By the BusinessMirror Broader Look Team
WHAT was once regarded as a way to celebrate life is now being regarded as a means to end it: cigarette smoking.
Such habit was given birth in the 19th century as siblings of industrialization and the tail end of imperialism. It was a time of great innovation and the boom of industry—just a few milestones for humankind to celebrate.
But today, people living in the modern world who seek to live longer while causing less stress on the economy and the planet have signed a death sentence for cigarette smoking. They found cigarette smoking guilty of causing poor health, disease and death.
Many governments, including that of the Philippines, have adopted policies banning smoking in public places, ordering the printing of graphic warnings on cigarette boxes and strict rules on advertisements. Officials even resolved to hike taxes in order to discourage tobacco consumption.
While the number of smokers dwindled over time, many continued with the vice. It is the hope of governments that the shift to “healthier” alternatives, such as e-cigarettes, would eventually do the trick and put an end to cigarette smoking.
Costs
ACCORDING to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, about 40 diseases are causally linked to smoking, whether through direct smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke.
Diseases directly linked to smoking include various cancers as well as chronic diseases such as stroke, blindness and tuberculosis, among others.
Children exposed to secondhand smoke may develop respiratory symptoms, impaired lung functions and middle ear disease, among others. Adults, meanwhile, could suffer from a stroke, develop nasal irritation and lung cancer, among other diseases.
Lung cancer is primarily caused by smoking. However, smoking also increases the risk of acquiring other diseases. Some of these include Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), heart disease, stroke, asthma, diabetes, blindness, cataracts and age-related macular degeneration and other cancers including colon, cervix, liver, stomach and pancreatic diseases. There are also negative reproductive effects in women like ectopic pregnancies and reduced fertility and premature low-birth weight babies.
Smoke for nicotine, die for tar
HOWEVER, Dr. Lorenzo Mata Jr., lead convenor and president of the group called Quit for Good, points out that the deadly effect of cigarette smoking is not due to nicotine, a chemical compound present in tobacco, but rather to the combustion of the tobacco that releases carbon monoxide and more than 7,000 chemicals in its tar. A total of 69 of these chemicals, he added, have been established to be carcinogenic.
According to Mata, an occupational medical specialist, it was in the 1960s when British scientist Dr. Mike Russell said that “people smoke for the nicotine but die from tar.”
“It’s a known fact that nicotine is relatively benign by itself. However, its addicting effect is the one causing a smoker to get hooked to the deadly effects of tobacco combustion.”
Dr. Lorenzo Mata Jr., lead convenor and president of Quit for Good
He feels that if the other aspects of smoking like the physical, behavioral and social influences are not addressed, it will be very difficult to make someone quit smoking. This is where Quit for Good comes in, he said.
The group aims to build a coalition that advocates smoking cessation and all standard ways to do so, including viable and less-harmful alternatives to smoking.
Alarming rates
ON the other hand, Dr. Earl Louis A. Sempio, an internist pulmonologist, said it is the lack of education about the effects of smoking on their health that makes people continue to smoke.
“A lot of Filipinos grew up thinking that smoking and following examples that they see and perceive as correct behavior are okay,” Sempio, also a professor at the University of Santo Tomas Medical School, said. “Addiction has already set in by the time the adverse effects of smoking are felt. We really need to educate and to stop [the cycle].”
Despite this, the last five decades saw millions of deaths and people afflicted with tobacco-related diseases. The negative impacts of smoking have risen to alarming rates.
This is particularly the case in the Philippines. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the top 10 causes of death in the country were mainly linked to smoking.
Top ten
IN 2016, 70 percent of the total 582,183 deaths (about 413,325) in the Philippines were caused by the top ten causes of death in the country, most of which relate to tobacco use.
The top five were led by ischemic heart diseases, which accounted for 12.7 percent or 74,134 deaths in 2016. This was followed by neoplasms (10.4 percent or 60,470 deaths), pneumonia (9.9 percent or 57,809 deaths), cerebrovascular diseases (9.8 percent or 56,938 deaths) and hypertensive diseases (5.7 percent or 33,452 deaths).
