Appropriate regulation of electronic cigarettes, or vapes, can help prevent serious sickness in and the premature death of millions of cigarette smokers in the Philippines, according to a leading expert on tobacco harm reduction and e-cigarettes.
Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos urged the Philippine government to create a regulatory framework for e-cigarettes that is reasonable, proportionate and realistic.
“It must be different from regulation of tobacco cigarettes; otherwise, people may be deceived into thinking that e-cigarettes are the same as tobacco cigarettes,” he said.
Farsalinos said an appropriate e-cigarette regulatory framework was important to ensure product quality, promote harm reduction products only to intended populations, maintain a competitive advantage for harm reduction products compared to smoking and promote research to monitor population use and develop better products.
“The average lifespan of a smoker is 10 years shorter than a non-smoker. According to the World Health Organization, there are around 20 million Filipino smokers, half of whom will die prematurely due to smoking-related diseases. Effective tobacco harm reduction approaches must be made available to Filipino smokers through the creation of an appropriate local regulatory framework for e-cigarettes,” said Farsalinos, a research fellow at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center and University of Patras in Greece.
Farsalinos spoke during a media briefing on April 5, 2017 at the Holiday Inn Glorietta in Makati City.
He said tobacco cigarettes were the most harmful nicotine delivery system ever developed. Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction to smoking. Its stimulant effect adds to the addictive properties of tobacco smoking.
Nicotine is the reason why quitting smoking is very difficult, Farsalinos said. Smokers who stop smoking suddenly and completely often relapse.
At least eight out of 10 smokers fail to quit with currently approved smoking cessation methods, which include nicotine replacement therapies and oral medications.