Translated material
Tight Pull
The State Duma has entered an active stage of the fight against smokers
The assortment of tobacco stalls and cigarette stands in supermarkets may very soon become much more boring and monotonous. Following unfiltered cigarettes - and now they have become a rarity - a whole range of strong brands will disappear. Of course, you won’t have to complain about the lack of choice, much less about the shortage, but you will have to choose between items that are virtually identical in composition, taste and prices. The State Duma took the next step in this direction yesterday, whose deputies adopted amendments to the law “On Restricting Tobacco Smoking” in the first reading . The new legal act tightens the requirements for tobacco products and brings the rules for trading this product in our country closer to those adopted in developed countries. Deputies believe that on the eve of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), it is necessary to eradicate at least the most blatant deviations from the main principle of modern international trade: “Do no harm.”The draft law provides for a whole range of measures. Firstly, the range of “smoking” places will be even more limited - for example, smoking on airplanes will be categorically prohibited once and for all. Secondly, a warning about the dangers of smoking (with a detailed description of all possible consequences) will take up significantly more space on the surface of each pack. The “horror story” should be no less than 30% of the packaging area (currently the average is 4%). And finally, a gradual reduction in the amount of tar and nicotine is provided. A cigarette with a filter cannot contain more than 10 mg of tar and 1 mg of nicotine (currently the standard for tar is 14 mg, and for nicotine - 1.2 mg). The indicators are quite average in Europe, which is what was required, because with this legislative initiative the deputies fulfilled their recent obligations - less than a month ago, Russia ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
“Such restrictions are producing results all over the world,” David Zaridze, deputy director of the Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Center, told Vremya Novostey. - Yes, and we already have such experience. In 1985, we recommended that the then Soviet competent authorities reduce by law the maximum tar content from 30 mg - then such cigarettes were smoked - to 15 mg. By 1988, they listened to us and reduced it, but for some reason to 18 mg. Lung cancer has dropped by a significant percentage.” According to Mr. Zaridze, more people smoke now than in Soviet times, and cases of lung cancer are recorded less frequently, which indicates the need to ration tar and nicotine. But not only them. “The next necessary step is to regulate certain chemical compounds, for example the very dangerous tobacco-specific nitrosamine,” says the scientist. After all, by reducing the amount of resins, manufacturers often do not reduce the content of poisons they contain. It would seem that this area is already regulated by special technological standards, but not by federal legislation. However, in Europe they do not think so.
In just a few months, the technical regulations on tobacco will be presented to the Duma - a weighty volume in which it will be spelled out with meticulous precision where tobacco should be grown, what pesticides it is treated with, how it is dried and fermented. And the entire palette of a smoker’s “exhaust” will be described in no less detail than in chemistry reference books. “Yesterday in the Duma we adopted the first technical regulation - for milk, tobacco will be similar,” deputy Yuri Volkov, who heads the technical regulation commission, told Vremya Novostei. -- Soviet-style GOSTs and SANPINs, which are used in production, have long been outdated and do not meet modern technological requirements. We need new modern safety standards. Only such a law, and not some internal departmental instructions, can protect consumers, and not the interests of lobbyists.” We can expect regulations on tobacco by the end of the year. With its advent, the era of species diversity on the shelves will end, but, as the authors of the law hope, smokers will live longer.