Philippine President announces vape ban
According to foreign media reports, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday that after a teenager suffers from lung disease due to smoking vape, he will stop importing vape and ban vape in public places.
"I will ban the use and import of vape," Duterte said at a press conference on Tuesday evening. "I now order law enforcement agencies to arrest anyone who smokes vape in public.
He said the vape contains "nicotine and other chemicals we don't know."
Duterte issued an vape ban a few days ago, and the Philippine Ministry of Health said that a teenager in the middle of the country who had smoked vape for six months and was still smoking was diagnosed with lung damage. This mysterious disease may be the first in Asia, killing nearly 40 people in the United States and torturing nearly 2,000 people.
Lung injury is rapidly changing the attitude of global regulators towards the emerging vape industry. vape was once considered an effective tool to help smokers quit, but it is now banned in about 30 countries, including India and Brazil.
Duterte's statement came as a surprise because Philippine Finance Minister Carlos Dominguez just said last month that the Philippines is unlikely to ban vape, but higher taxes may be imposed. Vape and e-liquid manufacturers such as Juul Labs see the Philippines as a promising market in Southeast Asia.
On Tuesday, Dominguez asked lawmakers to pass a proposal for higher taxes on vape before Duterte officially issues an executive order on the vape ban.
Philippine billionaire Lucio Tan's holding company is LT Group, whose tobacco division is a Philip Morris International partner in the Philippines. LT Group rose for the second day in a row, rising 2.9% on Wednesday. JG Summit's subsidiary partnered with Juul and fell as much as 1% on the day.
Duterte has banned smoking in closed public places less than a year after taking office in June 2016.
The Philippine Ministry of Health issued a statement on November 15 saying that a 16-year-old was admitted to the intensive care unit last month because of sudden shortness of breath. She was diagnosed with "steam-related lung injury", met the "vape-related lung injury" criteria of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and was discharged after treatment.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been working to pinpoint the exact cause of the disease and has not yet attributed it to any one product or device, but has extracted e-liquid from black market source liquids or derivatized tetrahydrocannabinol (THC ) The e-liquid used together has been scrutinized.
The disease is reported to be limited to North America so far, and experts believe that deaths from the disease may be rare in countries where suspicious products such as tetrahydrocannabinol are banned.
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