On 19 June 2018, at a meeting with the participation of deputy prime ministers Dmitry Kozak and Tatyana Golikova, the Government of the Russian Federation agreed to regulate novel tobacco products, including ENDS, within existing tobacco control legislation.
This decision is part of a new phase of tobacco control in the Russian Federation. The country is making major progress in reducing the prevalence of tobacco smoking through a comprehensive set of anti-tobacco measures. These include a ban on smoking in public places – restaurants and bars in particular. Since 2009, tobacco use prevalence has decreased from 39% to 31% among Russian adults, which contributes to reducing the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the country.
Until now, different types of ENDS that were not covered by the law, including electronic cigarettes, could be purchased as “common goods” and used anywhere, introducing vapour into indoor air in public places.
According to the results of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey conducted in the Russian Federation in 2016, almost 80% of Russian adults had heard of electronic cigarettes and 3.5% overall (4.2 million) used them. Alarmingly, these novel tobacco products have been surging in popularity among Russian children and adolescents. The 2015 Global Youth Tobacco Survey showed that around 8.5% of Russian adolescents aged 13–15 years old already used electronic cigarettes containing nicotine.
WHO supports this vital step taken by the Russian Government, which follows a proposal of the Ministry of Health. The Russian Federation is among global tobacco control leaders, and has managed to dramatically reduce tobacco use in recent years. It has accomplished considerable progress since 2008, when it became a Party to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
All recent country initiatives and actions for tobacco control are based on the principles of this international treaty. These efforts are in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.A, which concerns strengthening WHO FCTC implementation, as well as SDG 3.4, which focuses on reducing by one third premature mortality from NCDs by 2030.