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Thank you very much to Nhan Dan newspaper for hosting this important session.
I have three key messages I want to share with you today about so-called new tobacco products.
First, and let me being crystal clear on this: new nicotine and tobacco products are not safe, and they are not healthy.
They contain nicotine, which is highly addictive. Far from producing harmless vapour, some produce emissions that is just as toxic than cigarette smoke.
Nicotine is particularly harmful for children, adolescents, pregnant women and their babies. It can affect brain development, impair learning and increase the risk of anxiety disorders. Young people who use e-cigarettes are also more likely to go on to use conventional cigarettes.
In the short run, e-cigarettes have been associated with acute lung injury, nicotine poisoning, burns and injuries from battery explosions.
We are also very worried about the longer term effects – as e-cigarettes and HTPs are known to contain many of the same toxic substances contained in traditional tobacco products which are known to cause cancer and other serious health problems such as heart disease.
The second message is that these products are very clearly designed and marketed to appeal to young people. In Viet Nam, we saw products sold in flavours such as watermelon, cotton candy and lemon tart, with colourful packaging that made them especially attractive to children and adolescents. These are not products designed to appeal primarily to long term smokers who are trying to quit, but to children and young people to get them hooked on nicotine.
Many of us will remember the powerful moment at the National Assembly in November 2024, when Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan held up an e-cigarette shaped like a toy. Her message was clear: despite industry claims, these products are designed to attract young people.
Lets not forget that the companies making and marketing many of these products are the same companies who for decades told us that smoking didn’t cause lung cancer. They are not pursuing this new product line because they think it will help smokers to quit, but because it is a business opportunity to hook a new generation onto nicotine. In other words, new products – same old tobacco industry tactics. We should not be fooled.
This brings us to the question of what we should do about this. …
And so my third message is, that young people must be protected from the harms of these products and from the aggressive industries trying to market them. WHO strongly commends Viet Nam's ban on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. We congratulate policymakers for seeing through industry tactics and putting health, especially the health of young people, first.
We now recommend that the spirit of Resolution 173, a comprehensive ban on new nicotine and tobacco products, is fully reflected in the revised Tobacco Control Law, including a comprehensive ban on their parts and components, and a comprehensive definition covering tobacco, nicotine, AND non-nicotine containing e-cigarette products.
For smokers who want to quit, WHO recommends proven measures such as advice from health workers, quit lines, behavioural support and approved cessation medicines. Don’t be fooled by tobacco industry tactics or false promises.
The revision of the Tobacco Control Law currently before the NA is an important opportunity to implement the National Assembly’s comprehensive ban on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products in full.
Because E-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and other new nicotine products are not safe and they are not healthy – and young people must be protected from them.