E-cigarettes will be banned only in 2025

At Monday’s press conference, Minister of Health Izabela Leszczyna announced that Work on the law banning e-cigarettes is ongoing and it will come into force only at the beginning of 2025. The entry into force of the act was announced at the beginning of the summer holidays, but work on the act took longer due to this the need to implement the EU directive, which, among others, introduces: the definition of heated tobacco products and ban on the use of characteristic flavors in innovative heated products.

I really wanted this act to come into force before the holidays. However, it turned out that it had to be notified. We do not know how long this process will take, so the real date of entry into force of this act is the beginning of next year.

Minister of Health, Izabela Leszczyna, excerpt from the conference

There are currently three draft laws on the Minister’s table – one implementing the EU directive has already been submitted for consultation and two projects regulating the principles of sales in a narrow and broad scope. As the Minister mentioned, one of these two projects will be submitted for consultation by the end of the week.

Back in May, Minister Leszczyna stated that introducing a ban by statute is a multi-month legislative process requiring notification of the European Union and Poland cannot introduce a ban immediately, as was the case in Great Britain.

A serious problem of e-cigarettes in Polish schools

Survey results: “Cigarette smoking and vaping among school youth”conducted by the Association Against Lung Cancer, Szczecin Branch in December 2023 and January 2024, indicate that 6 out of 10 primary and secondary school students smoke or use nicotine products every day or once in a while.

The surveys we collected show that e-cigarettes have taken the place of traditional cigarettes in Polish schools for good. More and more often, these are disposable e-cigarettes, with sweet, dessert or fruit flavors that smell nice and taste good. 7 out of 10 students who use e-cigarettes cited taste and smell as the two main reasons for the popularity of e-cigarettes.

Rafał Molenda, Association Against Lung Cancer, Szczecin Branch

The ban on selling tobacco products to minors has been in force in Poland for a long time. However, it does not bring the expected effects that the above-mentioned act banning the sale of e-cigarettes is supposed to provide.