On a five-year average between 2011 and 2015, tobacco-related diseases also accounted for the majority of the top 10 causes of deaths in the country. These include diseases of the heart, malignant neoplasms, diseases of the cerebrovascular system, pneumonia, diabetes mellitus, all forms of tuberculosis and chronic lower respiratory disease.
Apart from the health risks, there are also economic costs to smoking. Health treatments for the various diseases it can cause are significant. A 2015 study by Dr. Antonio Dans showed that the Philippines lost P210 billion because of tobacco-related diseases.
The losses include treatment of lung cancer, COPD, cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular diseases.
Tobacco expense
ACCORDING to the 2015 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), the average cigarette expenditure per month is P678.4. It is therefore no surprise that tobacco use also holds a significant amount in Filipinos’ expenditures.
Based on the 2015 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), about 12 million families nationwide spent P55.789 billion on tobacco.
The lower 50 percent of the population spent a total of P25.986 billion while the upper 50 percent spent slightly higher at P29.803 billion on tobacco.
Despite these, the GATS data revealed there are about 15.9 million people who smoke. Of this number, around 14.1 million are male and 1.8 million are female.
Among the youth, many are also hooked. The GATS data showed that among 13-year-olds and 15-year-olds, there are a million smokers. Around 730,000 are males and 130,000 are females.
WHO report
IN its report, the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out that one of the greatest concerns in the Philippines in terms of tobacco-related issue are the 13-to-15-year-old smokers.
“Of great concern is that 12 percent of school-based adolescents 13–15 years old (18 percent of boys and 7 percent of girls) are current smokers (Philippines Global School-based Student Health Survey, 2015). The smoking prevalence is still greatest among people with low income, who smoke cheap tobacco (Department of Health, 2018),” it said in the report.
The WHO said the Philippines only needs to invest about P2.637 billion for five years or P10 billion over a 15-year period to implement its recommended tobacco control package.
Doing this would save 71,130 lives in the process and yield a return of investment in terms of productivity benefits worth P97.8 billion, the WHO said.
“Certain policies, such as mass-media campaigns or protecting people from smoking, have large planned costs,” it said. “Nevertheless, a range of low-cost tobacco policies exists, including package warning labels, bans on tobacco advertising and raising taxes.”
Government interventions
ADDRESSING the crisis meant the Department of Health (DOH) and local government units had to be enterprising, if not relentless, in their respective campaigns against smoking.
However, it was safe to say that the degree of their commitment to these campaigns depended on who was sitting as president.
Under President Fidel V. Ramos, the DOH ran the “Yosi Kadiri” campaign, which animated cigarettes and turned them into nasty images of cancer. The campaign turned out to be the country’s most iconic anti-smoking campaign that has been revived under the current administration.
Under President Joseph Estrada, the DOH implemented “Hoy, Yosi Alis Dyan!,” a campaign that sought to shame indirectly the smokers but ultimately the habit of smoking. The succeeding regime seemed to focus on the fact that smoking kills.
When President Duterte was elected, one strong policy he immediately imposed was a smoking ban in all public areas, replicating a successful campaign he did in Davao City when he was still mayor of the southern Philippine city.
The President also went after the owner of cigarette manufacturing firm Mighty Corp. He ordered the arrest of its owners over accusations of economic sabotage for failing to pay the government about P30 billion in taxes.
Duterte was not bluffing about fighting smoking—though he was a smoker himself—because on top of the sin taxes, he also banned smoking from all enclosed spaces.
Sin tax for health: International model
IN a statement, the Department of Finance (DOF) said the WHO described the Philippines’s sin tax measures, such as higher excise taxes on tobacco products, as an “international model for cost-effective promotion of health and reduction of non-communicable diseases.”
