Xinhua All Media + 丨 Tea cigarettes are not addictive to cigarettes, is it harmless? ——Be wary of the health traps behind the "routine" of tea and cigarettes
Xinhua News Agency, Nanchang, May 30 (Reporter Guo Jiewen) "Take tea is healthier", "no nicotine", "harmless to the human body"... After e-cigarettes, a new product of tea cigarettes has become increasingly popular, and some businesses claim tea cigarettes It does not contain nicotine, and has the effect of "replacement of cigarettes" and "quit smoking", and is known as "healthy cigarettes".
On the occasion of the 34th World No Tobacco Day, a reporter's investigation found that tea cigarettes known as "healthy cigarettes" are not healthy, and some tea cigarettes have even more tar content than traditional cigarettes. At the same time, tea cigarettes that claim to be "smoothable and brewable" are not healthy. Product classification is neither food nor tobacco, and there is a blind spot in supervision.
Is the tar content of cigarettes and tea cigarettes really "healthy cigarettes"?
Tea tobacco, a product made from tea, chrysanthemum, mint, etc., is similar in appearance, smoking method, and taste to traditional cigarettes.
The reporter searched on the e-commerce platform using "tea tobacco" as a keyword. A large number of tea tobacco products are selling hot. Only one e-commerce platform has more than 4,000 tea tobacco product information, and some businesses have sold more than 4,000 person-times in the past month. The price of each package ranges from 5 yuan to more than 100 yuan, and most of its packages are marked with "nicotine-free", "non-tobacco products", and "harmless to humans".
Some tea cigarette merchants claim that tea cigarettes can help quit smoking, can replace tobacco containing nicotine, and smoking tea cigarettes is not addictive.
Tea cigarettes are really "healthy cigarettes"?
In this regard, many experts and industry insiders have different views.
Luo Junming, chief physician of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, said that as far as clinical observations are concerned, the claim that tea cigarettes can help quit smoking has no scientific basis. The absence of nicotine can only mean that it is not easy to become addicted, but the burning of plant fuels can also produce harmful effects. Substances, long-term inhalation may increase the risk of diseases such as barbaritis and emphysema.
A related monitoring agency in Shanghai announced at the beginning of this year that some tea tobacco products had detected tar content as high as 14.41 mg per stick in the test report advertised.
According to the "Notice on Adjusting the Maximum Tar Limit of Cigarette Cases" issued by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration in 2012, cigarettes with a tar content of more than 11 mg per stick will be judged as substandard products and cannot be sold in the domestic market.
"Tea tobacco uses'healthy cigarettes' and'not addictive' as a gimmick, which not only does not help quit smoking, but also spreads and encourages smoking." Zhu Yi, associate professor of the School of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, said that the beneficial ingredients of tea are If it is absorbed through the digestive system, the tea leaves are ignited and then inhaled into the lungs. Not only can it not absorb any nutrients, but it is harmful to the body.
"It's like stewing chicken in soup, which is good for people's health, but is it beneficial to smell the smoke after burning it?"
Who will supervise non-food and non-tobacco tea cigarettes?
The reporter's investigation found that in addition to the hidden health risks, tea cigarettes also have problems such as imitating brand cigarettes to mislead consumers, unclear product quality, and no threshold for online sales, and there are blind spots in supervision.
Imitate branded cigarettes to mislead consumers.
Reporters have seen on some e-commerce platforms that the packaging of many tea cigarettes is highly similar to well-known brand cigarettes, such as using homophonic characters such as "China Red", "Yuxi" and "Nanjing" or similar fonts to imitate well-known cigarettes.
Many tea cigarette products, if consumers do not check carefully, can easily mistake them for the production of some well-known brand cigarette manufacturers.
It is neither food nor tobacco, and the product quality is unclear.
Many tea tobacco products claim that they can be smoked or brewed in their introduction, but according to the food production license classification catalog issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation in 2020, tea tobacco does not belong to the category of food and cannot obtain a food production license; at the same time, tea tobacco It does not contain tobacco, nor is it a tobacco product, and cannot obtain a tobacco monopoly production enterprise license.
This resulted in the lack of corresponding standards and regulations in the production process, resulting in a regulatory gap.
There is no threshold for online sales and it is easy to induce young people.
The "Administrative Measures for Tobacco Monopoly Licenses" clearly stipulate that no citizen, legal person or other organization may sell tobacco monopoly products through information networks, but tea cigarettes are sold online because they are not "tobacco products".
The reporter bought two tea cigarettes at a price of 78 yuan on the e-commerce platform, and there was no need to provide any proof of age during the purchase process.
Some parents worry that minors are curious. If restraint and control are not strengthened, it is easy for young people to misunderstand that tea cigarettes are harmless and induce smoking.
Don't let tea cigarettes "kick the edge" to harm consumers
On March 22, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration drafted the "Decision on Amending the Implementation Regulations of the Tobacco Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China" (Draft for Solicitation of Comments), clarifying that new tobacco products such as e-cigarettes refer to these regulations Implementation of relevant regulations on cigarettes, and open solicitation of opinions from the public.
A number of market supervision and tobacco monopoly law enforcement officers stated that tea cigarette products lack a legal basis for supervision due to unclear qualitative properties. At present, law enforcement officers can investigate and deal with the false propaganda content that may exist in tea cigarette advertisements in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Advertising Law, but Whether tea cigarettes can be supervised with reference to the relevant regulations of cigarettes, the relevant laws and regulations still need to be further improved.
Yan Sanzhong, the deputy dean of the School of Political Science and Law of Jiangxi Normal University, suggested that relevant departments should expedite the introduction of relevant regulatory rules to make up for the blind spots of supervision from a legislative perspective, so that law enforcement personnel have laws to follow, regulate the order of the tea and tobacco market, and clean up market entities that violate laws and regulations. At the same time, it is clear that minors are not allowed to buy and use tea and tobacco products.
The interviewed experts believe that smoking is harmful to health, and products such as e-cigarettes and tea cigarettes are not recommended as substitutes when quitting smoking. It should be made clear that tea cigarette products are not sold online.
If smokers need to quit smoking, they should go to a regular hospital for consultation and treatment, and quit smoking scientifically according to the doctor's recommendation.