Lithuanian legislators have proposed the idea of confining sales of electronic cigarettes to pharmacies in an effort to discourage smoking among teenagers. The parliament has recently passed amendments, banning electronic cigarettes with added flavours.
Proponents of even stricter regulation argue that electronic cigarettes contain unknown ingredients, their effects on the body are untested and their consumption uncontrolled. Thirty members of the Lithuanian parliament have therefore proposed legislating that e-cigarettes only be sold in pharmacies.
“This how we respond to the theoretical possibility that the device and its nicotine content could theoretically be used by people with tobacco addiction,” says Aurelijus Veryga, an opposition MP, member of the Health Committee and former health minister.
It would therefore make sense, he argues, that manufacturers should register electronic cigarettes as pharmaceutical products: “They must meet safety requirements, have dosage prescriptions, be tested in clinical trials and so on.”
In pharmacies, hazards associated with electronic cigarettes could be controlled and minimised, the restriction proponents argue.
“Maybe they won’t cause addiction risks like tobacco. And they will certainly not contain substances that can cause poisoning or other health problems,” says MP Rita Tamašunienė.
Critics of the proposal, meanwhile, says it makes no sense and is unworkable.
According to MP Morgana Danielė, who chairs the Commission on Addiction Prevention, argues the problem is not so much electronic cigarettes themselves, but illegal sales, including to minors.
“The unintended consequence of such a restriction would be a further growth of the black market, where adults as well as teenagers would be forced to buy what they want,” the liberal MP says.
“Let’s take the analogy and apply it to alcohol,” MP Ieva Kačinskaitė-Urbonienė says. “This means that we ban all alcohol in all flavours and only allow certain alcoholic beverages to be purchased with prescriptions from a pharmacy. Now that is nonsense.”
Family doctors point out that e-cigarettes are neither a medicine nor a medical treatment and call the politicians’ proposal “a misunderstanding”.
“Surely, nicotine addiction cannot be treated with nicotine,” argues Gina Stockė, representative of the Family Doctors’ Union. “It would be the same if pharmacies were selling sugar, salt or any other product that we would like to reduce the consumption of.”
The MPs who penned the proposal say they are following an example of Australia, where smokers will need a doctor’s prescription to buy nicotine vaporisation products such as electronic cigarettes, nicotine capsules and liquid nicotine.
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