This was revealed by the WHO in its recently published “Philippine NCD [Non-communicable diseases] Investment Case Report.” Quoting the WHO, the DOF noted that the Duterte administration’s “actions to prevent NCDs in the Philippines are relatively cheap and cost-effective.”
The WHO also noted that the Philippines’s excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco and nicotine vapor products to fund its Universal Health Care (UHC) program make it “a forerunner in allocating sin tax revenue to health programs,” the DOF added.
“Most of these policy interventions are also WHO ‘best buys’, that is, effective interventions with a cost-effectiveness ratio of less than or equal to 100 international dollars per disability-adjusted life-year averted in low-income and middle-income countries,” the WHO report said of the country’s sin tax measures.
Comprehensive approaches
FINANCE Assistant Secretary Antonio G. Lambino II said the DOF is “one with our partners in the WHO in supporting comprehensive approaches to truly address the health impacts of sin products.”
“Tax reform is an important part of this effort, raising prices especially for the most vulnerable segments of society,” Lambino said.
“They also generate revenues to fund holistic health programs from the higher contributions of those who insist on consuming unhealthy products, the same consumers whose medical care will cost more to society in the future anyway,” he added.
Lambino pointed out that lawmakers such as Senate Committee on Ways and Means Chairperson Sen. Pia Cayetano “have been supportive of a dual approach where excise taxes go side-by-side with rehabilitation and quitting programs.”
The WHO report described increasing taxes on ‘sin’ products as “one of the most effective measures a government can take to reduce their consumption, improving population health while increasing government revenue for national development priorities,” according to DOF.
This report also noted that “the tax rate on alcoholic beverages remains low, at 22 percent of the retail price,” the DOF added.
Intensity vs prevalence
IN a journal article published earlier this year, De La Salle University professor Mryna S. Austria and Jesson A. Pagaduan of the Asian Development Bank said the increase in the country’s excise tax through the Sin Tax Reform Act of 2012 has resulted in lower cigarette consumption among Filipinos.
Austria and Pagaduan said so in their research titled “Are Filipino Smokers More Sensitive to Cigarette Prices due to the Sin Tax Reform Law?: A Difference-in-difference Analysis.” The researchers noted that the number of sticks consumed by Filipino smokers declined significantly, outpacing the reduction observed in the number of smokers.
“The increase in excise tax due to the tax reform has been effective in lowering cigarette consumption in the country and in making cigarette demand more responsive to price increases,” Austria and Pagaduan said. “Specifically, the tax reform has reduced the number of cigarettes purchased by smokers more than the number of cigarette users.”
Based on their analysis, the authors said the average cigarette consumption declined to 52 packs in 2015 from 62 packs in 2009, after the sin tax measure was implemented. The study revealed that the number of smokers declined from 29.7 percent to 23.8 percent during the reference period.
“Decomposing the impact of the Sin Tax Reform Act [2012] into its effect on smoking prevalence and intensity, our empirical exercise reveals that the impact on smoking intensity is significantly higher than on smoking prevalence,” they said.
“The Sin Tax Reform Act (2012) has reduced the number of cigarettes purchased by smokers more than the number of cigarette users over the period 2009 to 2015,” they added.
The observations were “expected due to the addictive nature of cigarettes which attenuates the impact of the reform on the decision of smokers to quit,” the authors pointed out.
Higher taxes, proactive programs
THE authors noted that the findings of their study proved that the “increase in excise tax has been effective in reducing cigarette consumption in the country and in making cigarette demand more responsive to price increases.”
They added: “Specifically, the tax reform has reduced the number of cigarettes purchased by smokers more than the number of cigarette users.”
The study recommended that the annual increment in tobacco excise taxes should be continued and should be at least 4 percent as mandated by pertinent laws or indexed to current inflation rate, whichever is higher.
“The rising per capita income in the country will increase tobacco consumption in the coming years,” it said.
“To guarantee that cigarettes will continue to be less affordable, the policy goal is to ensure that the relative increase in price due to an increase in excise tax should be higher than the rise in per capita income,” it added.
