A national health survey in the Philippines has revealed that vaping has become increasingly popular among the youth.
According to the 2018 National Nutrition Survey by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute, one out of every five users of vape in the country is below the age of 20.
With the traditional cigarettes, one out of 20 users is from the youth.
“The results of the National Nutrition Survey are proof that vape products have become increasingly attractive to young people,” said Sin Tax Coalition co-convener Antonio Dans.
“This is a cause for great concern, especially taking into account the fact that the use of these products comes with corresponding health hazards.”
Tobacco and vape companies have been adamant in promoting heated tobacco products and vape as harm-reducing substitutes for traditional cigarettes.
However, there has been an increase in the number of vaping-related illnesses and deaths over the past month.
Meanwhile, Dans expressed support for increasing the excise tax on HTPs and vape, which the Ways and Means committee in the Senate is now deliberating.
“Tobacco consumption in all forms is toxic and unsafe, and we cannot deny that people have been getting sick because of the use of vape,” Dans said.
“In many ways, taxation may be considered an effective form of harm reduction, as a high tax will discourage the consumption of sin products particularly among the youth,” he said.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Senate Ways and Means chairman Pia Cayetano also chimed in on the potential harms of HTPs and vape.
“I have yet to hear the industry recognize the reality that there is still so much we need to find out with regard to the harm that could be caused by these products,” Cayetano said.
“I am looking for funding for health concerns, and I am being told to be cautious because these are supposedly harm-reducing products. But I don’t hear anything from the industry saying that we may also be creating harm.”
Cayetano also cited the need to take precautions for the sake of the youth in deciding how to regulate HTPs and vape, given the concerns over the products’ safety.
“I was a young lawyer at the time that smoking was allowed indoors, and I had to go through my pregnancies with people smoking in my face. I do not want my young children to grow up in an environment where vaping without knowing the full consequences is going to be allowed in the way that cigarettes were allowed," she said.
According to Cayetano, the next hearing on the reform will be on Sept. 17. The proposal to increase sin taxes was mentioned by President Rodrigo Duterte as one of his priority measures in this Congress.
