Kenya’s Senate Seeking Submissions of Memoranda for a Bill to Amend Regulations of Tobacco and Nicotine Products

The principal object of the Bill is to amend the Tobacco Control Act, to make further provisions for the regulation of electronic nicotine delivery systems

The Senate has invited the public to submit their memoranda (views) on the tobacco control (amendment) bill, 2024 (Senate Bills No. 35 of 2024). The bill aims to ensure that the advertising of tobacco products is regulated and that the sale of tobacco products, including electronic nicotine delivery systems, to persons under the age of eighteen years is prohibited.

According to the Health Ministry, the current Tobacco Control Act passed in 2007, did not anticipate non-tobacco products such as nicotine pouches. The bill also seeks to ensure that no nicotine or electronic nicotine systems are manufactured, distributed, imported, or sold in Kenya without the prior authorization of the Cabinet Secretary responsible for health.

The Bill also requires the following conditions to be met before a person can manufacture or offer for sale nicotine pouches— 

• The pouches are child—and tamper-proof, deliver nicotine doses at consistent levels, and do not exceed 10 milligrams in nicotine content. Each pouch has a removable sticker with a health warning printed on it in the prescribed form. 

The Bill requires the following conditions to be met before a person can manufacture, offer for sale, distribute, or use an electronic nicotine delivery system or refill container— 

• The nicotine-containing liquid is contained in a dedicated refill container not exceeding a volume of ten millilitres, in a disposable electronic cigarette or in a single-use cartridge and the cartridges or tank that does not exceed a volume of two millilitres; 
• The nicotine-containing liquid cannot contain nicotine exceeding ten milligrams per millilitre, the nicotine-containing liquid does not contain restricted additives; 
• The nicotine-containing liquid is manufactured using pure ingredients as prescribed by the Cabinet Secretary for Health; substances contained in the nicotine-containing liquid, other than the ingredients specified, are present in trace levels and are technically unavoidable during manufacture; 

A ban on flavours threatens to deprive Kenyan smokers of their lifeline to a healthier future and risk delivering a massive boost to illicit trade. Excise taxes on vapes and nicotine pouches are already prohibitively high in Kenya and some of the highest in the world. Enforced price increases that push these products further out of reach of many smokers will deny them their only lifeline.

The memoranda may be emailed to the Clerk of the Senate, clerk.senate@parliament.go.ke and copied to laboursocialwelfarecomm.senate@parliament.go.ke to be received on or before Monday, 26th August 2024 at 5.00 p.m EAT.