<\/p>\n
China has joined a handful of countries in banning flavored vapes to combat underage use of nicotine. Starting October 1, e-cigarette companies are only allowed to sell tobacco-flavored vapes in the country, an effort by the government to \u201cstandardize\u201d the production, sales, and consumption of the novel tobacco product.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s c-cigarette makers had a short-lived boom before regulators began reining in the lucrative industry around three years ago. First, it was a ban on the online sales of vapes. Then in May this year, a set of comprehensive regulations went into force, effectively subjecting e-cigarettes to the purview of China\u2019s tobacco authorities.<\/p>\n
The ban is long in coming and investors anticipated the change. Relx, which as of 2020 commanded 70% of China\u2019s pod vape market, has lost over 95% of its stock value since its debut on NYSE in January 2021. Share sof Smoore, a major manufacturer of vaping devices based out of Relx\u2019s home city of Shenzhen, are down 90% since hitting an all-time high in January 2021.<\/p>\n
A ban on flavored vapes is like a death knell to the vaping industry. Tabacco-flavored products accounted for only an insignificant amount of e-cigarette sales, according to a survey conducted by Landong, a Chinese media publication focused on the vaping industry.<\/p>\n
Other major measures from the regulations include a tobacco tax on e-cigarette sales and stringent new requirements on how a vape is made, from its battery, ceramic coil, nicotine content, to fragrance. Meeting all these criteria could cost a fortune, which means the shoddy, scruffy type of vape sellers that were crowding the market before will struggle to survive.<\/p>\n
Well-funded Chinese vaping startups such as Relx and Myst have long begun international expansion to diversify their revenue streams. In 2020, Relx kickstarted the costly and time-consuming ordeal of obtaining FDA approval in the U.S. Myst, which was co-founded by a former Juul scientist, had entered Malaysia, Russia, Canada, and the United Kingdom as of May last year.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s clampdown on vaping flavors stems from the same concern shared by other jurisdictions: health risks for young people. In a notice from 2019, the country\u2019s tobacco authority had this to say:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current electronic cigarette market in China is chaos. The quality of products varies substantially, and a large number of them has safety issues around unsafe additives, leaky e-juice, and shoddy battery. In particular, some companies are casually adding addictives to change the flavor and color of e-cigarettes to make them more appealing, but this is causing severe damage to underage users\u2019 mental and physical health.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2019, the U.S. government was getting ready for a policy to ban flavored e-cigarette products. In June, European Union lawmakers are proposing to ban flavored heated tobacco products. As the world\u2019s largest producer of vaping devices, China\u2019s e-cigarette factories will likely see their demand shrink as regulators around the world continue their battle with the vaping industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China has joined a handful of countries in banning flavored vapes to combat underage use of nicotine. Starting October 1, e-cigarette companies are only allowed to sell tobacco-flavored vapes in the country, an effort by the government to \u201cstandardize\u201d the production, sales, and consumption of the novel tobacco product. China\u2019s c-cigarette makers had a short-lived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1216486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrity-gossip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}