The study also recommended that the government’s tobacco treatment or rehabilitation program be “reviewed to make it more effective in increasing the proportion of smokers who successfully kick the habit.”
“Third, the finding supports the positive effect of higher education in lowering cigarette consumption. This could be attributed to greater awareness by more educated people on the health consequences of smoking than by those with less education,” the authors said. “Making education more accessible and affordable to the poor will help reduce tobacco use in the country.”
Alternatives
ENTERPRISING businessmen and anti-cigarette advocates saw the narrowing regime for tobacco smoking as an opportune time for e-cigarettes or vapes to penetrate the Philippine market. When it first came here in the country around 10 years ago, vaping or electronic cigarettes were given a cold shoulder by most smokers.
But as vaping evolved and with the introduction of mass-based brands, this modern trend in acquiring nicotine became popular to millions of people all over the world.
Vaping became the motivation for those who say they want to quit, and an offshoot for those who can’t afford a pack of cigarette.
Based on the GATS, there were around 180,000 adults using e-cigarettes in 2015, most of them, or 170,000, men. Among the 13 to 15 year olds, around 360,000 have “ever tried using e-cigarettes” composed mainly of 270,000 boys and 100,000 girls.
The expanded national nutrition survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), revealed that about 120,000 adults aged 20 years old and over used e-cigarettes in 2018. About 30,000 younger Filipinos aged 10 to 19.9 years also used e-cigarettes.
With the number of users, data from the DOF showed that excise tax collections from locally manufactured and imported cigarettes reached P133.66 billion in 2018.
Data obtained by BusinessMirror showed the country imported a total of $56.197 million worth of “Other Electrical Machines,” which may include e-cigarette machines from 2014 to 2018. In terms of the juice, during the same period, the country imported $577.053 million of these goods.
The shift
WITH the availability of alternatives, smokers shifted from cigarettes to e-cigarettes. A total of 100 proclaimed regular and heavy smokers, both male and female, were asked their individual reasons for turning to vaping.
Out of a hundred, at least 51 said they are transitioning to vaping because they want to quit smoking. Most of them have been smoking for at least nine years.
One of them is Johnny Chan, 33, a product trainor for one of the call centers in Pasay City. Chan said he has been smoking since he was 17 and now feels that smoking is taking a toll on his body.
Chan said he used to smoke at least 30 sticks to 35 sticks of cigarettes a day and felt the need to stop or minimize his habit. He has been into vaping for more than a year now.
Chan said when he tried it the first time in 2016, it was distasteful but overwhelming at the same time. As he tried to experiment on his juice and brand, he finally decided to stick to it. He still smokes but only consumes about six sticks a day now.
Debbie, 29, another call center agent, has the same motivation for vaping. She used to light 22 cigarettes daily and felt the urge to stop because it was affecting her breath and her teeth. The discoloration in her teeth and the blackening of her lips really turned her off.
She said smoking cigarettes also affected her relationship. She is using a mod system that her ex-boyfriend gave her two years ago.
Can’t afford smoking
THE other group, 38 of 100, said they are now vapers because they can’t afford smoking anymore. Some of them have been smoking for years as well. Majority of the group are non-heavy smokers with an average consumption of 13 sticks and maximum of 21 sticks a day.
One of them is Bobby Tagasa, 30, a sales staff at a three-star hotel in Manila. Tagasa said he used to smoke at least 30 sticks a day but shifted to vaping because he can’t afford to buy cigarettes anymore.
He started smoking at the age of 16 and used to consume around eight sticks in his first five years. He only turned to vaping this early this year because smoking is now an encumbrance for him.
“Hirap na magyosi ngayon, bukod sa mahal na hassle pa, sa kulungan ka pupulutin pag nagkataon, di katulad ng vape, kahit nasa labas ako nagagamit ko pa siya kahit sobrang kapal ng usok, siguro dahil mabango siya at legal [It’s difficult to smoke now; besides the hassle, you could end up in jail. But with vape, even if I’m outside and I emit smoke it’s allowed; maybe it’s because it smells good and is legal],” Tagasa explained.
