Viet Nam’s Proposed Nicotine Ban Would Protect Cigarettes and Fuel Illicit Trade

WASHINGTON, DC — Prohibition Does Not Work (PDNW) today urged the Government of Viet Nam to reject proposed prohibitions on e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches, warning that the policy would harm public health while handing consumer demand to illicit suppliers.

Under draft amendments notified to the WTO, Viet Nam would prohibit the production, sale, possession and use of reduced-risk nicotine products while combustible cigarettes remain legally available.

“Viet Nam is proposing to keep cigarettes on the shelves while banning dramatically safer alternatives that smokers can use to get away from them. That is completely backwards,” said Tim Andrews, Global Spokesman for Prohibition Does Not Work.

“The scientific evidence is clear that nicotine products exist on a continuum of risk. Vaping eliminates tobacco combustion, heated tobacco avoids burning tobacco, and tobacco-free nicotine pouches involve neither tobacco nor inhalation. A tobacco-control policy that bans safer competitors to cigarettes does not attack smoking. It protects the cigarette market.”

PDNW research shows the stark difference between regulation and prohibition. In Japan, cigarette sales fell by 32 percent in five years following the widespread introduction of heated tobacco products. By contrast, PDNW’s Vapour Product Regulation in Australia: A Case Study in Failure found that 93.2 percent of Australian vapers were already buying illegally in 2022–23, with the illicit market now estimated at AUD$1–2 billion annually. Similar prohibitions in Brazil and Mexico have left millions of consumers supplied by black markets, with organized criminal groups involved in distribution.

“Prohibition does not make demand disappear. It changes who supplies it,” said Michael Ellis MSc, PDNW Principal Global Advisor and former Assistant Director of Police Services at INTERPOL.

“A legal retailer can be licensed, inspected and required to verify age. Products can be tested and recalled. An illicit seller has none of those obligations. Viet Nam should look closely at Australia, Brazil and Mexico before creating another black market by law.”

PDNW warned that prohibition would also deny Vietnamese smokers access to products increasingly used internationally to move away from combustible cigarettes.

“Adults smoke for different reasons and quit in different ways,” Andrews added. “Some switch through vaping, some heated tobacco and some nicotine pouches. Good public-health policy should make it easier to leave cigarettes behind, not eliminate the alternatives smokers are actually willing to use.”

PDNW respectfully urges Viet Nam to replace prohibition with a regulated, risk-proportionate framework incorporating product standards, age restrictions, licensing and strong enforcement against illegal suppliers.

“Viet Nam's choice is not between nicotine products and no nicotine products,” Andrews concluded. “It is between a regulated market the Government can control and an illicit market it cannot.”

The full submission can be downloaded HERE in English and HERE in Vietnamese.

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