Local vaping groups asked the government to consider the United Kingdom Parliament’s report urging the UK government to relax regulations on e-cigarettes to reduce the harms associated with tobacco use and help more people quit smoking.
“E-cigarettes are helping many people in the UK quit smoking. The government should seriously consider the UK tobacco control model in order to reduce the harms caused by conventional cigarettes to Filipino smokers,” said Peter Paul Dator, president of The Vapers Philippines.
“The Philippines will remain a backwater country in the area of tobacco harm reduction if the Department of Health continues its ill-informed and myopic position on e-cigarettes. It’s high time that the DOH take its cue from the UK and other countries that have acknowledged the growing body of scientific evidence supporting e-cigarettes and tobacco harm reduction,” said Joey Dulay, president of the Philippine E-Cigarette Industry Association.
Published recently by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, the report entitled “E-cigarettes” concluded that e-cigarettes should not be treated in the same way as conventional cigarettes, noting that e-cigarettes are 95-percent less harmful than conventional cigarettes.
In its Tobacco Control Plan 2017-2022, the UK government stated its intention to support consumers in stopping smoking and adopting the use of less harmful nicotine products, particularly e-cigarettes.
The parliamentary report pointed out that “e-cigarettes…are too often being overlooked as a stop
smoking tool by the NHS [National Health Service, the UK public healthcare system]. Regulations should be relaxed relating to e-cigarettes’ licensing, prescribing and advertising of their health benefits. Their level of taxation and use in public places must be reconsidered.”
According to the report, around 2.9 million people in the UK are currently using e-cigarettes, with an estimated 470,000 using e-cigarettes as a stop smoking tool and tens of thousands successfully quitting smoking each year as a result.
The report called on the UK government to consider risk-based regulation to allow more freedom to advertise e-cigarettes as the relatively less harmful option, and provide financial incentives, in the form of lower levels of taxation, for smokers to switch from conventional cigarettes to less harmful alternatives such as e-cigarettes.
The report said that the risk of continuing to use conventional cigarettes is greater than the uncertainty over the long-term use of e-cigarettes. It called on the UK government to support independent long-term research on e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products.
Heat-not-burn products only heat tobacco, which generates a flavorful nicotine-containing vapor. Because the tobacco is not burned, the levels of harmful chemicals produced by heat-not-burn products are significantly lower compared to combustible cigarette smoke.