They come in a box with the same shape as a packet of tobacco. They are long and cylindrical, like cigarettes. And also, they have an effect where they seem to emit smoke. Due to the description and its similarities with tobacco, it could be some new smoking device, but in reality it is chewing gum that, due to its packaging, illustrated with colorful drawings, is intended for children. The Ministry of Health has recently issued a note reminding that it is prohibited to sell this type of products to minors.
“Given the appearance on the market of chewing gum-type products that, both due to their design and their promotion, for example, with a ‘smoke effect’, clearly imitate the act of smoking,” begins the note from the General Directorate of Public Health, the department by Mónica García warns that Law 28/2005, of December 26, on health measures against smoking and regulating the sale, supply, consumption and advertising of tobacco products, considers “the sale or delivery to persons under eighteen years of age of tobacco products or products that imitate tobacco products and induce smoking, as well as sweets, snacks, toys and other objects that are shaped like tobacco products and may be attractive to minors.
Thus, Health insists, the sale of this type of products is not prohibited but the ministry does remind that only adults can buy them, so the merchant cannot sell them or deliver them to minors under 18 years of age. The person responsible for the store where they are sold will face this sanction if they provide it to children.
Sources from the Ministry of Health explain that García’s department cannot act otherwise, since the manufacture of these products is not illegal, nor is their sale to adults. On a recurring basis, they say, the autonomous communities notify the ministry that they detect the sale of these products in candy kiosks for children, hence Health issues the reminder.
For Francisco Pascual, president of the National Committee for the Prevention of Smoking (CNPT), the Ministry of Consumer Affairs should establish the places where these types of products can be sold “and they should be places where people over 18 years of age go, “It could prohibit it from being sold in candy stores,” he says. It recognizes, however, that, as is the case with some of the new smoking devices, these gums can also be found in stores that are often “unregulated businesses, in which, for example, alcohol is sold” beyond the permitted hours or to minors. of age. “You have to be quite restrictive when establishing where and how it can be sold,” he claims.
The “psychological component”
The president of the CNPT also believes that the important thing about these products is the “psychological component” they entail, since children imitate the behaviors of smokers when they consume them. “Addiction not only resides in the substance and toxicity component, but in the behavioral, gestural or behavioral issue, which in this case what it does for minors is incite an imitation of what adults do,” Pascual sentence. He insists that these gestures can “open the door” to tobacco consumption in the future.
Including this type of products in the new anti-smoking legislation prepared by Health, launched by Francisco Pascual, could be a good solution to stop their consumption among minors. «Anything that recalls or leads to imitation of tobacco products should be regulated in some way and contemplated in the legislation, because there is also prior regulation, but we know that sometimes the regulations seem to be made to be bypassed. “You have to be much stricter,” he claims.
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