From July 11, 2024, flavored cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, e-cigarettes and e-cigarette liquids should disappear from store shelves. And all packages of tobacco products must carry combined medical warnings.
This is required by the Law of Ukraine No. 1978-XI, which entered into force a year ago — on July 11, 2023.
The law gave a year to sell off leftover tobacco and nicotine products, but today that period has expired, so the bans are fully in effect.
Such changes were adopted according to the World Health Organizationʼs Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and European integration directive 2014/40/EU. According to these documents, flavored smoking products attract the population to a harmful addiction, and the introduced bans are designed to protect people from this.
What changes from July 11, 2024?
All cigarette packs must carry a combined medical warning.
From July 11, 2024, all packages of tobacco products for smoking must carry updated health warnings: on 65% of the area of the largest side of the pack, the manufacturer must display images of diseases caused by smoking and text that warns about the harm and consequences of smoking. Also, for people who want to get rid of addiction, a QR code should be placed on the package — a link to the free service of the Center for Public Health on providing assistance for quitting tobacco use "I quit smoking!".
The new standards for labeling tobacco products entered into force on January 11, 2024, according to Order No. 747 of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. In total, three groups of sets were developed, each of which contains 14 medical warnings. These sets will be updated every year, as will the disease images.
Also, according to articles 10 and 10-1 of Law No. 1978-IX, which entered into force a year ago, cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, electronic cigarettes and liquids with flavored additives must be removed from store shelves.
In addition, they established:
- prohibition of a number of additives (for example, vitamins) to tobacco products and e-cigarettes that could mislead consumers about the consequences of using these products;
- requirements for the composition of liquids for e-cigarettes;
- reporting requirements for manufacturers and distributors of tobacco products and e-cigarettes.
Until July 11, 2024, the law allowed the sale of manufactured or imported products that were put on sale before the law came into force.
Directive No. 2014/40/EU obliged all member states of the European Union to ban flavored heating cigarettes by October 2023. Such a requirement is an obligation for Ukraine as well. The corresponding initiative was submitted to the parliament by draft law No. 9227.