State Duma introduces criminal liability for repeated sale of vape devices to children

The State Duma adopted in the second and third readings of the bill, providing criminal liability for repeated sale of tobacco, nicotine-containing products, hookahs and vapes to minors. This is reported on December 17 on the website of the authority.

It is specified that changes are made to article 151.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Retail sale of alcoholic beverages to minors").

"Punishable by a fine of 50 thousand to 80 thousand rubles or in the amount of wages or other income of the convicted person for a period of 3 to 6 months or corrective labor for up to one year," - stated in the test of the bill.

Earlier, on December 10, the authors of the draft noted that the current legislation has only administrative punishment for the repeated sale of vape devices to children. At the same time, the results of a study conducted by the Institute of Human ROMIR showed that 72% of surveyed teenagers 11-17 years old, buying vapes and similar electronic systems for nicotine consumption, said that sellers have never refused to release such goods to them.

Before that, on September 2, Duma deputy Alexei Kurinniy noted that now it is more important to ensure compliance with the already existing restrictions on the sale of vapes, rather than a complete ban on them. He noted that flavored smoking mixtures, for example, are already banned, but they can still be found on sale.