MOSCOW, March 4 (RAPSI) – A member of the Civic Chamber Sultan Khamzayev on Wednesday proposed to draft a bill to utterly forbid production and sale of tobacco sucking packets (snus) in Russia.

Earlier, there were proposals only to ban selling these non-smoking tobacco products, he said during public hearings.

Citing the Chamber’s research results of 2019, Khamzayev said that 70% of young people aged 10 to 21 sampled snus just once in their life.

In late 2019, a bill envisaging complete prohibition of retail and bulk sales of all non-smoking tobacco products was submitted to the State Duma. The authors of the initiative, lawmakers of the Stavropol Duma, proposed to sanction violations of legislation with fines of up to 60,000 rubles (about $1,000 at the current exchange rate).

It was suggested to amend the current legislation aimed to protect citizens’ health from adverse effects and negative consequences of tobacco consumption to the effect that not only snus and dipping tobacco, but all non-smoking tobacco products are to be banned, whereas minors are to be prohibited to consume such products.

At the same time, the bill introduces administrative responsibility for trade in non-smoking tobacco products. Citizens are to be fined from 2,000 to 4,000 rubles ($30 to $65), officials – from 7,000 to 12,000 rubles ($100 to $200), legal entities – from 40,000 to 60,000 rubles ($650 to $1,000).

The authors of the bill explained their initiative by the fact that currently legal non-smoking tobacco products present no lesser health hazard than those already banned and equally result in nicotine addiction of consumers.