Better satisfaction
TAGASA claims he still smokes now but does not exceed six sticks a day. Most of the time he only asks for sticks from friends since he does not want to buy anymore. He is using Nord now but is saving money to buy a pod system very soon.
Another vaper in the group is CJ Evasco, 22, a professional dance instructor and part-time model. Evasco said he has been smoking for at least four years and would normally consume 18 sticks daily but transitioned to vaping two years ago.
He used to smoke when he was stressed from work-related and home-related issues. He said he is using a certain vape brand but would like to try other brands to see if these would give him better satisfaction. He even said he is making a choreograph for his group while they are vaping.
The last group, 11 of 100, are mostly the young people who think vaping is chill. They also hate the smell of smoke emanating from the cigarette. Four of these 11 persons said they have never tried a cigarette before; one 40-year-old guy thinks vaping is safer than smoking; while the rest have been smoking for three years only.
Learning to play tricks
Butch Quizon, 19, a college student, is not a smoker although he tried a few sticks before but would only finish half of the cigarette, then throw it for fear that his mom would not let him inside their house if he is caught smoking. His father, a smoker, however, allow him to vape, just to keep him away from smoking.
The youngest in the group is Jenny Panis, 17, a waitress at a club in Quezon City. Panis uses a second-hand e-cigarette sold to her by her co-worker for only P350. She used to smoke eight sticks of cigarettes before but was able to minimize it to only three since starting her e-cigarette June this year.
“Syempre parang sosyal ka pag naka-vape ka, di ba, saka mahirap na magyosi ngayon bukod sa bawal na, e mahal pa [You look more glamorous when vaping; besides, it’s hard to smoke these days—besides the widening ban, it’s costly]. She said she is now learning to play tricks using her vape.
Tax on e-cigs
Now that vape or e-cigarettes are slowly gaining ground, naturally the government has seen the opportunity to make money out of it again. And for the same purpose: to raise more resources for universal health care.
To further establish how this policy move would affect vapers’ behavior, the same persons were asked how they would react to it, if the next round of excise taxes covers the e-cigarettes as well.
The response was near unanimous.
Quizon said he would definitely give up his mods and switch back to smoking if plans to tax e-cigarettes push through.
“Precisely why I turn to vaping is because I believe it’s cheaper and safer,” Quizon said.
Panis and Evasco agreed.
“Kaya nga kami nag-ve-vape dahil mas matipid ito at mas cool pero kung ganun din magagastos namin, e wag na lang, yosi na lang kami uli [We vape because it’s cheaper and cool; but if we’ll spend the same amount, never mind, we’ll just go back to tobacco].”
Debbie, who enjoys a bigger income than most of the members of the study group, said she might stick to vaping because she believes it’s a lot safer for her wellness and convenient at the same time.
Caveats
IN a statement last week, the DOH revealed that it has received its first official report of an “e-cigarette or vape-associated lung injury,” or what it termed as “Evali.”
The report came from a private pediatric pulmonologist based in the Visayas, the DOH said.
According to the case report, the patient is a 16-year-old female adolescent who had been using e-cigarettes for six months while concurrently consuming combustible cigarettes, referred to as “dual use,” the DOH said on November 15.
The DOH said the patient, who was admitted on October 21, initially presented with sudden-onset severe shortness of breath, required oxygen supplementation and ICU admission. Upon admission, the clinical impression was initially considered to be infectious in nature, it added.
However, upon further evaluation, the patient met the case criteria for Evali based on the guidelines of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to the DOH.
The patient has been discharged after receiving appropriate care from the attending pulmonologist, the DOH said.
The DOH added that it is “in continuous communication with the attending pulmonologist for updates regarding the condition of the patient.”
