Vape smoker nabbed, then freed in Lucena City

LUCENA CITY –– Police arrested a vape-smoker in this city on Thursday night, just days after President Duterte ordered the ban on the use and importation of e-cigarettes sans an executive order.

Lucena police identified the violator as Marq Joseph Virtucio, 21, a resident of a middle-class subdivision in Barangay Gulang-Gulang.

Police said Virtucio was collared while smoking e-cigarette along Quezon Avenue in the city’s downtown area around 8:45 p.m.

Authorities brought the vape smoker at the police station, recorded his name on the blotter, and released him afterward.

Police confiscated the e-cigarette.

On Tuesday night, President Duterte ordered the ban on the use and importation of e-cigarettes. Mr. Duterte said there was no executive order yet on the ban, but ordered the police to arrest those smoking vapes in public. Delfin T. Mallari Jr./lzb