NAIROBI, Kenya, May 4 – The Kenya Tobacco Industry has urged the Ministry of Health to reconsider the proposal to introduce graphic health warning signs to tobacco free, smokeless nicotine products.
Speaking in Embu during a public participation exercise for the consideration of the draft graphic health warnings, BAT Kenya Managing Director Crispin Achola stated that putting these warning signs in tobacco-free nicotine products puts them at the same risk as traditional cigarettes and tobacco products.
This comes after the MOH proposed that graphic warning signs should be used indiscriminately across tobacco products such as cigarettes and tobacco-free oral nicotine products such as vapes and nicotine pouches.
Achola stated that the regulations for these products should be different from those that are administered to tobacco products and must be factual.
He further pointed out that the health risks of nicotine products have been scientifically proven to be much less than those of tobacco products, so using the same graphics is highly inappropriate.
“As an organization we believe that given the nature of the category we are in, regulations has to be put into place to govern how the product is produced, marketed and distributed; so we are pro regulation,” he said.
“However, we believe that the regulation must be factual and represent the science of the product,and their risks also scientifically established,” he added.
Achola has thus urged the ministry of health to refrain from using the graphic signs and instead maintain the use of text health warnings.
“We urge the regulators specifically, the Ministry of Health,that text health warnings,which have been the case, be maintained for novel nicotine products,” he stated.
