With the tightening of regulations on electronic cigarettes, the "three no" tea cigarettes have recently appeared on some e-commerce platforms.

They "touch porcelain" brand cigarettes and sell them publicly.

In order not to violate the relevant regulations of prohibiting the sale of cigarettes online, but also to make huge profits, these sellers not only claim to be "smuggled cigarettes seized by customs", but also induce minors to smoke by mixing the so-called fruit flavor, which hides many risks.

Shanzhai tea cigarettes put on multiple layers of camouflage

  Relevant laws and regulations of my country clearly stipulate that "no citizen, legal person or other organization shall sell tobacco monopoly products through information network".

However, the temptation of interests cannot help. On some e-commerce platforms, there are merchants who secretly sell so-called cigarette products.

It's just that this cigarette product is not a real cigarette, most of which are pretended to be tea cigarettes.

  Banyuetan reporters used "cigarettes", "cigarettes" and "electronic cigarettes" as keywords on multiple e-commerce platforms, but did not search for related products.

However, according to the techniques introduced by people familiar with the matter, after replacing the keywords with "marriage" and "焑", a lot of product information immediately jumped out.

  If you browse carefully, you will find that most of the cigarettes sold in the online store are self-proclaimed "originally produced" and "port processed inventory". The outer packaging of the pictures is not much different from the brand cigarettes, and they are often sold at extremely low prices.

For example, a pack of "Nanjing Xuanhemen" with a retail price of about 18 yuan is only 5 yuan, and a piece of "hard China" with a market price of about 450 yuan is only 58 yuan, and buy one get one free.

  There is another trick behind the unusual price.

These cigarettes have nothing to do with brand cigarettes through "hitting the face".

For example, cigarettes that are very similar to the "Nanjing" brand are actually "Nanjing" brand; "Peony" can be identified as "Du Dan"; "Hongta Mountain" has become "Red Fire Tower Mountain", in which "Fire" "The word is barely visible in the middle...

  Banyuetan reporter bought a cigarette called "Regular Nostalgic Peony Soft Pack 333 Old Tobacco Classic" at one of the online stores at a price of 32.64 yuan. Dealing with cigarettes", giving people the illusion of picking up leaks.

However, the brand name received has become "Dudan", and the outer packaging is also marked with the words "non-tobacco products" and "nicotine free".

When a reporter from Banyuetan questioned the merchant's "selling dog meat with sheep's head", the other party sent a screenshot of the product page, in which there was a line of inconspicuous small characters "main ingredient: chrysanthemum".

  Label real cigarettes, but consumers receive tea cigarettes, which is the usual trick of these online stores.

In order to evade platform supervision and sales disputes, some stores "change a place with one shot", and sell them for a period of time before taking them off the shelves.

Even so, cheap tea cigarettes still bring huge profits to these online stores, and some sales links show that more than 100,000 pieces have been sold.

A seller said: "The price is low, and it is the way of small profits but quick turnover."

Exploiting regulatory loopholes and hiding security risks

  The sale of cigarettes online is undoubtedly not allowed.

The relevant person in charge of the Monopoly Supervision and Management Office of the Tianjin Tobacco Monopoly Bureau introduced that a tobacco monopoly license must be obtained to operate tobacco monopoly products, and any citizen, legal person or other organization may not sell tobacco monopoly products through information networks.

Can tea cigarettes be sold online?

  Banyuetan reporter broke open a tea cigarette he bought, and the fine particles inside were scattered.

If you smell it carefully, there is a hint of tea, but the taste of shredded tobacco is not obvious.

The raw materials marked on the outer packaging are selected tea leaves, chrysanthemums, mint, lotus leaves, honey, and edible flavors, which seem to be "healthy".

