As part of World Tobacco Freedom Day on 31 May, President Andrãs©Manuel López Obrador signed the agreement just over a week after the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris) issued a maximum warning against the use of electronic cigarettes due to their content, which could be harmful±, due to certain chemicals such as vitamin E acetate. Similarly, WHO notes the need to regulate the use of nicotine delivery systems in smoke-free areas and to limit their advertising and sale to minors. These issues and the future of e-cigarettes will be discussed at the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control from 13 to 18 October this year. Although the legal market for tobacco vaporizers or heaters developed in the country, it was still only a fraction compared to traditional cigarettes. Philip Morris International, one of the distributors of these alternatives, has grown from 35,000 to about 42,000 tobacco heater users. At the same time, the tobacco industry has increased its turnover from 878 to 1,246 million pesos per year over the past five years ±± according to Inegi`s estimates. Worldwide, the use of nicotine alternatives is growing rapidly and gaining in value as users change their preferences. On the other hand, there is also evidence that young people who use vaping can eventually migrate more easily to conventional cigarettes, and it doesn`t help that, according to the World Health Organization, there are vaping substances advertised as nicotine-free that, in reality, are not. The trade in e-cigarettes has been banned in Mexico since May 2008, when the General Tobacco Control Law was enacted. However, it was necessary to harmonize the legal framework in order to prevent illegal commercial practices of these products, which is achieved today with the publication of this presidential decree, that in the exercise of the powers conferred on the President of the Republic by article 131 of the Constitution Finally, he approves the General Law on Import and Export Taxes with the aforementioned General Law on Tobacco Control.

With these measures, Cofepris and the Ministry of the Economy comply with the provisions of the current legal framework and exclude any possibility of marketing on the national territory of products other than tobacco. This protects the health of all Mexicans and confirms the federal government`s obligation to enforce all rights granted by law. In addition to banning vapers in all their representations, the decree stresses that it also©emphasizes the prohibition of the sale of “solutions and mixtures used in such systems” of electronic cigarettes. At the same time, the illicit tobacco market accounts for 19% of the total market, according to a study by the Confederation of Industrial Chambers of©Mexico. Between 2019 and 2020, although there was an increase in tobacco taxes due to the Special Goods and Services Tax (PEI), collection decreased due to trade in tobacco products. According to Miguel Méndez Machuca, head of Coepris in Tijuana, despite attempts to control sales, there are other spaces used for marketing, which is considered illegal in Mexico today. This is the case of social networks. In this sense, given that in many countries where e-cigarettes are legal, advertising is not prohibited and there is no restriction on sales to minors (8), which implies a higher risk to the health of the younger population.

For this reason, the advertising and marketing strategies used by e-cigarette manufacturers are seen as a new version of the strategies used by the tobacco industry to promote its products before advertising restrictions. That is, they use images of achievement and freedom, pleasure and success, especially aimed at a young audience that is simply more sensitive to these kinds of messages; In addition to the association of the use of electronic cigarettes with celebrities, glamour, style, fashion. This youth promotion activity is reinforced by the large number of flavours on offer, ranging from regular tobacco to banana split, cotton candy, long chewing gum, etc. (according to Professor Jonathan Samet, there are around 7,000 flavours) (8). To the criticism added the Undersecretary of State for Health, Hugo López Gatell, who said it was a “big lie” that electronic devices were less harmful or an alternative to smoking. “They present propaganda in which they say it hurts to burn tobacco and produce smoke, but that`s not true. Smoke is also harmful to health,” he added. People who do not comply with the decree of Andrãs©Manuel Lã³pez Obrador will have sanctions in accordance with the measure against the use of vapers or electronic cigarettes.

(Shutterstock) The discussion about vaping focuses on whether or not it is an alternative to the traditional cigar. On the one hand, there is no combustion, so the emission of ingested toxins is reduced.