Titled, “E-Cigarette Regulatory Report: Online Domestic Sales Allowed in Italy” the report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s archives, and details an up-to-date look at Italy’s regulatory regime. The report includes all aspects from product and age restrictions, public usage and notification, to advertising, labelling and packaging, and taxation.
Taking a positive stance on tobacco harm reduction, the new Italian government has loosened various strict restrictions set in place by the previous parliament, such as allowing the sales of vaping products online. That being said, Italy still has in place one of the strictest regulatory regimes in Europe.
In 2020, Italy witnessed the worst outbreak of COVID-19 outside China, forcing the local government to set in place some of the most stringent measures across the world. Most commercial businesses, including bars and restaurants, had to be been shut down.
A market severely hit by COVID-19
Originally, vape shops were included in the list of outlets to be shut down, however award winning Dr. Riccardo Polosa had explained why it would be ridiculous to keep tobacconists open whilst closing outlets that sell safer alternatives. “I got a little bit cross. And the next morning I launched a number of declarative statements,” said Polosa.
Founder of the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) in Catania Italy, Polosa has published dozens of studies on topics related to vaping. In an interview on Filter, he explained why he thought it was wrong to keep tobacconists open whilst closing vape shops.
“..hundreds of thousands of vapers would have been at risk of gatewaying back to smoking. It was an issue of public health in my opinion. Also, many vapers with respiratory diseases have seen a curtailment of their symptoms by vaping, and by stopping vaping we would have seen a rise in acute exacerbation in respiratory disease. This would have been extremely detrimental to the national health system at a time when you have ICU beds occupied and not available for anything else,” explained the professor at the time.