The World Health Organization has issued a warning about e-cigarettes.
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
- The WHO stated that e-cigarettes need to be regulated to ensure that the tobacco industry’s strategy of making young people addicted to it is curbed.
- The World Health Organization released a report on the global tobacco epidemic.
- The body slammed the tobacco industry’s use of methods for making young people addicted.
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that e-cigarettes and similar devices are harmful to health and must be regulated to curb the tobacco industry’s “criminal” strategy of attracting young people to nicotine.
“Nicotine is very addictive. The Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (ENDS) is harmful and must be better regulated,” said WHO Director-General Ghebreyesus.
The WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic in 2021 was released on Tuesday. The report focuses on emerging products.
It said that ENDS should be strictly monitored to protect public health to the utmost.
Tedros said: “Without being prohibited, the government should adopt appropriate policies to protect its people from ENDS and prevent children, young people and other vulnerable groups from using them.”
The United Nations Health Agency’s eighth tobacco report stated that ENDS manufacturers often target young people with thousands of attractive flavors — the document lists 16,000 — and reassuring statements.
Dr. Vinayak Prasad, head of the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative, said that “use of toxic and toxic products is a crime” against children.
He says:
This is the most criminal behavior. This is a violation of human rights. They risked a lifelong addiction.
According to the report, there are still more than 1 billion smokers in the world.
It emphasizes that tobacco causes 8 million deaths each year, of which 1 million die from second-hand smoke.
Michael Bloomberg, WHO’s global ambassador for noncommunicable diseases and former mayor of New York, said: “With the decline in cigarette sales, tobacco companies have been actively marketing new products-such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products-and lobbying the government for Limit their supervision.
“Their goal is simple: to attract another generation with nicotine. We can’t let this happen.”
Care
Due to the harmful effects of nicotine on brain development, the United Nations health agency pays special attention to people under the age of 20 who use e-cigarettes.
However, it is not easy to regulate such products because of the wide variety of products and their rapid development, said Ruediger Krech, director of the WHO Department of Health Promotion.
“It is almost impossible to distinguish nicotine-containing products from non-nicotine-containing products, and even some tobacco-containing products. This is just one way for the industry to subvert and undermine tobacco control measures,” he said.
The World Health Organization recommends that governments do all they can to prevent non-smokers from smoking e-cigarettes, so as not to “normalize social smoking”.
Kreich said that although the evidence on e-cigarettes is not fully conclusive, there is enough evidence to conclude that they are harmful.
problem
“Let us not naively think that the tobacco industry will now be part of the solution: they are still an important part of the problem,” he added.
Prasad said the tobacco industry “misled the public and tried to mislead the government.”
The report found that 32 countries have banned the sale of ENDS.
They include Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, North Korea and Singapore.
Another 79 countries have adopted at least one partial measure to prohibit the use of such products in public places, prohibit their advertising, promotion and sponsorship, or require health warnings to be displayed on the packaging.
The WHO said: “This still leaves 84 countries not being regulated or restricted in any way.”
The Geneva-based organization said that efforts to regulate e-cigarettes should not distract people from the fight against smoking.
The World Health Organization said that although the proportion of smokers in many countries has declined, population growth means that the total number of smokers is still “high”.
