Anvisa approves new rules for cigarettes

The collegiate Board of Anvisa (national health surveillance Agency) approved on Tuesday (16/1) resolution that brings new rules of exhibition and marketing of cigarettes and other tobacco products. Unanimously, the directors of the Agency agreed to the vote of the rapporteur, Fernando Mendes, by regulating the way cigarette packs must be exposed in sale.
The resolution will be published in the next few days and only then enter into force. According to the approved proposal, the premises must follow stricter rules of exposure of cigarette packaging, how to keep the biggest possible distance between packs of cigarettes of products intended for consumption of children and teenagers, like candies and chocolates .
Traders also will not be able to put any additional marketing feature, as colours, sounds, lighting directed, among others, to showcases or showcases which expose the cigarette packages. According to the Rapporteur of the proposal, the resolution complements another normative act approved by Anvisa late last year (RDC 195/2017), which prohibits the use of advertising resources in packaging that can induce the cigarette consumption or suggest that the product is not harmful to health.
During the meeting, the representative of the Alliance for the control of smoking and Health promotion (ACT), Rafael Aguirre, explained that the regulation of exposure is needed to prevent abuses by industry. Aguirre has drawn attention to Brazil's obligation to follow the framework Convention on tobacco control, an international agreement ratified by the Country for over ten years and which provides in article 13 the ban of any form of advertising.
Researcher Cristina Perez, ITC project (assessment of international tobacco control policies), showed a survey published last week by the journal Tobacco Control, which shows that in 77 countries where currently the cigarette advertisements have already been banned in points of sale, there were 7% average reduction in the prevalence of smoking among adults.
Another study presented by researcher shows that 71% of young people who have seen cigarettes in supermarkets, bakeries or news feel influenced to consume the product.
Abifumo's representative (Brazilian tobacco industry Association), Lauro Jr., argued that it is "operationally infeasible that exhibitors stay out of the box" in supermarkets, bakeries or other establishments that sell cigarettes. The producers claim that the box is safer to avoid direct contact of the young with the products. The resolution allows the exhibition next to the cashiers ' area, as long as you don't have around food or other products intended for children and adolescents.
The industry also requested extension of the deadline to meet the new rules as Anvisa resolution approved in December. For producers, the deadline is short and does not guarantee "logistic feasibility" for that all over 3000 points of sale all over the country make changes.
The application was rejected by the rapporteur, which kept the date of 25 May this year so that all points will only expose and sell packs containing the new images and all the health warnings. From that date, all packages that do not follow the new regulations should be collected from the market.