new generation of e-cigarettes, and careful consideration is needed when reviewing the legal applicability of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco. Some department officials say the Tobacco Harm Prevention and Control Act is intended to cover future tobacco products. Mp Pham Khanh Phong Lan said the law clarified the definition of tobacco and related products, including e-cigarettes and heated cigarette products, and the existing law was fully qualified to regulate emerging tobacco products.