The Senate rejected the law on the restriction of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco products

The 27-th plenary session of the Senate considered the law “On restriction of the distribution and consumption of alcohol and tobacco products”.

This law sets out the norms of “On the restriction of the distribution and consumption of alcohol and tobacco products” , “On the restriction of smoking of hookah and electronic cigarettes in public places” and other laws. For this reason, it is implied to find them as having lost their strength.

However, in the plenary session, members of the Senate adopted a decision to reject the law because of the need to clarify the basic concepts of the law, the existence of collusion norms, the practice of applying law has not been thoroughly studied.

A number of issues were discussed as the main reasons for the refusal.

In particular, propaganda and prophylactic work on the harm caused by the consumption of alcohol and tobacco products is planned to be carried out only among minors, the sale and consumption of such products is prohibited for persons under the age of 21 years. As a result, within the framework of this law, a layer of persons above the age of 18 and under the age of 21 is excluded.

The law only describes in what cases advertising of natural and foaming wines produced in the Republic of Uzbekistan is allowed. However, in Article 39 of the law “On advertising” of June 7, 2022, along with natural and sparkling wines, beer advertising is also prohibited. This leads to a set of norms. Accordingly, it was noted the need to coordinate the relevant norm of the law with the law “On advertising”.

Taking into account the importance of the law and its relevance today in the meeting, the law was re-introduced in the agenda of the next Plenary Session of the Senate after considering the shortcomings indicated by the legislative chamber.