  The above-mentioned person in charge said: "From a legal point of view, the standard for judging cigarettes is whether the ingredients contain cut tobacco. Tea cigarettes, etc. only appear in the shape of cigarettes. The scope of supervision of tobacco monopoly products." He believes that from the perspective of the purchased tea cigarette packaging, it is not indicated that the product conforms to the national standard, and there is a potential safety risk.

  Banyuetan reporters found that, at present, tea cigarettes are not in the "Food Production License Classification Catalog", do not belong to the category of food, and cannot obtain food production licenses.

If a tea cigarette product does not contain tobacco leaves, it is not a tobacco product.

Therefore, there is no corresponding national standard to regulate tea cigarettes in the production process.

  On the product promotion page, some online shop merchants said: "Tea cigarettes can be taken apart to make tea or smoked as cigarettes, which are very suitable for quitting smoking." A person with 10 years of smoking experience said after smoking tea cigarettes : "It smells like a little cigarette, but it's not easy to smoke. It has a burnt smell and even a little spicy."

  People familiar with the matter said that the smoke in it is not necessarily shredded tobacco.

Due to the strict supervision and high cost of conventional tobacco leaf circulation, some cheap tea cigarettes will add medicinal or chemical nicotine ingredients to achieve the purpose of making fakes look like real ones in order to achieve the taste of ordinary cigarettes.

Previously, the Shanghai Advertising Monitoring Center found that some tea cigarette products were found to have a tar content of up to 14.41 mg per stick, which exceeded the national cigarette standard by nearly 1/3.

  Zhang Jianshu, president of the Beijing Tobacco Control Association, said that after electronic cigarettes "lost their power", some businesses tried their best to make tea cigarettes a good substitute for cigarettes, using people's inherent impression that tea is good for health to induce consumers to pay for tea cigarettes.

Some tea cigarettes even tempt minors to smoke by adding so-called fruit flavors.

"Hidden corners" urgently need to be regulated

  In recent years, tobacco control efforts have been continuously strengthened in the whole society, industry norms have been gradually improved, and measures such as banning smoking in public places and regulating the production and sale of electronic cigarettes have achieved remarkable results.

However, the production and online sales of tea cigarettes are still in a state of savage growth, becoming a hidden corner of tobacco control.

  The whole chain of tea cigarettes sold on the Internet, from manufacturing to sales, is full of edge-defense, deception, and inducement.

Some industry insiders and experts said that such commodities should be strictly managed and not left to their own devices.

  The relevant person in charge of the Monopoly Supervision and Management Office of Tianjin Tobacco Monopoly Bureau said that the investigation and punishment of tea cigarettes are generally from the perspective of safeguarding intellectual property rights.

Since the packaging of tea cigarettes is the same as or highly similar to the usual cigarette packaging, the packaging is suspected of infringing the rights and interests of the cigarette trademark holder.

Cigarette trademark holders can file trademark infringement and anti-unfair competition civil lawsuits to safeguard legitimate legal rights and interests.

  At the same time, the form of tea cigarettes is no different from that of cigarettes. The production and operation of tea cigarettes may involve illegal production and operation of tobacco monopoly products such as tobacco-specific machinery, cigarette paper, filter rods, and tobacco tow.

Industry insiders said that such cases can be supervised and investigated by the tobacco monopoly administrative department in conjunction with the relevant law enforcement departments in accordance with the law.

  In the retail segment, online platforms should shoulder the responsibility and promptly remove suspected infringing and illegal products from the shelves.

  Zhang Jianshu believes that we should start with the supervision mechanism of tea cigarettes, and clarify specific issues such as whether tea cigarettes can be sold, the method of supervision, and the degree of supervision at the legislative level as soon as possible.

Before the quality of tea cigarettes is further clarified, the warning can be strengthened from the perspective of publicity.

Especially for minors, tea cigarettes should be used as a warning and educational content to keep them away from tobacco harm.

  Source: "Ban Yue Tan" Issue 13, 2022

  Banyue Talks Reporter: Mao Zhenhua and Huang Jianglin