Plans are under way to legally require the display of cigarette additives known to cause addiction by causing smoke to be inhaled more directly into the lungs or improving the cigarette's taste.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said Wednesday that current laws on cigarettes "are lacking in cigarette safety management, with no standards for managing the various cigarette additives with harmful ingredients, or regulations requiring their display."
The ministry said it plans to develop legislation to require the display and management of ingredients.
Choe Jong-hui, the head of the ministry's task force on smoking policy, explained, "There has been a lack of management over the years to protect citizen health from the cigarette manufacturing stage."
Choe added that plans have been established to pursue legislation to require the display of cigarette additives and include illustrations that warn of the dangers of smoking. Noting that US data since 2009 shows a total of 600 additives, Korean Association of Smoking and Health secretary-general Kim Eun-ji said, "These included ingredients that make cigarettes more addictive or expand the bronchial tubes to make more cigarette smoke enter the lungs."
Also known to be among the additives are chemicals like acetaldehyde that produce toxic substances, as well as those that encourage smoking by easing pain in smokers’ bronchial tubes.
Kim Eun-ji said, "South Korea's cigarette maker KT&G showed 15 [additives] when selling cigarettes in the US, but stated during a trial on smoking damages that it places 242 additives in the cigarettes it sells here in Korea."
"If we display the ingredients, this may encourage cigarette makers to put fewer harmful additives in cigarettes," Kim said.
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