“All e-cigarette users should seek immediate medical help, and ask their doctors for ways to quit these harmful products,” Health Undersecretary Rolando Enrique D. Domingo said. “No e-cigarette product should be accessible to young children and adolescents, who are uniquely susceptible to the harms of e-cigarettes and nicotine. I urge non-users not to even try e-cigarettes at all.”
Lower-tax lobby
APART from ensuring that e-cigarettes are safe to use, there is also an uphill battle to persuade lawmakers to impose lower taxes.
Citing studies by health-related departments in the US and the UK, Philip Morris-Fortune Tobacco Corp. President Denis Gorkun said the taxes on e-cigarettes or smoke-free products like their IQOS should be proportionate to the risks.
Filipino smokers, he said, should be encouraged to switch to a much, much better alternative. This means, he said, the taxation must be risk-proportionate so as not to make the alternative to cigarettes expensive.
“The taxation must be lower than cigarettes,” Gorkun said.
“The key for all nicotine and tobacco products is to be regulated. A good example is the United Kingdom. There are millions of people who use this product. They need to be regulated appropriately. But if we want to make the Philippines smoke-free, we need to make sure that the regulation allows us to talk to smokers and explain the product to them. That is the key.”
Philip Morris-Fortune Tobacco Corp. President Denis Gorkun
Gorkun supports the idea of regulating e-cigarettes, like all other tobacco and nicotine products, so as to ensure the safety of the products and their use by Filipino consumers.
Beginning of the end
IF you really want to stop smoking, consult your doctor first, Sempio said, adding the doctor can recommend ways how to quit smoking. It is even better if you go cold turkey and stop smoking without going through the process.
“There are processes that a patient can follow in order to facilitate his quitting this bad habit,” he said. “There has to be support for the patient, the symptoms have to be addressed and, if he has nicotine addiction, there’s nicotine replacement therapy like nicotine patches, lozenges, gums and nicotine pill.”
These nicotine-replacement therapy products, Sempio said, are supported by studies and endorsed by the Council of Tobacco Health and Air Pollution through the Philippine Clinical Practice Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence 2017.
While there are smoking cessation programs in place, Mata pointed out that since their inception, the success rate of quitting successfully has only been 4 percent. This means that “96 percent of Filipino smokers, or 16.6 million of them, are statistically unable to quit.”
“Shouldn’t we consider harm-reduction options for these smokers? So now, we have a science-based viable and less harmful alternative to smoking that are available and these are Ends [electronic nicotine delivery system] or vaping products.”
Dr. Lorenzo Mata Jr., lead convenor and president of Quit for Good
Mata pointed to the Public Health England Royal College of Physicians and Cancer Research UK as having recognized that Ends is at least 95-percent less harmful than cigarette smoking. He added these institutions have openly endorsed Ends as a viable alternative to tobacco cigarettes.
“Allow me to qualify this by saying that I am not advocating this openly,” he explained. “For those who want to quit smoking and are unable to do so, smokers can switch to the less harmful alternative to tobacco cigarettes and that is Ends. This should never be marketed to the youth.”
Entry point for youth
Unfortunately, this is not the case, as Sempio points out that vaping has now become an entry point for the younger generation to start smoking. The new Ends devices strongly appeal to a younger and new generation of smokers.
“Initially, the electronic cigarette is being marketed as a smoking cessation product,” Sempio said. “What is happening now, however, is that children and young adults are seeing it as an entry point for cigarette smoking. Vaping is not actually safer because studies that have been published are being downplayed.”
“The problem lies in the fact that they do not know what is being put into the e-cigarettes because it is completely unregulated so that is why there has to be regulation,” he added. “Even they themselves know that there is something harmful that is being put in.”
Sempio said he “definitely supports regulation.”
“If something is found to be harmful, something has to be done in order to lessen the harm that will potentially affect the patient.”
According to Mata, one of the goals of the Quit for Good group is to push for the regulation of Ends.
“Regulation will ensure that the device and the e-liquid in the device will have the appropriate safeguards to protect its users. We will push a fair regulation that will not unduly restrict the accessibility of Ends for smokers to switch to.”
