Ban on e-cigarette a demand of time

As the recent surge of using e-cigarette products has become cause of new threats to the public health, the government moves to impose a ban on such alternative tobacco items with a view to root out the poisonous tree from the society in the beginning of spreading in an epidemic form.
In a latest report on Global Tobacco Epidemic 2019, World Health Organization (WHO) termed the e-cigarette items (e-cigs, vaping, heated tobacco products) as seriously harmful for the health without any doubt.
Over 30 countries including Sri-Lanka, Nepal, Thailand and Singapore have already banned e-cigarettes. The neighboring India has also added the items on the list very recently, adding another milestone to the country’s growing tobacco control mechanism.
Left uncontrolled, the use of e-cigarette products can spread exponentially as manifested in the United States of America where the use of such items has found a 78 percent increase among the school-going teenagers between only 2017 and 2018.
According to the statistics of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (US FDA), some 1,080 lung infection cases associated with using e-cigarette or vaping products have been reported and 18 deaths have been confirmed on October 1, 2019.
Citing the mounting evidence of health risks associated to e-cigarette, the Secretary for Health Education to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Shaikh Yusuf Harun said, production, importation and sale of all emerging tobaccos including e-cigarettes must be banned as soon as possible.
He came with the remarks, while addressing in a program organized by the Health Service Division, Health and Family Welfare Ministry recently.
He further said, “We are yet to include the three categories of products in the draft of tobacco control policy 2019. But we will take necessary measures to include those in the policy as soon as possible.”
The Director General for Health Services Prof Abul Kalam Azad said, the threats posed by e-cigarettes are new to us. We should find out the ways to face the new challenge.
The country currently has no proper statistics on how many people are consuming e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. However, the use of e-cigarette and vaping products among the youth is on the rise and the sale of such products is vibrant in both physical and online shops.
Vandana Shah, Regional Director of US-based Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids’ South Asia Programme said, the multinational tobacco companies are producing and marketing e-cigarette products targeting the youth and the children. The use of such tobacco products has taken a gruesome form in the US and Europe in recent times. India banned e-cigarettes very recently.
Bangladesh can also follow it and ban the production, import, sale and marketing of such products. Vital strategies, a leading international public health organization and an active participant in Bangladesh’s move for greater tobacco control, also opines that Bangladesh should follow its neighboring countries’ footsteps and ban e-cigarettes for good health and environment.

Source: dailyindustry.news, 06 October 2019