Published: 08:24 PM, 17 February 2021
Health experts and physicians are consistently advocating that vaping is helpful in quitting or cutting down cigarette use. Despite such advocacies, United States has put ban of vaping and some others countries have also followed the decision.
Such actions are deemed unwise by health experts and have already proven to be counterproductive as many are also switching back to traditional cigarettes from vaping across USA, Southern California based newspaper Daily Bulletin.
Many public health experts warned that banning vaping would result in more adults smoking cigarettes. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded and smokers who had switched to vaping, particularly smokers in their 50s, are now switching back to their old habits, some studies found. Without considering such dire impact, some people are advocating for vaping ban in Bangladesh, which might result in disastrous consequences, some health experts cautioned.
Holy Family and Red Crescent Hospital residential surgeon Sajjad said that since it is proven that vaping is an effective cessation tool from smoking, the policymaker’s needs to be mindful while shaping any policy. He said that Bangladesh should not put ban on vaping, rather focus on regulating the market so that low quality product cannot remain there.
Public health experts said that New Zealand is a new example of vaping market regulating success. Instead of following some other countries blindly, New Zealand authorities have passed vaping law recently and started to experience positive outcome.
With the new law in effect, cigarette sales are plunging faster than any time before as smokers turn to alternatives like vaping - with 410 million fewer smokes sold annually than just two years ago, reported End Smoking NZ charity.
A 2019 study also found that 50 to 70 thousand people in England quit smoking in a year using e-cigarettes. Health experts said that vaping is the most popularly accepted smoking quitting tool around the world.
If vaping can be made more accessible, it will help in achieving Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s vision of a Tobacco free Bangladesh by 2040.
USA-based Consumer Choice centers recent research also supported that notion. According to their research, over 62 lakh people in Bangladesh can quit smoking with using e-cigarette as cessation tool.