Mata explained that “if the government tightens the regulations on Ends in the same breath as tobacco cigarette, then we will be sending the wrong signal to smokers that Ends is as harmful as tobacco cigarette, when in reality it is at least 95-percent less harmful.”
Such wrong signal, he said, could prompt smokers to continue with their habit.
“The government should allow limited choices of flavors other than tobacco and menthol, that will entice smokers to switch,” Mata said. “At the same time, restrictions should be imposed to ensure that the youth will be prevented from using Ends.”
He added all this will contribute to Quit for Good’s goal of making tobacco smoking obsolete within the next 10 years and reduce the prevalence of smoking by 10 percent every year for the next decade.
“We have to aim high to act fast but we need the cooperation of all stakeholders, especially of the endorsement of the Department of Health of the less harmful alternatives such as Ends,” Mata said. “We should harness the popularity of Ends, a technologically advanced product, as a conduit to help transition smokers into quitting.”
With reports by Cai U. Ordinario, Jasper Y. Arcalas, Nazarene Leyco and Anne Ruth dela Cruz
WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE SEEKING ALTERNATIVES TO CIGARETTE SMOKING WITH DUTERTE ‘BAN’?
AS we were going to press, President Rodrigo Duterte said in a press conference late Tuesday night he was banning vaping in the country and the importation of vape-related devices and chemicals.
The announcement, made without any written order yet, has raised questions about whether the government policymakers—in health and finance, particularly—have already laid down a clear roadmap on how to treat vaping, which has been billed as an alternative (read: far less harmful) to tobacco smoking, for which a host of diseases have been blamed by countless studies here and abroad.
However, a 2015 survey by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates the narrow options of adult smokers shunning the traditional combustible cigarettes. The survey showed that 77 percent of adult smokers have tried to quit, but only 4 percent succeeded.
Anti-tobacco groups had strongly lobbied the previous Congress for higher excise taxes on cigarettes, in order to raise billions more for universal health care. These days, they are lobbying the 18th Congress for the second wave of higher sin taxes, for alcohol as well as for e-cigarettes.
To tax or not to tax? To ban or just to regulate? The government, in light of the President’s verbal order on Tuesday night, must now sort this out.
In radio interviews early Wednesday, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III expressed support to the presidential ban but clarified that no executive order has been issued yet.
Until then, officials will have to reckon with the reality that the 16 million Filipino adult smokers who were pitched the vaping habit as “a simple, clean and satisfying alternative to cigarette smoking” will need clear answers on where to turn.
To recall, it was just in June 2019 when JUUL Labs, the leading vapor brand in the US, announced the launch of its JUUL vapor device and JUUL pods in the Philippines. And last week, on the sidelines of the Brightleaf Awards, Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. Inc. President Denis Gorkun declared plans to formally launch their own alternative to combustible cigarettes, the IQOS.
JUUL had been marketing itself as on a mission to help improve the lives of an estimated one billion adult smokers worldwide with its touted viable alternative to combustible cigarettes. Its launch in June this year was made as an exclusive partnership with Better For You (BFY) Corp., a Gokongwei-owned company.
JUUL Labs was co-founded by Adam Bowen and James Monsees, who described themselves as former smokers increasingly dissatisfied with the health and social impacts of cigarettes but unable to find good substitutes. They started designing concepts for alternatives in the mid-2000s at Stanford, and after a decade of research and development, launched their product—a closed vaping system with pods and a patented temperature control design, without buttons or switches. It touts “a clean experience, free from ash and odor.”
What happens to the products touted as healthier alternatives? How will health and product standards regulators distinguish between harmful devices and risk-free ones? How can the use of chemicals with vaping be regulated? And finally, what happens to millions seeking a way out of what has been proven as the deadly habit of cigarette smoking?
These questions will certainly stir much debate in the next few days.
Image credits: Ivan Soima | Dreamstime.com