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MANILA, Philippines — Innovative smoke-free alternatives such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products will accelerate the decline in the Philippine smoking rate, according to international public health policy experts.
“Vaping has resulted in the accelerated decline in national smoking rates in other countries where it is legally and readily accessible for adult smokers. Other nicotine products such as heated tobacco and nicotine pouches are also safer alternatives to smoking and effective quitting aids. I strongly support legislation to make these products available to adult smokers. This legislation will lead to substantial improvements in public health,” said tobacco treatment clinician Dr. Colin Mendelsohn.
Dr. Mendelsohn, along with public interest policy consultant Clive Bates and tobacco harm reduction advocate Dr. Alex Wodak, said these less harmful alternatives will help millions of smokers in the Philippines quit.
Dr. Mendelsohn, a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Smoking Cessation Guidelines, said vaping nicotine, the most popular and most effective quitting aid in Australia and other western countries, already helped millions of smokers globally to quit. “It is a far safer alternative to deadly cigarettes for addicted smokers who are otherwise unable to quit,” he said.
Dr. Mendelsohn, founding chairman of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association (ATHRA), cited evidence from other countries showing that these less harmful alternatives can help smokers quit and prevent hundreds of thousands of premature deaths.
Mr. Clive Bates, director of Counterfactual Consulting Ltd. and former director of Action on Smoking and Health (UK), agreed that regulating these less harmful alternatives to cigarettes would be the fastest way to reduce the death toll from smoking.
“That’s the fastest way to reduce death and disease from smoking and it is all done at the expense and initiative of users, without expensive public sector programs,” said Mr. Bates.
Globally, smoking affects about 1.1 billion people, according to Dr. Alex Wodak, emeritus consultant for Alcohol and Drug Service at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.
“Up to two out of every three long-term smokers will die from a smoking-related condition. About eight million people around the world die every year from smoking. Most of these deaths are from cancer, heart or lung disease,” said Dr. Wodak.
Data show that in the Philippines, more than 100,000 of the 17 million Filipino smokers die of smoking-related diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and lung disease.
Dr. Wodak, director of ATHRA, said it is time to make available innovative and less harmful alternatives to smokers. “It is now 20 years since vaping was developed by a pharmacist in Beijing. Commercial forms of vaping started in 2006. Different kinds of studies confirm that vaping is much less dangerous than smoking,” he said.
“Several highly regarded scientific organizations estimate that vaping is at least 95-percent less risky than smoking. Vaping allows smokers to continue ingesting nicotine but without the tars and many other dangerous chemicals contained in cigarette smoke,” he said.
“The idea of people continuing to use a psychoactive drug but avoiding most or all of the health, social or economic costs is called ‘harm reduction’. Indeed the Philippines used harm reduction extensively to minimize the spread of HIV among and from people who inject drugs,” he said.
He said other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Malaysia are now seriously looking at making it easy for smokers to switch from deadly cigarettes to much lower risk vaping.
“The United Kingdom and New Zealand are examples of western countries which make it easy for smokers to switch from smoking to vaping,” he said.
“Indeed. If we accelerate the declining smoking rate, this will over time reduce healthcare expenditure. Adding vaping to existing tobacco control policies will help accelerate the decline in smoking rates. I very much hope that the Philippines will make it easy for smokers to switch to vaping. This will also require risk proportionate regulation,” he said.
Mr. Bates recognized the efforts of Filipino senators and congressmen for having “done a good job in drafting sound risk-proportionate legislation that has made its way through intense Congressional scrutiny and is now an example of world-class legislation.”
The Senate and the House of Representatives earlier ratified the proposed Vaporized Nicotine Products Regulation Act, which is now awaiting the signature of the President. “I hope the President will place his signature on the bill and give the Philippines truly independent legislation that will be among the best in the world,” said Mr. Bates, who previously worked for the UK government and the United Nations.
“The bill sets up an excellent regulatory framework, carefully balancing the needs of people who smoke to access much safer alternatives to cigarettes and the protection of those who do not smoke or use nicotine. This is a fine balancing act and in my view the bill gets it right,” he said.
Mr. Bates warned that excessive regulation on innovative new products would likely do more harm than good. “If you make vaping more difficult, less satisfying, harder to access, or more expensive, then expect more cigarette smoking, a black market, user workarounds and more ill-health, accidents and crime,” he said.
He said the government should resist the opposition to the new legislation from anti-vaping groups such as Bloomberg Philanthropy of US financial billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who “comes with a crude prohibition agenda and has been operating in the Philippines since 2011, building his influence by funding public health groups and the civil service.”
“The government and President should look hard at their (Bloomberg’s charities) advice and ask if it is compromised. Everyone should ask if their opposition to this legislation is really the interests of Philippines citizens. Almost everything they propose for regulating vaping, for example, would protect the cigarette trade, stimulate black markets and add to the national burden of ill-health and crime,” he said.
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