News item | 02-12-2022 | 3:15 pm
The cabinet wants children who are growing up now to be part of the smoke-free generation. Additional measures are required to achieve this. From 2025, e-cigarettes can only be sold in specialist shops. The cabinet has decided this because of concerns about the growing popularity of e-cigarettes among young people. The sale of regular cigarettes and rolling tobacco will also be further restricted, on top of the sales ban for supermarkets that will apply from 2024.
From 2030, tobacco may no longer be sold in petrol stations, but only in convenience and specialty stores. From 2032, only specialty shops will be allowed to sell tobacco products. From 2024, there will also be a registration obligation for all tobacco sales points, making monitoring and enforcement easier. The cabinet is extending the smoking ban to places where there are many children, such as playgrounds and sports parks, and is investigating raising the age limit for tobacco to 21 years. Tobacco excise duty will increase by two steps of 1.22 euros over the next two years. How to proceed with an increase in excise duty after 2024 is being investigated.
Do more
State Secretary Van Ooijen of Health, Welfare and Sport: “Smoking causes an enormous amount of health misery for many people. That’s why we need to do more. We will further reduce tobacco products by law, make it easier to quit smoking and do what we can to prevent young people from starting it in the first place. With these measures we are taking important extra steps, so that children who are growing up now can be part of the smoke-free generation.”
Ban nicotine pouches
The tobacco industry is constantly launching new tobacco products and nicotine products without tobacco, making it easier for young people to come into contact with nicotine. Exposure to nicotine has a lasting impact on brain development in young people. It leads to less concentration and more impulsiveness. Moreover, there is concern that these products will lower the threshold for young people to start smoking. The cabinet is therefore going to completely ban so-called nicotine pouches for oral use (similar to snus but without tobacco). For other nicotine products, the rules are aligned with tobacco products as much as possible. This means, among other things, that there will be an age limit and an advertising ban.
Increase in excise duty in the longer term
In 2023 and 2024, the tobacco excise duty for a pack of 20 cigarettes will be increased twice by approximately 1.22 euros, so that from 1 April 2024 a pack will cost an average of 10 euros. Because an increase in excise duty is the most effective measure to reduce health damage from tobacco, the government is investigating how this price measure can best be used after 2024 for the longer term to reach the smoke-free generation in 2040. To this end, 4 scenarios are examined: no further increase, annual indexation, annual increase of 10% and an annual addition of 1 euro.
Age limit to 21 years
The vast majority of smokers start before the age of 21. Raising the age limit can be effective in preventing young people under the age of 18 from taking up smoking, because these young people will then be less able to obtain smoking materials from friends who are slightly older. However, a possible increase in the age limit takes time, in preparation and in order to broaden public support. The effectiveness, feasibility and practicability of an age limit of 21 years is therefore being investigated further.
Stop Smoking Task Force
To make it easier to quit smoking and to motivate more smokers to try to quit, the Stop Smoking Task Force will be set up this year, in which medical specialists, nurses, company doctors and general practitioners are represented, among others. The aim is for more care providers to talk to smokers about smoking and to better refer them to expert guidance during the entire process of quitting.