By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Doctors, scientists, and other global experts from the United States, Europe, and Asia who conducted research and studies all agreed that electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products are much less harmful than combustible cigarettes.
What have we here? If this is all true, as experts claimed, it seems that the Philippines has taken the wrong and abrupt path in banning e-cigarettes and vaping products.
These experts presented their corroborating findings that e-cigarettes and vapes are an effective method to reduce tobacco harm and make smokers quit during the recent 7th annual E-Cigarette Summit in London.
Banning e-cigarettes and vapes would reverse the positive results of the global tobacco harm reduction efforts, said Martin Jarvis, a health psychology professor at the University College London, during a press conference.
Jarvis did not believe that ENDS products are as harmful as combustible cigarettes and should be regulated. He said the ban would send some people back to smoking or introduce them to tobacco if they had not smoked before.
He said the pulmonary diseases have nothing to do with nicotine delivery. It was allegedly discovered through findings from several studies in the United Kingdom that nicotine from the cigarette is not the culprit of diseases from smoking, but the tar and other chemicals derived from tobacco. Jarvis added that vaping is a lot less hazardous than cigarette smoking.
Konstantinos Farsalinos, a pharmacology professor from the University of Patras in Greece, said it was hard to determine what caused pulmonary diseases of e-cigarette users since most of these sick people were also tobacco or cigarette users for an extended period.
He said arterial stiffness, which in studies is called the acute effect of vaping use, could also be acquired through the intake of caffeine.
This was also the belief of Professor Tikki Elka Pangestu from Lee Kuan Yew Public Policy School of the National University of Singapore.
Pangestu said the cause of the illness and death in the United States is not vaping, but the contaminated cannabis oils purchased in the black market which were not subjected to quality control.
A study by Public Health England, which is supported by similar studies in other countries cited by Pangestu, showed that vaping is 95 percent less harmful than burning cigarettes.
Even Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the belief that the use of e-cigarettes can harm public health remains unproven, days after President Duterte banned vaping in public even without an executive order.
Health officials should take a hard look at these findings.
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