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Bu6iness
Thursday, January 16, 2O2O
WFIO admits e-cigs less
harmful than cigarettes
THE World Health Organiza
tion has finally admitted that e-
iigarettes are,Iess harmful telative
to cigarettes.
The acknovledgment came trom
!(HO representative Dt. Ranti
Favokun. a scierrtist ftom the Na
tional Capacity-Tobacco Control
Prevention of Non-Communicable
Diseases who attended the hearing
on vaping reguladon at the House
of Represen tatives recendy
Fayokunt admission uas made
amidst the qrganization's cautious
stand on e-cig4rettes despite the
mountins scienti6c evidence that
they are"l.ss harmfirl than tradi
tional cigarettes.
Public Health England ha( al
ways maintained that e cigarenes
are 9590less harmful *ran tobacco
and has encowaged smokers who
can't quit smoking to switch to the
less hatmfr:l alternative.
The National Academies of Sci-
ences, Engineeting and Medicine
in 2018 released a rePoit stating
that "completely switching from
cigarettes to e-cigarettes will reduce
exposure to numefous toxrcants
and catcinogens found in crgarette."
"They $YIJO) are sal,ng if You
are a countr| that carnot Produce
regulation and cannot enforce reg-
ulation, you must ban. That, to me,
u PAq-e-
Insght
is a conradiction. A countfy can-
not regulate perfecdy, but the last
thing it should do is ban because
the Llack market will ptol.iferate.
This is an issue that is extremelY
important to childreo lf vre ban
things, if we do not tegulate things,
we create a black market that does
not care about children, that does
not care about elderly PeoPle, that
does not care about us at all," Dr.
Andrew da Roza, an addictions
psychotherapist, and lawYer ,said
during the congressional headng
A b-alori electronic cigaretrcs and
heat-no-bum tobacco Ploducs will
onlv create a black market tlnt.rill be
disistious to public healtl; accotdiog
to intemational public healdr expers
who attended the hearing
"If you ban them, there will
simply be a black market When
the United States banned alcohol
in the 1900s, that did oot vork
ou(' said Da Roza,
Rep. Weslie Gatcbalian, chair-
man of the House committee on
tade, said the hearing was called
because "the use of ENDS and
heated tobacco products is now a
national concern, so much so tiat
the President @uterte) recendy
issued a directive banning the im-
portation and use of ENDS and
HTPs in public sPaces. "
eel