December 8 news, the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau and other two ministries jointly issued a circular emphasizing that e-cigarettes should not be sold to minors online or offline. Now the ban has been issued for more than a month, can a paper ban really stop the e-cigarette business chaos? Let’s take a look at the Lightning reporter’s investigation.
Lightning news reporters found that in some supermarkets, cash registers and large shopping malls in Qingdao, there are e-cigarettes for sale. There are businesses saying that e-cigarettes can completely replace cigarettes and have no side effects on the body.
Because the sale of e-cigarettes has no corresponding laws and regulations, it is not subject to the management of tobacco monopoly law. As an electronic product, as long as you are allowed to sell electronic products, you can sell them.
In terms of banning the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors, some large electronic cigarette counters are relatively strict. However, the Lightning news reporter found in the survey that many kinds of e-cigarettes were placed in the eye-catching position of the supermarket cash register at the entrance of primary and secondary schools. Although there are signs that minors are not allowed to buy, some teenagers can still buy electronic cigarettes here.
In the face of the junior high school students still wearing uniforms, the sales staff not only did not stop, but also recommended the flavored products to the children. In some chain convenience stores in Qingdao, minors can also buy e-cigarettes at will,
According to the relevant data, the proportion of using electronic cigarettes in China between 15 and 24 years old has reached 1.5%, far beyond other age stages.
On October 29, eight ministries and commissions, including the National Health Commission, the Central Propaganda Department and the Ministry of Education, jointly issued a notice on Further Strengthening the tobacco control work for adolescents. However, due to regulatory issues, many students with traditional cigarettes can be seen near many schools
The off-line sales of e-cigarettes are not optimistic, so how about the strictly prohibited on-line sales of e-cigarettes, please continue to see the investigation of Lightning journalists. Lightning news reporter first in Taobao, Jingdong and other e-commerce platforms, search, e-cigarettes, steam smoke and other keywords show no relevant search results, obviously some sensitive words have been blocked. Then, Lightning news reporter searched for keywords such as Pod, and there was no e-cigarette on the search results page, just some e-cigarette products. When the Lightning news reporter entered the main page of the business, he found that the e-cigarettes sold by the business could not be purchased, only a few e-cigarette stickers and protective covers were sold. Later, Lightning news reporter contacted customer service of several businesses. Customer service said that there was e-cigarette, but Wechat was needed to buy it.
It can be seen that businesses are very cautious in chatting on e-commerce platforms, avoiding sensitive words such as e-cigarettes, and just trying to let Lightening journalists add wechat to each other. Lightning news reporter added shop wechat, the other side immediately sent a large number of e-cigarette pictures.
Customer service staff said: “Taobao doesn’t allow selling it. It has been removed from the shelves. The on-site Tobacco Bureau doesn’t allow selling it, saying that it was afraid of selling it to minors, so it transferred its dealing place to Wechat. ” Throughout the chat, the other side did not ask to verify the age of the Lightning reporter.
This kind of homophonic code purchase, also appears in Xianyu ecommerce platform and other second-hand trading platforms. When the Lightning news reporter clicked on an e-cigarette product in the advertising space of Xianyu, he directly opened an e-cigarette shop on Taobao. What’s more peculiar is that there is only one electronic cigarette device in the whole shop for attracting traffic. The main page of the shop reads several lines of bold characters: electronic cigarette is not prohibited, please treat it correctly, we normally process orders and deliver goods. Now the online platform channel has been unable to purchase, so we need to add wechat to place an order.
Because of the lack of effective supervision, online purchase of e-cigarettes by secret code is not troublesome, and product quality, after-sales service, etc. are also difficult to guarantee.
There is a ban, but if there is no regulation, it will become a dead letter. Why can the relevant chaos be repeatedly forbidden? What should the relevant regulatory authorities do? Lightning journalists continue to pay attention to it.
