Korea to widen tobacco harmful-component testing as e-cigarette sales surge

The food and drug safety ministry said Thursday it will widen its testing of harmful substances in tobacco products and tighten what manufacturers must disclose, as cigarette sales shrink and e-cigarettes take a growing share of the Korean market.

The ministry set out the first five-year basic plan for tobacco harmful-component management, covering 2027 to 2031, the first such plan since the Tobacco Harmful Component Management Act took effect in November 2025. Under the plan, the number of harmful components tested in cigarettes and heated tobacco products will rise from 44 in 2025 to about 50 by 2030, and in liquid e-cigarettes from 20 to about 30. Smokeless tobacco, cigars and waterpipe tobacco will be added to the testing list.

The first round of testing, covering 465 products from 20 manufacturers and importers, found formaldehyde, benzene and other Group 1 carcinogens classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in every product category. In cigarettes, nicotine content ranged from 0.8 to 2.6 milligrams and tar from 11.7 to 40.4 milligrams per cigarette, while liquid e-cigarettes contained 5.7 to 20.0 milligrams of nicotine per gram.

The tobacco committee, which advises the ministry, said the detection of a smaller amount of a given component should not be read as evidence that one product is less harmful than another. "This inspection confirmed the harmful components present in tobacco products, and it should not be misunderstood as a standard for choosing less harmful cigarettes," the committee said. "It is important to understand this as scientific evidence that all tobacco is harmful, for smokers to quit for their health and for non-smokers not to start."

Manufacturers will also have to submit the purpose for which each ingredient, including additives, is used, not just its name. The ministry said it will carry out random unannounced on-site inspections to prevent companies from under-reporting or filing false data, and will shorten the deadline for submitting new products for testing from six months after the start of the following year to one month after sales begin, a reduction of up to 17 months. Synthetic-nicotine tobacco, brought into the legal definition of tobacco by an April 24 revision to the Tobacco Business Act, will be subject to testing and disclosure from 2027; the latest inspection covered only products made with nicotine derived from tobacco leaf.

Cigarette sales fell from 3.44 billion packs in 2017 to 2.87 billion packs in 2024, while e-cigarette sales rose from 80 million packs to 660 million packs over the same period. The domestic share of flavored cigarettes climbed from 9.8 percent in 2013 to 46.5 percent in 2023.

About 70,000 people, or 68,536, died from direct smoking in 2023, and the associated socioeconomic cost was about 15 trillion won ($11.2 billion).

Second Vice Health Minister Lee Hyung-hoon said the government would embed the management system quickly and press ahead with strong regulation. "We will protect the public from the harm of tobacco, including by cutting the current use rate of tobacco products among adults to 29.0 percent for men and 6.0 percent for women by 2030," he said, targets set out in the sixth National Health Promotion Comprehensive Plan announced in March. The rate stood at 36.3 percent for men and 8.6 percent for women in 2025.